Apologies for the lateness of this post,
I suppose now is as good a time as any to get into my workload. Around here, I'm teaching two 3rd year classes (listening and speaking), four 2nd year classes (two listening and two speaking classes) and two 1st year classes (two listening classes). Each class is an hour and a half long, so that ends up totaling at 12 hours of class a week. Add on two hours a week for each of my two English Clubs, one for teachers and one for students, and I'm sitting at exactly 16 hours of teaching a week.
Now, it's not really 16 hours of lesson planning a week, because I have two first year classes and two second year classes, so I can just reuse those lesson plans for later in the week. So when it comes time to plan, it's actually planning 11.5 hours of class a week. And I have a decent curriculum for each class, (although some are better than others), so I'm not working from scratch.
Still, for a new teacher, 16 hours of class feels like a lot sometimes. Now to be clear, I'm not being crazily overworked like some of the other ETAs, and having this much work is I think much better than being underused, which is happening to some of my other ETA friends. Frankly, in terms of the amount of work I have I think my situation is much better than that of most of my friends, so I feel a little bad about complaining.
But still, there is so much personal stuff I want to be doing that is gradually falling by the wayside. Going to the gym, working on my writing, sending out job applications for post-Fulbright, exploring Ben Tre, all of this is stuff that is tailing off, or that I have to fight tooth-and-nail to fit into my schedule. Even this blog, which I updated pretty religiously in Hanoi, has become something I can only do weekly, and even then it's a struggle sometimes. There are just so many days I come back from work, collapse exhausted, work through my lesson plan for the next day, and then go to bed before I remember I was supposed to go grocery shopping or something but there just wasn't any time.
And of course, the curse of being a teacher is that asking for a reduction in work is really hard. If I wanted to drop a class, which class would it be? Maybe the first year students, but then no, I would miss seeing Khanh and Dau and An. Maybe one of the second year classes? God, but then I would never see Quyen, An, or Truc. Okay, so the other second year class...no, damnit Kim and Truc are in that class. Gaah. Okay, maybe the third years--oh, Oanh, Mai, Quyen, Trang and Huong, who took you out to che and lunch twice? You're going to drop their class? Yeah, I didn't think so.
*Head meets desk
I'm not being incredibly overworked over here, I do have a lot of time to meet and make friends, and I've been able to get through this schedule so far. It's just, sometimes I feel like there is precious little me time around here.
Thanks for listening to me vent.
On to the week update!
On Thursday, after English Club finished I was invited to have che with the teachers from English Club. Unfortunately I had to bail early to go talk with my sister, but it was still a very nice invitation, and I hope it happens again this week!
The weekend began on Friday with me getting phở with Mr. Luan, Ms. Kim Long and Ms. Tien.
Mr. Luan is my supervisor and the man responsible for my activities over here, but I haven't really had much time to hang out with him. He's always really busy, and when he has invited me to go out and do something with him I am always busy. It was nice to go and spend some time with him, and with Kim Long and Tien who are incredibly helpful around the office. Also, none of them speak great English so they got some good English practice and I got to practice my Vietnamese as well. Everybody wins!
I was also told about a music show that would be happening in the evening, it was kind of unclear who would be performing or what the show was for. However, Mr. Luan asked me if I had anything planned for the evening, and when I responded that I had nothing planned, he suggested that I go. Well, why not?
I enjoyed the show thoroughly, all the student performers had a lot of enthusiasm and some of them had a lot of talent as well. The MCs did a nice job of working the crowd, and it was clear the other students were really into the performance as well.
After the show I was invited out to dinner with teachers from the pedagogy department, which was the unofficial sponsor of tonight's event. We all went out to get cháo vịt, or duck porridge. It was delicious, and it was great to meet a whole bunch of teachers who I don't normally spend very much time with. Furthermore, many fewer of these teachers speak much English, so I used my Vietnamese a lot more than I normally do. At a certain point one of the teachers pulled out a bottle of rượu.
Oh boy. I was told that this was rượu đế, or king's wine. Well, as dinner commenced the now familiar ritual of "drink a shot with various higher-ups" around the table began. Various teachers expressed admiration at my ability to drink, which I guess is good. They were also very complimentary of my Vietnamese, saying that they can't believe I've only been studying for two months. That was very nice of them to say, and I definitely feel much more comfortable in conversational situations now. Which is awesome.
At a certain point, the MC, who was dining with us, invited me to drink with him. Because he is still a student at Bến Tre College he was very deferential when he invited me. I'm so used to being the younger/less senior person at the table that it definitely felt odd being the senior one.
So my Friday was pretty entertaining, got very drunk with a new crew of friends.
