by I still haven’t got anyone to rent out my flat, and time is getting pretty damn short for me. It wasn’t until yesterday that I noticed my property manager had changed the ad to say it had two bedrooms rather than three without telling me. I told her what I thought of that. She’d received some feedback that one of the rooms was too small. And anyway, as I realised yesterday, the advert was crap. Really, really crap. That’s why thousands of people were looking at the ad but not liking what they saw. The lead photos were of the outside of the apartment, the interior photos gave no sense of spaciousness, the major selling points were omitted from the blurb or relegated to near the bottom, and if a student of English had written it, it would have been dripping with red ink by the time I’d finished with it. On that last point, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so I never said anything. I completely rewrote the ad for my manager; it now includes the dimensions of the bedrooms so nobody can have any complaints. I asked her to take some more photos. And perhaps most importantly I dropped the rent by $25 a week. The good news is that someone who viewed the flat almost a month ago has expressed interest now that the rent has been lowered.
On Sunday I played a singles match. So much spin of all varieties to contend with. I won the first set 6-2 − a slightly flattering score; it was really a case of me winning the important points. But I really struggled after that, losing the last two sets 6-1, 6-2. At one stage I lost nine games in a row; at least from 5-0 down in the final set I salvaged two games and some respectability. The whole match was done and dusted in 65 minutes. The main positive I took from the loss was that I had no trouble getting to the ball − I’ve got my energy levels back. It was what happened after I got to the ball that was the problem. I thought I’d done tennis for the foreseeable future but I now have to play one final match on Saturday, a rematch against the guy I recently beat from match point down.
On Monday my student and his wife made dinner for both me and his wife’s tutor who comes from America. After soup to start, the main dish was big on seafood including squid. The American tutor (who will still be teaching my student’s wife) has a much stronger bond with her student than I had with mine, and helps her with many things that aren’t directly language-related. It was great that they invited us over for what I gather was typical food from their part of Myanmar minus most of the spiciness.
On Tuesday I attended a quiz, mainly just to say goodbye to some people.
My dad arrives tomorrow.
