Cravings

Speaking of what's become normal, last night I dreamed that I walked into a bank asking for dollars. The thing was that I was speaking Vietnamese but none of the people there were Vietnamese and so no one understood me.

This morning I had my Vietnamese lesson. Trang met me and told me that she had a surprise for me, and that she hoped it wasn't terrible. Then she asked me where I wanted to go to breakfast, because she wanted me to be in a good mood before my surprise. That did not bode well for this surprise. Over breakfast we discussed the food cravings of pregnant women. Trang told me that many pregnant women in Vietnam eat clay pots. Clay pots. They crave them so intensely that they usually finish eating the lid by the time they get home from buying one at the market. She also told me that people think that if a woman craves sour food, she will have a daughter.

After breakfast we went to get bubble tea. Trang said it was time for my surprise, and again said she hoped it would be ok. I was going to say that the only surprise that would be a bad surprise would be a test, but just as I was about to say it I saw her reaching into her briefcase and I realized that that was exactly what my surprise would be. Vietnamese pop quiz! The first page was pretty rough. I had to label pictures of objects that I should know but for some reason don't (pen, chair, that sort of thing). If I had been asked to label pictures of fruit I would have rocked it. I also had ten questions with four words each, and I had to circle the word that didn't fit in each set. This was challenging if I didn't know more than two words in a set. Next, I had a short answer section. This one was much easier. I felt pretty clever when I confronted "What do you do at [time of day]?" I recognized that the word stood for a time of day, but couldn't remember what time of day it was. My answer? I eat pho. Perfectly suitable at any time of day. On the back I had to answer some multiple choice questions and read a short passage and then answer some reading comprehension questions. This side was a breeze. I scored 23 out of 40. Not stellar, but not totally abysmal.

After that I had a regular lesson, and I've gotten pretty comfortable telling stories in Vienglish. Too bad I can't get away with that on my final exam. I learned the word for 'dimples'. At first I misunderstood Trang's English explanation and thought that she was saying that it was the same word as corn, but it turns out that it is the same word as coin, dòng tiền. Neither makes too much sense to me. I also learned that if you don't look good in a photo, people say that you didn't eat the photo. Bạn không ăn ảnh. In other turns of conversation Trang told me that her senior students now email her in English, and she credits me for this change. I figured out how I ended up with a bug in my previous milk tea. It turns out it was a bee, not a fly. Forgive me for misidentifying it; I had already chewed on it. The place where they prepare the drinks is outside, and they line up glasses full of the tapioca to have them ready for whenever customers place their orders. Meanwhile, bees buzz in and out of the glasses. I guess they don't always make it out before the drink makes it in.

English club was in the evening. For the last several weeks, only first years have come, so I was pleasantly surprised to see three seniors, especially since this is their finals week. We talked about family. First I asked each of the students to describe their families in detail. Names, ages, occupations, et cetera. Then I made a big elaborate family tree on the board. Then the students asked me a ton of hypothetical questions. If I could choose between having an older brother or an older sister, which would I choose? What would I do if one of my children was a bad student? Would I like to have twins? It was nice to have the seniors there to make the club less of a lecture and more of an exchange, but looking at the first years' faces it sometimes looked like they were feeling left out.

From your great grandparents to your grandchildren, and in-laws too

Trang and I went out to dinner. It's been a long time! We got there and she sprung another test on me. Really? But thankfully it was a take home test, not a dinner test.

Round two

Sorry for the slightly sporadic updating of late; my internet access has been rather spotty lately.

2.8.12
Yesterday was time to test the reinvention of my USA class. Yielding to the evidence (quiz performance) and student requests, I moved the quiz to the end of class. I divided the students into groups, and assigned each group one section of the reading, with reading questions. They had 20 minutes to pore over their sections and answer the questions, and then they shared their findings with the class. I told them ahead of time that I would be using some of those same reading questions on the quiz.

Twenty minutes ended up being way too much time for most of the groups, but fortunately students chose to use that extra time to start working on questions from other sections, and be better prepared for the quiz. The quizzes looked much better in that far fewer questions were left blank and the answers were generally longer than before, but I haven't had a chance to look over all of them yet. As my dad says, the proof is in the pudding. Still from the looks of things, I'm expecting the average score to increase from 4 to around 7. The students were almost entirely perfect angels while taking the quiz. The silence was heavenly. However, I noticed that there are prime cheating circumstances when the students are handing in their quizzes, and they can see other papers and whisper corrections to each other in the general post-quiz din. I'll have to find a way to keep that from happening next time.

