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

No Super Bowl

2.6.12

I woke up extra early on Monday hoping to be able to stream the Super Bowl at least until I had to go teach, but I had no such luck. It would have been weird watching the Super Bowl at 630am on a Monday, but it would have been better than nothing. I survived. Fortunately, this week of teaching got off to a much better start than last week.

I taught Translation first. Last week’s homework had been for students to write in English and Vietnamese about how they spent a day of Tet. I stressed that since this was a personal account, there should be no reason for anyone to copy anyone else’s sentences. I was very happy when I didn’t have to give a single zero for cheating. Again, we used a few of the assignments for translation warm up at the beginning of class. I’m keeping a list of who reads the Vietnamese and who translates to make sure I get to everyone eventually. Our main activity was song translation. I played Simon and Garfunkel’s “If I Could (El Condor Pasa)” and then read them the lyrics. They worked together as a class to produce the Vietnamese version of the lyrics. When we finished, I handed out the English lyrics and we listened to the song again.

I'd rather be a hammer than a nail

Reading along as we listen to the song

Since Valentine’s Day is next week, I changed their homework a little bit. Instead of writing and translating original texts, they will be translating the lyrics to love songs. It was nice to see my students so excited about something.

Next I taught speaking to my 2nd years. Even though these students are notorious for being passive in class, they are consistently more engaged than my 3rd years, or at least more receptive to my teaching methods that differ from what they’re used to. The lesson was about food and dietary restrictions (being a vegetarian, having food allergies, having religious restrictions on what you can eat, etc.), and we started out by reading a sample menu. I asked them to read over it on their own and then tell me what words they didn’t know so I could explain them to the class. I don’t do this often, mostly because students rarely pipe up about what they don’t know. I had prepared a list of words I thought they might have trouble with that I intended to address in case I didn’t get any questions. However, they pleasantly surprised me by bombarding me with a bunch of words. 

Last week I had the students sign up for conversation groups, so that I can spend time actually talking to each student. I met with the first group last week, and this week I would see two groups. Usually, it takes the first 5 or 10 minutes of basic questions (e.g. what did you do this weekend?) before they loosen up and start asking me questions, too. This week, I had barely sat down when one girl started talking a mile a minute. “I’m so happy to talk to you! I don’t speak English very well but I really want to improve and I know you can help me. This weekend I saw some foreigners on my bus and I wanted to talk to them but I was too shy but I want to be able to talk to foreigners.” It pretty much made my day.

2.7.12
Today my Vietnamese class was replaced with a visit to Trang’s parent’s house to celebrate the death anniversary of her dad’s dad’s dad. (I was informed that in Vietnamese this familial position is ‘cha cha cha’.) As far as I experienced, it was no different than any other occasion for feasting, except that the older kids weren’t there because they were at school. I got to try more of Trang’s mom’s excellent cooking, and her reputation as a master chef is more than intact. One of the new dishes was chicken wings with a fish sauce based glaze. I’m hoping to get the recipe; it was delicious and Trang says it is quite easy to make.

I ate at the women’s table, but after eating I spent a long time talking with Trang’s dad. I found out that the reason he knows ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ is because he heard that it was LBJ’s favorite song, learned it, and played it for him when he visited Vietnam.

Just a few of the preliminary dishes

Not from today, but I think this picture really captures the awesomeness
of the house

I was totally free until six, when I had to teach the teacher’s English club. They had asked me to make a presentation about how I spent the Tet holiday, and it was Trang’s idea to ask the teachers to do the same. To my surprise, everyone actually prepared something, so we spent the first hour with presentations. After that I explained some differences between Tet and how we celebrate the new year in the US. Then, someone asked me to talk about the differences between eastern and western dragons. It turns out I didn’t know much about eastern dragons, but that meant that I could ask my students a lot of questions. While western dragons breathe fire, are generally destructive, and get killed by knights, eastern dragons spray water, are considered good luck, and don’t get killed. Eastern dragons have the head of the lion and the body of a snake, while western dragons look more like winged dinosaurs.

Dragon descriptions

Close-up of my attempts at drawing dragons

Your best

Last night I dreamed that I was at the supermarket looking for a jar of tomato sauce. I went to where it usually is, but it wasn't there. There were all sorts of things that were vaguely related, but not what I was looking for. I thought maybe I had gone to the wrong aisle so I tried another. I didn't find it. Then I thought maybe I had been in the right aisle the first time, but I just hadn't looked hard enough. I went back, but I still couldn't find it. I never found the tomato sauce.

