Ah, Vietnamese school

I move into my new apartment tomorrow! So excited to be a real person; what with living in a tiny room by myself, I feel like a squatter. Or like a college student in a dorm room. However you think of it, I'm basically not a real person yet. Finally realizing this is real life now. As much as it can be working esl in Vietnam, but I'm not a student anymore and apparently one should live somewhere larger than the size of a walk in closet.

This weekend was pandemonium, but not too bad. Already hating my 'flyer' class, which I have at 7:45 in the morning, and consists of sullen pre-teens who are probably pissed about having to go to school on the weekend. I don't really blame them for that, but I really do envy the Vietnamese teachers who can use corporal punishment on their students, instilling fear and thus creating a serene learning environment for the teacher.

Just found out some interesting and really depressing things about VN schools: you have to pay to go to even the public schools. In WHAT communist country do families have to pay for elementary education? Also, the children I teach in the 'public' schools have paid more money in order to take english lessons from foreign teachers. I just find the whole thing to be wrong, but its not like I'm gonna quit so I guess I'll just live with it. And really try to do as much charity work as I possibly can. Christ, this country.

I've had way less time to spend with my Vietnamese friends, which is a bummer. Chinh had a birthday party on Sunday, and Fran and I stopped by for a bit. The food buffet was amazing, and sadly we had to leave before the 3 cakes were cut. On the upside, there were about 100 people in attendance, most of whom were creepy middle-to-late-aged men who speak broken english but try to have a 20 minute conversation with you anyway, and end up inviting you to live in their apartment. Actually has happened to me.

To all the women out there, Happy Women's Day!!! It's quite a big deal here. One of my students brought me in a huge thing of flowers yesterday for the occasion. Seeing as she is only 8 I assume it was her mother's idea, but it made my day nonetheless. Ladies, do something nice for yourselves!