English, English Everywhere!

Last night I walked home from the internet cafe and said hello to the iced coffee ladies. They motioned for me to come and sit with them and I did so. I told them I was going to teach English at the middle school tomorrow and they got all excited. I soon discovered this was because they wanted me to teach them English too! They took out a napkin and a pen and asked me in Vietnamese how to say things in English. It was so tiring because I had to translate things back and forth and spell in both languages. They asked me how to count to 20 as well as how to say "what do you want to drink?" "how old are you?" and "where are you from?" I wrote down the words in both languages and helped them to pronounce the words while they listened and wrote out the words phonetically on the same napkin. I taught them for about 45 minutes before telling them I had to go back to the dorm and study. Instead I watched the movie "Pan's Labyrinth" in the hallway with Meggie, Becca, and Irish. It was way too violent but I liked the ideas presented in the movie. Everyone thought it was funny that I instantly found all the Biblical allusions. When the movie ended I cuddled and talked with DiDi until 12:30 am, when I went up to my room and crashed.

After waking up at 8:00, Jill and I went and got egg sandwiches and ate them with our iced coffee ladies. They spoke to us in Vietnamese, as usual, as well as practicing some of the English I taught them last night. We then left for school and sat through two hours of Vietnamese language class. It was nothing special and I was feeling pretty bored until Tica suggested that we walk to the nearby shopping center and grab lunch. After class, Will, Tica, and I walked to the mall and got lunch on the way. I ordered tiny squid, tofu, and greens all over rice. We got lunch to go and walked to the fourth floor of the mall in order to eat and talk. The food was good and the squid had an interesting smooth texture. We then walked to the other side of the escalator and found some dessert, which for me was a small piece of some sort of chocolate pie. It was delicious and we finished our food and headed down a level to the Citimart grocery store. At 12:30, Tica and I caught xe-om's back to the dorm where I turned on my music and relaxed until I had to change for my internship.

At 1:30 pm, I met Jackie, Will, and Leah and we headed for the bus stop. The bus took us straight to our internship where we waited outside the big meeting room for the door to be unlocked. Unfortunately, our supervisors hadn't gotten some of our emails with the Halloween handouts attached, so we had to wing it. We ended up telling them all we knew about the holiday and its history and customs before resorting to telling a scary story, "The Headless Horseman," and acting it out. They loved that, though, and a few of the students even volunteered to act it out themselves while Leah narrated. Everybody seemed to be pretty entertained and then it was time to split into our smaller classes. From 3:00-4:45 pm, Jackie and I had them reading a short story aloud, doing tongue twisters, and playing hangman to improve their spelling. Before the students in our class left for the day, I had someone else take a picture of Jackie and me with our class.

Will and I walked to the closest bus stop and stood on the bus for about 20 minutes before deciding we had gone too far and needed to get off the bus. We then walked for about 20 minutes in the pouring rain only to discover that we should have stayed on the bus because we would have been taken straight to our dorm. I changed clothes and DiDi, Oliver, Dale, Will, Jill, and I went out to dinner at this local place at which I had never eaten. It was a huge buffet where you get a plate of rice and then point out to the servers which meats and veggies you want. I got some usual food and topped it off with some deep fried bugs. I think they were grubs. I finally persuaded DiDi to try one of them and she had to walk outside and spit it out. We finished our food and walked the next block over to the American ice cream place. I greeted the guy who is always working there and he quickly made me my mint chocolate chip ice scoop on a cone. We then walked back to the dorm in the pouring rain. I changed my clothes yet again and ventured downstairs to Leah and Jackie's room, where they get minimal internet. I watched the newest episode of the tv show "House" on Leah's computer and it made me remember watching it with the Asian House and with Andy. The episode was highly entertaining, as usual, and since then I've been signing onto the internet whenever it kicks me off and playing Text Twist.

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