Not pictured: pure silence

We had the student's English club last night, and my co-teacher, Ms. Chau Anh, had prepared some handouts with readings and discussion questions. When students arrive they always self-segregate by class, but this actually worked out very advantageously. When I had them count off into groups, it resulted in each group having one third year, one second year, and one first year, more or less. I was very happy to see the more advanced students helping their peers, drawing them out, and encourage them to represent their group when it came time to share opinions. Our first discussion was on the importance of eating meals together with your family, and the second was about fashion. I wasn't really a fan of the second reading, which was clearly written by a Vietnamese person with a high English proficiency. It was a little thesaurus-happy, which just made things harder for the students, and several of the sentences were just not quite right. For a handful of examples among many:

• "At present, with the development of science and technology, the textile industry has made a long stride of progress that makes clothes-making easier..."
• "No one can deny the fact that Vietnamese ladies with their slender status are very beautiful and charming in the Ao Dai."
• "I think these kinds of fashion are just suitable on the stage or in films because they look very ridiculous in the real life." (suitable, very, and ridiculous are hallmarks of Vietnamese English)

One of my post-Tet goals is to organize at least one social activity each week with someone other than Trang. I tried to invite Kim Long out to eat yesterday, but unfortunately she was busy. I guess it was for the best because Trang needed to meet with me and discuss preparations for an upcoming academic conference. I taught her the expressions 'to kick the bucket' and the concept of a bucket list, and she taught me my new favorite Vietnamese phrase: xí xô xí xào, which is means something between 'gibberish' and 'blah blah blah.' It is derived from the word to describe the sound of leaves in the wind, but is used when describing people, especially foreigners, who are speaking quickly or otherwise unintelligibly. In exchange, I taught Trang the word 'barbarian' and its origins.

"The Ancient Greek word βάρβαρος (barbaros), "barbarian", was an antonym for civis "citizen" and polis "city-state." The sound of barbaros onomatopoetically evokes the image of babbling (a person speaking a non-Greek language). ... The Greeks used the term as they encountered scores of different foreign cultures, including the Egyptians, Persians, Medes, Celts, Germanic peoples, Phoenicians, Etruscans and Carthaginians. In fact, it became a common term to refer to all foreigners. ...  The verb βαρβαρίζειν (barbarízein) in ancient Greek meant imitating the linguistic sounds non-Greeks made or making grammatical errors in Greek."

2.9.12
In my dream I was in an American grocery store. I was staring at the hundreds of cereal options when I was baffled by the 30 different kinds of rice krispies in front of me (ones with strawberry flakes, pink ones, ones ideal for making rice krispie treats, ...) in boxes of varying size and unrelated price. I realized that my time in Vietnam was officially over and I felt a pang. Then I felt relief when I remembered that I was just visiting home for a few weeks, and I'd be back in Vietnam soon. But, I realized that it won't be easy re-adjusting to life in the States. Given that I was in the States for now, I gave up on the cereal and decided to go look for a good dark beer instead. Instead of walking, I was laying down on a low, wheeled platform and pushing myself along with one foot. (Awake, I realized that this is exactly how the extremely poor and limbless get around on the streets in Vietnam.)

Needless to say, it was a weird dream, and that's just part of it. I think weirdest is the fact that the dream ties together so many things about life in Vietnam, but at the time seemed not really Vietnam-related at all.

Last night I misremembered what time I had to teach this morning, so a few minutes after getting up I realized that I only had five minutes to get to class, rather than forty. I rushed over and was only a couple of minutes late. For reasons that I have never understood, I often see teacherless classrooms filled with students when I am looking for my class. Today, during the second half of my class, one such class full of rowdy boys started hooting and hollering and creating a general hullabaloo that interfered with my attempts to conduct a listening class. Then, the listless boys decided to start running around, and started peering into my classroom window and making faces at me and my students. Because my co-teacher wasn't there and I don't speak Vietnamese, I was completely incapable of chastising them, asking them to stop, or doing anything useful other than ignoring them. I found myself wanting to yell at them in Italian, a great language for telling people to cut it out.

Get cooking

The last thing I saw before going to sleep

I dreamed that I was celebrating a Vietnamese-style new year's. Part of the tradition was to jump into a lake and go as deep as you could before coming up. When I jumped in I discovered that there was a dry, oxygenated chamber at the bottom of the lake. However, in the chamber I realized that something, maybe the water, had caused me to break out in hives, but only on my face and shoulders. It didn't seem like a good sign for the new year.

