Happy Vietnamese Birthday, Hannah!!!

Here's a short list of the things my sister is better at than me:

1. The SATs
2. Running marathons.
3. Helping to get Democratic senators elected.
4. Not eating meat.
5. Being a clutz.
6. Having imaginary friends until one is in their mid teens.
7. Being dependent on one's childhood blanket until their mid twenties.
8. Making spicy dips.
9. Patience.
10.Yearly/monthly resolutions.
11. Internet stalking.
12. Knowing people at Houlihans the night before Thanksgiving.
13. Singing.
14. Acting.
15. Dancing (we're tied though on making stupid frog-like faces).
16. Throwing up in cars.
17. Throwing up on boats.
18. Throwing up from smelling throw up.
19. Not leaving America due to a quarter life crisis (although she is leaving America exactly two weeks after she is turning 25. Hmmmm....)
20. Being amazing...and about a million other things.

Happy Birthday, Hannah! Have an amazing day and don't work too hard...it's not like the future of the world depends on what you're doing.

Vietnam Teacher's Day

Today is Vietnam teacher's day. My students yesterday gave me a few presents to honor my totally awesome teaching skills. I got:

1. A silver and white tie...exactly like a blue and white tie I was given by another student. I'm 90% sure both ties are from the Vietnamese equivalent of Costco.

2. A Vietnam travel book....which I'm 100% sure is from the Vietnamese equivalent of AAA. You know those books you always get free as a member? The ones that are 2% information and 98% adds for restaurants and hotels?

3. A dozen beautiful pink roses. This present was given to me by some of my former students. The present they gave their current teacher: one red rose. Yup, I win.

4. Two pairs of mittens from Huyen (she said everyone must appreciate teachers, not just their students).

5. A cup of coffee from Van, one of the three marvelous Language Link CSOs who are taking my Intermediate 1 class. I should mention that someone made Van the cup of coffee and she didn't want it so she handed it to me.

Ironically, I took Teacher's Day off today because one of my former students invited me to her wedding. Details on that tomorrow!

Six Months

On Monday I wore these pants:

(PICTURE A PAIR OF NORMAL GREY SUIT PANTS. MY CAMERA ISN'T WORKING AGAIN)

I had these pants made for me in Hoi An about seven months ago. However, the only time I ever actually wore the pants was on May 17th. How do I know that? Well, because it was my first day of work. While at school that first day I realized I was by far the best dressed and decided to scale my wardrobe down to dockers versus dress pants.

On Sunday night, while eating at the chicken speakeasy, I sloppily dropped about an eighth of a chicken on my legs. I was prepared to wear my pants again the next day but Huyen persuaded me to wash them. This was significant because my other pair of slacks was also in the wash. This left me with two options:

Option 1: Wear jeans. This is againt school rules. In fact, a teacher who wore jeans got fired on Sunday. Yeah pretty strict, right? (Actually he was fired because he showed up late like four Sundays in a row...while wearing jeans).

Option 2: Wear my dress slacks.

I went with Option 2. I know what you're thinking, "Is this really blog worthy?" Well, yes it is. I hadn't worn the pants in six months. Exactly six months. I wore them on May 17th and then again on November 17th -- the last day of my contract. That's right, I've officially completed my contract at Language Link. Six months passed in a blink of an eye. Some rough figures off the top of my head:

- I have taught over 400 different students.

- I have failed two students.

- I have skipped one student ahead a level. i.e "Skipped a grade."

- I have told eight parents their child is "naughty."

- I have told countless parents their child is bright and a pleasure to teach.

- I have received six gifts...but many more words and emails of thanks.

Although my contract has finished, I told Language Link I would continue to teach my Monday through Friday classes until the end of the month. After that...well, you'll have to wait for some upcoming blogs. But don't get too excited, I'm not leaving Vietnam yet.

The Blogger Becomes The Blogged

The other day I got an email from one of my former students:

Dear Ben,
I'm Long, Do you remember me ? I took your course at Language Link (PRE-INTER3). I very pleasure in studying with you and meeting with your family in the last class. I like you to send me some photos which you took that night in order to upload it to my blog. Please send it for me !

About my blog, I have created and written blog since September. I write blog when I have free time and it seems to be a relaxation. More over, writing blog regularly helps me keep a bright brain, do you think so ? And if you also have blog, can you share it with me ?

My blog address is : http://konansite.co.cc or if you can't access it, please try direct link : http://konan.vnjoomlas.com .

I write my blog in Vietnamese, but I have English corner where I publish my article in English. Also, it's one of the way to improve my English skill. However, I have only one article which wrote about our class at Language Link when I finished my course because it is not easy for me to write an English article . In addition, you can also see our picture in my album.
I hope you will enjoy reading my blog !!!
Regard,

Long

Yup, the blogger has become the blogged. In case you can't access Long's link I've cut and pasted it here:

By now, I have free time to write an entry about my first course at Language Link. There was a coincidence because my teacher was also my interviewer when I came LL for the first time - Mr.Ben. He is an interesting person and I can see him a lot of good point such as generous, honest, open-hearted when he's talking with each other. Also, he is great of fun, he sometimes tells us jokes to make something funny in our class.

I feel very comfortable when studying in this class. Mr.Ben seems to be concentrate on speaking and listening skill in our class. It's all of thing that I need because I'm not good at both of these skills. Talking a lot with each other helps me improve most of weak points that I encounter when I study in my university. Some people in my class think that it's not good for us to focus only two skill, but I think they are very important skill we need when we communicate with foreign people. Another skill I can learn by myself.

