rocking and rolling

Dear diary,

I awoke this morning way too early. Outside my bedroom window I could hear a gaggle of young ruffians shouting for their dear friend in an adjacent apartment:

"phong!

phong oi!

phong!

phong oi!

phong!

phong oi!

..."

A minute of that went by and there was no Phong to be found. A more concerned person would be wondering if something terrible had happened to Phong. What if he slipped in the shower and knocked himself out?? Poor Phong!

But no, dude. I wasn't having any of that. I opened my window and shushed them. Silence, yes. Let me get back to nursing my pained back from not having my hugging pillow unpacked yet in my new (temporary) apartment.

And then the doorbell rings. Maintenance workers arrive to repair the plastic shingle covering the terrace. Power tooling and shooting projectile snot out of their nose with the 'cover-one-nostril-and-blow' technique - and thus, my precious Saturday off from work begins.

-----------------

The past week has been quite an adventure. Rainy season has been playing hide-n-seek on a daily/nightly basis. My first ride through almost a foot of flooded water on Hanoi Highway into district 2 + getting lost for an hour = not the bidnit. As much as I enjoy the freedom and the cacophonous soundtrack the hustle and bustle of the city offers on a motorbike ride, I am definitely missing having a windshield. Something about having tiny droplets of water feel like a dozen daggers through my eyes at 60km an hour just doesn't make it worth it sometimes.

The way that night started should have been a warning to me about how it might end. A few hours celebrating at a friend's housewarming and I was ready to make the almost hour drive back home. Now, I was under the impression that if I were to do as the locals do, I'd be pretty safe. Roll through Saigon and you'll see hella (sadly, I've begun to use this word less and less. Can some folks from home start visiting so I can brush up on my Bay vocab?) folks ready to zip through red lights. Oh my 30km commute from home, it would happen on every red light. As the counter counts down, the engines start revving at 3 seconds left, and boom! - away they go.I guess there are some things I still need to learn. 

4 seconds is way too early apparently. The duo cảnh sát busted a U and pulled up next to me and I have my first run in with the law! 

Gone are the days of speaking only English and thinking you'll get away by appearing just so damn ignorant. The cops here (especially at night & on weekends) know that learning a bit of English will net them so much more when they pull over foreigners. 

He asked for my license and I gave to him. After about 8 or so times of looking at it, I can hear him telling his partner that it was fake as shit and he was going to impound my bike for 30 days. When he told me, I couldn't call Bullshit or else he'd call me on my bullshit! I just kept asking why why why why why and then he said, "okay. 500,000." One of the few times I was glad to be as broke as I did. I knew he'd settle for whatever he could get, so I busted out my wallet and showed him my 120,000VND lining my empty wallet. He chuckles to his partner and accepts my pittance. 

My last act of passive-aggressive defiance and I was off:

Obviously, I changed my name to Fuob Yso.

-----------------------------

The next day, swagger mode was on full blast.

So, I haven't mentioned it much yet, but the company I work for is ILA (International Language Academy). One of the reasons this company was very appealing to me was because of their extensive community network (ILACN, of course). They're involved with several different orphanages and a cancer hospital around the area. Keeping true to my roots back home, I was drawn towards ILA and signed up for the various volunteer opportunities. Now, I have yet to actually get involved  because my work schedule overlaps with the times the group visits the youth, but this past Sunday was the annual charity fundraiser. 

All the proceeds went to a place out in Cu Chi that houses orphans and mentally ill children and adults. Hopefully it was enough for them to repair their kitchen roof and build a raised platform for the kitchen so the rain doesn't leave them without food when it floods. 

But another good thing about spending the night giving to charity? Make an ass of myself in an air guitar band competition! 

The prep:

Their costumes. I, of course, had my natural, long, luscious locks!

Our band leader practicing his solo

Getting our choreography down the day before.

The end result:

Posing with our only other competition after we won.
Good thing it was not costume based, but rather bias-based!
Pantera's Love Child ftw!

And of course, our terribly awesome/awesomely terrible performance:

My fellow band mate and coworkers

And what happens after the party? The after party!

14 (or so) snake line of Jager bombs. Cue "new haircut."

And here's how it worked:

And what happens after the after party? The karaoke party!

How most of my night was - a blurrrrrRRrr. 

My infamous headband making its rounds

Sarah trying to whisper sweet nothings in my ear.

