Have a nice trip. See you next fall.

This morning I overdid it with the cooking zeal, and my breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread, spring rolls, pomelo, and strawberry yogurt extended itself into both breakfast and lunch. Later, my morning was brightened in the form of two epically long, illustrated letters.

I wore my purple aó dài to teach today. Something I neglected to mention about the last time I wore an aó dài was that, between classes, I got tangled up and fell up some steps. When I told people here they seemed more concerned with the subsequent state of my aó dài, but it was unharmed. My knees, on the other hand, boldly match today's outfit. During break today, one teacher invited me for a drink at the canteen, and on the way there and back we used those nefarious four steps. Both times, he cautioned me to 'be careful.' As if I needed reminding. When wearing aó dài it is necessary to perform idealized femininity by walking slowly. Everyone knows I walk (too) fast. Maybe this snafu is what I needed to behave more 'femininely'; when I walk now I mentally repeat the words "gently, slowly, carefully" like I'm meditating. So far so good.

Yesterday and today we held class in the regular classrooms, instead of in the 'workshop room,' where I normally teach. Somehow, these classrooms, though less than half of the size of the workshop room, hold all of my students just as comfortably. I'd actually almost like the classroom better because the students are closer to me, but the rooms are not air conditioned and I have to use a chalkboard instead of a dry-erase board. On the one hand, chalk doesn't dry out like my markers do, but the chalk dust gets on everything and dries out my hands.

Same number of students, smaller classroom

Trang took me out for cơm tăm, which is usually only a breakfast food, but there are a few places that specifically serve it at night. More for me. Over dinner I taught Trang the word 'to fast' and subsequently about the morphological structure of the word 'breakfast'. She found it quite fascinating, particularly because it clarified a proverb she had heard before. After that we spent a good while sharing proverbs and idioms.

Dinner was followed by ice cream, which was followed by an epic quest for an ATM machine that would accept my card. We ended up going to every machine between dinner and campus, five machines all together. Ironically but conveniently, the only one that worked was the one closest to campus, which is withing walking distance.