Saturday morning I woke up very excited, because today Lindsay was coming to visit Bến Tre! Lindsay would be my first visitor in Bến Tre, so I was very excited to show her this town. I also frantically cleaned my room, because, you know, new visitor. So, with my room not necessarily sparkling but somewhere just shy of presentable, I welcomed Lindsay, her friend Annie, and two of their students to Bến Tre College.
After a short tour of the College we went out to Lăng Văn Cafe, my favorite cafe in Bến Tre. We got coffee and relaxed, talking about the past weekend in Hanoi and our respective lives at our universities. We also had a long discussion about Bến Tre's recent history and the development of the town, one of the students is from Bến Tre but chose to go to Tiền Giang University so she had an interesting perspective. We also heard some interesting travel recommendations, apparently Tra Vinh is a very interesting place to visit, with many beautiful lakes. It's always great talking to Lindsay and Annie, and it was pretty great introducing Mr. Vu to them as well.
For lunch we went to Truong Ky, a restaurant in the center of town. I like Truong Ky because it is one of the few nice restaurants that was open before the bridge was built. Truong Ky was here before Bến Tre's growth began, and it looks that way. The inside is clean and pristine, but it is all hard ceramic tiles and no-nonsense metal furniture. There is none of the spaciousness or flowery jungle/colonial architectural themes that you see in newer restaurants in Bến Tre. Truong Ky is about function and food first, with aesthetics a distant, distant second. Oh, and the food is delicious. They serve the best canh chua cá (a sweet and sour fish soup) I've had in Vietnam.
After lunch I wanted to take Annie and Lindsay to the market, but I realized as we were motoring through the town that the market really only gets bustling during the evening. We had to settle for a scenic ride along the river, with the brown river lazily flowing past us, a solid green wall of coconut trees on the other side.
Later we went to get smoothies at a cafe that Mr. Vu recommended.
It was a lot of fun seeing Lindsay and Annie, and I hope they'll visit again soon! Or, maybe I can go visit them in Tiền Giang.
Visiting them in Tiền Giang will be much easier because I now have an electric bike. Think of it as an electric scooter, it can go about 25-30 km/h, and it has a range of 20-25 km. It's a secondhand bike, but it has a new battery. It has enough juice to carry two people pretty easily, and it should have enough range for me to visit Tiền Giang.
I'm kind of in love with my new bike, it's so much easier to get around town now and this bike is actually large enough for me. I also feel like less of a tourist around here, because really only students use bikes to get around town. Now I can motor around with the locals and feel like I belong here. Oh, and because electric bikes are legally bicycles, I can zoom around in the insane Vietnamese traffic on a device that goes 30 km/h without getting a license! Wheeeeee!
After hanging out with Lindsay, I came back home intending to nap before lesson planning and dinner. Instead I ended up playing volleyball, drinking a lot of beer, going home to briefly rehydrate, and then drinking homemade rice wine. Oh well.
I got invited to drink with the mechanics, and those guys are absolute tanks. They work right next door to me and they are always very friendly, despite the fact that they all speak zero English. They also recently installed a new hot-water system for me, so I definitely owe them. I was really glad to spend more time with them, and it was definitely an experience to remember. I mean, how often will I be sitting on a concrete floor with Mr. Mung, Mr. Vu and Mr. Tung, (Mr. Lei is PTFO on the ground) while eating duck eggs and ramen washed down with shots of rice wine served out of a Sprite bottle? One for the memory book, that's for sure.
But still. Gaah. All of the hangovers.
On Sunday I had breakfast with one of my teachers and coffee with another student, I really am starting to feel very welcomed over here! People are much more comfortable inviting me to have breakfast, and coffee, and drink with them, and that is really really awesome. It's kind of isolating over here sometimes, so when people invite me out somewhere I really appreciate it and inevitably have a great time. Even if that invitation is to drink homemade rice wine out of a Sprite bottle.
I'll leave you all with one anecdote. At the end of the concert on Friday, as I was leaving to go to dinner, several students from one of the dance crew were excitedly taking pictures. These students were clearly all still running off the high from their performances, they were very happy and very excited, and they wanted to take all the pictures possible. These students were actually the dance crew that I enjoyed seeing the most, so when they asked if I wanted to take a picture, I said yes.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to get into my workload. Around here, I'm teaching two 3rd year classes (listening and speaking), four 2nd year classes (two listening and two speaking classes) and two 1st year classes (two listening classes). Each class is an hour and a half long, so that ends up totaling at 12 hours of class a week. Add on two hours a week for each of my two English Clubs, one for teachers and one for students, and I'm sitting at exactly 16 hours of teaching a week.
Now, it's not really 16 hours of lesson planning a week, because I have two first year classes and two second year classes, so I can just reuse those lesson plans for later in the week. So when it comes time to plan, it's actually planning 11.5 hours of class a week. And I have a decent curriculum for each class, (although some are better than others), so I'm not working from scratch.
