My New Ride

Today I bought a bike, before you all start freaking out, I bought a bicycle not a motorbike.   I am definitely not ready to ride a motorbike in Ho Chi Minh City yet.  I went shopping with a few other teachers and finally decided on a used bike from Japan that is a 3 speed cruiser, it is gold and has a basket, bell, and headlight (for night riding).   It is a Shimano retro style and has a super comfy seat.  It was only $92 bucks, pretty awesome price I'd say.  I also bought a bike helmet because my parents brain washed me as a child.  I'm serious, if I even think about going for a bike ride without a helmet I feel guilty.  But here in HCMC it was a no brainer really, they are crazy drivers.  Plus you have to have a helmet on motorbikes so everyone is wearing them anyways basically.  After making my purchase I rode around town with Vicky, we went and got dinner and stopped to get some new dvds, I'm excited to start watching, How I Met your Mother!  It was really liberating riding around on my bike.  It defnitely makes you feel more independent.  The funny thing is you ride on the road with the motorbikes right next to the cars and really they treat you just like them.  I can't wait to explore more on my bike, it was a lot of fun today. 

I heart my new bike!!!!

Just Keep Swimming

So teaching swimming and PE is well underway and I'm getting the hang of my new schedule and being in a swimsuit 2+ days a week.  I definitely feel like crap in a swimsuit right now but I am trying to just keep on working out.  My weight watchers hasn't been going that well sadly.  I really really want to make changes but I have these eating habits that are just ingrained in me and so so hard to change.  I really miss the days where I could just work out longer and harder and lose weight.  I love working out and wish it were like that again.  Grocery shopping here is nothing like back home and it is super cheap to order out or go out and then I really don't know what I'm getting.  So I'm frustrated to say the least with my eating/diet.  Hit a road block you could say!

HELP!!!

Forming a Habit

I am happy to say that I think my workout regime is back in full force.  I actually look forward to my gym time and think, "time to hit the gym" instead of "ugh I need to work out."  I started Weight Watchers two weeks ago and the first week saw great strides but last week was holiday/vacation and it is all back.  Just shows I can't just work out like the old days and lose weight.  I really really need to stick to my diet plan of eating better, not just because I want to lose weight but because I honestly feel better when I do it. 

I don't think I actually gained the weight back, I think I toned up because my clothes aren't tighter and I did start doing some weight lifting twice a week now.  I am not a weights person but I know I need it.  I do look forward to my eliptical runs where I watch the Amazing Race, I mix it up because just a long sustained run, hills or a heart rate/cardio burn run.  It doesn't seem to matter if the Amazing Race is on.  I have decided that I was meant to do that reality show.  Now who would be a good partner for me?  I seriously want to apply for it and think I would kick some major booty! 

So I am back to charting what I eat and only having drinks on the weekends.  I have taken up drinking a coke here or there because sometimes I just need some caffeine and I hate coffee and there is no Dew here.  I take suggestions for other alternatives.   My life is going pretty well here.  As many of you know I had a rough spot a few weeks ago and I am happy to say things are going well.  I think eating better and working out regularly has something to do with it.  But also I'm just happy now (also because of those two things).  I am learning to not sweat the small things and just go with the flow.  Also learning to really enjoy spending time by myself and being ok with it.  So life is good right now.  Also the Packers winning the freaking Super Bowl helps.  To be honest I haven't been able to sleep the last 3 nights because I was so excited for the game and then excited that we won.  I am on cloud nine for my Packers! 

The Cheese stands alone!!!

Swimming classes

I finally started teaching swimming at school this week.  After all the stress of getting things ready, parents letter, pool and locker room facilities, etc it actually went pretty well this week.  It is nice to have my "own" pool to teach swimming in, now given I wish the pool was a little bigger and deeper, the shallow end is at my knees and the deep end at my mid thighs but it is perfect for my nursery, preschool, pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade classes and even second, third, fourth, and fifth had fun in it.  I forgot how much I love teaching swimming, also it gives me a nice break up of teaching PE in the gym.  I really like that I only have two PE lessons to come up with now and one swimming a week, only because of my limited equipment I have this year. 

Let me tell you how cute those little kids were, wow, so darn adorable.  Most of the kids here have the shirt/short one piece swimsuit with a zip-up front, so cute.  It was a blast being in the water with the kids, they were all so excited for swimming to start. 

I needed this feeling, it helps me stay motivated about my weight loss journey, to have that happiness from my job is very helpful.  I have done alright this week, worked out mon and tues and then two days off, but it was Steph's bday and we did play dodgeball for 30 minutes on Wednesday.  Anyways all day swim lessons wed and thurs took a lot out of me and I had to have my afternoon nap after. 

