A lot Since Da Lat

Hello from Vietnam!  This is Brian, remember me?  It's been a while I know.  I have been busy!

I wrote the "Day One" blog on the day that LeAnn left to go back to the US.  I just didn't know what to write.  I needed to process and to get a grip of how this was going to effect everything over here.

So I found a job.  Well actually two...no wait, three jobs.  I started working two days after LeAnn left.  (If you are wondering we are still together, we just decided to stretch out our love for the fun of it...enough of my gushy love story...)  I work at a language center called Vietnam USA Society English Centers (VUS) on Saturdays, Sundays, and Wednesday nights.  It's a popular school here where any TESOL certificate holder can easily find employment.  It's an after-school school.  Last week I started my second job at a school called Vietnam Australian International School (VAS).  It's a regular Monday-Friday school.  So right now I am working non-stop...ugh.  But I am enjoying it for the time being and don't worry I'm going to adjust my schedule so that I don't keel over.  Which reminds me!!  There is a nap room for teachers at VAS!  HA!  The head teacher asked me if I take naps and I didn't want sound lazy so I said, "Well...sometimes, when I'm really tired."  Then she said, "Well we take naps here."  Ha!  So on my first day I found the men's nap room after lunch and kicked off my shoes and grabbed a mat.  I laid there laughing to myself as I listened to the loud unrestricted snores from around the room.  They were seriously conked out snoring -- so awesome that that is a priority to them!

I started writing about what it is like teaching in Vietnam and then I got bored and erased my sentence and checked facebook.  The only thing I'll say is that teaching here is really not very different from teaching in the US.  My teenage Mexican students were just like the teenage Vietnamese students, some are great students and some should not be forced to be in school -- prison, or a deserted island, but not school.  I'm learning more and more about how to engage these students, they are my biggest challenge but they will be the ones that impact me and shape me the most, I can only hope that it is the same for them.  My little kid classes are fun, it's fun being a clown.  I mentioned that I had a third job, my third job is a one-on-one tutoring session.  That has been a lot of fun.  We have a lot of the same interests.  We meet once a week for 2.5 hours and work on his pronunciation by reading plays working on his public speaking skills (thanks to K-State!), and just talking about things that we are passionate about.  He just recently took me around the city and showed me some local food hot-spots, great fun!

So I started to settle in here.  I had to find a hot air oven for baked potatoes, a high powered blender for fruit drinks, and a moto.  I rented a moto for a few weeks ($50 a month) then ended up buying a Honda Win 100cc from an Australian guy for $225.  I didn't even know how to drive it when I bought it (it just felt right).  It is a manual with a clutch.  But I learned rather quickly.  Getting it worked on is soooo easy and cheap!  There are hundreds of shops and guys on the sidewalks with bowls of tools that can take your whole engine apart and put it back together.  They even know what is wrong with it without you even having to explain it to them (not like I could anyway).  If the shop is busy they will just shake their hand (equivalent to the American 'so-so' or 'kind-of' shake of your hand) which means 'no' here and then they point down the street.  Then you drive down the street and point at your bike and they shake their hand 'no' and point down the street, until you find someone who can help you. (I think I was trying to get them to work during their nap time that day, I got a lot of hand shaking).

Will it blend...oh yeah!

The Beast!

Two dollar wiring job.

On the theatre front, I am meeting with a coffee shop owner who puts on Shakespeare plays in his small coffee shop.  He said that he wants someone to put together a theatre group to perform plays there.  He said that he just recently had a group come in and do a play there and they had a great turn out.

I also have an opportunity to co-direct a play for our teacher's party at VAS on January 4th.  One of the teachers wrote a comedic musical.  I think I am going to be in a short dance scene.  I just responded to an email that was marked "Emergency"...they needed four men to do a wedding dance scene.