My "night" ended at 6 a.m. and work of course starts at 8:30 a.m. The first time in my life I partied into the morning like that. Definitely not something I want to make a habit of. A bit awkward rolling home close to 7 a.m. with my aunt opening the gate wondering where I'd been. I'll admit though, my classes that day went better than most. I ran through most of the day on adrenaline from all the partying. Good times.


---------------------------


And I just finished going through the videos from karaoke. Apparently, I REALLY love "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." For my eyes only!

------------------------


'til next


xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxox
maithanhtin

One week down

Dear diary,

It feels good to finally be busy. The 5 weeks following the completion of my CELTA drove me crazy(-ier??) by the day. Being cooped up 45minutes from the hustle and bustle of the city with no income was not the business. I'm glad it's all behind me now. 

The first week of my new job for the next who-knows-how-long just wrapped up and it was like I imagined it to be: messy. I don't understand how going through a CELTA course to receive a certificate in teaching to adults enables me to handle a dozen 6-11 year olds for 3 hours a day (some days, 6 hours!). I think I got progressively worse as a teacher as the days crept on. But, I'm not worried. Of course, there's the learning curve for a brand-spanking new teacher, plus, I'm still getting over a slump of being on slob mode for the past 5 weeks. I mean, who wants to spend time prepping when they could be out drinking 70¢ beers and listening to some live Diplo? 

I kid. I'll get better. This is what I came here for. Anyway, I'm enjoying the job (for the most part). The school I work for is pretty bad-ass. Specifically, my centre (look at that shit. I hang out with too many English people and it's rubbing off on me). We've got quite the assortment of characters here. I think more than half are from the UK, with a handful of Americans and a sprinkle of the random Aussie & Kiwi. I'll admit, I wanted to be at a different centre initially - the one I started training at because it was my home base, yo! I made friends with the people there and the students and I wanted to be back with them. But, since arriving at centre 5, I've been glad. We've got quite a decent number of teachers here (~30 vs. 60-100 at the biggest ones) and it's a lot more personable since everyone knows each other. That and this:

That's Kelly. I know teachers are supposed to be fair and all that shit, but dude..this girl is crazy. She barely level tested into this class I think and she's at the youngest end of the age admitted into this level. She's bright, but way shy. But that's not why I think she's dope:

Word searching like a boss.

Screw the rules, Kelly! You forge your own path and make them words however you damn well please, hah.

Then there's this girl:

Yup, that's right. I prefer to call my students by their proper Vietnamese name, but if they ask, I'll use their English names. This is one of those cases - Magic Milk. Her sister bestowed this English name unto her, and that's what she wrote on her name card, so I greet Miss Milk as such.

Also, I made one of the students cry the other day. I didn't expect it to happen so soon, but I'm sure teachers go through a few sometime over the course of the career. Let's not make a habit of it, tin.

Other than work, not much else going on yet. Random outings at night, practicing my Vietnamese with the TAs at work (with my Bac accent which, for some reason, they find extremely hilarious). Buncha racists...

Oh, did I mention I'm entered in a 4-person band/air guitar competition? More on this later!

'til next,

xoxo

tm

Way to look on the bright side of things!

Dear diary,

"Recession, I don't have a job, but my tan looks great!" 

- Phrase on a random student's t-shirt.

 Someone has got her priorities straight! Sad thing is, I bet there are some people in the U.S. that have that same mentality.

What am I???

What am I, indeed. One of the few things I have been missing from home: having a stable source of electricity! A problem found mainly in the outer districts are "scheduled" black outs. But, more or less, they are random. The city sets these schedules, but they don't really give adequate notice. It happens about twice a month out here, so I am definitely looking forward to moving into the city center since it's very unlikely to happen there.

That's a photo of my room, btw. You can sort of see on the left side a very faint image of my window. No flash, of course, to share with you what I get to not see when these things happen.


Also, my sleep schedule is still pretty messed up after having 4 weeks off from the CELTA course. I've been catching the most random naps lately. This seems very handy to have around in those cases:

http://www.studio-kg.com/ostrich/ - Do want.

cheers,

tm

A favor, my loves!

