Back to school

Meet Henry the Heater, my new best friend for the next few months (apparently Ha Tinh has at least two more months of winter- greeeeeeeat). Forgive me, dear readers, if I begin to attribute Henry with emotions and personality characteristics, but he really is my saving grace and my lifeline.

Today Mr. Duc took me to an electronics shop where we bought this heater as well as a new lamp (to replace the one that broke a few months ago). While the heater cost much more than I was anticipating ($40 as compared to Mr. Duc's initial estimate of $15), he reassured me that it was the safest one in the store, and was made in Vietnam, as opposed to the dreaded and unreliable manufacturing neighbor to the north (who remains nameless but rhymes with "angina"). Also, one of the enticing features of this space heater is that it comes with an on-off timer so that I can put it on before bedtime and have it turn off right after I fall asleep- another good safety feature. I've been raised in a household that did not believe in space heaters, electric blankets, candles, fireplaces, or any other potential fire hazards, so I am pretty weary of this machine. However, Mom and Dad, I promise that it will only stay on when I am physically present in the apartment (and for short-ish periods of time, at that), and I will not leave it on all night. Hopefully it will make the rest of winter just the slightest bit more bearable.

I am back in Ha Tinh and trying to re-adjust to the slow pace of life. This adjustment is made all the more difficult because many stores and restaurants have still not re-opened after Tet holiday. I came to this upsetting realization yesterday when I arrived from the night train, exhausted and hungry and craving comfort food in the form of banh muot, my favorite Ha Tinh breakfast treat. On the walk back from the bus-stop, I stopped at my favorite banh muot restaurant only to find it entirely closed and gated-up. This morning I returned to see if it had opened, and still no luck. When I asked Mr. Duc when things would begin to re-open, he guessed in another 10 days or so. TEN MORE DAYS?! Oh brother.

Tet is officially the most baffling holiday. I understand that it is mostly baffling due to my own faults- I chose to leave Vietnam for the majority of the holiday, so I missed the festivities and the opportunities to have its nuances explained to me. In all honesty, I'm glad that I was absent for most of Tet, only because it sounded like it consists mostly of sitting around and eating at people's houses (if you're lucky enough to be invited somewhere and aren't all alone), and all stores and restaurants being closed.

Where is everyone?!

I took this picture on Hang Ga street in Hanoi this past weekend. I would consider Hang Ga to be one of the more bustling streets in the Old Quarter. It is usually stuffed to the gils with more motorbikes than you can count, street vendors, pedestrians, and restaurants set up on the sidewalk. Walking through the streets of Hanoi this past week was eerie, and it felt like walking through some spooky ghost town. All of the stores were closed with metal gates, and there were no people around!

I was eager to return to Ha Tinh in hopes that things would be "back to normal" and that all signs of Tet would have fizzled away as people returned back to their daily routines. However, according to Mr. Duc, some people choose to rest for another week or two, so they keep their restaurants and stores closed through the middle of lunar January.

Luckily (or not-so-luckily), it is so cold, so I am even less motivated to leave my apartment, especially now that I have a lovely heater to keep me warm(er). I suppose that I can wait 10 more days for restaurants to open, and it will just give me a chance to re-master my cooking skills in the comfort of my warm and cozy room.

Today was also the first day of school, and if I do say so myself, I think it went quite well. As I had feared and speculated, it seemed like my students' English had gotten a bit rusty (they've gone almost a whole month without speaking it!), but they still seemed eager to participate and to please me.

Furthermore, I capitalized on my four months of experience with teaching as well as my students' increased comfort levels with regards to interacting with me. I was able to start the semester off on a more official note than last semester by encouraging the class to generate a list of class rules, a list comparing what it takes to create a "Happy Teacher & Happy Student" (complete with a lovely picture of Ho Chi Minh interacting with some cute school kids- thanks to Adelina for this idea, by the way), as well as physical name cards that sit in front of them on their desks. On the side facing me says their name, and on the side facing them says their motivation for learning English. This way, I will always know their names and be able to call on them, and they will constantly be reminded of their reason to come to class and participate each day. I also used a survey that I found on the Internet, asking my students about classroom culture in typical Vietnamese classrooms, and how they thought it compared to the behavior that I expect from them in my own classroom.

Some gems from the survey?

"In a Vietnamese classroom, are students afraid to make mistakes?"
"YES!"
"In my classroom, should you be afraid to make mistakes?"
"No! It's no problem to make a mistake!"


"In a Vietnamese classroom, do students sleep in class?"
"Sometimes."
"In my classroom, should you ever sleep in class, send messages on your cell phone, or do your homework for other classes?"
"NEVER!"


"In a Vietnamese classroom, is it okay for students to copy answers from others?"
"Yes, of course."
"In my classroom, is this behavior appropriate?"
"Never!"

In other words, I know that the standards to which I hold my students are COMPLETELY American, and what I am asking them to do (not sleep in class, for example, or even to be willing to raise their hand) is oftentimes totally foreign to them. However, while I recognize that I am asking my students to take a big step into unknown territory, I'm also laying out my exact expectations for appropriate classroom culture, and there will no longer be any confusion as to what I want and do not want. Hopefully this first-day-of-school lesson will stick with them for the rest of the semester, and we won't have to (too often) revisit some of these rules.

I'm excited for this upcoming semester and feel like, as long as I am able to maintain my stamina and not burn-out (a total possibility, I recognize), it will be even more rewarding than last semester.