Phew.

It's been an exhausting 24 hours, and I feel overwhelmed and stressed out and cranky and frustrated and an abundance of other negative emotions that I want to purge myself of as QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. (If it were not 10 PM I would totally go for a long run right now; I have a lot of negative energy and anxiety, and I want to get rid of it!)

Luckily, thanks to fellow Fulbrighter, Sasha, my geographical neighbor in Vinh City, and my saving grace for emotional validation, I was able to vent for 30 minutes via Skype. I feel so much better after an opportunity to commiserate with another Fulbrighter about the challenges of being here. What we are doing is NOT EASY. Just talking to Sasha put all of my frustration in perspective, and I'm feeling much more grounded and ready to enjoy a restful night's sleep because....

Tomorrow is the first day of class!!!!

Bring on tomorrow, the first day of my Fulbright teaching career. It will be difficult, exciting, rewarding, frustrating, hopeful, silly, and many other contradictory adjectives. Most of all, though, it will be eye-opening, and I hope that it will re-affirm the reason that I am here.

And why am I here? (It pays to remind myself once in a while)

"Communication is the key that can open any door that stands locked between two humans. While teaching English in Vietnam, I will offer University-level students the experience of multi-lingual communication as they prepare to enter into the global marketplace with these language skills. As a language student myself, I remember the frustration of conjugating the subjunctive and of forgetting key vocabulary words. I also remember certain language teachers who patiently guided me to the correct answers and reminded me that mistakes are expected in the learning process. As a tribute to those helpful mentors, I plan to provide this same sensitivity and understanding to my students to create a supportive learning environment. As a teacher, I believe that education should be fun and that mistakes can be humorous. I do not want my students to fear taking risks in the learning process because I believe that the most rewarding educational experiences come from stepping outside of one’s comfort zone." - an excerpt from my Fulbright application essay, 2010

So here's to a day filled with the risks, mistakes, embarrassment, and frustration of learning a new language, as well as the excitement and pride that go along with feeling a sense of mastery in spite of the errors. Most of all, I am ready for some true interpersonal communication, the real reason that I am in Vietnam on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship.

On days like today, when I want to throw in the towel and yell at everyone around me to just stop talking rapid Vietnamese and to just leave me alone for some peace and quiet, I will refer back to this post in order to remind myself that I AM HERE IN VIETNAM FOR A REASON. Nobody said that Fulbright was easy - in fact, everybody said quite the opposite and warned us that it might be one of the most challenging experiences of our lives.

As Sasha reminded me just now, these bad days will happen, and I have to accept them (and the ensuing frustration) as inevitable components of a larger process. Tomorrow will be better, and I am excited to meet my students.

Goodnight to all!!