Normal for now

"Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way." - John Keating in Dead Poets Society

Time is wrapping up. Six weeks left. When I got here, it seemed like almost every story about an experience could start with the words "this was the first time I ever...". Now, things are in a different light. Many times I wonder, will this story be "it was the last time I ..."? It's  not over yet, but time is slipping through my fingers. I already finished teaching the third years several weeks ago, and I recently found out I only have two weeks left teaching the second years. It seems like by May my schedule will have simmered down to first years on Friday and the two English clubs. Anyway, the impending end has made me very reflective about how I, and my view of normal, has changed over these last several months. Some of these changes stem from prolonged exposure to cultural differences, and some are just lifestyle changes.

• Wearing pajamas in public, during the day
• Not understanding most of the conversation around me at any given moment, and treating human voices like white noise
• Being woken up by roosters (but that doesn't make this any less annoying)
• Riding a motorbike - while carrying a hamster in a plastic shopping bag, while using a toothpick, with more than one person
• Living in a home easily and frequently accessed by an assortment of critters
• Living alone
• Eating with chopsticks
• Relying more on body language than ever before/practically becoming a mime
• Shouting at waitstaff to get their attention
• Only using cash and knowing that $10 or $15 will should last me into the next week
• Mentally narrating my day in anticipation of blogging
• Gnawing on bones and eating skins
• Throwing my trash on the floor in public establishments
• Not expecting events to happen until they are in fact already underway - generally not having any expectations at all
• Identifying my students by their eyes (or handbags) when I see them outside of class and that is the only part of them that is not shielded from the sun 
• Greeting people by nodding at them

That list isn't even close to complete. But the thing that strikes me is that, six weeks from now, this won't be normal anymore. This has become my life and, abruptly, it won't be anymore. Despite the eagerness to go home that the countdown wiki on my laptop dash might suggest, I'm feeling a little anxious about the change. The thought of leaving, of never coming back, is hard. There is a small but dense pit of sadness that I feel somewhere between my heart and my stomach every time I think about leaving. Even if I ever come back, I can't come back to this moment, to this life, to this feeling of normalcy I have acquired over so many months of total abnormality. What now? Allison, fellow ETA, has adopted a mantra of making the days count instead of counting the days, and I think it is both clever and sage. So maybe instead of watching Dead Poets Society in the afternoon and getting a good blog quote, I'll be getting out of my room a little more.

Yesterday I rescheduled my morning class to the late afternoon because I was coming back from Tra Vinh in the morning. Since I finished teaching at five, I decided to go ahead and get dinner. Eating at that time is perhaps one of the few Vietnamese 'normals' that I have continued to resist. Getting food at that time means dealing with rush hour traffic, but more importantly it means feeling hungry again before I go to bed. However, yesterday showed me it might be worth it to make adjustments. By the time I usually go looking for dinner, usually between seven and eight, there aren't many appealing options left. But yesterday I discovered the plethora of options available at 5pm. I hadn't seen good spring rolls in months, and yesterday they were everywhere. I went to buy more gas canisters for my stove and the woman I buy them from asked me what I've done with my empty ones. I told her I still have them. She told me I should bring them to her because she refills them. The reason I still have them is because I knew they could be refilled, but I could never figure out where. Finally, I have an answer. I bought some corn next, and then I went to get some spring rolls. The place is across the street from the school, and on Friday I noticed a sign advertising the rolls. In Vietnamese, I had asked if she had any, but upon seeing me she immediately turned around and asked if any of her clientele spoke English. "Spring. Rolls." I said, in Vietnamese. "Oh, spring rolls. No, I'm out." I guess she remembered our interaction on Friday, because as soon as I came up to her yesterday she offered me spring rolls. She asked me how many and whether I wanted chili in my sauce and it felt good to not have her miming at me like most of the vendors I started frequenting earlier on. A student from another department stood there and gaped at me as I spoke to the woman in Vietnamese. "You speak Vietnamese?" "You're the American teacher, right?" Yes and yes. Just as satisfying as having several successful Vietnamese interactions were the scrumptious spring rolls, with a sauce so delicious I almost wanted to eat it with a spoon.