'Scuze my not being around, but...

Just a short note to apologise for not blogging actively these last two weeks. This behaviour might continue until next week when this course from hell ends. I'm currently shackled to second conditionals, partnered with pronunciation and married to modal verbs. You'll find me in the dork section of the geek handbook in the nerd library. What the hell is 'realia' anyway?

Life, the universe, and everything I don't have time for

Is having a social life overrated? Do you find having friends annoying and seeing them a tedious chore? Is free-time a taboo subject? Do you consider going home before sunset a definition of laziness? Well, then I've got just the thing for you: The Celta Teacher Training Course!

This fantabulous course is guaranteed to allay any fears of what to do with your free-time...as you won't have any! It'll ensure any choice of what to do tonight is taken care of for you immediately - it's always homework. Love studying grammar, phonology and getting bumsores from sitting in a stuffy small classroom in a rock-hard, small chair all day? This is it! Love making a fool of yourself and seeing your self-confidence crumble to dust in front of 12 students and six, staring grown-ups? Sign up now! Enjoy writing out course outlines for two to four hours every night? What are you waiting for?! The Ceeeeelta *insert catchy jingle here*!

If, however, you are a fan of actually not BEING your job, of actually interacting with people OUTSIDE of work, of having time for YOURSELF, of having a DRINK, kicking your FEET UP at night and generally justing CHILLING OUT. Well, mosey on by then. Nothing to see here, folks.

Yes, dear readers, in a malicious and evil attempt at getting me to do some honest work I've been conned into doing a CELTA course at ILA here in HCMC for one month! That's right, four weeks. That's 674 hours. The devestation it has caused upon my social life in just three days is beyond retelling. It's the social faux-pax equivalent of your friends catching you making out with your hand or dry-rooting your teddy as a kid.

Thus, I'd like to apologise for my inactivity with regards to blogging. I'm sure you get the picture. Thanks for understanding. Until later. Ciao.

April Photoblog (apologies)

I sincerely apologise to my loyal following (of three, consisting of my two alter egos and my girlfriend who occasionally visits my blog out of ego-pity) for the lack of weekend posts but the damn internet was out all weekend, thanks eMedia and SCTV. I knew the "free cable" you threw in with the ADSL was too good to be true. There seems to be a strong correlation between connectivity and the volume of rain falling from the sky, which has well and truly become a daily occurrence again.

Here are some pics from Hanoi to make up for the short break from the April photoblog.

The bugle call

To linger or loiter, dilly-dally, drag, lag, postpone or prolong. Whether it’s waiting for a rainy day, idleness, or indolence. An excuse by any other name would smell as rancid as a lazy, sweaty butt-crack plying its shady trade on the couch as an undercover kartoffel.

Thus, let me embark (once more!) upon the road which I have trodden thus far – with lukewarm results and blisters of note. To blog! Oh, blesseth the soul of Mr Berners-Lee, he who hath brought us such glory and prosperous wealth of mind in an era which, at times, seemed floppy-disk weary and Commodore bleary. Mr Berners-Lee, who has forced the task upon me to continue the journey of star and sickle, alt-key and enter. Let us, in times of grave peril, hearken to the call so as to steady the heart and shake off the yoke of procrastination and further disengage souls from more important matters. Let’s go.

Hola!

Just a quick word in to break, to borrow the overused term, the hiatus (gotcha Brian!). Things have been progressing steadily. We moved into our new place this weekend and everything went pretty smoothly. The next issue is getting the internet and cable hooked-up, thus the photos of Cambodia, which should have been up nearly a month ago, will have to wait a few more weeks. Hopefully once everything is settled things will regain a semblance of normality (ie: regular, once-in-a-blue-moon-after-the-cow-jumped-over-it-and-hell's-frozen-over, kind of posts).

Chiars!

Attention: Dwindling number of readers...

Off to Jungle Beach (about 60 kms from Nha Trang). Promise to post and upload some photos when we get back next Saturday and Al Berg's guest post is still in the pipeline. Have a good Vietnamese Independence Day holiday!