A few days ago Trang and I talked about getting together today for her to teach me how to cook something. To my understanding, we never agreed on a time, so when she texted me at 8:50 this morning it also functioned as my wake up call. I met her a few minutes later and we went off to get breakfast. Once we were fueled up, we went to the market. Believe it or not, it was my first time going to the (food) market since arriving in Ben Tre. We'd driven past it once, and I've been to the supermarket, and I've bought food from small stands on the street, but I'd never really been to this market. As it was, we drove through it anyway. If I'd been on foot, you can be sure I would have taken way more photos.

Shark!

These garlic towers are placed on altars to ward off bad spirits

Ingredient shopping completed, Trang and I came back to my room to cook and assemble spring rolls. Through some trial and error on my part, and with a lot of help from Trang, we ended up with 30 delicious homemade fried spring rolls, and I have my first Vietnamese recipe!

I had a low-key afternoon, and graded the quizzes from Wednesday's USA class. At times the quizzes made me laugh (new states to the union include North and South California, Abathama, Alambama, and Alamabana), but they also concerned me. A few students weren't even able to name the region they were being quizzed on (the South), and several of my students conflated the civil rights movement with the civil war, or thought that the civil war was between slaves and slave owners. Hopefully the subsequent in-class discussion made things clearer for them. As a further indication of how badly the quizzes went, the average score on the quiz was 4.2 out of 10. Unlike Wednesday's class, this didn't make me feel disheartened. But it is obvious that I need to make some changes. I expected students to be able to comprehend and retain major themes in the reading, but that no longer seems like a reasonable expectation. Next week I'll tailor the discussion to the quiz and move the quiz to the end of class, and see how that goes.

I'm going on a spontaneous trip to Tra Vinh tomorrow, so I won't be back until Sunday.
I found this great video about Vietnamese coffee. Enjoy.

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 

The last day

I conversed in Vietnamese last night's dream. It may have only been the standard, daily Vietnamese, but it was something.

This afternoon I taught my last class of the semester. Before getting into the lesson, I passed out an evaluation form. One side was for students to evaluate me, and one was for them to evaluate themselves. I'm still going through the forms, but I was pleased that they took time to answer thoughtfully. Just from the few I've read, I'm starting to get good insights about what worked, what didn't, and what's really the reason for people not raising their hands. This will help me meet their needs better, and hopefully give me a good starting point for setting goals with them for next semester. After they finished the evaluations we played a review game I took straight out of my Hanoi Vietnamese teacher's playbook. I put them in teams and gave them three minutes to write down words related to a certain topic we had studied (e.g. transportation, shopping, etc.). One representative from each team came to the board and wrote down all of their words. They got points for each word that was spelled correctly and was relevant to the category. I think they really enjoyed it, and were impressed with themselves when they saw just how many words they would come up with. I hope it was a good reminder that they know more than they think they do.

I'm going to Dalat tomorrow for the Fulbright mid-year conference, and I'll be there until Wednesday. The conference doesn't start until Monday, so I'll have some time for adventure!

Everywhere you want to be

I dreamed that there were giant cockroaches scurrying around, except they looked more like a cross between a cockroach and a centipede and were the size of guinea pigs. There were also fast-moving lemon-sherbet-colored slugs with black polka dots. I was a little reluctant to get out of bed in the morning.

In the morning I had a meeting with Ms. Thu, one of the teachers I work with. Next semester I will be teaching her class about the US. She's giving me a lot of freedom and I'm really excited about what I can turn this class into.

Then, I needed to meet with my second-year students who are preparing for their final presentations. My favorite mistake was one point in a presentation about how to help impoverished children: "widen your arms for the poor children." It's not really that bad, but I had a sudden mental image of people working on fattening their arms for the sake of the poor children.

In the evening we went out for dinner as part of the ongoing series of pre-departure events for Morena. On the way, we passed a street that usually sells stuffed animals, but now was selling tiny Santa costumes. Apparently it is traditional in Vietnam to dress your children like Santa for Christmas. Trang also informed me that I look "charming, attractive, and sexy" when I wear a dress, but "mature and not at all sexy" when I wear a two-piece dress, aka shirt and skirt.