Still, for a new teacher, 16 hours of class feels like a lot sometimes. Now to be clear, I'm not being crazily overworked like some of the other ETAs, and having this much work is I think much better than being underused, which is happening to some of my other ETA friends. Frankly, in terms of the amount of work I have I think my situation is much better than that of most of my friends, so I feel a little bad about complaining.
But still, there is so much personal stuff I want to be doing that is gradually falling by the wayside. Going to the gym, working on my writing, sending out job applications for post-Fulbright, exploring Ben Tre, all of this is stuff that is tailing off, or that I have to fight tooth-and-nail to fit into my schedule. Even this blog, which I updated pretty religiously in Hanoi, has become something I can only do weekly, and even then it's a struggle sometimes. There are just so many days I come back from work, collapse exhausted, work through my lesson plan for the next day, and then go to bed before I remember I was supposed to go grocery shopping or something but there just wasn't any time.
And of course, the curse of being a teacher is that asking for a reduction in work is really hard. If I wanted to drop a class, which class would it be? Maybe the first year students, but then no, I would miss seeing Khanh and Dau and An. Maybe one of the second year classes? God, but then I would never see Quyen, An, or Truc. Okay, so the other second year class...no, damnit Kim and Truc are in that class. Gaah. Okay, maybe the third years--oh, Oanh, Mai, Quyen, Trang and Huong, who took you out to che and lunch twice? You're going to drop their class? Yeah, I didn't think so.
*Head meets desk
I'm not being incredibly overworked over here, I do have a lot of time to meet and make friends, and I've been able to get through this schedule so far. It's just, sometimes I feel like there is precious little me time around here.
Thanks for listening to me vent.
On to the week update!
On Thursday, after English Club finished I was invited to have che with the teachers from English Club. Unfortunately I had to bail early to go talk with my sister, but it was still a very nice invitation, and I hope it happens again this week!
The weekend began on Friday with me getting phở with Mr. Luan, Ms. Kim Long and Ms. Tien.
Ms. Kim Long and Ms. Tien
Mr. Luan
I was also told about a music show that would be happening in the evening, it was kind of unclear who would be performing or what the show was for. However, Mr. Luan asked me if I had anything planned for the evening, and when I responded that I had nothing planned, he suggested that I go. Well, why not?
The first act I saw, two girls singing a beautiful duet
The music show was a concert put on by the 2nd and 3rd year students to welcome the first years to Bến Tre College. Presented by two MCs who were second year students, students performed a whole range of different songs and dances. As a teacher I got to sit in the front row and absorb the entire show.
The next act was a dance with girls wearing feathers in their hair
Then a girl sang a song that involved bicycles somehow? I don't really know. Two kids acted out a skit behind her.
The two MCs, I would meet the male one later.
Three girls singing about the areas of Vietnam while others danced in the background
Then a dance crew performed
Another girl with a beautiful voice
Then Dan, the MC, stept up to sing. You could hear hearts melt in the audience
The last dance crew
These guys were my favorites, they had the best choreography
After the show I was invited out to dinner with teachers from the pedagogy department, which was the unofficial sponsor of tonight's event. We all went out to get cháo vịt, or duck porridge. It was delicious, and it was great to meet a whole bunch of teachers who I don't normally spend very much time with. Furthermore, many fewer of these teachers speak much English, so I used my Vietnamese a lot more than I normally do. At a certain point one of the teachers pulled out a bottle of rượu.
Oh boy. I was told that this was rượu đế, or king's wine. Well, as dinner commenced the now familiar ritual of "drink a shot with various higher-ups" around the table began. Various teachers expressed admiration at my ability to drink, which I guess is good. They were also very complimentary of my Vietnamese, saying that they can't believe I've only been studying for two months. That was very nice of them to say, and I definitely feel much more comfortable in conversational situations now. Which is awesome.
At a certain point, the MC, who was dining with us, invited me to drink with him. Because he is still a student at Bến Tre College he was very deferential when he invited me. I'm so used to being the younger/less senior person at the table that it definitely felt odd being the senior one.
So my Friday was pretty entertaining, got very drunk with a new crew of friends.
Saturday morning I woke up very excited, because today Lindsay was coming to visit Bến Tre! Lindsay would be my first visitor in Bến Tre, so I was very excited to show her this town. I also frantically cleaned my room, because, you know, new visitor. So, with my room not necessarily sparkling but somewhere just shy of presentable, I welcomed Lindsay, her friend Annie, and two of their students to Bến Tre College.
After a short tour of the College we went out to Lăng Văn Cafe, my favorite cafe in Bến Tre. We got coffee and relaxed, talking about the past weekend in Hanoi and our respective lives at our universities. We also had a long discussion about Bến Tre's recent history and the development of the town, one of the students is from Bến Tre but chose to go to Tiền Giang University so she had an interesting perspective. We also heard some interesting travel recommendations, apparently Tra Vinh is a very interesting place to visit, with many beautiful lakes. It's always great talking to Lindsay and Annie, and it was pretty great introducing Mr. Vu to them as well.
