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The last thing I saw before going to sleep

I dreamed that I was celebrating a Vietnamese-style new year's. Part of the tradition was to jump into a lake and go as deep as you could before coming up. When I jumped in I discovered that there was a dry, oxygenated chamber at the bottom of the lake. However, in the chamber I realized that something, maybe the water, had caused me to break out in hives, but only on my face and shoulders. It didn't seem like a good sign for the new year.

A few days ago Trang and I talked about getting together today for her to teach me how to cook something. To my understanding, we never agreed on a time, so when she texted me at 8:50 this morning it also functioned as my wake up call. I met her a few minutes later and we went off to get breakfast. Once we were fueled up, we went to the market. Believe it or not, it was my first time going to the (food) market since arriving in Ben Tre. We'd driven past it once, and I've been to the supermarket, and I've bought food from small stands on the street, but I'd never really been to this market. As it was, we drove through it anyway. If I'd been on foot, you can be sure I would have taken way more photos.

Shark!

These garlic towers are placed on altars to ward off bad spirits

Ingredient shopping completed, Trang and I came back to my room to cook and assemble spring rolls. Through some trial and error on my part, and with a lot of help from Trang, we ended up with 30 delicious homemade fried spring rolls, and I have my first Vietnamese recipe!

I had a low-key afternoon, and graded the quizzes from Wednesday's USA class. At times the quizzes made me laugh (new states to the union include North and South California, Abathama, Alambama, and Alamabana), but they also concerned me. A few students weren't even able to name the region they were being quizzed on (the South), and several of my students conflated the civil rights movement with the civil war, or thought that the civil war was between slaves and slave owners. Hopefully the subsequent in-class discussion made things clearer for them. As a further indication of how badly the quizzes went, the average score on the quiz was 4.2 out of 10. Unlike Wednesday's class, this didn't make me feel disheartened. But it is obvious that I need to make some changes. I expected students to be able to comprehend and retain major themes in the reading, but that no longer seems like a reasonable expectation. Next week I'll tailor the discussion to the quiz and move the quiz to the end of class, and see how that goes.

I'm going on a spontaneous trip to Tra Vinh tomorrow, so I won't be back until Sunday.
I found this great video about Vietnamese coffee. Enjoy.