We have the New Year celebration coming up soon, called Tet here, we get a week off for it, SWEET!!!  But I plan on just sticking around the city and hitting up the gym and pool and saving money for when my mom comes for spring break and we go to China. 

Happy Friday everyone!!!

Breakthrough

I know all of you want to hear about my travels over break and I wrote down notes on my ereader to write on the blog later.  But then I broke the ereader in Koh Chang, Thailand and sent it home with Jen so not so sure when I will get to that.  But no worries eventually I will write about what I did.  As a recap I went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Melaka, Malaysia, Singapore, Phu Quoc island, Vietnam, Bangkok, Koh Chang island, Thailand, and Siem Reap, Cambodia.  So my country count is at 5 for Southeast Asia now.  In two months my mom and I will be going to China to see Beijing and the Great Wall (looking to cost us our life savings too, yikes). 

Now on to why I'm posting.  As all of you know I have been struggling with my weight for some time now, since I found out about the thyroid problem a few years ago and still haven't found a balance between exercise and diet to help me get back into shape.  Well my new years resolution is "To not give up" and yes that is meant for lots of areas of my life.  But I am determined this is the year that I will get the thyroid problem under control and become happy in my own skin again.  That being said I am happy to say that I ran outside tonight, first time in Vietnam.  It felt great, it was painful and slow but I still get that runner's high.  I'm so glad it is getting a little cooler at night so I am able to try to run on my own.  I am almost twice the size I was in high school (sad story) but I still love running.  Now that I am pretty settled in my job and in Vietnam I can really focus on getting me back on track.  My mom signed up for Weight Watchers and I am going to try to do it with her, at least use the information to know what I am putting in my body calorie and fat wise. 

But I just wanted to tell everyone that I ran tonight, outside on the pavement and it felt amazing.  I have a long way to go but that is a giant step in the right direction.

You know its time for Holiday break when....

....one of your lesson plans is submitted as "Balls."  That infamous last week of school before the holiday break is upon us and at this point I don't know how I'm going to get through it.  I think this will be the longest week ever, especially because we have our holiday concert   My room is transformed into a winter wonderland that they children will destroy given the chance in my class.  So when I am totally ready for a break I have to dig deep for some creative juices for activities this week, this is where "balls" came from. 

But on the positive side after this week I have three weeks off, PAID.  I could totally get use to this whole teaching thing :-)  Although I am not going home to see my family for the first time in my life I know I will have a blast traveling and seeing the world with my angel Amber.  We are going to Kuala Lumpur, Melaka, and Singapore together.  Then Nell and I are getting a beachfront bungalow on Phu Quoc Island for some relaxation for 4 days.  And then finally Jen, Danielle, and Aly get here.  I am so excited to see all of them, especially Jen.  It will be great to give them hugs, especially because I know Jen went to see my mom and Meelo, it will be like I'm hugging them too :-) 

I know this week can't be worse than last week, if you didn't hear Sophie and I both got food poisoning (cause unknown still) and I wasn't really functional until today, it was not a fun time to be had.  Now I am glad to have good health insurance here but going to the doctor is just a tad bit different here.  When they took my blood last time I was only 3 feet away from another dude getting his vitals checked, talk about client confidentiality. 

So fingers crossed this week goes fast!  Also that I start to get more excited about my solo trip, beach vaca, and traveling with the girls because I'm still having a hard time knowing I am missing Christmas back home.  I think I might need to just think about it as any other day, but that is sad in itself because I love Christmas.  But listening to Christmas music while walking down the street sweating is not quite the same as driving through a winter wonderland like back home.  One of the hotels downtown has flying styrofoam balls to stimulate snow, maybe I'll go sit in front of their window for a few hours :-)

Vomit, Being Blonde, and 12 Bars of Christmas

Blonde or Brunette?

Roomies in our Santa Hats!

As many of you remember during my student teaching at Battle Creek Elementary School I saw many "accidents" in my gym just in two weeks time, my cooperating teacher was gonna nickname me Crete as in excrete.  I couldn't believe I saw every bodily fluid in two weeks time, and yes every!  Well It took four months before that happened here in Vietnam in my own classroom.  It was with the kindergarten class and we were playing with the parachute.  Now it all was fine but if that little boy would have puked one foot to the left he would have hit another girl and the parachute.  Man all I could see was vomit getting bounced around the room!  So glad that DID not happen. 

