My Teaching Assignment for 2013 - 2014

After spending over a year and a half in kindergarten, I decided that I wanted a new challenge and requested a higher grade level for the upcoming school year.  I thought that I wanted either 4th, 5th or 6th grade but after arriving here and discovering that 1st-5th grade and 6th-11th grade are in two separate schools, I had to alter my decisions.  Since 4th and 5th grade are in the primary school, if I put in a request to be in the primary school, I would risk being placed in one of the youngest grades if there weren't openings in 4th or 5th.  So I changed my mind after spending a bit of summer school teaching 6th grade and really liking it, I decided to put in my request for secondary school (6th-11th grade) and ranked 6th grade as my first choice.  Got my teaching assignment yesterday and turns out I'll be teaching three levels of 7th grade ESL, two levels of 7th grade Reading and Writing, and 10th grade PE.  I will also be running tutoring sessions and club activities that I have yet to find out about yet.  Sweet!  Except for the fact that I've never taught 7th grade and am not really qualified to do so.  The new school year starts in five days and I've got to try to figure out what the heck I'm going to do...

Side note, apparently there are 500 teachers at this school...no way I will ever know everyone

Hospital Visit

Due to the fact that I am living in a communist country, I am not allowed to say anything bad about the country, government, etc in public or on any social media sites.  I have signed a contract agreeing to that so I will try to spin everything in this entry in a positive way...

Yesterday we spent the day at the St. Paul's Public Hospital in Hanoi getting all of our medical tests and papers signed for our work permits.  It was my first moment of culture shock walking through that hospital compound.  I realize now I had been completely spoiled with the hospitals and medical care in Thailand and also with the bits of English that a lot of people spoke where I last lived.  I was literally about to have an anxiety attack sitting in the hospital yesterday thinking about all the times that I had to go to the hospital in Thailand and praying that I wouldn't get sick like that again and would never have to see the insides of this hospital again.  I guess what scared me the most is that nothing was written in English, no one spoke English and I'm a spoiled American and am used to clean and organized medical facilities.  I put my iPod in and listened to some soothing music to stay chilled out while I waited to pee in a cup, get my blood draw, see the dentist (and have him put the same tools in my mouth as he used on my friend Lauren before me), see the ENT, see two different eye doctors, get an x-ray on my chest (I won't even begin to discuss what the x-ray department looked like), see the regular physician, and have our papers signed by at least 10 different people.  All the while, I saw a whole lot of sick people wandering the halls, a lady with a Dumbledore hand, and a man who may or may not have been dead coming in from what looked like a motorbike accident and Lauren and I had to squeeze up against a wall while he was wheeled past.  It was so much easier in Thailand where I just had to go to doctor's office that my school recommended and pay them $3.25 to sign off on my medical papers for my work permit saying I had all of my tests done.  At least the system seems to be pretty legit here...

(One of my friends just put a video up of our visit... https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RnobFCU1J2M )

I may or may not have mentioned before that Vietnamese people don't like to wait and have zero patience.  This carried over very clearly into the hospital as people just wandered around trying to find doctors to serve them or walked in on other people's appointments and just stood there waiting to be served.  There was no rhyme or reason to anything that I could see and it was totally bizarre to me.  Can you imagine just walking into an appointment room whenever you felt like and shoving papers in the doctor's face in order to get a turn with them?  I guess it's good that I went with a Vietnamese woman this first time who came to help us so I know how it works because if I just went by myself for the first time, I would literally be waiting for hours to be called and would never actually get called. 

I know the hospitals could be much much much worse and I'm very lucky that this hospital has good resources but I left there never wanting to get on my motorbike again in fear that I would end up in the hospital to get treated if/when I get in an accident.  I made my whole group promise each other that no one would ever let another person go there alone and hopefully no one gets sick or anything for the entire year!  Wishful thinking I know...

Halong Bay

Two weeks into orientation, we were given a weekend trip to Halong Bay, courtesy of our WorldTeach program.  It's a 4-5 hour bus ride outside of Hanoi and if you have never heard of Halong Bay, look it up as it is one of the prettiest and most unique places that I have ever been.  I visited it last time I was in Hanoi and did a 3 day trip and spent one night on a boat and another night on a private island.  Of course, there was no way that could be topped with our strict budget and limited time frame but 2 days was good enough this time around.  

I last sailed Halong Bay in October 2012, and since then it has been deemed one of the 7 New Natural Wonders of the World as of January 2013.  I'm not sure if this has affected the tourism rate of the Bay but it certainly seems like it.  Instead of arriving at a normal, dirty port with little shops around it, we arrived at a shiny, new port with a large entrance building, fancy restaurants and brand new strips of condos lining the harbor.  Not sure why anyone would want a condo right where thousands of tourists pour in and out of every day and the air pollution is crap but who knows, they are building them anyways.  There were literally red carpets rolled out for people to walk on before boarding the taxi boats to take them out to the bigger boats.  Before we half wadded into the water and prayed to not fall in completely while jumping into the small boats.  I actually thought we were at the wrong port because it looked so different than just nine months earlier.   Also, since the Bay has been named a New Wonder of the World (which they are VERY proud of), the government decided that all boats that sail Halong Bay must be painted white instead of the array of colors they were painted in the past.  

