Wisdom Teeth

(PICTURE: The first picture that came up when I googled wisdom teeth.)

When one lives someplace a long time, one starts to notice trends. Something I've noticed a lot over the last couple of years is that many of my students in their 20s have a lot of tooth pain. Recently my wife, who is also in her 20s, has had a considerable amount of pain emanating from the back of her mouth. Growing up in a country where people almost always preemptively remove their wisdom teeth, this is not something that I'm personally familiar with.

In Vietnam it is seems that nobody has their wisdom teeth removed. Instead people go to the dentist and have some kind of cream/ointment/paste on the wisdom teeth area to temporarily take away the pain. Supposedly that usually helps for a few weeks. I asked one of my students recently how long she has had pain and she said "on and off for a few years." I've been told that eventually the pain just stops. Who the heck knows if that is true or not. There's something to this though that is a great metaphor between a developed country and developing country. Or perhaps it is just a testament to Vietnamese culture as a whole. People here deal with annoyances for years and years until they finally disappear. Okay, maybe I'm reading into this too much.

How much crack is in a Rold Gold pretzel?

(PICTURE: Pretzels are heaven.)

I love pretzels. I'm not scared to admit it. I'd choose pretzels over any other snack food in a second. There's just something about the crunchiness mixed with sea salt that makes my body turn to jelly. Luckily for my waistline, there's not good pretzels in Hanoi...or so I thought.

The other day we went to Huyen's co-workers house and Huyen made a comment, "The last time I was here Anne had pretzels." Well, sure enough Anne went out to the store a little while later and brought me back a bag of Rold Gold pretzels. I don't know what got triggered in my brain but I tore into the bag so unbelievably fast that I was ashamed of myself. As soon as I had my first taste I couldn't put the bag down. After vacuuming down countless pretzels, Huyen took the bag away from me because she was scared it would ruin my appetite (we had gone to her friend's house to eat lunch). As soon as the bag was out of my reach, I shamelessly begged for, "one more handful." My god they were tasty.

After eating a huge lunch and feeling completely full, Huyen took out the pretzels again. Despite not being able to eat a bite more moments earlier, I once again ripped into the bag. I'm not proud to admit this but, I ate all the pretzels by myself.

Finding Rold Gold Pretzels is not what the dietitian ordered with just under six weeks to go before our wedding!

Housewarming Gift

(PICTURE: The Nguyens are now the proud owners of the clock on the top left.)

My parents asked Huyen's parents if they could get them anything as a housewarming gift for their new house. When we relayed the question, Huyen's mother immediately replied that they could use a nice clock with a swinging arm. I found it pretty funny how precise her mom was; clearly my mother-in-law is a woman who knows what she wants!

My mother and I briefly flirted with the idea of her buying a clock in the states and bringing it with her to Vietnam. However, I think we both quickly realized that the chance of a large clock making it to Vietnam undamaged were about one in a thousand. Instead Huyen and I went clock hunting around Hanoi until we found the right one for the new house.

For those of you coming to the wedding, be sure to compliment the nice clock!

What's burning?

(PICTURE: My stalker photo. This is a shot of my neighbor about to burn incense.)

The closest I ever came to be a hippie in high school was when I bought a bag of incense at the Union Flea Market. I distinctly remember going to the flea market with my mother and feeling compelled to buy a cheap bag of incense. Maybe I was going through a body odor phase and was trying to cover it up. Or perhaps I was trying to relate to some of my friends who were trading Phish bootleg albums. Or just maybe I was slowly starting to condition myself for my time in Vietnam.

Since moving into my present apartment with Huyen, there's been a very common occurrence at our place . When the weather has been nice, I open our window (don't worry there's bars on the window so no ninjas can come in). However, the window usually doesn't stay open long because our neighbors constantly burn incense about three feet away from us. The elderly people who live in the house next to us must have a lot of deceased relatives because they pray for a solid three hours a day. Accompanying their prayers is a heck of a lot of incense. Because of our proximity to the burning embers, our apartment constantly smells like a pagoda. I guess in the grand scheme of things, there's worse things an apartment can smell like but the odor is so powerful I've got to constantly close our windows; with the nice breeze out these days, that doesn't make me happy.

Minor Surgery

(PICTURE: This is sort of what my OR looked like.)

About a week ago I had very very very very very very very very very minor surgery. Frankly, I don't think surgery is even the right word but I like to use it to get sympathy from Huyen.

Long story short, I had an ingrown hair on my upper thigh that had become irritated. The skin around the area responded by making extra skin. Being where the skin was, it was quite annoying and often was getting irritated. Anyway, I'm making it sound worse than it was since it was literally about 1/4 the size of a pencil's eraser. However, it was annoying so I decided to get it removed.

Huyen and I went to the skin hospital and before the doctor would cut off extra skin, he insisted on taking a blood sample. Basically they wanted to make sure I didn't have HIV and that my blood would clot. After I passed all the blood tests, I was taken to the laser OR. Two ladies immediately escorted me into a room and told me to take off my pants. I hung them on a coat hook next to the operating table and then sat butt ass naked on the table. One thing that I found very interesting/disturbing at this point was that there was no sheet or plastic or ANYTHING on the table. Immediately I started to wonder how many other bare butts had been on the table that day. Well the next thing I knew the nurse/doctor (I have no idea what she was) had a scalpel in her hand and proceeded to cut off my extra skin. She then used a laser and lasered my leg where the skin was. The surgery was a success and I'm presently taking antibiotics and putting anti-bacterial cream on the spot. Just a few fun facts:

Total time in the hospital: Under 30 minutes (we left between the blood test and surgery).
Total cost of surgery: $12.50.
Total nightmares I've had since the surgery about my bare butt on the operating table: 3.

We've been approved!!!!...to begin Step #2

Dear U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,

Thank you very much for accepting our immigration visa petition. You had told us that it would take 60 days to process our application but today, on day #41, we received a letter in the mail from you claiming that we've been approved. We greatly appreciate you giving us the thumbs up to begin the rest of the immigration process.

Your fondest admirers,

Ben and Huyen

P.S. We hope that Step 2 and Step 3 can be as successful and timely as Step 1 was.

ASEAN Delegation

A common occurrence in Hanoi is finding the streets have gone from no police to a billion. Usually the swarming of cops/army guys is an indication that someone important is in town. Recently there have been a few ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) conferences here which has meant a lot of important people have been in town. This also means the cops have been out in full force to establish some order with the traffic. As I was driving home from the gym the other morning I recorded a typical delegation getting escorted through the city: