Close friends

Tonight, one of my favorite students from K2B English came to my room to visit me. She was holding two bags of chips- "one for me, and one for you," she told me.

She explained that her roommate is away on her one-month teaching placement in another district, so she was very lonely in her room all by herself, and also knew that I was sick and might be lonely, so she thought we could be lonely together. What a lovely girl!

She stayed for 20 or so minutes and we talked about normal-people stuff, not the requisite polite questions that everybody asks me when they come to my room and feel awkward being around me (which, let's face it, they totally do). When she was leaving, she reminded me that "If you ever feel alone, you can call me to come see you!" When I told her that she, too, is welcome to do the same, she asked me, "So now can we be close friends? Or are we still student and teacher?" I responded, "Let's be both! We can be close friends and still be student and teacher!"

As she was leaving my room, she said, "Goodbye, close friend! See you again!"

For the most part, my students are generally quite scared of me. When they see me in the courtyard outside of class, they will politely say hello and answer my "How are you?" with a rote "Fine thank you, how are you?" I'm not offended that my students are generally quite stand-offish around me; I know I make them nervous since I speak fluent English and oftentimes have trouble understanding them. If my English was as lacking as most of theirs is, I would be scared to engage in real conversations with me too!!

And that's why I think I have so much love for the girls of K2B English, who, right from the start, established a relationship of "We are going to be friends this year." Their English is no better, nor worse, than that of my other classes, but for some reason (class chemistry? motivation? interests? coincidence? who knows?) they have made that motivated step towards trying to befriend me outside of class, where other classes have fallen short and kept our relationship restricted solely to the classroom domain.

Of course, there are some really awesome students in other classes outside of 2B who have also made an effort to invite me to meals, come visit me in my room, etc., but even they seem nervous around me. My girls from K2B have so much confidence and charisma around me, and I just appreciate so much that act of them letting their guards down and inviting me into their personal lives, not just their academic lives.

So I am honored that Luong Man asked me if we could be "close friends" in addition to student-and-teacher. I am honored that she wants to come to my room when she's lonely and that she likes me enough to make an effort to get close to me.

And, if I ever get better (my doubts are raised because I just cannot shake this cough or this fatigue), I am so excited to travel with her and her classmates next week on our class field trip to the mountains.

Despite my sickness, I still have lots to look forward to- like a fun-filled trip to Hanoi this weekend, jam-packed with the Harry Potter movie in 3D at the Hanoi movie theater (and the accompanying movie theater popcorn, of course), a trip to the Coffee Bean for an Ice Blended, chicken parmesan sandwiches on foccacia bread that MJ discovered last weekend, and a visit to L's Place, the ex-pat grocery store, so I can stock up on Goldfish crackers, Campbell's tomato soup, and maybe even some whole-grain bread! Eek!