My December

Hello, hello.

One of the gas companies here is Saigon Petro. It seems fitting, so I added a picture of the logo to the left.

Not much new to say really, but people keep clamoring for posts. I may have forgotten to mention that I started working at a third school, Vietnam National University. So, this is serious business. Same kinda stuff though, teaching lessons and getting students to talk English with each other a lot. I don't like the lesson books as much as at Elite. There aren't a lot of fun activities, and it's mostly centered around listening exercises. The one class I taught so far only had five people. Still, I bet I can think of some activities and games to make class more interesting.

I've been going out to karaoke a lot lately. They get a kick out of me singing in Vietnamese, and I can barely pronounce the words in time to the music, but it's alright. The collection of English songs they have mostly predate 1990, so the ideal songs to sing are the cheesy, over-the-top ones. Obviously, I showed off my Tom Jones impression.

I got a new roommate. And a toaster. He brought many things with him. But I especially am loving the toast.
He's a very cool guy, and I think we'll become friends as well as roommates. He's Vietnamese but very easy to talk to in English. He goes to work early every morning, so I feel like a bum since I usually get up around 11. He also goes on business trips a lot. Right now he's in the Philippines for the next few days.


And now, by popular demand, here is a picture of a recent energy drink which I consumed:



When I drank it, I briefly became a samurai. Then I reverted back to my normal self. It was actually pretty uneventful.

Farewell!

The 5th Post of the Month

Welcome to the Christmas season! Actually, with no buffer holidays like Halloween or Thanksgiving, Christmas decorations start popping up in October here. For a society with only a minority of Christians, they sure love Christmas here. It must be the commercialization of it, and how it's associated with American culture. At any rate, I bought my own 4 foot fake Christmas tree, and I'll be adding lights and ornaments another day. It's nice to have some festive charm in my house.

We all celebrated Thanksgiving here last Wednesday, with a complete meal delivered from an American restaurant. The turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing and everything was great, just like back home. Unfortunately, there was no football on TV. Not that I would really follow it or understand what was going on, but it is tradition.

I'm starting work this week at a new school, the Vietnam National University. So, I have yet another style of lesson to get used to, but the variety will keep things interesting. I think the university students will be that much more eager to learn, and many are probably hoping to study for some time in an English-speaking country. A lot of people go to Australia or New Zealand just because they're so close. That leaves them with an interesting accent, and vocabulary including "cheers" and "mate".

I was able to get 5 posts in this month, so that's an improvement! Hopefully more adventures await me in December.

I'm one third of the way through my overseas excursion.

Of Cockroaches and Kings

It's no secret that I hate bugs and small creatures.

The only ones I don't mind are the small geckos who live on the walls in my kitchen. They're very shy and run away when I turn on the light. I tolerate them because they eat all the little bugs and they look kinda cool.

It's a different story with Mortimer. This is the giant cockroach-like-insect who lives in my bathroom(s). I first met him when I lived in the bedroom down the hall and used the other bathroom. As I came in to brush my teeth, he poked his head out of the drain to say hello. I addressed the situation as I do any other, without any action but a determined staredown. He retreated to the safety of the pipes, and I brushed my teeth at a distance from the sink. I decided to name him something like Archibald or Seymour and I eventually settled on Mortimer. When I moved to the master bedroom, I thought I might never see him again, and I was glad. But tonight as I walked into my bathroom to take a shower, I found him scampering on the floor and I resumed my stare. It looked like he couldn't find a way out through a pipe this time, and he didn't fit through the drain on the floor. He was very shy, though, and dashed under a table. I had him cornered this time, and I was going to end things once and for all. I grabbed a box from my bedroom and wheeled the table to the side, which caused him to appear, terror in his eyes and trembling in his antennae and mandibles. I brought down the box on him and placed a sneaker on top, because I figured that the strength of an insect with a name like Mortimer should never be underestimated. He will spend the night in his airless prison and I'll have my maid dispatch of him tomorrow morning. It is very likely that she is less squeamish around bugs than I am.

That's all for today!

