Starting work!

Today was my first day teaching, but I'll start with the boring stuff (and pictures of food...)

I've been going out a lot with the other new teachers recently. The other night Marleen and I went to a Korean restaurant on Bui Vien. It was a very bizarre experience, since we didn't really know what we were doing, and the restaurant was playing the same song on repeat the entire time we were there (it sounded like a Vietnamese Celine Dion, so needless to say, it wasn't the most pleasant dining experience). The food was...bizarre. Still not sure what anything was, except for what we later determined was some sort of sardine....something or other. Unfortunately we only realized this after sampling large chopstick-fulls of it.





The sardines:


Dinner was an adventure, so afterwards, to relax a bit, we went out for a few drinks, and then a few more at the Blue Gecko (an Australian bar) with a bunch of the other teachers to say goodbye to Jane.

So moving on to the real-world, grownup topics...Today was my first day teaching. I'm starting my schedule off easy with just one class, S3s, plus it's just a cover class, so there's no real pressure if I screw up too badly...

I spent the night before doing my lesson plan in bed. Photographic evidence of my highly organized work area:

Overall my class went really well. The students were at a lot higher level than I was expecting, which was a nice surprise. Also I'm beginning to get used to Vietnamese pronunciation, so it was much easier than I was expecting. I've got the same class again on Thursday, but I'm administering a speaking test, which means I'll be talking to the students one by one in a separate room while the rest watch a movie. Not quite sure how it works yet, but I do know I'm responsible for assigning a grade, which is a bit worrisome since I have no experience with that sort of thing. That finishes up my week, except for my Saturday and Sunday, when I have 3 classes each. These will all be my classes that I'm taking over, not just classes I'm covering for another teacher going on vacation or taking time off. It'll definitely be nice and help me feel settled into a routine, but there's also a lot more pressure to lay down the law on the first day and play the part of mean teacher (not sure if I'm capable of that yet, but I'll give it a spin). It should be good though, and I'm starting to get more excited about it. Anyways, I'm off to attempt early bedtime #2 in a row...