We had a great weekend away from the city.  We kayaked, hiked, explored caves, went swimming and sang a lot of karaoke on the boat (it's a Vietnamese obsession).  I managed to not get stung by a massive jellyfish this time around so that was a huge plus.  We also ate a lot of seafood!  I was so excited for this #1 because I remember how good the seafood was last time and #2 because the food we've been eating at the school's canteen is disgusting, which is too bad because Vietnamese food is so good when it's prepared nicely.   The food on the boat was good, it was just too bad that everything was very fried.  Even the corn they served was fried.  I am going to get so chubby again.

I was very sad to see all of the pollution in the Bay that I never remember seeing last time and I wonder if it's from the increase in floating villages and the increase in tourism. However, as long as they keep the islands in the Bay clear of hotels or resorts, hopefully it will not lose it's natural beauty.  Mom and Dad, I'll be sending you guys out here when you come visit ;)  

WorldTeach Vietnam getting ready to kayak

That's me jumping off the top of the boat

Massive cave #3

View from the top of our hike

Our boat

A Perk of Being "Big" in Vietnam

I didn't bring many nice clothes over here because I knew that they would get ruined by the weather and the laundry machines and the dirt from the roads.  So I wanted to do a little shopping to get some plain, nice shirts that I could wear for work and not care if I ruined them.  Little did I know that being my size and that I don't wear skin tight clothes would benefit my wallet here!   In comparison to most Vietnamese women, I'm relatively tall and the curvy feature doesn't exactly exist over here.  While at Big C, we found ourselves sifting through random buckets of clothes not really looking at the prices.  We then realized the clothes in the buckets were on sale because there were only larges left...I said ehhhhh oh well and turned to walk away when I looked at a shirt, held it up and was like, "THIS IS A LARGE?! This is awesome!"  Turns out, I'm a size L in this country and I proceeded to get 3 really soft shirts and two random dresses for a grand total of $13.96...Who cares that the stripes on one of the dresses are kind of crooked and the shirts are a bit baggy, it's all about character right?

Xin chào! (Hello!)

First week of Orientation is done and I've just started week two... Haven't written on here because the internet tends to go out at night and it wasn't working all weekend and those are my down times.  We haven't had any problems with losing electricity but we've lost running water twice in the past week, just for a short time though.  No warm or hot water in the showers and the realization that I'm not going to have a warm shower for a whole year is kind of sad!  I'm settled into my room and have gone to Big C (Asia's version of Wal-mart) twice to get stuff for my room and bathroom and also to get comfort food.  I'm not really into eating pork noodle soup for breakfast every morning so I had to get some too expensive cereal, soy milk, crackers and peanut butter and jelly to keep me happy.   But good news is, yogurt is cheap cheap! Only ten cents a yogurt....

Nothing crazy to report, just lots of class sessions about teaching styles, lesson planning, classroom management, grammer review and things like that as well as an hour and a half of Vietnamese lessons every day.  We definitely need these lessons because no one speaks English where we live and in the surrounding neighborhoods.  It's amazing though because we are only 2 km from the center of Hanoi's Old Quarter where most everyone speaks a bit of English but the second you cross the bridge over the river, nothing.  No Westerners, no English, and when we take walks, locals stare with mouths wide open probably thinking, why are there white people wandering the streets around here??  They'll get used to us.  

 A few of us took a sunrise walk the other morning to explore the area to the left of our compound and found a lake, some French inspired housing architecture and a large morning market complete with fresh fruits and veggies, fish, skinned ducks, chickens being gutted right there and lots of other random food items.  We didn't try to buy anything though because zero English on their part and zero Vietnamese on our part just wouldn't have worked out.   We are really trying hard to learn our numbers and survival phrases but the tone of the language is so hard!  For example, dưa means melon, dừa means coconut and dứa means pineapple.  It's all about the tonality of the way you say it and westerners just don't have the ear for it for the Vietnamese do. 

I've been taking cabs everywhere because they are so cheap but I am hoping to get a motorbike this week.  Then I'll be able to get out out of the compound whenever I want and do my own things like join a gym, go shopping and explore myself instead of relying on other people or going through the effort of trying to sign language to a taxi driver and hoping he understands.  Overall, it's been a good week and it feels like I've already been here a while.  We've been working hard and WorldTeach has given us a weekend trip away to Halong Bay this coming weekend, so everyone is excited about that.  Hopefully the rain holds off!

Good Morning, Vietnam

Well I made it to Vietnam and pretty much all I can think about right now is how hungry I am.  I think they have forgotten that I have zero clue where I am and have no idea how to get to a market or food store and I AM STARVINGGGG.   I took me like 6 hours to find water and now I am rationing that until I can find some more.  Okay I’m kind of exaggerating but not really.  I flew in yesterday and after waiting an hour and a half in the line to get my passport stamped, I was convinced that whoever was picking me up had left until a tiny man started waving a piece of paper in my face with “WorldTeach” on it.   Made the drive from the airport to the school and all I could think the whole ride was I AM SO HAPPY TO BE BACK.   During the 20 hours that it took me to get from San Fran to Hanoi, I kept waiting to get nervous or feel anxious but it never happened. 