Dear diary + all my lovely friends back home, 

It's been over a week and a half since my aunt, uncle, and cousins moved to California. I don't know if there's a screw loose somewhere inside me, but the feelings and emotions didn't really wash over me like I thought it should. Out of the almost 4 dozen people that came to see them off that day, I was the only one with dry eyes. That's not to say I wasn't happy and excited for them, because I was and I am. I probably was just about as "excited" as when I arrived here over 3 months ago as I was that day seeing them off. I think it's just my personality. Of course, when I think about it and try to see it from their perspective, it makes total sense of how they felt that day. I think it hit my cousin Thanh the hardest. There were times where he would just walk off to a corner, slouch over and just break down. I chuckled a bit when I overheard my dad's eldest (living) aunt tell him to stop crying and man up. 

Teary-eyed

Some more QQ

My cousin has a lot of lady friends. Of all the times we hung out, I never met another dude.

Fromagey

But, I think about it some more and it's pretty crazy. My aunt was in her teens when my dad left for America. I asked her about that moment, over 25 years ago, when she had to say goodbye to him - I asked her if she cried as much then as she did now and she said no. It was different back then. It wasn't really much of a choice for my dad back then; she knew it was something he had to do. But now, now was different, of course. They had been waiting for over 10 years and the time finally came. 

- Things just don't move me like they do most people -

My cousins still haven't called home yet. My aunt and uncle, yes, but my cousins, no. They're afraid. They don't want to break down and cry over the phone. I wonder if they feel guilty.

I asked my dad's older sister why she hasn't visited my family in the states yet. Apparently, she has. They denied her visa a few times. Being as old as she is and having never been married, the government is worried she'd end up over-staying her visa. Not cool, bro. 

_____________

I told everybody in November my plans to leave. I had been thinking about it for a few months then. I was hoping my family would have moved by then. I was looking forward to helping my cousins get settled in, introducing them to you all, and figuring out their school situation. My initial plans were actually to leave in December, after doing all that, but things kept getting pushed back. 

Well, 5+ months later, and the time has come. Unfortunately, I can't do for them the things I wanted to. So friends, I was wondering if you could do me some huuuuuuuuuge favors: Take these 2 and show them around! I asked my dad earlier what they have been up to since arriving and he said absolutely nothing. Since my parents are working during the days, my cousins haven't had the opportunity to see the town. I mean, he's taken them to fill out papers and stuff, and I'm sure they've been to church. But, if any of you are up for it, let me know if you can take them out for a bit on the weekends or something. I already asked Tim Tararug, but he turned me down because he's a racist. But I know I some of you love me, so help a bruva out! 

I mean, (re)present is tomorrow, and it's FREE, so that'd be an awesome opportunity to hang out and introduce them to the community. If anybody is down to do me this solid, just holler at me and I'll let you know the dealio. It'd be much appreciated and I'd definitely return the favor when y'all come visit me in VN :D

And um, they're still learning English. Thanh has a decent grasp on the language and Chi hasn't had that much practice, but it's just another opportunity to learn - for you and them! Thanks homies.

xoxo

tm

such a guy post

Dear Diary,


I know I came over here for some quality Tin-time, but man, that doesn't mean I don't want to have any fun!

Cotton face masks to protect them from...my eyes!
I ninja'd these photos like a boss though, haha.
Had to pretend I was talking on my phone and *click*!

It seems a lot of people in Viet Nam think that having these face masks protect them from all the harmful pollution/smog that envelops the big city. I've even seen some people wear the surgical masks that doctors/nurses/dentists/etc use. I don't think I need to tell you how ineffective these are, but I don't think anybody cares. Heck, the mandated "helmets" everyone must wear is even more ridiculous! They're about on standard with bicycle helmets in the States, except the helmets here are coated with slightly thicker plastic! I mean, when you can pay $1.75 for a helmet, something tells me it's not that great quality-wise. And then there are the people that are totally decked out with fashionable-ass helmets. 


But, that's not what the point of this post was about. I'm less worried about the people wearing the face masks to keep them from sucking down pollution than I am about it obstructing my view! If you didn't know already, lots of people in VN prefer "lighter" skin, so they go through great lengths to preserve their creamy, pale skin if they have it. Seriously, some girls are decked out with arm gloves. leg gloves (?), the crazy face/chest/shoulder/neck masks that you see in 3 of the 4 photos up there...


MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN, how's someone supposed to take in the eye candy when all I can see are a couple of eyes? But then some also wear sunglasses! So where does that leave me? Stuck paying attention to the road in front of me.


I sure do miss seeing some pretty faces...


Anyway, my CELTA course is winding down. I have 1 hour of teaching left (in 9 hours, actually!!!) and then it's just input sessions and activities until I get my certification!~~! I've got an interview set for next Thursday at the school where I'm training. If all goes well, I should be teaching in less than 2 weeks. PLEASE PLEASE. I need to keep busy. Also...

