Not gone yet

Every day, it feels as though my departure is looming. Ever since the calendar page turned to March, it was as though it said May. Everyone started talking to me about when I will leave and how soon I am leaving and what things they hope we can do before I leave and how they have to spend more time with me now that there's so little time left. Hardly a day goes by without some comment or conversation regarding my imminent departure. I think that's why my schedule suddenly got packed (though now it's balancing out again) and why I'm teaching first years now -- they want to squeeze every last bit of benefit out of me before I go. I want to shake people and say, "Hey! There are still three months left!" but I know that will slip by before we know it. I can still remember my first week here with perfect clarity, sitting in my room and wondering what had possessed me to want to come here, and feeling like ten months would be an eternity. And now I'm well past halfway and sliding down the downhill slope towards the end.

In addition to other people making me feel like I'm as good as gone (not in a bad way), the amount of time I'm spending preparing for what comes next makes me feel like goodbye is around the corner. The fun part of this preparation is planning where I want to go and for how long and how I will get there and where I will stay for my June travels. For now, the list includes Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Thailand. Less fun is looking for jobs. Mostly, this makes me question things. It makes me question what I really want to do, what I am really capable of doing, and, to some degree, what I expect of myself. It makes me question the relative importance of having a dream job (or at least an enjoyable one) versus just plain having a job.

Thursday, I taught Listening in the morning. Last week they had asked me to sing for them because it was women's day. I told them I was still hoarse, so I wasn't able to oblige. I didn't get off scotch free, though, as the students didn't even let me start the lesson before they requested the song I owed them. The listening track was about predictions for the future, so I thought an activity I used with a speaking class last semester when we were talking about future cities would be suitable for today's wrap up. I asked them what they would make if they could invent anything. Last time I did this activity, participation was a little stilted. This time, the students (though they are technically lower-level students) seemed to have a better grasp on the activity and offered a lot of imaginative inventions.

Only in Vietnam would you want "shoes that make you faster than a motorbike"

Trang asked me to join her for lunch, and asked me what I wanted to eat. I decided it was time to revert to my old answer: something new. Only this time the discussion happened in Vietnamese. It took her a while to come up with something, but it was worth the wait. We had cháo cá, fish porridge. It didn't sound too exciting when she proposed it to me, but it was delicious! Even better, we had a really nice, long, relaxed time together, the likes of which we haven't had for several weeks. Among several conversation topics and a smattering of Vietnamese notes, Trang re-mentioned that I look like Britney Spears. I still don't see it.

Fertilized quail eggs, broth, fish, herbs

At 630 I met up with Thy, Thao, and Nhu, three of my second year students. They are participating in an upcoming speaking competition and wanted to meet up so I could help them prepare. However, we spent maybe 20 minutes working on their presentation, but I wasn't about to complain. Our two hours together flew by. We went to a milk tea/bubble tea place and had drinks and fried chicken. Unfortunately our schedules don't work for a repeat next week, but we're already planning for next next week.

Today continued the trend of preemptive farewells, but I'll get to that later. I taught the first years about telepathy, and it was kind of a throwaway lesson. There seemed to be a lot of conflating of telepathy and fortune-telling, and to be honest it didn't seem worthwhile to tease the two apart. I can't really see this being critical to their English speaking futures, and the more important part was to get them to talk, which they did. I'm starting to learn how to teach my first years. They seem to understand me well enough, but they really need me to model activities for them. This is something I learned in training, but something I can get away with not doing with my older students. With my first years, I have to ask the question, and then show them how to structure their response. For example:

• Do you believe in telepathy?
• Yes, I believe in telepathy because...
• No, I don't believe in telepathy because...
• I'm not sure if I believe in telepathy because...

After discussing telepathy and intuition, we conducted an 'experiment'. Five pairs of students sat back to back. The five facing forward had to draw a picture and focus on what they were doing. Their partners had to try to 'receive' the picture and draw what they thought was being drawn. There were a few convergences. A pair of girls drew hearts, but I didn't need telepathy to know that one was going to happen before I even taught today.

Two apples

In the afternoon I attended a meeting of the English teachers to discuss the semester so far, regarding my activities and performance. The first twenty minutes or so were essentially an assortment of 'we love Adelina' speeches from all of the teachers I've worked with. They talked about changes they observed in the students and in the classroom atmosphere, and things they themselves had learned from me. One of the teachers said, "Adelina's position is an English teaching assistant, but in reality she is the teacher and we are her assistants." To hear their statements wasn't just heart warming, it was affirming. It showed me that I am having indeed having a positive impact. I don't know if there will be another meeting like this before I go, but I will carry their words with me for the rest of my time here and long after I leave.

Most of the English department

Mr. Tuan, with whom I teach on Friday mornings, had invited me out to eat after the meeting. I don't know if it was a calculated move, but after the meeting all of the other teachers decided that they wanted to go out. Had I not already committed to Mr. Tuan, I would have gone with them. You may ask, why didn't everyone just go out together? Well, Mr. Tuan is persona non grata in the department, so it was one or the other. I tried not to let everyone else's views taint our dinner, however. He took me out for sour soup and fish cooked in fish sauce, two dishes I've had many times, but this time it was catfish. Unfortunately, the place we went put up a poor showing. In my opinion, the best part of sour soup is the broth. Tonight, the sauce tasted like spicy water. The only exciting thing about the meal were some enormous shrimps. Enormous! I have never seen shrimp with legs as long as my forearm. I spent most of the meal in silence, as much because we didn't have a lot to talk about as because he took me to a restaurant where a ton of his friends were, so they kept coming over to chat with him.

Mega shrimp and legs

Mega shrimp does not fit in my bowl