Note the future mini-Santa in the lower right corner

While some people waited for the food, some of us zipped over to the night market. My third time this week. I took the opportunity to take some photos of absurd English shirts. I tried to try on a pair of shorts, but the XL pair didn't make it too far past my knees. Sigh. At dinner I decided it was time to ask how to say 'bigger' and 'too small.'

"As described on the NASA Aquarius website, by measuring
ocean salinity from space, Aquarius will provide new insights..."

"Shocking new research: BEAUTYFUL"

Most eye conditions what?

Best news of the day: I have my passport back! With a proper visa!

Smell the roses

I've been dreaming about riding a bicycle. Two nights ago, however, I dreamed that I had to make a presentation about the degeneration of cartilage in the elderly. I had prepared my slides but I hadn't really rehearsed what I would say. I figured I could wing it. Naturally, when the time came, my slides were all out of order or not even the ones I had prepared. Some of them were in Italian. Some might have been in Vietnamese. There were complex diagrams I couldn't understand, let alone explain. After scrambling for a few minutes, I asked if I could make my presentation the next day, but she (whoever was in charge) said no. Plan B was to talk without visuals, since for some reason I felt very confident about my off-the-cuff knowledge of cartilagenous degeneration. But, I either woke up or my dream moved on.

I'm going to go ahead and attribute that dream to absorbed anxiety via my mom. She's arriving in hours (hours!) and in a few days she'll have to give a presentation about scientific research opportunities at the collegiate level, or something like that. Vietnam being Vietnam, the topic, date, duration, and number of this presentation(s) has been in flux for the last month. It seems that an official invitation has now been issued, so here's hoping it won't keep changing between now and Wednesday, the official date.

Last night I taught my English club students about Thanksgiving. At the end, I asked them to share what they were thankful for. The first answer I got was 'I am thankful for when my mom gives me money.' I guess I didn't do as good a job of explaining the 'big picture thankfulness' as I thought.

Today I was invited to attend a floral arranging competition. At some brief moment, it had been suggested that I participate as a competitor, but when I saw what the students were putting together, I realized I would have been blown out of the water. The participating students had to provide their own materials and were given less than 30 minutes to assemble their arrangements. I felt like I had fallen into a reality TV show. When the time was up, they each had a few minutes to give a speech about the theme and symbolism of their arrangement. The speeches took longer than the arranging.

This guy certainly didn't hurt the reality tv feeling

Below are the two that most impressed me. They got 3rd and 2nd place, respectively. I seriously doubt that many American college students could casually create something like this, especially with such a limited amount of time.

I'm headed to HCMC soon. I'll be there for the next few days, receiving my much-awaited guest and playing hostess/tour guide/travel agent. I can't wait!

Leave it to Trang

I thought I would have almost nothing to blog about today, but my night out with Trang provided more than enough blogging material. But let me start from the beginning.

It was a lazy day at the start. It seems like a miracle that I managed to sleep in both yesterday and today without anyone knocking on my door or any ambient noise disrupting my slumber. Late in the morning, Morena asked if I wanted to cook together today. I have been trying to get myself to cook for quite some time; I'd even bought some instant noodles (not the epitome of cooking, I know, but I thought if I broke the ice by boiling some water it would get me started) to no avail. Our cooking wasn't that big a deal, I ended up just frying some frozen spring rolls while Morena made the noodles with some carrots and eggs, but now that the ball is rolling I think maybe I'll cooking more. I can't cook less than I have been, anyway.

A beginner's feast

Nothing of note happened for the rest of the day until Trang took me out for dinner. We had bò lá lốp, grilled beef wrapped in leaves, wrapped in rice paper with more leaves and vermicelli and fruits like pineapple, starfruit, cucumber, and/or banana, and then dipped in fermented fish sauce. I think it is one of my favorite dishes. I learned that your skill in rolling the rice paper is used to evaluate you as a prospective daughter-in-law. I started the meal as unmarriageable and finished it as worthy bride material. After that we went for ché, the Vietnamese dessert that is not one of my favorite dishes. Today's variation was floating cake ché, ché with two balls of glutinous rice dough filled with green bean powder that float to the top when they're done cooking.

