Surprise!

Today was a largely uneventful day of teaching. I wore my purple aó dài to teach and was regaled by more appreciative comments. In fact, when I was walking back to my room after class, a girl in the dorm who is not one of my students shouted down from her balcony, "Beautiful!" The purple aó dài is a little loose on me and it needs to be taken in, which contributed to yesterday's feeling of being simultaneously classy and frumpy. Coupled with my new shoes from Trang, though, I felt much more svelte and 'properly shaped.' However, I also officially tower over my students. Previously, since I usually wear flats and they wear heels, we were more or less evened out.

In the evening I was to teach the usual Wednesday night double session of English club for students. When I arrived, I was surprised at the size of the group. It was almost double the usual. About thirty minutes into the club, the coordinating teacher arrived to inform me that starting tonight the English club would be one three hour session combining both groups of students. Surprise! So the 90-minute lesson plans I had spent preparing instead of eating dinner were no longer sufficient. Surprise! Luckily I had a lot of games up my sleeve, and since he didn't stick around, I ended up ending the club meeting after two hours.

Surprise! (actually from If you're happy and you know it say "Yipee!")

During the club we reviewed If You're Happy and You Know It and learned The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I also read them The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The pictures on my powerpoint didn't work, so I had to resort to drawing illustrations on the board.

How do you draw a troll? Please don't show this to any of my art teachers...

 After class some of my students invited me out for phở.

"The best, beautiful girls in the world"*
*caption quote courtesy of Như's (orange shirt) reaction upon seeing the picture

[Don't forget to check out the newly completed version of The day everyone's been waiting for.]