View into my room from the doorway, bathroom to the left

Arrived at school and was brought to my room on campus which is actually very nice.  It’s on the fourth floor and is very large with high ceilings.  I have a double bed, a little balcony, AC and my own bathroom and they provided bedding and towels.  I looked over my balcony and was glad to see that my view was rice patties to the left and a tin roof shanty town/market to the right with the city in the background.  Helps keep things in perspective as I sleep in my gated compound with running water and electricity that’s guarded 24/7.  The school/my home is in a poor Vietnamese neighborhood that is a few kilometers from the Old Quarter Hanoi.  The common room is next door to my room and hopefully when they get the internet working, I’ll be able to get it from my room.  The common room also doubles as the “kitchen” which isn’t actually a kitchen.  It’s a fridge, a toaster and a hotpot burner (for 8 people).  We’re going to try to work on that.  I spent the next five hours unpacking and organizing and then took a three hour nap to try to avoid how hungry I was.  It worked and woke up for a 7 pm dinner with two of the Vietnamese teachers, their husbands and the head teacher in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, which is over the Red River from where the school is.  It was really nice for them to take me out and I’m sure they will help as I try to figure things out here.   One of the husbands is actually flying to Boston today so we exchanged some dollars for dong (the Vietnamese currency) so that was nice.

Right now it’s the morning of Day Two and I’m waiting to go to the airport to get one of the other WorldTeach teachers who is flying in from New Zealand.  The rest of the group is supposed to get here tonight BUT the plane they are supposed to fly out on is the Asiana plane that just crashed in San Francisco coming in from Seoul.  However, apparently they got on a flight so will be here tonight.  Orientation starts in the morning and below are some pictures of my room and views.

P.S.  Since I wrote this and found internet, they have provided our common room with a jug of water, fixed the internet and I was given lunch in the school cafeteria.  I  was told that I was eating chicken until I looked a little closer and asked again, “This is chicken?” and was told, “Oh no no that is frog.  We like to farm frogs, don’t worry it’s not the frogs you see in the streets.  Eat Eat!”   I tried my hardest to eat it but there were so many bones and little fried feet that I stuck to fried egg and watermelon instead.   Was invited back to this man Victor’s office, I kind of think he’s my boss? and we drank green tea and had a lengthy discussion about how there are 90 million people in Vietnam and 150 million Sim cards and how I should get at least two phones and a few different sim cards while I am here to be like the Vietnamese.

Brought CVS to Vietnam

Views from my balcony

The plan was to move to Honduras but......

INSTEAD I'M MOVING TO VIETNAM.....

I have no idea when/how I became the type of person to drop my life and move across the world but I'm doing it again and I am so excited.  First, Thailand and now Vietnam.  If you are wondering how I got to this place in my life and whatever happened to my time in Thailand, please read my "Sawadee Ka Noodle Nonsense (and March 2012)" post.   When I was writing that post and the ones that followed it, I had full intentions on moving to Honduras in August and teaching 5th grade at a bilingual school in the mountains of Juticalpa.  Then the month of May arrived and I was called about a fellowship in Kigali, Rwanda that I had applied for months earlier.  I spent the entire month going through rounds and rounds of skype interviews and projects and they went so far as to call my references in Thailand and in Boston.  I was supposed to find out the last day of May but didn't hear from them.  Instead the last day of May, I was contacted by the director of WorldTeach saying they had just got funding for a program in Vietnam and needed people asap and asked if I wanted to be considered for it.  (After I got rejected from their Bangladesh program in the beginning of March, they asked if I wanted to be considered for their China or their Colombia program and I said no thank you and committed to Honduras instead). 
Anyways, I said yes I'd like to be considered and ended up getting that position the same day I got rejected from Rwanda at the beginning of June.  I decided I'd rather go to Vietnam than Honduras due to a number of different reasons so I'm en route to SE Asia right now!  I had a whirlwind last three weeks trying to get everything together and come to terms with my last minute switch but I'm pretty sure that I made the right decision.  Instead of moving to Central America in August, I got on a plane two hours after school ended for the year in Andover and am now headed to Vietnam.  This has all been so last minute that I don't even know what I'll be teaching or what grade or where I'll be living.  WorldTeach found six other people who were also crazy enough to drop their lives and move to Hanoi so I'm not totally alone in this. 

I just spent an amazing week in San Francisco with Jen and Ryan and am now in the airport waiting for my 1:30 am flight to Taipei.  I don't have any idea what my internet access will be like in Hanoi but I am going to make an effort to try to keep this up because I know my family worries about me wandering the world.   I visited Hanoi back in October and I know there are internet cafes and restaurants with wifi but it will probably take me a few weeks to get my bearings and figure out how to get from place to places.  

I've got a one-way ticket and it's time to say, Goodbye America!

Last dinner...homemade Italian of course

Happy ____ for all the holidays I'm going to miss...THANKS JEN YOU'RE THE BEST!