Becky arrived four days ago, and immediately got caught up in the whirlwind. She starts work on Monday, teaching at the nearby campus of Singapore International School. SIS follows a strict curriculum called the Cambridge Program. It should be pretty straightforward from a planning point of view, but we'll reserve judgement until she has started. Most of the students are Koreans and wealthy Vietnamese. Becky is teaching several levels of English language arts (not literature, just reading, writing, and speaking). The pay is great, but she has a pretty full 8-3 schedule, and cannot leave until 5 pm. Not ideal, but we'll see how do-able it is once she gets started.
Sivan and Amali have completed their first week of school at Hanoi International School. This is the #2 school in town -- The UN International School is the best, but it has a long waiting list of applicants, so there was no way. Anyway, I am glad they are at HIS. It is more casual, with a strong emphasis on teacher-student relationships and creating a cooperative learning environment (much like Sandia Prep). I was there on Thursday and bumped into the school counselor (Pastoral Advisor is her official title). She commented that the girl's transition was remarkably smooth -- she sees a lot of kids who are resistant and angry about their dislocation and have trouble adapting to their new milieu. Talking about milieus, both girls are taking French, but Sivan has to take French 3!!! It will be tough catching up, but she has a HS senior tutuoring her and I am confident that she will do fine. Amali is taking both French and Vietnamese. It is a small school, so there really isn't any flexibility in the offerings. The girls have made good friends already, with students from Denmark, Finland, Thailand, and Korea to name a few of their home countries. They each have cell phones and have been texting their friends frequently and have facebook friended them as well. In time they will get together socially, I'm sure. The girls have signed up for a southeast Asian international school sports league! Sivan will play volleyball and Amali basketball, and they get to travel to Vientiane (Laos) and maybe Bangkok...
They've been commuting to and from school on the back of a xe om (pronounced seh ohm) -- a motorcycle taxi, but we discovered that we were being ripped off. They took a regular taxi on Friday, which cost 40,000 vietnamese Dong (about $2) with the meter on. The xe om driver was charging us 60,000 -- and xe oms are supposed to be cheaper. I renegotiated the price and we will pay him 40,000 -- still good for him and the girls prefer the motorbike to a taxi anyway. They'll take taxis if it is very rainy, but usually they'll take the xe om. I don't think I feel great about them commuting by bicycle yet, but maybe down the road. Some time soon, I will mount a camera on the front of my bike so you can get a sense of what it is like to cycle here -- crazy!
My first work meeting is on Tuesday, but I've been working all this time getting my courses together. I am intimidated by the prospect of teaching AP courses for the first time, and to teach AP Economics, without ever having taught the subject before is even more daunting, but I have been preparing and with a lot of prep work I'll do fine.
My ability to communicate with Vietnamese people is improving, although I still cannot pronounce anything well enough for any of them to understand what I am saying, even after lessons on how to pronounce their very foreign vowel sounds (recall my constipation reference several posts ago). I have trouble with basics such as numbers-- ba (3), bon (4--and then 'n' is barely pronounced, and bai (7) confuse me. I might accidentally offer to pay 70,000 dong for something that the shopowner just offered for 30,000. We westerners get ripped off routinely (a great example of Price Discrimination for my Econ course), paying 2-3x what vietnamese people would have to pay. We are getting more savvy as time goes on, and maybe by the end will only be paying 50% more than we should...?
Anyway, that's it for now. More later.
We're off to the local boba tea -- "feeling tea" around the corner -- one large tea costs just 20,000 dong (a dollar)! Then tonight, Becky and I are going to the Cinemateque to watch the Redux version of Apocalypse Now -- a free airing sponsored by the Italian Embassy. We would have taken the girls, but the newer version has a bit too much sexual content (according to IMDB). So they get to go out for pho and watch Disney Channel.
Xin Chao,
Chuck
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