Teacher's day

On Thursday is Teacher's Day in Vietnam. It's kind of a big deal since teachers are traditionally given a lot of respect in this society. Students give presents like flowers to their teachers on this day, but I don't know if I'll be getting any gifts. My classes fluctuate too much from week to week, and on Thursday I'm filling in for a class I haven't taught before. Unless the students are so zealous about teacher's day that they bring gifts to class even when they don't know who the teacher will be, I won't be expecting anything, and I'm not that big into flowers anyway. It is kind of a good feeling to know that they have a day that honors teachers, since I suddenly randomly chose that job for the time being. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do after this, and the time is ticking on making a decision, since graduate school application deadlines are coming up.

A couple days ago I had a dinner party at my house with my fellow English teacher friends, and it was nice to see them again and act like a host. My maid prepared a lot of quesadilla mix, we fried them up and they came out delicious. I also kept things classy with a plate of brie cheese and crackers, because I couldn't find feta in the supermarket, and some cornichons. I always associate those things with the idea of a dinner party. I take great joy in planning things and getting all the details right and having everything go well. Maybe that's my calling: I can be a wedding planner, haha.

Tales from the Classroom

So much for new leaves.

Ants seem to be everywhere. Everywhere indoors, that is. I'll often see a stream of ants crawling up the walls in the kitchen, or crawling on the counter and threatening my dinner. And they often show up in my bedroom as well. I really can't understand. They're tiny and innocuous enough that it doesn't bother me too much. Still, it's unsettling. The ants must have discovered some tiny forgotten morsel of food. I kinda solved the mystery last night. In between teaching two classes, I went to the break room of the school and had a snack of fried rice. It was an interesting concoction, there were like 6 different kinds of meat inside, as well as bunch of other things. As I was wolfing this down, I dropped a small bean sprout or something on the floor and I didn't pick it up. About ten minutes later, I got up to get a drink of water, and I looked down at the floor in front of my chair. I observed a sea of ants emanating from a hole in the wall to the place where I dropped my piece of food. About halfway to the hole, a dozen or so ants were carrying the food, slowly inching it closer to their home. It was like an epic trophy that they were putting all their effort into recovering. It was partly disgusting and partly awe-inspiring.

Anyway, I wanted to share some stories from the classroom.
One of the classes I taught last week was incredibly raucous. Usually the students are relatively quiet and respectful, but sometimes they can get loud and out of hand. In America, I would just scream at them and strike fear in their hearts, but I've been warned not to yell in Asian classrooms. So I try a small hush and the few students who are watching me join in and eventually the class quiets down. Anyway, these guys were kinda out of control, and maybe it was the topic. We were talking about love, and since the students were all late teens or early 20's, it was a hot topic. One girl in particular was incredibly vocal. In one activity, they were practicing talking about likes and dislikes, and they had to write down things they liked and things they didn't, like countries, cities, food, music, etc. When we got to cities we didn't like, this girl kept yelling "HANOI! HANOI! HA-NOI!" And I said, ok, ok. When we got to food we liked, she kept yelling "KFC! KFC!"
Anyway, the topic got a little serious when I divided up the boys and girls and had them write the characteristics they look for in a member of the opposite sex. For some reason, the boys chose to list characteristics that pertained to this girl, and it was kinda funny and interesting to see what they wrote. They meant to say "talkative", but wrote "talk a tea", which is how they also say it since they don't pronounce final consonants. Well, I don't mean to make fun of them, I just find it interesting. So, the girl found out that they were talking about her but she wasn't too embarrassed. Next, she read what the girls were looking for in a man, and he had to be rich and handsome and tall. I asked them if any of the boys in the class fit the criteria, and they said "no, but maybe the teacher", so I assured them that I was not rich.

After that class, I taught a class where the topic was food. I asked them what food people eat on special occasions. I was expecting to hear something like cake. A girl tried to tell me something but I had trouble understand what she was saying, so she spelled it out for me. Even that didn't work, because they mix up how to say a lot of letters in English, like "g" and "j" and "z". Finally, I got all the letters correct and looked at what I had written on the board: dog. I laughed nervously as the students nodded.

Yesterday I taught two classes, and in one of them the power went out in the middle of the lesson. The students seemed content about the break in the lesson, but I took out my cell phone and used the flashlight function to read my book and keep asking questions, which was met with groans. The lack of A/C was starting to get to me, so I didn't think I'd be able to teach much longer in a dark, hot room, but luckily someone came up and flipped a switch to get the power going again.

