Sunday, May 27, 2007
Bleached Paper Street
Sorry for the delay in posting. I've been busy adjusting to full time teaching and trying to find good internet outlets on this side of town. I moved into an apartment on Cau Giay street about three weeks ago. Internet connections are not as reliable as the guesthouse and I've had a hard time even taking a break to post.
The apartment on Cau Giay is very nice. I have a marble kitchen, a living room and a large, airconditioned bedroom. I have a brand new tv with cable so I can keep up with CNN and some of the tv programs in the US, such as American Idol.
Cau Giay is about 5 miles west of the center of Ha Noi. On the map it is right near the "Thu Le park." (The extreme left of the picture.) It's also quite near to the diplomatic quarter. The street name translates into English as "Bleached paper street" because this used to be the business here. However, it is now a commercial center and paper bleachers are nowhere to be found.
I'm still adjusting to the hustle and bustle of teaching. Every weekend I teach 8 classes of energetic youngersters, ranging in age from six to about sixteen. Three nights a week I teach adults. The hours in the classroom add up to about twenty per week, but it takes at least another twenty to plan for classes. My class planning tends to be pretty labor intensive, too, because I like to create my own games and worksheets. Just the other day I created a "Gilligan's Island treasure hunt" to teach contractions. It worked pretty well, too, even though the students had never heard of the classic tv show.
We've entered the summer time here in Viet Nam and it is unbelievably hot! Temperatures in the nineties every day with high humidity. This makes me appreciate the apartment even more, and I hardly go out except to go to school to teach. Thank heavens, the school is airconditioned.
