28 September 2003

It’s hard for me to believe that I haven’t written here in one year. It’s impossible to try to summarize everything that has happened in the past twelve months, so I won’t even try.

On February 25th our son Sebastian was born. Unfortunately, he was born with a very serious congenital heart defect called Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA). We had to take him to Bangkok for an operation. Thankfully, everything turned out alright in the end and he is now a healthy and lovely seven-month old boy. We even took him traveling with us this summer to Cambodia and Laos. He now weighs 8.2 kilograms and measures 69.5 centimeters. He’s been crawling for more than a month now and is starting to stand up with the help of the furniture.

We’re very proud of his strength and resilience. As his parents, of course, he seems like the most handsome, brightest, and loveliest kid around.

In comparison to becoming a father, everything else that has happened in the past twelve months pales in comparison. I started a new job in January and will be there until at least July of next year. As a matter of policy I decided early on that I would avoid talking about work in this diary, but suffice it to say that it is going well and that it keeps me busy in the daytime.

Our social lives are pretty quiet, but that was true even before Sebastian’s birth. We have a live-in nanny/maid so we still go out for dinner every other night or so, but we eat at home more often than before. My circle of friends is small and revolves mostly around co-workers, although I’ve recently enjoyed meeting some Chilean pilots who work for Vietnam Airlines and we have gotten together a few times. The 18th of September is Chile’s independence day and we were invited to a very nice party at the house of the honorary consul.

I’m still playing tennis but not as frequently as I would like. I do have a match this afternoon against a new opponent, so that will be interesting. I’m also playing football every Thursday afternoon and trying to swim, shoot some baskets or otherwise do some sort of exercise at least once a week.

Kat (not my wife’s real name, but that’s the pseudonym I chose when I first wrote about her) is still giving private English lessons and keeping herself occupied with sewing and cooking classes she takes at a local women’s center.

Traffic in Saigon has gotten even worse, in large part due to the huge increase in the number of cars. Although I feel very confident riding a motorbike now, the worsening traffic is one of the factors that has us considering leaving Vietnam for new pastures next year. On the motorbike (which will be two-years old in two weeks): 9250 kilometers.

And that’s pretty much a snapshot of our lives at the moment. Obviously, I no longer feel the urge I once did to keep an online diary, so I don’t know how often I’ll continue to post and therefore it’s best for me not to make any predictions. If you used to read this before, I hope you are doing well.

Currently reading: Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec, translated by David Bellos (1978/1987).