Bò lá lốp

Ché

Better than the second round of food was the second round of conversation. On the way there we passed a place called Café 666, and I explained to Trang that that number has a negative connotation in America. She explained to me that the Chinese word for 6 sounds like the Vietnamese word for luck, so it is a very good number here. We checked whether Trang had won anything with her lottery ticket, and then we bought two more. The roving lotto salespeople are extremely poor, as the tickets are their only source of income, so it is rude to flag them over to check your numbers and then not buy a new ticket. Trang told me that people often wait to check their numbers from the most miserable looking person. Trang told me that a few years ago one of the teachers bought six tickets and ended up getting the equivalent of about $35,000. I think my past posts suffice to explain how much money that is here. She told me that the night before he won he had a dream that he was bitten by a large dog and began bleeding heavily. I then discovered that this foretells very good luck. So does dreaming that you get something really dirty on you. So does dreaming that you are drowning. Dreaming that your tooth falls out foretells losing someone close to you. Talking about teeth turned conversation to the Tooth Fairy. Vietnam does not have a Tooth Fairy, but if you lose a tooth from your top jaw you put it under your bed so the new one will grow in straight, and if you lose one from your lower jaw you throw it on the roof so it will grow in straight. I love cultural exchange.

Welcoming committee member outside of my room.

Don't let the geckos fool you

Among the many tangled threads of last night's dream, I was riding my bike through the grass while wearing a conical hat. What do you think it means?

Today was another mostly uneventful day. I was teaching teachers and in the first class I had been asked to prepare images of works of art to have them compare and discuss. Before I started showing them the pictures I asked if any of them liked art. "Oh yes!" I got an enthusiastic reply from the front row. When I asked him what kind of art he liked, his reply was: "I like martial arts, like kung fu and tai kwon do." ... Not the reply I was expecting.

I teach another class in the afternoon, but by noon I still didn't know what teacher I was teaching with or what, if anything, I was expected to prepare. The thing about my Friday classes is that there are three different groups but I only teach two groups each Friday, so I rotate groups every week. I think the other teachers must rotate, too, because I am have yet to teach with the same teacher. Anyway, this meant that I didn't even know who to ask about what was expected of me. Luckily, I taught with Trang in the morning (after earlier in the week being told that I would teach with her, then being told that I wouldn't, and yesterday being told that in fact I would), and when I told her about my concerns regarding the afternoon class, she started making phone calls. At about 1:15 I got a phone call from the teacher I would be working with saying that she wanted to meet at two. To discuss the activities for the class that I was supposed to start teaching at two. Oookay. Two o'clock rolled around and when we met she had one activity sheet for me. Oh boy. By the teacher magic that lives up my metaphorical sleeves, I was able to extend the sheet into an hour-long lesson. Cue sigh of relief.

I have a confession to make: I watched more TV today. The other day I was looking for slow, easy songs to use for listening activities in my English class and I recalled the Whitney Houston song, 'I Will Always Love You,' from the movie 'The Bodyguard.' I was too young to see the movie when it came out, but not too young to play that song over and over on my tape player. Today, by some cosmic coincidence, the movie was showing on HBO, though I only caught the last 20 minutes or so. Later, 'The Truman Show' was on. I caught most of this one. Maybe I'll end up watching all of those movies that I should have seen at some point or another but never got around to. I am currently justifying my movie-watching with the fact that reading the Vietnamese subtitles is actually really helpful. It reinforces vocabulary and grammatical structures, and it is very exciting when I can identify how the individual Vietnamese words translate back into the English that I heard.

In the evening I took a walk for bánh ướt. The woman sells a few different things, but I only ever buy the bánh ướt (I'm pretty sure everything else is some variant on the evil fruit salad). By now she recognizes me, and waves me on if she's out of bánh ướt, as was the case a few nights ago, or smilingly greets me, as was the case tonight.

Auntie bánh ướt

On the way back I was keeping one eye on the traffic zooming past me in the dark and another on the signage around me, attempting to mentally practice pronunciation. Suddenly, to my surprise, a tone marker moved. It turned out it was a gecko.

Not xoá, just xoa+gecko

Rewiring

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman

Vietnam is starting to feel a little less foreign. I have finally edited my muscle memory to not reach for the faucet knob when I want to rinse my toothbrush. I filter out the cacophony of car and motorcycle and bus horns when I walk down the street -- sometimes to my almost detriment. Today is my last day of Vietnamese language class, and we have some kind of 'using your language skills in real-life situations' scavenger hunt in store for us. After this afternoon, all of our classes will be teacher training. While I certainly don't think I am fully equipped to fill my role as teacher, I feel even less prepared to successfully communicate in a city where I've been told I'll be the only westerner. I would much rather continue taking Vietnamese in the mornings, but so it is.

