Skip to main content

Here and There

I've been teaching for a good amount of time, and the students still surprise me. This is a picture of class 6/1. I told them to bring clothes in for a fashion show, and without any reminders for an entire week, the kids were prepared. The student in the middle even went through the trouble of constructing an entire robot suit!

I could almost dedicate an entire post to all the funny and weird things I've seen in Vietnam. Here are a group of construction workers on lunch break outside the gym I go to.

I had the chance to visit one of those restaurants where you eat in the dark here. I think I was most amazed by how long we were at the restaurant. What with the pre-dinner "game," the seating preparation, and the very slow eating, we ended up spending almost two hours here!


 On a final note, I've discovered a new hobby/interest: art! I should mention one thing about these pictures: they were both drawn on my phone using my finger, not a pencil or stylus.

   


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chinese Chess - Cờ Tướng - 象棋

The latest interest I've taken in my quest to learn more about my Vietnamese heritage is the game of Chinese chess. It is a bit ironic to look for Vietnamese culture in a game that has the word "Chinese" in its name, but I found that it is only so for the sake of translation. I have taken to this game for a number of reasons. 1. The game has cool historical references that have survived even today. Let's start with the board itself. Unlike a chess board, which is played on the squares, Chinese chess is played on the intersections of lines.  What is most recognizably different from normal chess boards, however, is the large gap in the middle of the board as well as the lines that form an "x" on opposites sides of the board. The square that contains the "x" is known as the "fortress," or 宮(gōng )  in Chinese. The center divider is the river where s ome Chinese words are visible. The words on the left say,  楚河 (chǔ hé ) , mean...

As a person who's done a fair amount of traveling, I couldn't agree more with this:

Paradise Falls wouldn't even hold a candle to this place.

Waiting and Waiting

March 1st. Now every day for the next two weeks will be agonizing torture. Have I been accepted? Have I been rejected? Will my career advance? Will I be right back where I was this time last year? I've been told to be patient, keep my head up, to not worry about things that aren't in my control. That's tough going, but I'm trying. How apt, then, that I'd come across this quote again: “I wanted you to see what real courage is...It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” I thought my chances were small in the beginning, but I did see it through. Now back to waiting to see if this time is my "sometime."