I taught another class where they were reviewing for a test and had to go over a bunch of review questions. When of them was about goals in life. One girl stated that her goal was to make a lot of money, to which another replied that her goal was to find a rich husband, and the other girls smiled and nodded in agreement. For a non-capitalistic society, there sure is a lot of obsession with money.

In other news, I checked out a Greek restaurant here the other day. It wasn't exactly Greek, more Mediterranean, but it serves a lot of Greek dishes so I figured I'd give it a shot. The spanakopita is really good, at least. The gyros are nowhere near actual gyros, but as pita pockets filled with meat, they're alright. Uyen got moussaka, which I tried a taste of and it was alright. She really liked it. I've never been a big moussaka fan. For some reason, pasticio wasn't on the menu. They had a lot of dishes that sounded like shish kabob, skewered lamb and chicken and such. Baklava was on the dessert menu, but since I've been having a lot from what my parents sent me over the past few weeks, I didn't feel like trying it. I haven't ever really had bad baklava, honestly, so I don't see how they could screw it up. Overall, it's the best Greek food option in Ho Chi Minh City, so it will have to do.

Over and out.

Post-Brad

Now it's November, and looking back I made 11 posts in August, and 4 posts each in September and October, so I seriously slowed down to about a post a week. I'm hoping to turn over a new leaf in November.

So after some complications, my friend Brad was able to visit for a day, and it was nice seeing a familiar face. He was really enamored with the city, even though it rained most of the time he was here. We pretty much avoided all Vietnamese food and had a nice Italian dinner at Good Morning Vietnam. He enjoyed riding around on the back of my motorbike, dodging traffic and trying not to fall over at red lights. I wasn't used to having so much weight on my bike, so it took a lot of getting used to. We finally got the hang of it, though. We checked out the big outside market called Ben Thanh, which stays open really late, bought some cheap t-shirts and stuff. We also ended up buying some DVD's, I picked up seasons 1-2 of 30 Rock, which I look forward to watching every episode of. Uyen also met us for lunch at a French cafe type place that had good sandwiches and fruit shakes.

Then, I took Brad back to the airport to go back to Singapore, and I had to teach one class yesterday at a faraway campus. It went pretty well, though, and I feel that I'm getting the hang the lessons at Elite. I just wish I could teach the same classes every week and get to know my students better.

Luckily I started picking up some classes at a journalism school, whose name I don't really know for some reason. On Wednesday nights, I teach two classes back to back which are "interpretation classes". It's a different style where I work with a Vietnamese teacher to help the students understand a passage in English. This week, we had an interview with Bill Gates, where he talked about what it's like to be rich and what his work with Microsoft is like. The Vietnamese teacher read the class the interviewer's questions in Vietnamese, and one of them had to think and translate it into English. Then I would respond slowly in English, and one of them had to think and translate it into Vietnamese for the other teacher. So, since I don't know Vietnamese well enough, all I have to do is read the responses in English and the other teacher is the one who evaluates the students. Sometimes I also explain a word or phrase that they don't understand. So, it's kinda fun and easy. There are only a few students in the class, too. Wednesday night might be the night I look forward to in the week. If I don't start getting more classes from Elite, though, then I will have to look for yet another school to pick up classes at.

One complication came this week when my motorbike wouldn't work after my classes on Wednesday. It would start up, but if I gave it any gas it would shut off. It had plenty of gas, so I was stumped, and the guards kept trying to play with it and figure it out but they didn't know either. So, the next morning I called the place I rent my bike from, and they sent a couple people over to look at it and get it serviced. They fixed it and brought it back to my house, no charge. So, there's one bit of luck I've had.

In other news, now I've finished all the other books I brought, and it's time to delve into Don Quixote.

October Surprises (not really)

At the end of this week, it will be November. Can you believe it? I left home at the very end of July, and that's now three months ago.

I guess I have grown over the past few months. I've learned a lot about living on my own and juggling many different things. I've faced challenges, and I've been calm and optimistic when I face them. Ultimately, I am blessed to have family and friends who love and support me, enough food to eat, water to drink, a roof over my head. Those are the essentials, and so many people in the world are not as lucky as me to have them.

