I worked in the morning, preparing my middle school students
for their listening and speaking exams. I had such a great conversation with a
couple of my students after school – they were so sweet and told me that they
really liked my teaching and thought that the previous teachers didn’t care at
all about them or how much they learned – they would just play non-educational
games, let them chat or would just distribute handouts and be on his phone or
laptop while they “pretended to work” or outright chatted. We talked a lot about cultural differences
between countries, education, their goals/dreams in life, where they want to
travel and they even gave me some advice for living in Vietnam! What wonderful
students J I
feel so lucky.
Walking home, I had to stop and relax in the park for a bit
because the midday sun was so strong. I
saw a man doing pushups, a woman in a traditional Vietnamese hat meditating in
the gardens, couples chatting on benches and locals reading on their siesta
lunch breaks. I also watched as some
Vietnamese visited the park’s Buddhist temple.
Patrick and I made egg and
sausage sandwiches for lunch and made our first Vietnamese iced coffee. Nestle is the brand – and yes, it’s instant,
but surprisingly good! It’s different here. Quite strong! We played Monopoly during our siesta to avoid
the heat and did a bit of lesson-planning and watched a neat tv documentary
about Japan, reminiscing! I also got
another private student (a medical student who wants to learn English), so that’s
good news!
In the evening, we both worked
and then afterwards, I met a Vietnamese woman who owns a private English
language centre... and... She has hired me to teach a few of her classes!:
IELTS to high school/university students as well as listening/speaking to grade 11s, 9s and 8s.
I spent the rest of the evening
lesson-planning for my first Kindergarten classes (I start in a public
kindergarten this week working 3 hours per week). Talk about getting a variety of teaching
experiences here! I also surprised my Grandma in Canada by calling her via
Skype to catch-up with her!
...
But now for what you’ve been waiting for... Here’s my dish
of the day:
It’s called Bánh
tráng trộn. The best way to
describe it is as a “Rice Paper Salad”. It’s
definitely one of the most unusual things I’ve tried here thus far. It’s eaten out of a bag with chopsticks. It’s basically a mix of:
-
Rice paper sheets that have been cut into strips
-
Cilantro and sometimes other herbs
-
Lots of peanuts
-
Julienned green mango (unripe)
-
Dried ingredients: fish flakes, dried shrimp,
dried beef (think: shredded beef jerky)
-
Hot Chili oil/sauce
-
Shrimp sauce
-
A dark sauce made of: Soy sauce, sugar and
vinegar
-
Quail eggs (I got 2!)
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