To be honest, I had a pretty frustrating and discouraging morning. On Wednesdays I teach the Spotlight on the USA class, which is generally the class I am most excited about. It is always the first class I lesson plan for and the class I most look forward to teaching. I want to have activities and discussions. I want to engage my students and show them what it's like to be in a student-centered classroom. But it doesn't work. Today, in particular, I felt like I was talking to the wall at the back of an empty classroom. When I ask a question I try to wait to start calling on people to let someone raise their hand. I always hope it will happen but it almost never does. Today I talked to them about the differences between the North and South during the Civil War Era, then I wrote those differences on the board, and then I asked them to tell me what the differences were. They were still on the board and all I got were blank stares and a few people rustling through their textbooks. I waited for what felt like five minutes. Finally I called on someone. I wanted to have a discussion comparing and contrasting the differences between the North and South in the US and the differences between the North and South in Vietnam, but we ended up just listing the differences in the US and then listing the differences in Vietnam. This was the only part that garnered student participation. Several students volunteered differences in Vietnam.

I understand that sometimes students just don't want to talk, and it's not necessarily a comment on the teacher or the lesson. I've been there. I've been a student in classes like this. But as a teacher, that doesn't make it any less frustrating. I feel like there's a problem and I don't know if it's me, my expectations, my methods, or my students. I want to make students enthusiastic about what I teach and motivate them to participate, but I'm starting to feel like the only way I'm going to stop being frustrated is by changing (lowering) my expectations.

Instead of wallowing in my post-teaching frustrations I asked Trang out to lunch. I vented a little bit and then we had a lighthearted time. I've seen these weird charts in a lot of places and I asked Trang about them. It is a grid labeled with the months across the top and the squares have a triangular red sticker that covers the lower left half. It turns out that these are the governmental version of gold stars. The authorities check in on you and your family every now and then and decide whether you are model citizens/up to par, and if you are you get a sticker. If you get a sticker every month for one year, you get a certificate. If everyone in your commune/hamlet gets a certificate, the whole hamlet gets a sign. If all of the hamlets get a sign, the district gets a sign. And so on, increasingly. There are no repercussions to not getting a sticker, but I guess you're supposed to want one. Evaluations are based on spousal equality, home cleanliness, neighbor relations, and things like that. Now, how an official can evaluate that by dropping by is a whole other question.

We ended up, unexpectedly, going to the supermarket after lunch. And I found the tomato sauce exactly where it was last time. I spent the afternoon giving my room the intensive post-Tet cleaning it deserved. (During Tet if you sweep or do other cleaning you might sweep out the good luck.)

After the morning I had, I was not looking forward to the English club tonight. But, it turned my day around. Only about 15 people showed up, which meant that I got to throw my makeshift plan out the window and just settle in for conversation. We sat in a circle, something I always yearn for. It started off a little stilted as I went around the circle and asked everyone to tell me about their Tet break, but things gradually got more natural and conversational, and students even asked each other questions, instead of always speaking to or through me. Talk of lunar zodiac signs and their characteristics revealed that as a dragon I'm supposed to be strong. My students think this is fitting, because I came all the way here to Vietnam. I asked them if, if they had the opportunity to spend a year far from home, whether they would. They all said no. I asked how long they would be willing to be far from home. One month was ok, but three months was too long for them to be so far. Then they asked me if I ever got sad. I said yes. They asked me what kinds of things make me sad. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was the morning. I wanted to be honest but I didn't want to be accusatory. I just said I feel sad when a class makes me disappointed, because I feel like I'm not succeeding. Several students looked sheepish, but the student next to me looked me in the eye and said, "I think you try your best." It meant a lot to me.

"Give what you have to somebody, it may be better than you think." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

One of the boys

Tuesday morning started with a repeat of Wednesday night. Elliot liked the pho so much he wanted to have it again for breakfast, this time with sliced beef instead of meatballs. He concluded that he prefers the beef, but I'm still a bigger fan of meatball pho. Next, we paid a visit to Anh Thu, aka pajama mamma. On the way we bought some rambutan, as much to have something to share with her while we talked as to give Elliot the opportunity to try something new. In addition to our rambutan, she gifted us with two pineapples. It seems she has expanded her sales to pajamas and fruit, I suspect because her new husband (she got married on 11/11/11) is a fruit grower. I tried to ask if that was the case, and I think she confirmed my analysis. Elliot got to observe our halting dialogue, her patience, and my struggles. But also our friendship. On the way back we stopped for bánh bao chiên and bánh tiếu, two of my favorite snacks.

My original plan was for us to go to the city center in the afternoon, but we were invited to have a 'meal' at 330. (I put meal in quotation marks because I'm not quite sure what category a meal at that time fits into.) We got picked up and it was time for Elliot's first ride on a motorbike. He described it as rather hair-raising. I was just entertained to see him completely obscuring the driver in front of him. Trang kept saying he looked like an Indian dancer, though I'm not really sure what she meant by that. I saw four people on one bicycle, which seems like an even greater feat than four on a motorbike.

