As Long As You Love Me

I'm going on a short trip on Thursday, enabled by the fact that I'm done for the week by 9:35 on Thursday morning, so it already feels like the weekend is almost here. Since I'll be gone from Thursday to Sunday, I tried to get a head start on next week's lesson plans. This ended up taking less time than expected, because I have now reached the point where I can start recycling lesson plans (I'm teaching the second semester of Speaking 2 with the same book and syllabus I used last semester for Speaking 3, with different students.) Before I can get on that plane, though, I have to get to the other side of this Valentine-themed week. I don't know if it's at all related, but all of my students were particularly giggly today.

Today my Translation class worked more on the love song translations that they started last week. Even though I made the lesson plan, it was up to Trang to do most of the teacherly things like checking on student progress, given that I have no way of helping them find a more accurate Vietnamese translation. I felt a little de-teachered, but it also felt good to be able to work together rather than struggle alone. That lasted until break. Trang said that she was busy and scrambled away, and then only returned briefly and intermittently for the second half of class, during which the students were supposed to work together to edit the translation into something that would mesh well with the music of their songs. This had been Trang's idea, and I had made it clear to her that this was not something I could do on my own and she had agreed to be there. I realized that from now on I have to stick with lessons that I can carry out on my own, because I can't actually depend on her to be there. Despite a rough start to this activity, we managed to make some progress and the class didn't turn into a disaster.

Group work

As Long as You Love Me by The Backstreet Boys

As much as I love Vietnamese food, after eating more or less the same handful of things every day for several months, it has gotten a little tiring. The main issue is lunch, for which I don't have many options within walking distance. I've had rice and pork about three times a week since September.  My go-to rice and pork vendor sells other things too, like chicken, stuffed tofu, or unidentified fish, but of those the only one I enjoy is the chicken, though I get it less frequently than I do pork. Today, I was hoping to have some chicken, but I didn't see any on display. Rather than assume that it was not available, I decided to ask. It felt like a small victory, not because it was a challenging thing to ask, but because it would have been even easier for me to circumvent speaking by just pointing at any of the other proteins on display. There was no chicken, but I decided to get shrimp instead of my usual pork. I'd never had the shrimp before, and it turned out to be delicious! I am delighted to have a new lunch option.

It's time to provide some updates on my most recent visitors.  A few days after finding this awesome artwork conscripting caddis flies as goldsmiths, I found my own, less glamorous larvae. Recently I had been bemoaning the absence of adrenaline-stimulating spiders, and last night I was treated with a small (by Vietnam standards) but feisty friend.