I picked up two more classes a week at another school, and they are TOEIC preparation courses. TOEIC is a test to see how well people in other countries can use English, in a business setting. They need native English speakers to help them with the speaking section, which apparently is not that important. So, it's kind of a low pressure thing. They didn't give me a book or anything, they just said I should prepare something on my own and teach it. So, I taught one class last week and I came up with some scenarios, like the students take on roles in a company and we meet at an annual business meeting and they have to give a little report on their performance at the company, and how what they're doing is helping make profits. So, I prepared these activities, then I came into the class and I found that there were only three students. That was interesting. But, it worked out, and I adjusted my lesson for them. It was easier in a way because I could cater to their individual needs. But it's also tough filling up an hour and a half with three people. Also, I know NOTHING about business.

Last weekend was fun, some of Uyen's friends were visiting from her hometown, and she invited me to hang out with them. One night I joined them at a karaoke bar, they had packed twenty or so people in a private room and were loudly belting out Vietnamese pop songs. People here usually seem quiet and reserved, but I guess if you give them a microphone they undergo a sudden transformation. I treated them to renditions of "Hello" by Lionel Ritchie, and of course "We Built this City on Rock N Roll". On Sunday night, we had a dinner at a nice place that was kinda outdoors, lots of trees and nice scenery around, like a tropical theme. I see many of these places around, but I'm scared to go in because they're usually full of large parties of locals. Anyway, now I was with the locals. The waiters kept bringing out ample dishes of different foods, chicken and squid and these fried rice ball things, and then this soup they cook in a hot pot in front of you and put meat and noodles in it. Everyone shares from the communal dishes, taking some food and putting it on their own plates. All the food was really good, and all the people were friendly and chatty. Some of her friends had studied in New Zealand and they were really good at English, so they kept talking to me about Vietnam and cultural differences and such.

Teaching in general has been going a lot better, and I've been preparing extra hard for all my classes and I try to make sure that when I wave goodbye to my students and they say "goodbye, teacher" everyone is all smiles. I talk as slow as possible in the lower level classes. The frustrating thing is that I wasn't evaluated after any of my classes last week, so the school didn't get a chance see that I had improved, and this week I was given pretty much the same amount of classes as last week. I guess the evaluations really are quite random, because I taught two classes yesterday and was evaluated after both of them. I felt confident about how I did, though.

My roommate told me that she wants to go back to Thailand, where she was studying before, and she will probably leave in the next week or so, so I'm looking for a new roommate, hopefully someone that Hien knows or someone connected with Languagecorps. I want to have someone who I can be sure will stay for several months.

Tomorrow my friend Brad is coming to visit, since he's already in this neck of the woods seeing his girlfriend who's working in Singapore. He's only spending basically two days and one night here, so I have to pack in the activities. I feel like I will be a horrible guide. I haven't even really explored half of the city. And most of the times I go out to dinner, I eat Western food, so if he wants some authentic Vietnamese then I'll have to think hard.

Then again... there is the delectable Banh Xeo... a wonderful omelette-y thing stuffed with meat and shrimp and veggies, and you wrap it up in lettuce and dip it in some sauce.
I forget that I'm horrible at describing things. Let's consult wikipedia on the topic:
Bánh xèo are Vietnamese crepe-type pancakes made out of rice flour, water and turmeric powder or coconut milk (in the Southern regions) stuffed with slivers of fatty pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts and is pan fried. Traditionally, they are served wrapped in mustard leaf, lettuce leaves, and stuffed with mint leaves, basil, fish leaf and/or other herbs, and dipped in a prepared nước mắm called nuoc cham (Vietnamese fish sauce thinned with water and lemon). In the Central region, the pancake is dipped in a special 'tuong' sauce which consists of liver, hoisin sauce and garlic. Southern style Bánh xèo are larger compared to the small pan-fried versions in the Central regions.

Sorry that I haven't been taking pictures. I'm kinda shy with my camera because I feel like if I take it out, I'll be labeled a tourist. I actually have some nice pictures of the Mekong Delta that I can upload next time I'm feeling bored. Maybe when Brad comes I'll have an excuse to take more pictures.

strikes and gutters

I've had some ups and downs recently. The good news is that I'm feeling better, so my tonsillitis seems to be all gone. Once I got the right medicine, it worked really quickly to make me feel better, so I'm grateful for that. Now I'm just trying to get things back to normal.

