Lucky Turtle

This morning I woke up at 6:00 am and sent an email to my dean at Hobart. I really want to take five classes, because they all look so amazing. I then got dressed, got my egg sandwich, and headed to the ATM down the street. It wasn't working so I gave up and waited for our group of teachers in front the dorm. We caught the 31 bus at 7:00 am and got to school early. The bus was kind of exciting because some guy sneezed and a booger appeared on my leg that I had to wipe on a nearby fence. We then found our supervisors, Thuy and Huong, in the teacher's room and Huong told us we'd be teaching from 8-10:00 instead of our usual 7:30-8:45. She then took us across the street to get some bang bao (those fried balls of dough that you dip into condensed milk and savor forever). We talked about the successful Halloween party and then went back to the school. I taught with Jackie, as usual, and we worked on tongue twisters for a long time. We did a pretty good job of getting them to recognize the difference between the "s" sound and the "sh" sound. Today we noticed that the kids have actually markedly improved when pronouncing words in English. Thank God!

We left at 10:00 and found Thuy in the teacher's room again, where she gave us a dvd of the Halloween party. We then caught the 31 bus back to the dorm where I chilled in my room on the computer until it was time to get lunch. I was supposed to take a couple of girls to the post office and help them mail packages, but they weren't around. I called DiDi to inquire about her thesis defense she had to do this morning and was disappointed to find out that her professor didn't show up. She had to pay more money to change her flight and will present it tomorrow morning. At about 11:30 I went with Jackie and Leah to our rice buffet and then heard that one of our friends on this trip had yet another close friend from home pass away. We immediately went to the tiny grocery store around the corner to buy her some of her favorite foods. On the way back to the dorm we hit a toy store and I got her the cutest turtle stuffed animal. I was buying some more cumquats (and the other fruit lady took my change from the cumquat lady and just handed me one of her giant grapefruits) when Brittany and Meggie walked up with Eric, the guy we met last night. They were on their way to this close restaurant and I went and sat with them for a bit before going back to the dorm to make Meggie a turtle-shaped card with Hello Kitty drawn on the inside. We presented her with the gifts and she loved the turtle and immediately named him Ernest.

At 1:30, Jill and I took the 31 bus to the lake. I mailed my last package in record time- just under 20 minutes. I was going to walk to the bus stop, but it was so incredibly nice outside that instead I took out my camera and began to walk around the lake. I walked slowly, took lots of pictures, and had almost reached the bus stop when I saw a group of people crowding around one side of the lake. I walked up and asked what they were looking at and I was surprised when they told me that it was the big turtle of the lake! It's a gigantic turtle that rarely shows itself and I was so excited to be able to finally see it, especially since I had told our group that I would definitely see it while living here in Ha Noi. It's also so lucky to see it. Sure enough, I followed the trail of bubbles on the surface of the water and it would poke its head of the water to breathe about every 10 minutes. This one guy started talking to me in English and he was a really nice tour guide named Biet. After some time, we walked around to the other side of lake and watched the gathering onlookers and I took some really tiny pictures of him, since he was pretty far away in the water.

After a while we got tired of standing around and waiting for the turtle to surface and he took my on his xe may to Vincom Towers so I could find a track jacket like my students have. When we entered the mall and I finally explained to him what I wanted to find, he laughed and said I have to order it through the school itself. We visited the school uniform store and they didn't have any so we left at about 3:45. He then drove me back to my dorm and I went straight to Jackie's room to show her the turtle head pictures.

I have been writing blogs here in my room since about 4:30 and it's time for dinner. Hope you enjoy the stories and pictures from the last couple of days! :)