Winter

[Tim]

Today is Friday.  Final grades have been turned in at Baker Web Academy in Oregon (I'm part-time faculty there, still) and at the University of Danang here.  Today is Friday and I have nothing to grade.  There's no sense of urgency in my morning.  My classes at Danang University don't start up again until March, and my classes at Baker Web are all the same as they were in the fall.  No problem.  I checked the iNacol website to see if they are accepting session-proposals for their fall conference yet; they're not.  I have students coming here at 1pm, then more students coming for dinner and a movie tonight.  It's 8:18am, I'm up on the roof starting a blogpost, I'm enjoying the again-balmy weather, and I relish the wonderful lack of urgency.

It's been cold here.  Driving a scooter in light rain when the temperature is below 70 is no joke, even though it seems admittedly absurd to talk about it being "cold" to people who live in a land of ice and snow.  We have no heaters at all, so I've been lighting candles and using our portable cookstove sometimes to add a few degrees of comfort heating.  Can I give you a small example that somehow tells a bigger story?  Our kitchen towels stay damp.  In the hotter weather, even though it's mightily humid the towels still dry out in time.  But these days if you dry your hands on a dry cloth, the cloth will not be dry when you next reach for it, even if it's the following day.  Bath towels, too--they just stay wet.  We've been glad of long pants and jackets and hot teas lately.

Movies are important.  I've been thinking about what movies to show my kids (my teenagers!) in the next half-decade, making that list and getting recommendations from friends.  I've settled on the movie Courageous to show to my Viet students and friends in this season.  If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth the $4 rental at Amazon.  Or better yet, you can buy it for twice that and have it to loan to friends.

Tonight some (8) guys are coming over for a Man Night.  We'll go get noodles down the street, then come back here for movie and games.  Several sets of friends have been over for movies, lately.  Sometimes we show The Princess Bride with Vietnamese subtitles--and they LOVE it--and sometimes I show them Courageous with English subs.  The ones that have watched Courageous have been deeply impacted by the life-choices portrayed by these characters, and the follow-up conversations have been life-giving.

There's more to tell, but I'll try to sign on tomorrow and write more.  :)