The problem I've had recently is not getting enough classes to teach. When I was sick, I had to cancel my classes, and then I assumed I would start getting a full schedule again, but my school told me that based on some negative feedback from students, they're going to cut my hours and see if I improve. Well, I understand they want to hold teachers to very high standards, but it's very difficult for me, money-wise, to only work for a few hours in a week. Having just this one job which fluctuates so much is really too unstable for me when I'm trying to pay the monthly bills, so now I'm looking into other places to teach. Some of the other teachers here have been working for Cleverlearn, so I'll look into that, but Graham says he's been placed in public schools for some classes out of the week, and they have no air-conditioning. Considering that I am a sweaty mess before I even enter the classroom, to teach without AC sounds cruel and unusual. What I also like about Elite is that the locations were all close by, so I'm hoping to find a place to teach that is in my part of the city. Since I already signed my contract with Elite, I believe I may be obligated to continue teaching there until next July, but as long as I get another job, I should be able to get up to my goal of 20-25 hours and it hopefully will be less stressful when I have some variety teaching in two different places. At this point, I wouldn't mind also teaching some classes in the morning. I haven't had to get up early at all in the past few weeks, and it's kinda nice but I also feel like I waste the day.

At any rate, I do want to get better at teaching. I feel like I may have been slacking lately, probably because I was still feeling the effects of my illness and exhaustion from the week before. As hard as it is to maintain, I have to keep a very slow and loud voice so that the lower-level students can understand me. Also, even if I'm feeling really uninspired and just want the students to talk with their partners, I do have to plan a fun, active game of some sort that lets them practice the language as much as possible. Some of the classes I taught complained that it was too boring. I guess I had gotten discouraged from trying to do activities that students didn't understand or were too shy to get involved in. But, I can't let it get me down. Being a former student, I know that few things in life are worse than a boring class. Even if it's discouraging, I have to keep some fun injected into the lesson, because after every class there is a possibility that someone from Elite will come in to ask the students how I did, so the key is to make every class a great class. Since I'm going to continue teaching at Elite, I have to keep this in mind so I can get more classes and possibly raises in the future.

As far as other little anecdotes go, I can't really think of anything. Yesterday, Uyen and I went to a place that had Bubble Tea, which I had previously fallen in love with in the States. She referred to it as milk tea, which confused me until I saw it and I realized what it was. Apparently they use "bubble tea" to refer to just another kind of iced fruity tea drink that's kinda bubbly. I looked into it, and Bubble Tea was invented in Taiwan and spread to the rest of east asia from there, and in Chinese it has the name "pearl milk tea", so I guess that's more accurate, but now it's popping up all over America, at least in cities where there are a lot of Asians, and everyone calls it Bubble Tea over there. Oh, for anyone who doesn't know, it's like a fruity cold tea drink that has little balls of tapioca in it, and you drink it with this big straw that lets you suck up the balls as you drink. It's a strange feeling but it's delicious and I hope to drink it more often. It only costs about a dollar.

They tell me that the rainy season is on its way out, but currently it's pouring rain. Hopefully it will let off before I go to work. The downside to driving a scooter is the only protection between you and the rain is a flimsy jacket or poncho that will inevitably still leave you wet.

sickness

For the past week, I've been very sick. I don't feel like writing much but I wanted to just give a quick update.

For a few days they didn't know what I had, and then a doctor examined me and said I have tonsillitis. This caused a fever, which has since gone down, and a horrible sore throat and cough, and nausea and stomacheache, and headache and dizziness. I had to cancel my class this week, except for one, and after I taught it I was completely exhausted. Elite has been understanding but wants me to get better. I don't like to disappoint them so I want to be better by Monday.

I've been taking a lot of medicine and resting but still not really feeling better. I feel alright when I'm lying down, but when I get up I feel weak and faint. The tonsillities caused low blood pressure, I guess, so I don't get enough blood going to my head.

This whole thing is very difficult and frustrating. I just want to be better.

Haircuts, etc.

I really should blog more often. I always come up with ideas of things I want to say when I'm out and about, then I get back to my computer and I can't remember them!

