Jeff Dinert CP4

Hoa and I met this week after Cies Classes for him but before Tefl class for me on Thursday. Considering that at present I only have one conversation partner, the fact that he and I get to meet so often is really a blessing and a credit to Hoa who seems to really like practicing, but also is helping me out a great deal. On Thursday we spoke mostly of our Fourth of July, and Hoa told me some rather funny anecdotes about himself as a young man in Vietnam, and as a student at conferences in the US. All of this was prompted by my conversation that most of my 4th of July, because I am the non drinker was spent driving around a couple of my lovely drunken female friends from various barbecues to other parties, and Hoa told me a story about being at a conference in Tampa with a colleague who became so intoxicated that he created a scene after the binge drinking of himself, another American colleague and what seemed, although I didn't let Hoa know about the nature of his colleagues female companions, that were a couple of ladies that although were beautiful, whose company could be easily obtained for a reasonably negotiated price. His colleague eventually ended up in a fight with his female guests so to speak, and as he was so drunk and heard police sirens ran off and hid for many hours. Hoa recants about looking for his companion for four hours all over Tampa, until they finally found the fellow hiding, and pacing in a dark parking garage. Hoa said, in his congenial way that at the time he was frightened, but now he thinks it is simply funny. The most enlightening part of our conversation in which I listened to his stories, and corrected his tense a few times, as well as taught him some vocabulary, like obliterated, as in when he described how he used to make homemade fireworks as a boy in Vietnam, that one time he didn't wrap it well and when he smashed the wick end into a small package of gun powder essentially it exploded in his hand and he was lucky it wasn't "obliterated." But that is just my man Hoa, takes care of drunks, makes little bombs to see if his fireworks can be louder than all the rest of the neighborhood as a boy, and likes to know how things work in general. We are meeting again on Sunday with him, his wife, the lovely gal I'm seeing and meet for dinner and I am excited.