I have been under the weather for the last couple of days, but I think I am back up to speed. People could tell I was unwell because my usually voracious appetite was lacking. Speaking of appetite, an upside of being sick was that I discovered another dish: xôi gà, or sticky rice with shredded chicken. After a day of eating bananas and increasingly stale bread, it was exactly the simple, unthreatening but nourishing meal that the doctor ordered.

Yesterday I borrowed a CD of Vietnamese pop music from our language teacher. Last night I first dreamt one of the Vietnamese songs from the CD, but I think my subconscious substituted all of the lyrics with the few Vietnamese phrases I actually know. In my next dream I was teaching about 60 American kids about the US government or something, simultaneously troubleshooting for the fact that some of them were there with babies or getting into squabbles with their boyfriend/girlfriend. I guess my subconscious is trying to get ready for the next nine months.

Goodbye, say hello

It’s my last day. I’ve been thinking Friday, Friday, Friday, but today is my last day to get things done. As the day approaches, everyone’s first question has become, “Are you excited?”, but I know it is a rhetorical question. So I say yes, of course. But I don’t know if I am. I think I am so task oriented right now – I have been dreaming to-do lists – that I don’t have time or space for excitement. Maybe it’s that there is so much uncertainty I’m not sure what to be excited about, other than the great vague adventure I am sure awaits me.

Aside from all of the mundane daily preparations, which amount to driving a rut into the same streets several times a day, there have been the goodbyes. Having recently graduated, my friendships are already dispersed, so there are perhaps fewer goodbyes than usual, but that doesn’t make the remaining ones any less difficult. Saying goodbye is always the worst part of beginning an adventure. If I could fit everyone into my carry-on or give everyone a permanent portkey to wherever I am (I have been re-reading Harry Potter during my down time), I would have fewer qualms about my departure. But, as I am often reminded, the modern age is full of technological marvels, and as long as schedules can be arranged, contact can be maintained.

Whether you read every new post as soon as it is posted or check in every week or so, I appreciate your company. But here’s the thing: if you don’t tell me you’re reading, I won’t know it, so here comes a request. Leave me comments. Pick a reaction from the options at the bottom of the post. Send me emails. Send me postcards. Skype me. Keep in touch with me, whatever your communication style. As much as I’ll be trying to integrate into my new setting, don’t let me feel like I’ve been forgotten on the other side of the world. I’ll need your love and support.

T-minus 22 hours, 50 minutes, …

P.S. I have found a lucky penny almost every day since finding that $2 bill.

Orienting towards the Orient

Late Tuesday night (after spending a week in Guatemala and three and a half days in Boise), I arrived in Washington, DC for the Pre-Departure Orientation. Orientation didn’t start until Wednesday at 5, so I spent most of the day roaming DC, seeing Bo (the Obama’s dog) on the White House lawn, going to art museums, and getting caught in a downpour on my way back to the hotel. On Thursday, Fulbrighters headed for Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam spent more than twelve hours getting a crash-course in teacher training, bombarding the alumni with questions, and getting to know each other. That night I dreamt that I was riding up and down the hotel’s elevator trying to find someone who could answer some big Vietnam-related question that I can no longer remember. Friday was more of the same: more panels, more teacher-training, and more questions, and more network building before jetting back home.

After these few days, what is in store for me feels much less nebulous, much more real, and yet still inconceivable. Every assignment is unique, so as much as I would like to say that everything is clear now, I only understand a variety of possibilities regarding what I might be doing and how I might want to prepare.Probably the most valuable or important lessons from orientation had little to do with the scheduled activities. The beginning of this adventure has not been without its frustrations. This summer it felt like information came at a trickle, questions were not always answered promptly, and sometimes I was left feeling like a screwup. Surely I was the only one who was confused about what I was supposed to be doing and when. Talking to my ‘cohort’, I realized I was most certainly not the only one. In fact, compared to some people it could even be said that I was in good shape. Talking to my peers also gave me something to look forward to. We are a good group, and establishing that human connection eradicates one more element of mystery.

We’ll see each other again in two weeks. I’ll be landing in Vietnam in two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks until my life rotates 180 degrees and the only thing I can do is put one foot in front of the other. It feels like I’m making a huge, irreversible change. Ten months isn’t the rest of my life, but on this side of it it sure feels like a long time. I’m processing. I’m getting ready.