One of these things is not like the others...
Motorbikes seem perfectly reasonably sized until there's an Elliot sitting on one

When we arrived I discovered that our meal would take place at the fresh beer place. I am certain that Elliot was taken there because he is a man, and consequently needs to experience local drinking culture. To his surprise, the fresh beer (it must be consumed within 24 hours) was pretty tasty. I shocked everyone by saying that I think it is better than Heineken, which is considered the paragon of beers here. As I told Elliot, this meal would certainly fill him up. Courses included: green mango salad, fried rice, rice from the bottom of the pan (a crunchy dish that used to be for the poor and is now a specialty), make-it-yourself spring rolls with fish, and lastly blood clam rice porridge.

At this point Elliot has experienced rice in many of its forms: 'normal', crushed or broken, fried, bún noodles, pho noodles, pan-scrapings, paper, porridge, and perhaps a few others. During the meal there was a sudden rush of water from across the open-air restaurant. At first I thought someone was just hosing things down, but a clang and a crash revealed that a fish tank had failed. One lethargic fish lay unmoving on the pavement.

In the evening Elliot was the main attraction at the teachers' English club.

The meeting was cut short, though, so that we could attend the annual coconut fashion show. Whatever I was expecting, the students' creations were beyond anything I could have imagined. Four departments participated, and while some produced the more expected woven palm frond garments or grassy skirts, some went so far as to make aó dài with coconut husks, cocktail dresses, and menswear. It was quite impressive.

They even made that hat!

A lotus blossom

A lotus pod

My favorite

Elliot, though also impressed, seemed somewhat more entranced by a chalkboard outside covered in physics calculations.

Wednesday was a teaching day. In the afternoon I taught the first class of the new semester: Spotlight on the USA. I kicked things off with an idea I came up with when I was preparing evaluations at the end of last semester: Happy Teacher, Happy Student. I told the students what kind of classroom behavior makes me a happy teacher, and asked them to tell me what I can and should do to make them happy students. I will make a poster of this and put it up for every class. Then, I taught the students about American names and asked them to choose one for themselves. Now I have a class full of Kellys (4), Violets (3), and several Kaylas and Julias.

After that it was time for our guest speaker, Elliot. I encouraged them to ask him questions related to their readings about American holidays, sports, culture, leisure activities, and so on. I played illustrator and, occasionally, interpreter. Inspired by the earlier part of the lesson, my students bestowed Elliot with a Vietnamese name: Nam Tuấn Hải (something like Man Handsome Sea -- it's not really supposed to make sense).

When you kick the football through the goalposts, onto the American flag,
you score three points.

Elliot is taller than all but one of the students standing on the step behind him.

I had mentioned to Trang that Elliot was interested in trying hột vịt lộn, fertilized duck egg, and she came through with a surprise for both of us. It turns out that a woman next to her house prepares them in some unusual ways. We had breaded and deep fried eggs, as well as hard boiled ones in a peanut and tamarind sauce. Who knew there were so many different ways to make hột vịt lộn? Both were delicious, but we all agreed that the fried ones were the best.

Saucy

Fried

Inside the fried egg

English club turnout was pretty low, partly because some students have exams coming up and partly because there wasn't one last week, and people weren't sure whether there would be one this week. For a moment I was tempted to send people home, but then I remembered what a great opportunity this was for the few who had showed up. We sat in a circle, five students, me, Elliot, and the English teacher, so it was a great student-teacher ratio. We just chatted for a while. Topics that came up included how we differentiate between Indians from India and Indians/Native Americans, and what kind of accent a Vietnamese English student should aspire to have. Eventually I steered the conversation towards Christmas and after a while I got up to show some of a powerpoint I had prepared. We wrapped things up by singing a few Christmas carols.

Mr. Hoang, the teacher who attended the club, and Mr. Vu Hung invited us out for some drinks. Mostly, they wanted to shoot the breeze with Elliot, and I was an accessory. It was interesting for me because it is the kind of activity I, as a woman, would never be invited to; it was an insight into male social culture. Naturally, we also needed to eat. Beer snacks were raw peanuts, grilled chicken, cút lộn (fertilized quail egg), and grilled quail. I convinced Elliot to eat the quail head, but I don't think I managed to convince him that it was tasty. They want to hang out again, and plans are underway for a snake lunch on Friday. Here's hoping they follow through with those plans.

Leetle birdie

Over drinks, Mr. Hoang told me that he had learned something from me, and asked whether I knew what it was. I was expecting that he learned something about Christmas or American culture, but what he said was much more moving. He told me that if he had been in my shoes, he wouldn't have held English club for so few students, but he admired that I had. Most people would think that such a low turnout wouldn't make it worthwhile to have a lesson, but I had showed him a new way to look at it.