For lunch we went to Truong Ky, a restaurant in the center of town. I like Truong Ky because it is one of the few nice restaurants that was open before the bridge was built. Truong Ky was here before Bến Tre's growth began, and it looks that way. The inside is clean and pristine, but it is all hard ceramic tiles and no-nonsense metal furniture. There is none of the spaciousness or flowery jungle/colonial architectural themes that you see in newer restaurants in Bến Tre. Truong Ky is about function and food first, with aesthetics a distant, distant second. Oh, and the food is delicious. They serve the best canh chua cá (a sweet and sour fish soup) I've had in Vietnam.
After lunch I wanted to take Annie and Lindsay to the market, but I realized as we were motoring through the town that the market really only gets bustling during the evening. We had to settle for a scenic ride along the river, with the brown river lazily flowing past us, a solid green wall of coconut trees on the other side.
Later we went to get smoothies at a cafe that Mr. Vu recommended.
Mr. Vu, the two students, Annie and Lindsay at the cafe
Classy gentlemen
Lindsay's students from Tiền Giang University
It was a lot of fun seeing Lindsay and Annie, and I hope they'll visit again soon! Or, maybe I can go visit them in Tiền Giang.
Visiting them in Tiền Giang will be much easier because I now have an electric bike. Think of it as an electric scooter, it can go about 25-30 km/h, and it has a range of 20-25 km. It's a secondhand bike, but it has a new battery. It has enough juice to carry two people pretty easily, and it should have enough range for me to visit Tiền Giang.
I'm kind of in love with my new bike, it's so much easier to get around town now and this bike is actually large enough for me. I also feel like less of a tourist around here, because really only students use bikes to get around town. Now I can motor around with the locals and feel like I belong here. Oh, and because electric bikes are legally bicycles, I can zoom around in the insane Vietnamese traffic on a device that goes 30 km/h without getting a license! Wheeeeee!
My electric bicycle
After hanging out with Lindsay, I came back home intending to nap before lesson planning and dinner. Instead I ended up playing volleyball, drinking a lot of beer, going home to briefly rehydrate, and then drinking homemade rice wine. Oh well.
I got invited to drink with the mechanics, and those guys are absolute tanks. They work right next door to me and they are always very friendly, despite the fact that they all speak zero English. They also recently installed a new hot-water system for me, so I definitely owe them. I was really glad to spend more time with them, and it was definitely an experience to remember. I mean, how often will I be sitting on a concrete floor with Mr. Mung, Mr. Vu and Mr. Tung, (Mr. Lei is PTFO on the ground) while eating duck eggs and ramen washed down with shots of rice wine served out of a Sprite bottle? One for the memory book, that's for sure.
But still. Gaah. All of the hangovers.
On Sunday I had breakfast with one of my teachers and coffee with another student, I really am starting to feel very welcomed over here! People are much more comfortable inviting me to have breakfast, and coffee, and drink with them, and that is really really awesome. It's kind of isolating over here sometimes, so when people invite me out somewhere I really appreciate it and inevitably have a great time. Even if that invitation is to drink homemade rice wine out of a Sprite bottle.
I'll leave you all with one anecdote. At the end of the concert on Friday, as I was leaving to go to dinner, several students from one of the dance crew were excitedly taking pictures. These students were clearly all still running off the high from their performances, they were very happy and very excited, and they wanted to take all the pictures possible. These students were actually the dance crew that I enjoyed seeing the most, so when they asked if I wanted to take a picture, I said yes.
With the dancers
These kids were so excited to be taking a picture with me that they kept wanting to take pictures, and they were a lot more forward about holding my arm, grabbing onto me, etc. The female students in particular kept giggling and shrieking and trying to hold onto my arms. At a certain point, we really had to go, so two male teachers in the pedagogy department (politely) pushed through the crowd, grabbed me and pulled me away, saying "Jefferson has to go eat dinner," "It's time for Jefferson to go," "Okay, Jefferson has to go."
To recap: I was pulled away from a screaming crowd of Vietnamese fangirls by my two companions. This actually happened.
There are definitely times that the constant attention gets grating, that you wish people would just leave you alone, that you feel like there's a spotlight on you all the time and you can't take it anymore.
But then there's Friday night, which was just plain awesome.
Peace out,
Jefferson is leaving the building
Believe me, managing work time, planning time, and me time gets a lot easier. I remember my first month I felt totally overwhelmed by my schedule, and it wasn't too long after that when I felt like I didn't have enough to do.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Truong Ky!!! So jealous. Absolutely the best canh chua, indeed.