Last week I got two packages from my mom, one came in 2 days the other 4 weeks, got to love the postal system.  Just so you know Fedex is the one that made it in two days.  It was great, she sent games for us to play in our apartment like balderdash, apples to apples, bananagrams, suduko.  She also sent Xmas decorations and Thanksgiving decorations, now if the package wouldn't have been swam over I probably would have gotten those decorations before Turkey day.  But she sent things for me, my roomie and my friend Steph, so we had a little Xmas party and opened the package.  We need took a christmas photo in front of our tree with our stockings (sent from the US) in my speedos over our clothes.  Not sure why we decided this but I think wine was involved.  Yes, yes it was.  I do remember us actually calling the cafe downstairs to deliver another bottle to us.  Getting letters and packages from home is one of the best feelings because it makes you feel closer to home because you know that someone back home touched that letter/package and sent it just for you.  I treasure getting things in the mail as all people do I bet. 

Now on to being blonde.  It has come to my attention that all  my coworkers think I'm blonde, and no not "acting blonde" but actually have blonde hair.  Now I find this hilarious because I'm a brunette, I mean I know it is light brown, but come on now.  But it isn't just one person that has said this.  I need feedback on this topic.  I went to get my haircut two weekends ago and they said that too.  Now I was sitting in the chair and looking at it and it does look like the ends of my hair are pretty light (I refuse to say blonde).  The thing is I'm not out in the sun, so it isn't getting bleached out.  I find it funny though because for over 8 years I highlighted my hair blonde and now I am au natural and it is turning blonde, very interesting. 

More on that haircut.  I heard that Vietnamese don't know how to style or cut hair and we all know how anal I am about my hair so I waited 4 months but the ends of my hair were getting really dry and tangly so I knew I hate to get it cut.  I made an appointment where everyone else has gone and headed in.  My apt started with me getting to lay down and get my hair washed/head massaged for 20 minutes.  Then the stylist came to ask what I wanted.  Knowing I wasn't going to get my perfect cut like back home I just told him an inch on the bottom and cut it straight it across.  He did as I asked and it looks alright, still some hair needs a cut but I'm ok with that, the worst is gone.  He actually only sniped the scissors 4 times.  After that I had two people blow dry my hair and straighten it.  I know I have straight hair but dang it was straight after that, WOW!  So all of that for the price of....dun...dun..dun.....$4.50.  You read that right, ha!  Crazy.  It wasn't a great hair cut but the head massage was awesome. 

Now as many of you know last friday was 12 Bars of Christmas back in Minneapolis.  Well I did it last year with my friends and had a blast.  I know what you are thinking, Jenn you're an alcoholic (Really Dad I'm not).  But all the money raised went to the Children's Hospital.  But yes it was a blast seeing thousands of people in matching shirts doing around town.  I made it to all 12 bars last year and knowing I was going to miss it this year I was pretty bummed.  So I decided to make a 12 Bars of Christmas in Vietnam.  I wasn't sure how it would go over, but I had Sophie and Stephanie on board for sure.  Well the night started with our Staff Christmas Party and after lots of people wanted to join.  At first I thought people would hit up one bar for a drink and call it a night, but everyone started to get into it.  We had a pretty big group through 8 or 9 bars, from there Sophie and I finished it out, actually hitting 13 bars.  Now you can imagine what it looks like to see thousands of people in matching shirts in a city, well there were just 8 of us, kind of dressed up from our Xmas party singing Christmas carols through downtown Ho Chi Minh City.  Sophie and I had on awesome sparkly santa hats (thanks mom).  Steph and Vicky had on Birthday style hats with Santa on them and Frank had a balloon of Santa tied to his wrist.  I'm sure we made many people's nights, we were "those" people.  But it was a great night! 

A little shout out to old and new friends!  My friends back home (Jen especially) knew how sad I was to be missing 12 Bars of Christmas and all of them and they actually brought pictures of me with them on the pub crawl and took pictures with me.  Now those are some amazing friends that I have.  I don't think they know how much that meant to me.  Brought on the happy tears!  Also I'm very thankful for the new friends I've made here and for them joining in the craziness with me. 

Now as many of you know I will be staying here for Christmas Break and right now I'm having a kind of hard time with it because I really do miss my family and friends so much.  I think the reason I am having such a hard time is because almost everyone else here is going home.  But I'm staying strong and planned a little solo travel trip for me and then gonna hit up the beach on Christmas with Nell.  Then Jen, Danielle, and Aly get here, so I know I will have a blast and just need to stay positive.  But know how much I miss and love all of you!