The pudding thickens

I know that the Southwest is characterized by geographical and cultural variety. It is also home to the Indians, Hispanics, as well as the Anglos, and very rich in minerals. I am really interested in the state of Texas. To begin with, people there are very proud of their state. They always talk about everything in Texas bigger and better, which makes others annoyed. Besides, food in Texas called Tex-Mex is completely special, spicy. I know that Texas is the birthplace of hamburgers and it is also popular with barbecue and chili. In addition, I am very surprised at Texas Festival. This is the first time that I have known about Marshall competition - each recipe including at least one fire ant. To sum up, the Southwest is interesting to me, especially the state of Texas.

The above an the extremely well-written reply to last week's chapter quiz. Rest assured, I was able to put my annoying Texas pride aside and give this student a well-deserved perfect score. Overall, I think this quiz format was most successful, and I will be keeping it for the rest of the course. Sadly, now that I have finally started to hit my stride, there are only three more weeks left in this class.

Welcome hoooome

Yesterday I was welcomed home by a spider on the ceiling. Until now they had stayed in my bathroom, which I much preferred. It didn't move much, but it moved enough to make me feel like I needed to keep an eye on it. By this morning it had disappeared, and not knowing where it went was almost more concerning than watching it wave at me when it was there.

Trang was out of town today, so I got to sleep in. By some miracle my morning was uninterrupted, such that I didn't wake up until 11. My only other accomplishment was inviting Kim Long out for dinner before the English club.

The topic for the English club was cultural differences regarding love and relationships. I hoped to have a discussion, but the teachers sort of stared at me blankly when I asked them a question, or gave answers that contrasted with everything everyone has ever told me about Vietnamese beliefs (e.g.  public opinion regarding divorce (extremely negative) or extramarital affairs (extremely common)). Every week since Tet I've been getting the feeling that the teachers in this club have less and less interest in participating. Their disinterest makes me want to disengage. I'm trying to fight against that and rope all of us back in, but in the back of my mind I'm wondering whether the club will just fizzle out in the near future.