February 6, 2012

I bought the wrong rice! Friday night I tried cooking the rice I bought just like I cook rice at home. The longer I cooked it, the gummier it got! While it was congealing, Ron checked the internet on "How to Cook Vietnamese Rice" and the first step was to wash it thoroughly. Oops. I forgot step #1! I don't rinse my rice at home. Needless to say, we didn't eat it, and it took several soakings before I got the rice out of the pan! Carie's mother, Yen, read my blog and realized that I also actually bought the wrong kind of rice (the one I bought is for sweet dishes like rice pudding), she went out on her motorbike bought a big bag of Huong Hoa Sua rice not Nep Thom Thai, went home and picked up a rice cooker that belonged to her family, and she and Carie rode over here to deliver it to me! She gave me a demonstration on how to use the cooker (after rinsing and rinsing and rinsing) and...Bingo...fluffy rice very time! She's a gem but probably thinks I'm quite stupid.

She had to get back to cook for her family, but Carie stayed with us and is going to be our language teacher for the next few months. She's very patient with us and answers all of our questions without snickering! We learned things like how to order in a restaurant, what to order, how to ask for the check, and basically how to get along when she's not with us! Ron had her help pronounce the names of his students. He asked them to write their names on a Name Sheet and also say what they liked to be called. Some of them are funny. One girl's name is Nguyen Tho Phuong Thuy but she likes to be called Candy. Duong Quang Dhy wants to be called Eric and Nguyen Nai Tram wants to be called Jump Shot. He has 15 students in his graduate studies class on International Relations Systems in History. That is his evening class from 6:30 - 8:00 every Tuesday and Thursday. We got to FaceTime Wade (our house sitter), and I saw Buster climbing on the sink! I said "Buster, get down!" and he looked at the phone like he recognized my voice.  Probably not though. I'm sure he's long forgotten about me...

We woke up this morning and watched the Super Bowl at 6:00 AM. We have a Sling Box and can watch our TV from back home on Ron's computer. It felt strange watching it so early in the morning.  This is Ron's day to prepare for his week's lectures and I type up his Power Points. I'm reading the book Matterhorn on my I-Pad.