The overalls of opportunity

 “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison

Wednesday is by far my busiest day. I woke up bright and early at 630am to finish preparing for my first day of teaching, which was to start at 750 (the college was nice enough to not have me start teaching at 7am, when first period begins). Of course, I had spent most of the night living out most of my teaching anxieties in my dreams. I put on my teacher dress (overalls of opportunity, perhaps) and my game face. It was time to do the work that gives me the opportunity to be in Vietnam.

My first tour of duty was teaching 3rd year listening. I had not prepared very much for this class because the teacher prefers that I follow the lesson plan in their textbook. However, the listening activity in the book is not enough to fill the 90 minutes that I am supposed to teach. Given the fact that these students are at the highest level and that the class was mostly pre-planned for me, I was not too worried. Retrospectively, I don't think I should have been more worried, but it was definitely rockier than I anticipated. I was not feeling super confident after that class.

My students. English majors all wear pink.

Next, I was teaching 90 minutes of 2nd year speaking. This was the lesson plan I had really focused on yesterday, but also the group I was most nervous about. Contrary to all the warnings I had received about this particular class's passivity, contrary to my own experiences with the students yesterday, the class was great. Students really got involved and spoke to each other and participated. The class period flew by. We didn't have time to do the one activity that I had been most worried about (in that it would be too difficult) and I was perfectly ok with that.

Trang took me out for lunch to try yet another new dish, but I ended up having the most American Vietnamese meal possible. It was spring rolls and bún thịt nướng, vermicelli with grilled pork and sprouts and fish sauce and lettuce and peanuts. It's pretty much what I get whenever I eat Vietnamese food in the US; I just didn't know it by it's Vietnamese name. Over lunch we talked about my classes. She told me that she teaches the 3rd years right after I do, and she said that they were very happy and generally pleased with my class. I was glad to hear this, since this was definitely not the vibe that I had gotten from them. She was also very impressed that I had had such a successful class with the notoriously passive 2nd years.

After my early start, I was ready for a post-lunch nap, and it was a good thing I set an alarm because I might have slept all day if I hadn't. As it was, I woke up only a few minutes before today's office hours. I was half-hoping that no one would show up so that I would have time to come up with activities for tonight's student English Club. Instead, a group of four students came over just to chat. Our chat resulted in a dinner invitation, which I was very happy to accept. It meant that I would have even less time to prepare, but I strongly believe in accepting social invitations, especially when you are in a new place and trying to make friends. They gave me half an hour to finish planning, and then two of them met me for dinner at five. They took me to a nearby place famous for hủ tiếu chay, or vegetarian hủ tiếu. They told me to add a brown sauce and a red sauce. I asked them if the red sauce was hot sauce, spicy, had chile, or pepper. They said no. Note to self: if it looks like hot sauce, it is hot sauce. But it was delicious all the same.

Hủ tiếu chay

 At six I had the first English Club session, with 3rd years and some area high schoolers who were actually at least as good as the 3rd years. I was worried about not having enough activities planned, but my warm-up of having them mingle and ask each other a variety of questions was much more successful than I anticipated, and I let it continue for about half of the time. It was really nice to see all of them actually mingling and making the effort to get to know each other in English. During the second half I gave them an overview of American holidays, and when I got to September the teacher asked me to talk about September 11th. When you have to describe it in limited vocabulary, you end up using the words killed and died a lot. And somehow that made the events feel even more grim and painful to talk about than they ever have. The second session of English Club was with 2nd years, and I had the same lesson plan. As expected, I had to make some modifications to make it appropriate for their level. I'm getting pretty good at thinking on my feet.

My most recent visitor. Photo is smaller than life size.