Cali folks!

Shout out to the Nguyen sisters and their friend Tiana for finding a few hours to visit with me while they spent spring break in Viet Nam! Hope you all had a blast :)


Well, I should be lesson planning right now, but I got home not too long ago from a crazy session of dodge ball. I needs my rest. 


cheers,
tm

photo dump!

Dear diary,


The next 3 weeks will be full of neglect (as if it weren't already). I spend most of my days (9 a.m. - 5 p.m. & then some) looking at words. Well, I do more than look at words: I read them, I write them, I study them, I speak them, I listen to them, I teach them, I break them apart to better understand, and I play around with them - A LOT. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying my days are consumed with them - and it's been only 6 days of instruction! Seriously though, I'm really enjoying the course. "The more I learn, the less I know." It's crazy how much we don't really understand about our language...just so many damn rules. So, I won't writing much here as I've got enough work to turn in for my class.


Anyway, a week has gone by in the course and I've met some nifty folks from around the globe. Actually, mainly England with a few from Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and a dude from South Africa. But, young to old, native to non-native speakers, east to west, we're all here for a reason and I'm gonna make the most this time together. I've been learning quite a lot about their cultures and nuances (jandals, anybody??) and am certainly enjoying broadening my understanding of people. And not only do I have my classmates, I have my (world?)mates as well. Couchsurfers of the world, unite! England to Pakistan to Scotland to Canada to NY/SF and everywhere in between, those folks are pretty awesome. I may not have the opportunity to travel the world and immerse myself in a certain place, but couchsurfing is the next best thing. I've had the opportunity to engage in some very interesting cultural exchanges lately and I look forward to much more during my time away from "home".


With all that said, don't expect much more from me in the following weeks, other than photos, of course.

Mother fucking bánh bèo Huế
(steamed rice cake with shrimp, crispy shallots, fish sauce+more)
.65¢ a plate! [Timothy = this!]

I think this is officially my favorite thing to eat.
The guy packaging to-go orders = legit!

This market...oh man! DAIRY! Cured meats, oh my!

For carol & an

Yes, a bunch of wine & beer - this is only 1 section.

nutella, imma buy the fuck outta you when i get some skrill.

Bia hơi (daily fresh-brewed beer ~3% ABV)
+ kebabs for a lunch break from class.
I had 3 glasses for .70¢

Cục Gạch Quán (literally Brick Shop)
Crispy sea bass with passionfruit sauce = WOWs.
Come visit me and we're going here FASHOZY.

Couchsurfing dinner! Alex (behind me) is filming a documentary
while couchsurfing around the world.
Her subject = Love and how cultures experience it differently.
Let's hope my interview doesn't go through, haha.

Day 2 of filming + chauffeuring around the city.

Couchsurfer #2 (from Wales) filming different aspects of life in VN
(fun & games, dancing, sports, ++more for a class project).

Freaking couchsurfer extraordinaire (Adam, English bloke on the right).
Surfed the world for 1,000 days straight, settling in VN on the 1,000th day.
Baby mama cooked dinner and he showed us around his dope ass new house.

Adam's cell phone with a very important note/reminder.

The first outing with my fellow CELTA course mates.
(14 of 18 showed up)

And lastly:

My dad's siblings, all knocked out on the tiles. Noon-time nap in 90° weather.

'Til next time!

Cheers,

tm

Our first victims!

Dear diary,

Here are my first students:

Beginner level students

They may not speak/pronounce correctly or confidently, but Viet Nam sure does know how to teach them proper grammar. Aside from a few missteps that most usually make (not pluralizing nouns), students here have a very good grasp of the English language. A lot of them have greater technical skills than native speakers.

Which one of them looks interesting to y'all? I have to pick one to interview. You can't tell from this photo, but a lot of them are still rather shy and hesitant in class. But, as soon as I whipped out the camera to ask for a picture, they were all smiles, specially those two in the front! 

We only get these students for a week and a half, about 2 hours a day. After that, we move on to a more advanced group and repeat the process. As you can imagine, interacting and teaching our lessons are the best parts of the course so far. The rest of it is kicking my ass, for sure. All the information they have to cram into each day is mind-boggling. But, it's what I'm here for, so no complaining. 

Off to day three!

Cheers,

tm