Dirrrty South. . . . Mekong Style

Today I borrowed Jeff’s lesson plan about life in the future, and in space. I gave students the prompt,
“What will the world be like in the year 3009? Where will we live? What will we do, eat, and wear?”

One student said that we will all be wearing bikinis. First the entire class (including me) thought she was mispronouncing something or was confused. I wrote bikini on the board, and she nodded yes, that is indeed what she meant.

When I walked around the rest of the class, on three different occasions, students told me that in the year 3009 people will wear nothing. I think they answered that way because they actually hadn’t been thinking about the prompt and it was the first things that came to their minds. I reminded them, “so that means people will go around naked everywhere?” They giggled at the thought, but stuck to their guns. So…nudie future it is.

UPDATE: I did this activity with another class, yet another two groups decide that people will go around naked in the future (one group says we’ll be naked in a post-apocalyptic Waterworld-esque planet, and the other says we’ll be naked on Mars). Really, what is it up with TVU students, the future and nudity?

To sum up the festivities:

This song was originally sung by the leztastic Lesley Gore. Little do people know that it was just part one of a two part saga. Here is what happens next to our heroine, Judy and Johnny.

Johnny sounds like a violent, possessive, cheating hypocrite AKA a giant dickwad. Lesley Gore should write a song where they should both reject his lame ass and get together.

Happy Khmer New Year (a little late is better than never!!)

From December to February, this song was played nonstop in Vietnam!! (for Western New Year, and for Tet)

I think the internet has shortened my attention span even more. I kinda get ansty watching regular television. Watching TV on the internet, I can watch whenever, pause, open other windows, read the news, look up something on wikipedia, then go back, watch a little more. I can’t handle just sitting in front of a TV anymore. 

I do think I am devolving. There are other ways too. I’m becoming less mature. For example, I started out life with a very strong work ethic. The older I get, the worse it gets. It was going downhill in high school, and college basically murdered any ounce of discipline I once had. Also, I used to be a bit neater (sort of). It was more that I would be messy, then every so often I would hit a threshold where it’s unlivable, and then I clean. As I grow older, the threshold gets higher and higher, me cleaning becomes more rare. I’m well on the way to having no standards of cleanliness whatsoever.

Sigh.

Will you still be my friend when my brain is a pile of mush living in a pile of filth?

Yo. I’m in Tra Vinh for one more year. The original plan of striking out on my own to HCMC has been postponed for a year.

Why stay? I spent the first few months in Tra Vinh with all this angst of transitioning to a new country, a new environment, teaching, small town life, etc. In the new year, I started spending my time always scouring job sites, working on my resume, looking up insurance, how to get visas, etc. Essentially once I got over my getting used to Tra Vinh drama, I already had one foot out the door. I wouldn’t really get as an in-depth experience of Tra Vinh.

Also, my Vietnamese is still hella busted. The schedule and lack of transition drama will give me time and energy to focus. Working full time at a job requiring only English (which would be my ideal situation), wouldn’t leave that much opportunity. It’s definitely possible if I really try and am motivated….but at this age I’m starting to accept how I really am and how I really work and what my weaknesses are…knowing myself, I’d be too distracted. Simply put, I’d be pretty frickin’ depressed if this is as good as my Vietnamese is going to ever be.

How long will I be in VN? I don’t know….but it’s looking like maybe two more years (three total, yikes!!!), but we’ll see in the future. I might pack my bags and go home early, or…I don’t know!

Rainy season is back…..1-2 months earlier than normal. Thank you global warming and your wild and wacky antics!!!

Oh Dry Season, we barely even knew thee!

When it was really hot and dusty with no torrential rainfall to cool things off, I thought I’d be happy when the rain comes back. Now that it’s overcast, I can’t hear the TV from the thudding rain on the tin roof top, the unhappy realization that I’ll probably get soaked on my bike ride to class and that there’s not a drop of sunshine in sight, I gots a case of the gloomy gloops.

Lately it’s been dry season in Tra Vinh. No rain, just hot windy weather. Windy weather = kites!!! That’s right kiddies, it’s kite flying season (ok, it was. It just ended, but I’ve been procrastinating on posting).

I was pretty excited because my first impression ever of Tra Vinh was that there would be lots of kites. When I first got posted there, I looked up as much about Tra Vinh as I could on the internet (which wasn’t much). On YouTube, there was like this 10 minute video on Tra Vinh that had nothing but kite flying in it. I was like “What is this crazy town with nothing but kites?”

(You don’t have to watch the whole thing. I haven’t even seen it yet in all its entirety.)

I was a bit disappointed when I arrived in Tra Vinh and nary a kite could be seen. Lo and behold, seven months later, kites at last, kites at last!!!!!

The green building in the back is My Lan Chemical Company. My Lan Co. is pretty fancy shmancy. Working there is like the Tra Vinh-ian equivalent to working for Google, from what I hear (apparently there are massages for staff, and a fancy restaurant that’s free for workers). Anyways, everyday from 3-6pm, it’s crowded with lots of people flying kites. I only ever flew kites once a year during elementary school, with my school’s annual kite day. Still, kites have a special place in my heart…

…In anyone’s heart, I’d argue. During Tet, when I went to Vung Tau, my mom also went with a bunch of her old friends from high school. We all went to the beach, everyone else went swimming. Since I didn’t have a swimsuit, I bought a kite instead. From frumpy 65 year olds to jaded med school students, everyone’s faces magically transformed into gleeful smiles and giggles once I handed them the kite.

Yay kites. My kite is a Phoenix. It kind of looks like a flying chicken, but I think that adds to its charm. In my few kite flying adventures, I have learned that white men and kites are a hazardous combination. This comes from my highly scientific research involving two case studies.

1) Toni. We went kite flying. When I was flying the kite, everything was happy and wonderful. I passed the kite to him. Within 5 minutes he instigated an airborne accident, tangling up with 4 kites and dragging them to the ground. I go to the scene and being winding up the string, only to see that our kite has somehow been severed from the twine and is now somewhere far away. Toni goes to look for it, returns to inform me that a gang of 10 year old kids have taken the kite and won’t give it back to him. I go to the kids and they demand 10,000 VND in exchange for the kite. I just take it and walk away, shaking my head in disapproval at the Spaniard.

2) Jeff. He went to fly kites with Tam and her niece. Apparently Tam handed him the kite for one moment, and in that moment the kite wandered in front of a lady driving a motorcycle and the string almost decapitated her.

I read an article on the BBC News website that a pink baby elephant was spotted in Botswana. Filled with complete and utter excitement, I clicked the link.

This picture followed:

Meh. I guess it’s kinda pink. It’s more like it’s pink in comparison with the other elephants. It’s just not exciting as I thought it would be.

Maybe I’m a bit disappointed because I thought it would look a little more like the new purse I got in Phnom Penh.

If you want to see an animal that’s pink with some pizzaz, look no further:

This dolphin was spotted in Louisiana. The dolphin and the elephant are both albinos.

Speaking of albinos, apparently albino humans are in danger in Tanzania. Their body parts are in high demand by “witch doctors” to use in potions. Interesting stuff. One of my regrets in Cameroon is that I wished I had gone with my original idea to research albinos as opposed to music video dancers…