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Oh, we were SO cocky.

Sitting around having drinks at a rooftop bar a few days before our CELTA course started.

If I remember correctly the conversation went something like this:

Cocky pre-celta student #1:

“So, what do you think about this class? Can it be THAT stressful?”

(cause the rumor had it that this class would overtake EVERY aspect of our lives for the duration)

Cocky pre-celta student #2:

“No way, I did all the pre-course material and have read a little of the books they recommended. All the stress buzz MUST be about folks who cant manage their time.”

#1
“Yeah, thats what I was thinking.”

(both #1 and #2 breathe a huge sigh of relief and take a BIG gulp from their drinks)

#2

“Besides, there are weekends to catch up or get ahead on assignments. How hard can this be?”

#1

“Yeah, I bet it will be time consuming but not hard at all. I am looking forward to it, actually.”

#2

“Yeah, me too. ”

(more gulps.)

WE WERE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WRONG!

It really IS that stressful.

I will, now that we are more than 1/2 way through, admit one thing. And this time there is no speculation, this is the reality of Celta.

IT’s not that any one task is hard or stressful. Its the fact that we are students for most of the day and then teachers in the remaining time. AND THEN, there are the written assignments, and the evaluating your peers (daily), and being evaluated (every other day), and switching between two learning levels (elementary and intermediate). And if that isnt enough, there is evening planning AFTER your 8-10 hours at school 5 days a week.

Lesson planning would never take this long outside of this environment, but to follow the methods and steps drilled into us, it seriously takes anywhere from 6-8 hours PER LESSON. We have been teaching 2-3 lessons per week. This time includes research time (pics, activities, etc), writing the detailed lesson plan they advise, fighting with the printer and copying machine and working with the other teachers that day (cause we shared grammar points on our teaching days for the first 3 weeks). And I havent covered it all. Oh no! But I will stop there.

Basically, I am beat, worn out, and until I actually had a “good” lesson today, thought that I was the worst teacher, not to mention human being for not being able to follow such detailed instructions to a T.

All the comparisons to boot camp are true.

All of the “get sleep, eat well, and dont travel until its over” advice are well spoken.

And all of my 2 seconds of free time are over til the class ends next week.

Until then:)

D

Hanoi is no stranger to visitors and it shows. The motorbike drivers are as persistent as the dirty old men hanging out on the street corner in Buenos Aires and our homeless population in San Francisco. But the fact that people from all over the world are drawn to this precious city means one thing for me personally (and possibly you when you visit, cause you know you will!); the ease with which you can float through this culture.

For example. When I moved to Taiwan my boss or a local friend had to come with me everywhere to do practically everything, daily tasks like laundry, meals and such exclused. But finding an apartment, transferring the scooter to my name and more were impossible for me to do solo due to the limited amount of English spoken in Tainan, the city I lived in. But it wasnt just the language barrier. There was a way of doing things that was thought as the “right” way and since I was a foreigner and did things differently, even the slightest of adjustments to the local method of any transaction caused a deer in headlights affect to whoever I was trying to communicate with, thus the companion to assist in situations such as this.

This is why I find if kind of funny when a dear Taiwanese friend of mine emailed me this week and said that she thought that Vietnam was “40 years behind Taiwan.” In what way? I want to ask her, and will. But I need to know. Cause, to be honest, if we’re talking about modern urban life, or mindset and openness to a global existence, no way sister, Vietnam is not lagging. Not a centimeter. In all fairness, I have been here about 2 weeks, but I have had more hand gesturee conversations understood and more in depth English conversations in this short time than my entire 10 months in Taiwan. No offense folks, but NO ONE CULTURE IS SUPERIOR TO ALL OTHERS. And this mindset was part of the problem last time around when I was in Asia, or rather, Taiwan.

I know y’all get grumpy on me when I get this specifically negative about a place, but I consider this more blunt and telling than negative. I could tell you a trillion things wrong with my own culture if you like, but I am afraid that this would be a most boring post indeed.

^^^ View from my balcony ^^^

It is entirely possible that foreginers puzzle the Vietnamese just as much as we do any other place we lay our backpacks and demand clean water. But, generally speaking, they are more tolerant to curious here, in a way that is heartfelt and downright fucking adorable. There are oodles of folks trying to scam me on a daily basis, but somehow this annoying injustice melts away quickly when I tap into the vibe of this city.

Add to this that simple things like my new cell Veitnam cell provider has a few pages in their instructions manual in English. And part of these instructions are how to change the recorded menus on my phone to English, so I can check my balance is such a minor thing, but is SO appreciated. Do you know that in Taiwan this was not even an option? Instead I had to memorize what numbers to press to get to my voicemail and ignore the Mandarin instructions. Yes, this could all be avoided if I would spend all waking hours learning the local languages, BUT when you first arrive in a new country, this kind of thing is just friggin wonderul.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a written assignment for class that is due on Monday that I have about an hour to do now. This was the reason I hijaked my friends computer in the first place, but got seriously distracted with email, paying bills and MUSIC. God, I love music. More soon.

And I scoffed those who told me how intense this CELTA program is!!!! To be fair, its not that any particular component of the class ... [Continue reading this entry]