My biggest recurring observation though is just amazement at where I am and what I'm doing. When I'm coming home from work, I stop and say to myself, "wow, I am driving a motorbike down a very busy city street in southeast asia, wearing a shirt and tie because I have just been teaching twenty young Vietnamese people how to speak English." Years ago, I would not have predicted that this would be first job after college. I'm very pleased with how things turned out, though. I like getting into the routine of it, and the fact that living in a different country, driving a motorbike, interacting with new people every day has become part of a routine is a remarkable feeling. Some people get their thrills from doing all sorts of dangerous activities like bungie jumping or sky diving or mountain climbing. To me, the most exciting thing is when what was once exciting loses its excitement and becomes part of normality. To become so used to something that once was scary and unknown is a thrill to me. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else.

A few days ago, I went into the breakroom between two classes for a 15-minute respite and a snack. The room was crowded with Vietnamese teachers who teach English grammar to the students, whereas foreign teachers focus on speaking and pronunciation. There was one other American, though, and he immediately gave himself away as a typical American baffoon, in my opinion. Most of the English-speakers I have met in Vietnam have been British or Australian, so whenever I meet a fellow American it is a little exciting, but this teacher proved himself to represent all the negative stereotypes of our culture. He was a big guy, maybe in his 30's, and he was loudly regaling a Vietnamese teacher with a story, which I entered in the middle of. From what I gathered, he had been cut off twice by another motorbike driver, and he decided to punch him in the face. Presently he kept alternating between justifying his actions to his eager listener ("he cut me off. i had to punch him."), and commenting on the pain in his hand which was his own doing ("wow, it really hurts. i got him good!") The Vietnamese teacher who was listening kept smiling and nodding his head and asking questions, and I gazed disinterestedly on. For some unfathomable reason, I spoke, and the man immediately recognized that I was American and began bombarding me with the usual questions. Predictably, he scoffed and guffawed numerous times at my decision to major in philosophy, explaining to his audience that this field does not pay a lot of money and I would be in debt for the rest of my life. I reassured him that I was in fact going to be okay before slipping off to teach my next class.

In contrast, all the Vietnamese I have met have been exceedingly friendly, except for the crazy woman who tried to sell me two packs of gum at the zoo for $6. Everyone is very interested to hear about my life and why I came to Vietnam. One of my students in a class I taught yesterday lingered at the end of class and asked me "do you like coffee?" I responded that yes, yes I do, and he subsequently invited me to a coffeeshop, which was nice. He was 27 but looked younger than me, and we had a good conversation about anything and everything. He was very modest about his English, as all people here are, but I thought he spoke very well. The downside to this decision was that drinking coffee at 9:30 at night, especially strong Vietnamese coffee, ensured that I would not fall asleep until 4 in the morning, even after taking two Tylenol PM's. It wouldn't have been an issue if I hadn't had to wake up to be at school at 9am today to sign a contract. Which reminds me, Elite has asked me to... sign a contract! Which I guess means that I passed the trial period, they like me, and want to keep me as a teacher.

And now to the title of this blog post, the haircut. Yesterday I decided that my hair was too long, especially for this humid weather. I walked a few shops down the street to a hair salon. Every time I had walked past it, it was devoid of customers, but rife with employees, all female and wearing matching outfits. That seems to be a trend in places of business here. So, I started to turn into the salon, but one of the girls sprang up to open the door before I could even touch the handle. They were very excited to either see someone with my kind of hair or just plain have a customer. I don't know if they had ever cut curly hair before. I told them in Vietnamese to cut it short but not too short. They sat me down and bustled about, one girl getting the smock, one prepared to brush away hair that fell on the floor, and a woman a little older than the others readying her scissors. I think it was my first haircut without the use of an electric razor. She did pretty well for curly hair, but it turned out a little shorter than I'm used to. It's still alright, I can kinda push up the front and give it some style. At any rate, I think walking around will be a hundred times easier without a furry cap to trap in heat and moisture. After the haircut, they also gave me a nice shave. When it was over, they handed me the bill. It cost a whopping.... brace yourselves.... $3.75. I left a generous tip and skipped back to my house with a spring in my step.

Last week I woke up at 8am on Saturday to watch the presidential debate (9pm in America the night before). I'm trying to decide if I should do the same tomorrow for the VP debate, or just wake up later and watch the highlights. It is kind of exciting to see it live, though, and be one of the first to catch something interesting happen. Political debates are my football games.

This is Peter, saying Farewell from the Future.