I Head-Butted A Girl In The Face

I'm still on my motorbike trip with Justin and thus haven't had access to email or been able to download any pictures. However, after traveling for 11 hours yesterday through rice paddies and a national park (details on this once I get back) we decided to treat ourselves to the nicest hotel in Thanh Hoa. This place is a palace for the whopping cost of $20 a night which includes free internet.

That said, I thought I'd share a quick anecdote from the other night. While in Mai Chau, Justin and I befriended about forty Vietnamese college students. The majority of the students were girls and aged 19. Well, I was talking to two girls when a giant preying mantis landed on my shoulder. Naturally I said, "Whoah!" One of the two girls saw the insect and flicked it...right into my face. As it hit my cheek I instinctively shot my head forward and HEAD-BUTTED the other girl in the face. When I say head-butted, I mean head-butted. It was a powerful slam of my forehead into hers. Somehow though I ended up being the one hurt. The bone around my eye socket is extremely sensitive to the touch even forty eight hours later. I apologized to the girl who in turned apologized to me over and over again. In the end I conceded -- it was her fault.

Students Say The Craziest Things Part 3

As I've mentioned, I always have my students talk/debate at the beginning of class as a speaking exercise. Well, the other day I gave students topics to debate and it became pretty heated. The funniest topic turned out to be, "Should Vietnam allow other fast food franchises besides KFC."

Right now in KFC is the only American franchise allowed in the country. Arguing against more fast food were two men. Arguing for more fast food were two women. However, it ended up being 1 man versus all the women in my class. Here's a simplified version of the argument:

MAN: Vietnam shouldn't allow more fast food because it will make our women lazy. They should cook their families meals and not go to fast food restaurants.

WOMAN #1: Why does it just make women lazy? We work too. Maybe we don't want to cook. Maybe we want to be lazy when we finish work.

MAN: What? Cooking for your family is a woman's pleasure.

WOMAN #1: It's not my pleasure. I'm busy.

MAN: But cooking is what makes women happy.

WOMAN #2: It doesn't make me happy. How many women does it make happy?

0 out of 7 hands went up.

MAN: It makes my mother happy. Cooking is her great delight.

Students Say The Craziest Things Part 2

On Sunday I was walking in the hallway and saw one of my students, Trang. Trang is always on the edge of her seat, waving her hand at me to answer questions. Yeah, one of those types. Well, I smiled at her and said, "Hi, Trang!" She ignored me and kept on walking. I thought it was odd until a second later I saw Trang again and did a double-take. Turns out she's an identical twin. This is the conversation that then took place:

BEN: Trang, you have a twin sister?
TRANG: Yes. And her teacher is a better teacher than you. You're a bad teacher. Her teacher plays more games than you.
BEN: Oh, well that's not very nice to say.

Trang shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "I don't care." I then thought for a second and said:

BEN: Trang, is your sister in the same level as you? Is she also Pre-Intermediate 1?
TRANG: No, she's Pre-Intermediate 2.
BEN: Oh, so your sister is a better student than you.

I shrugged my shoulders and walked into the teacher's room. SNAP! I got her good. I put that 11 year old in her place!!!!

Okay, maybe I didn't say that last line but I really really wanted to.

Students Say The Craziest Things

I hear crazy things every day from my students. Last Friday I asked my class what they were going to do on the weekend. This is the conversation that took place with one of my shiest students.

SHY STUDENT: I'm going to take my wife to meet my little friend.

BEN: That's very exciting. Where does your friend live?

The student smiled and pointed at his crotch.

My Cousin Justin

(From left to right: Me, my brother, Justin, my cousin Adam)

My cousin Justin is visiting this week and we're taking a bike trip out to Mai Chau. My cousin is know to, how to say this nicely, sometimes have his head in the clouds. There are about five thousand family anecdotes about Justin with the most infamous being the time he was almost left in Israel because he went to the bathroom at a restaurant while his tour group boarded a bus to the airport. A waiter had to rush Justin to catch the flight while everyone else was already on the plane.

Anyway, the last three times I was supposed to meet Justin he was an average of seven hours late. Last night he kept up the pattern but was only a couple hours late. He was supposed to arrive at my house around midnight, but at 2AM he still wasn't there. I told Huyen we should jump on my bike and go look for him in the streets of my neighborhood. We did just that and shockingly didn't find Justin. As soon as we got back to my house my phone rang -- it was his taxi driver and he couldn't find my house. Huyen talked to him and told him to drop Justin off. Three minutes later we walked to where Justin was and sure enough he was standing in the middle of a t-section taking pictures...

The first thing Justin said to me is, "Is a bill that says 5 followed by five zeroes five hundred thousand or five hundred?" I told Justin that was five hundred thousand. He said, "I think I gave a few of those to the taxi driver." Turns out Justin went to the ATM at the airport and ended up giving ALL his withdrawal money to the taxi driver -- roughly $120. That's $104 more than I told him it should cost from the airport to my house. Oh well, live and learn.

It's great to have Justin here and we're gonna have a heck of a trip. However, I have a feeling that on a few occasions we're gonna be in the same stance as the picture above: me looking pissed as Justin stares of into the clouds.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

One of the hardest parts of living so far away from home is that I can't give my mother a hug and a kiss on her birthday. However, I can still make her a video. I love you, Mom!

GHOST!

As you may recall, I think my new house is haunted. When we first toured the house -- which was in the middle of being built -- there was a doll facing a wall in an empty room. Yeah, Blair Witch Style. I tried taking two pictures of the doll and they both came out fuzzy. Maybe it was the weak camera battery or maybe it was spirits.

It turns out that there was another huge box of dolls in the house which used to belong to the owners daughter and for some reason they want to store at our house. They put the dolls on our fifth floor, in an empty room in front of the balcony where we hang our laundry, and wrapped them in a plastic sheet. Why they need to store the dolls here, I don't know. I also haven't seen THE DOLL that was standing in the corner. No, I'm not joking.

Well, since we've moved in there have been lots of little signs that there is a ghost. A few strange things:

1. The window in my bathroom randomly rattles all the time when I'm in my bathroom.

2. One day I came home and my door was open. This is odd since I always lock it before I leave the house. What was weird is that the door handle was still locked but the door was open.

3. A few times I've been doing work in my room and have heard a knock on my door. I get up thinking it's Ryan and well, nobody is there...and Ryan isn't home.

4. Yesterday I went upstairs to hang my clothes to dry and about a dozen of the dolls were scattered across the floor in the room they're stored in. Somehow they had gotten out of the box and moved about ten feet away from it.

There's only two explanations for #4: a) The construction was so strong yesterday that it shook the box open and scattered the dolls. b) A ghost did it.

Lets just hope the ghost is friendly.