Is it December 6th Yet?

Last night, I cuddled with DiDi and talked to her about the U.S. and other stuff. It's always the highlight of my day. She sent me to bed at 11:00 because I had to teach early this morning.

I woke up at 6:45 am and threw on nice khakis and a polo. I then grabbed my bike and rode into the morning rush hour traffic. Passing the school at 7:10, I couldn't cross the 45 lanes of motorbike traffic to take the left-hand turn into the school. I figured I would just go around the block and catch it the next time. Unfortuantely, I had forgotten about the numerous one-way streets in Vietnam. I ended up going a few blocks too far because they were all one-way streets and by the time 7:25 rolled around, I was still asking for directions to the school in Vietnamese. I knew I was very close to the school so it was frustrating to know that I was probably riding around it in giant circles. Finally finding a large taxi, I threw my bike in and had him take me straight to the school. I gave him a bit extra for putting down all the seats in order to fit my bike in his taxi and got to school 10 minutes late. In this country, I feel like I'm always going three steps forward only to get set back a step or two.

Teaching went well and we worked on saying some tongue twisters and then reading a short story aloud. It's very difficult to discern and track their individual progress in terms of pronunciation of English sounds and words, so I have to work out a reliable and accurate system for that. I taught with Jackie from 7:45-9 and then we were taken out to breakfast across the street from the school. Our supervisor Thuy talked with us about the classes and the Halloween party that we must explain, plan, and execute for about 200 students. Then we headed back across the street in order to meet Thuy's older class since they'll all be attending the Halloween party as well. They don't really need the help with their English, so this was the first time we've met them. Some of them insisted they dance and sing for us and they were talented. Four boys got up and sang "Let It Be" by the Beatles and I'm posting the short video I took of the performance

We then sang "Build Me Up Buttercup" and the class loved it. We said goodbye to them after about half an hour and Will drove me home on my own bike. It was a lot of fun, as usual. I guess it's a rare sight to see two Americans on one bike. :)

We got back to the dorm at about 11:00 and I dropped off my stuff in my room and met Jackie, Will, and Leah at the ice cream place down the road. I had mint chocolate chip and it was exactly what I needed. I then stopped at the iced coffee ladies' shop for my coffee and Vietnamese banter.

Back at the room again, I wrote a journal entry for my class about the Amazing Race: Hanoi that took place yesterday. I then napped in the glorious ice box that is our room from about 12:30-2:00 pm. I woke up to the cleaning ladies knocking on our door. That was good, since I needed to personally ask them for more toilet paper. They keep leaving us with the same empty cardboard roll we started with at the beginning of the day. I went downstairs and discovered that people were on the wireless internet that was just installed in our dorm! I was so excited and bounded up to my room in order to check the signal strength. What a mistake that was. Apparently, the router for the wireless internet was installed in the middle of the second floor, where everyone else in our group lives except for me and three other people. I do not have the wireless in my room because the signal doesn't reach that far. I'm not even sure the problem will be fixed at all so I guess I'll spend time in my friends' rooms or be at the internet cafe every day as usual.

I listened to music, played games, and took pictures of people playing games outside for a couple of hours. Then DiDi came and found me and we went to dinner with a couple of other people at 6:30. I had fried rice and it was decent. Then I walked one street over to the internet cafe at 7:30. The rest of the English teachers from my group came and met here to discuss and begin to plan the Halloween party for our students and that lasted from about 8:15-8:45 pm.

It's time to go back and shower and go to bed. I have adjusted the settings on my blog so nobody needs to sign in to Google or create an account to be able to post comments. So go crazy! :)