Karaoke and Jenga. Wait, what?

Welcome to part 2 of Jefferson's weekend adventures!

After the fun of Tết Trung Thu, I woke up the next day to have lunch with three of my students, Xuyen, Trinh and Chau. They are all second-year students in two of my classes, and all three of them are very friendly. Xuyen is probably the most talkative, and Chau the loudest, but Trinh is also very nice in a queiter way. 

They took me to this absolutely delicious phở place near a small beautiful lake in Bến Tre that I didn't even know existed. The phở was just a little sweet, which made it taste perfect, a fantastic lunch. After lunch, the three of them took me to Ixigo coffee, a hip chain cafe that offers a Starbucks type atmosphere, as well as doing some pretty nice Italian Coffee. 

Xuyen, Trinh and Chau

With Trinh

With Xuyen

With Chau

We were just killing time, drinking coffee and hanging out. Someone mentioned that Chau had previously competed in the town beauty pageant, and she was a finalist. Chau is very tomboyish and did not strike me as the model type at all, so I was both surprised and quite impressed. 

At a certain point Xuyen's boyfriend Minh showed up, and it was at that point that Trinh wandered over with a box of games. In there were dominoes, cards, and Jenga. Jenga. Oh hell yes. 

Jenga games ensued, some more competitive than others

Chau got really into it

It was a very fun afternoon, and further proof that I have to spend more time with my students. 

Later that evening I met up with the teachers from the teachers' English Club. We got coffee at my favorite cafe, then went to eat duck at a local establishment. 

With most of the teachers in the English Club

After dinner, we all went to karaoke! My fellow teachers were nice enough to pick a location that had a  long list of English songs, so I was able to embarrass myself totally to the tune of Oasis, Backstreet Boys and Celine Dion. It was glorious and I regret none of it.

At the karaoke lounge

Singing a duet with Tho

I think this is our duet on "My Heart Will Go On." Don't judge me. 

With Kim Long

Thien tries to reach my height, with mixed resutls

With Tho 

It was so much fun, and I returned home fully exhausted but in such good spirits. Spending the weekend in Bến Tre was so much fun, and I feel like this weekend alone put me in a closer space with the people I live and work with. I'm very glad I stayed in Bến Tre this weekend, probably will be doing so more in the future!

Two not-so-fun notes from this weekend.

1. I got food poisoning. Bleh. Not worth going into details, but I spent most of this week teaching and recovering at the same time.

2. It keeps raining a lot. Like, a lot. Like, pouring buckets from the sky, every day, can't play any soccer at all. Not fun. 

Imagine this, but basically every afternoon. Great.

But on the bright side, my English Club, that I was hoping more people would come to? 

More people came! A combination of the first year students returning, the third year students not having a scheduling conflict anymore and Mr. Hoang borderline threatening his second year students into coming (i kid, i kid) meant that instead of the usual twelve students, I had forty. Whooo!

English Club today

So that's awesome! Now the goal is to keep them coming out as much as possible. 

This weekend I'm going off to Hanoi for the 20th anniversary gala of the Fulbright program! Super excited to see everybody again, especially the ETAs from the North who I haven't seen at all since August. Going to be awesome! Oh man I should probably pack.

Talk to you later!

Jefferson