One point I like in my class is every body was so friendly. Almost of them was easy-going, easy for to me make friend. Even more one of the most active people in my class is Mr.Hoang, he was talkative. He always asks Ben everything he don't know without brainstorm to find out the solutions to solve problems. Another people usually makes me pay attention to him is Mr.Quan. I can only say that he is very interesting people like Mr.Ben. He usually tells us joke, like Ben, andl his jokes so fun that I laugh a lot. But, beside the fun of his stories, I can learn something which have a valuable experience. In general, friends is one of the point I like best when I study in Ben's class.

In the last class, I had the meeting with Ben's family include his parents and his cousin. They was so friendly and this thing has changed my mind about foreign people, especial the people come from the USA. And I was really impressed by Ben's cousin. He was a stylish man, and may be more handsome than Ben :D It was very lucky for me to sit near by him, and we talked a lot about everything such as family, favorite, even Internet technology because both Ben's cousin and I like World Wide Web ^^! Perhaps, that was the first time I communicated naturally with foreign people. I won't never forget that night, and I want to thank to Ben for making a chance for me to practice English more than ever.

In conclusion, I value highly Ben's class and I am really satisfied with my fisrt class at Language Link. I hope I will take the same class in the future.

Vietnamese Pool

Tired of solids vs. stripes or traditional pool? Well, the Vietnamese have a great variation on the game if you're with a couple of friends. Here's how it works:

First, you need a deck of cards. You shuffle the deck and deal out 7 cards to each person who wants to play. Each card represents balls on the table: Ace is the one ball. Two is the two ball. Three is the three ball. etc. etc. until you get to... Jack is the eleven ball. Queen is the twelve ball. King is the thirteen ball. The fourteen and fifteen ball are free balls (however it is a scratch if you hit in a free ball before you hit in one of your own balls).

When your ball is sunk in a pocket you get to throw down your cards. The first one to no longer have any cards wins. It's that simple...minus a few other little rules:

Rule 1: You can't throw down any cards until YOU hit in one of your balls.
Rule 2: If you scratch two times you're out of the game...and must do ten push-ups.
Rule 3: If someone throws down all their cards before you have made any shots you must do ten push-ups.
Rule 4: If you scratch you must pick up two more cards. If the corresponding balls for those cards have already been sunk, you have to pick up two more cards until you get ones that represent balls on the table.
Rule 5: Whoever has the most cards left after someone is out must do a push-up for each card in their hand.

It's a fun game and if you suck at pool like me, it's an easy way to get a good chest and triceps workout.

Chicken Speakeasy

Last night was an interesting one. After working all day, Huyen and I went to her friend Tu's birthday party at a hot pot restaurant. Following the birthday feast, Huyen's friend Hien and her boyfriend Dzung asked us if we wanted to shoot some pool. I agreed with the clause that I'd only like to play for an hour or two since I had some work to do. At this point it was just about 8pm.

Well, we got to the billiards hall and met up with three of Dzung's friends where we proceeded to play pool for the next couple of hours. Just as I was getting ready to depart, the owner of the billiard's hall invited our group to the VIP room. Everyone was so excited to get VIP status -- including myself since I didn't know you could be a VIP at a billiard's hall -- that I decided to stick around for "a half hour more."

We followed the owner up a metal winding staircase to the upstairs VIP lounge. Basically the room was VIP because:
a) It had plush couches.
b) Fancy pool cues.
c) Waiter service.
d) A clean, quietish bathroom.

Two hours later, somewhere in the ballpark of 12:30 AM, we asked for our bill to leave. As we were taking off one of Dzung's friends invited us to get some "very good chicken." I asked him where he wanted to go since it was already past midnight and the city wide curfew was in effect (the front gates of the pool hall were already locked and we had to exit through a side door). He told me there was a chicken place up the road that was open all night.

Well, he wasn't lying. We rode our bikes about a 1/4 of a kilometer up the road and stopped on the side of the street where a man was sitting in a chair. One word was exchanged: "Ga?" The man nodded yes and motioned for us to turn off our bikes. Just then a few teenage boys came hustling out of an alley and collected our bikes and ushered us through a door which was slightly cracked open. Inside the door was an all white room with two tables set up in the middle. From what I could tell it was just a garage that had had its walls painted and tile put on the floor. For all intensive purposes we were in a speakeasy...that served chicken.

A minute or two went by and a woman brought us out a couple plates of chicken. I can honestly say with no exaggeration it was by far the best chicken I've had since leaving the states. I now have my Thankgsiving plans if no turkey pans out.

Huyen's Visa Story Part 1

Huyen is officially invited to two of my friends weddings next June. In order to be able to go to America she's going to need a tourist visa. As I'm sure you can imagine in this post 9/11 world, that's not an easy task. I have read all the literature about getting a visa and combed through all the information online and I know it's going to be an uphill battle to get Huyen her visa. Basically Huyen has to be able to prove that she's not going to land in America and skip out on her flight back to Vietnam. This requires tons of documents, copies of bank account information, property ownership papers, work contracts, etc. etc.

The first step to getting Huyen her visa though was for Huyen to get her passport. Like 99.99999% of Vietnamese people, Huyen has never gone to another country and thus had no passport. Well, check it off the list because she's now got a brand spanking new Vietnamese passport. Huyen even bragged to me that she, "Has more blank pages than me which means she can travel to more places than [I] can."