Leap days

2.27.12
My original plan was to take the 430 am bus to Ben Tre to be back in time to plan and then teach both of my Monday morning classes. Luckily, Trang suggested that I teach her class in the afternoon, so I got to 'sleep in' and take the 630 bus instead.

I taught Speaking at 10 and was met with a pleasant surprise. All year I've been having students count off and then get in groups to work together. From the very beginning, students always shouted out their group number in Vietnamese, even though it's obviously something that should be just as easy to do in English. I tried to encourage them to do so in English, but eventually I got tired of shouting over their shouting. Today, I heard my students shouting their group numbers in English. It brought a smile to my face. Even if it's a little thing, it's a sign that I'm having an impact. Unfortunately, during the res of the class they were a little lacking in energy. The last conversation group made up for it, though. We had a good, real conversation, and we even ended up going over time.

Busy in group work

Happy and busy in group work

The power went out in the late afternoon but luckily I was supposed to go out to dinner with Quyen from the teacher's English club, so I didn't have to sit around in the dark. We went out to eat bo la lop and nem nuong and bo dun, and after we'd eaten a bit she asked me which was my favorite. When I replied, she ordered a whole other platter. Both of us were struggling to eat our way through it, and she kept encouraging me to 'do my best' to eat it all.

Quyen had planned to take me to the supermarket after dinner, and so we did. She seemed to be under the impression that I had never been before, and wanted to show me around and explain all of the food to me. The only problem, aside from the fact that I've been several times, was that her English is not quite good enough to do all of the explaining she intended. There were some things I was interested in buying but she couldn't translate the cooking instructions, so I was reluctant to just add more things to my freezer.

When we turned onto my street on the way back from the supermarket it was clear that the power was still out. Many shops were closed or candlelit. The campus was almost pitch black. Some students were practicing a dance routine outside by the light of a motorcycle headlight, while some students studied outside by candlelight. I went to my room and decided to work on my computer until the battery died or the power came back. The power came back around 830 and a cheer rose from the campus. Indeed.

This hefty cricket flew straight towards my face minutes before the power came back.

2.28.12
I went to Trang's paternal grandfather's death anniversary today. Just like the last death anniversary I went to, there was no apparent ceremonial element; it was just a family gathering with a mountain of food. As always, the food was delicious. As seems to be a new trend, I was sent home with leftovers to furnish my lunch/dinner/whatever meal comes after a 9am feast on lunchlike food.

At the women's table

In the past, Sunny, one of the grandkids, has taken quite a shine to me. In fact, he usually goes straight for second base. Today I guess he was feeling slightly more gentlemanly, and restrained himself to stroking my arm throughout the meal, and occasionally rubbing his face on my arm. It was all very PG until nap time. I was sent to a hammock, and then Sunny decided he was going to climb in, too. It would have been fine (and was of course very cute, causing everyone to rush over and take pictures of us) except that he kept climbing in and out of the hammock which, as you can imagine, was impairing my napping. After a while of pretending to be asleep he left me alone long enough for me to actually fall asleep.

Me and Sunny

Between eating and napping, Sunny spent the morning serenading us with the ABCs and another alphabet song that he has taught himself off of youtube. Without further ado, I give you Sunny (and Trang's dad in the background):

2.29.12
Trang's sister took me out to lunch, and she took me to a restaurant that I've been to a handful of times. As she was deciding what to order, the waiter suggested a few things. It turns out he remembers me and he remembers what people usually get for me. In addition to the usual sour soup Thuy decided to order prawns with their eggs. To my surprise, the eggs tasted just like shrimp, except with a notably different texture. Last weekend, when I was in Hue, Thuy had called me because she had bought me some mangoes and wanted to bring them by, but I wasn't there to receive them. Apparently, she bought mangoes for me this time, too, but she had tasted some of them and deemed them unsuitable. So, after lunch, we went out to buy more mangoes. Thuy seems to have a skewed perspective of how much fruit it is reasonable to buy for one person (especially when that person also receives large fruit gifts from others), so I ended up with seven large, ripe, sweet mangoes. Whenever I try to tell her it's too much she insists that I just put them in my fridge. I am determined to not end up having to throw some of them out, even if it means gorging myself on mangoes and neglecting all of my other fruits in the meantime.

It's been a while since I had a new and interesting dish to show you.

I taught the English club in the evening and I was feeling really tired and at a loss for ideas. I decided to talk to the students about what they really want to do in the club. I don't want it to feel like a classroom, and I want them to talk more. So, I need to know what they actually want to talk about. We brainstormed future discussion topics, and they requested that I also give them grammar tips, so I will try to work those in. I didn't really have anything else prepared for the night's meeting, but I didn't want to end after just half an hour, so quick thinking came to the rescue. They like to play hangman and I usually do it with vocabulary, but tonight I used it to teach them expressions. They'd hangman their way through to revealing the phrase, and then I would explain the expression and when we use it. By the time I'd filled the board with expressions and explanations, we'd filled the alotted time.

Board full of expressions