The spice of life

I've had a game in my back pocket for last week's class and last night's English club, but the first time I ran out of time and last night it just didn't quite fit. Today, I decided I couldn't run out of time if we did it first. To review last week's lesson on different vehicles, we went outside. I would say the name of a vehicle (e.g. sports car) and students had to scramble to get in groups of how many passengers fit in the car (in the case of the sports car, 2). I always feel a little guilty when I'm teaching a listening class because I feel like they're way less fun than speaking classes, but this game got our listening class off to an energetic start.

I mentioned previously that during break the campus loudspeakers blast an assortment of Vietnamese songs for fifteen minutes. Well, today, I heard a song start with some strangely familiar notes. The next thing I knew "As Long As You Love Me," by the Backstreet Boys, was reverberating all over campus. To call it surreal is an understatement.

For speaking class I showed clips from various sci-fi films and had them choose a city and imagine what it would be like in the future. Much to my (not) surprise, most of them chose Ben Tre. While they brainstormed, I tried to redeem myself for yesterday's troll. What do you think?

A nice backdrop for their presentations?

In the afternoon the power went out. It almost made me laugh because just yesterday I had been thinking about how many times the power went out in Hanoi and that it had yet to go out here. I decided it was the perfect time to take a nap. When the power came back on I decided to explore the offerings of my recently set up cable TV. To add to the surreality of the day, I discovered the 1937 film, The Good Earth, on the Turner Classic Movies channel. Here I am in Asia, surrounded by Asians, and on TV I find a movie set in China with every main character played by a white actor in yellowface. Even knowing that it was filmed over 70 years ago didn't make it any easier to stomach. Instead, I watched The Incredibles. Spending my afternoon watching TV might make me feel a little bit guilty, but I have to say, watching something that didn't require me to wait for it to load felt like a luxury. I'll try not to indulge too often.

Tonight I was planning on going out to dinner with Morena, the new ETA. She had yet to try phở and I figured it was as good an excuse as any to go to the phở place I've been haunting. But, when the time came for us to meet up, it had been pouring for at least an hour and showed no signs of letting up. We tried to wait it out but after half an hour decided to brave the tempest. To mix things up I was going to have cà ri bò, beef curry (not caribou). I had heard that it is quite spicy and I was fully prepared to set my mouth on fire, but when we got there they were out of it. Luckily, phở is by no means a bad second choice. To not disappoint my cravings for pain, I upped the amount of hot sauce I use and even took the next step: I added fresh sliced chilis to my phở. I don't think I can claim as high a spicy tolerance as most of my friends, but I think I have passed some kind of threshold. Dare I say I like spicy food? Life skill goal #1: check. On the way back we got corn on the cob and it hit the spot.

I was all ready to veg out for the rest of the evening, and had already begun doing so, when I heard a knock at my door. I had forgotten that yesterday some students had told me they wanted to visit me around eight pm. It was a lovely hour spent with company, and I am really starting to (try to) learn people's names. It is so hard having about 80 students and maybe another 40 teachers/teacher-students whose names I don't know or am afraid to mispronounce. 

Surprise!

Today was a largely uneventful day of teaching. I wore my purple aó dài to teach and was regaled by more appreciative comments. In fact, when I was walking back to my room after class, a girl in the dorm who is not one of my students shouted down from her balcony, "Beautiful!" The purple aó dài is a little loose on me and it needs to be taken in, which contributed to yesterday's feeling of being simultaneously classy and frumpy. Coupled with my new shoes from Trang, though, I felt much more svelte and 'properly shaped.' However, I also officially tower over my students. Previously, since I usually wear flats and they wear heels, we were more or less evened out.

In the evening I was to teach the usual Wednesday night double session of English club for students. When I arrived, I was surprised at the size of the group. It was almost double the usual. About thirty minutes into the club, the coordinating teacher arrived to inform me that starting tonight the English club would be one three hour session combining both groups of students. Surprise! So the 90-minute lesson plans I had spent preparing instead of eating dinner were no longer sufficient. Surprise! Luckily I had a lot of games up my sleeve, and since he didn't stick around, I ended up ending the club meeting after two hours.

Surprise! (actually from If you're happy and you know it say "Yipee!")

During the club we reviewed If You're Happy and You Know It and learned The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I also read them The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The pictures on my powerpoint didn't work, so I had to resort to drawing illustrations on the board.

How do you draw a troll? Please don't show this to any of my art teachers...

 After class some of my students invited me out for phở.

"The best, beautiful girls in the world"*
*caption quote courtesy of Như's (orange shirt) reaction upon seeing the picture

[Don't forget to check out the newly completed version of The day everyone's been waiting for.]