Back To Nha Trang, Fall 2011

I returned to Viet Nam on Septmeber 8. Spent a night in Ho Chi Minh City and flew to Nha Trang the next day. I had an apartment ready waiting for me when I arrived. It was the same apartment building I was in last year, but the 5th floor (ocean view, mountain view, and quiet). Well worth the $50 more a month I will be paying.

The first three weeks was hot as hell here. But on October 1st the rainy season started right on time and things cooled off a bit, but that came with a price, rain every afternoon. I took a week to recover from the time change and began teaching at Crazy Kim mornings and evenings. The language school that I taught at last year fired me a couple of weeks before I came home. They said students were leaving the school because of me. Over the summer I got an email saying they made a mistake, would I please come back and teach. I stupidly said okay. Two weeks after I arrived they called me in to discuss my "employment status." Struck me as an odd thing to do. Turns out they wanted to fire me again, before I even started teaching. They said that now I was such a good teacher that I was stealing their students by teaching at Crazy Kim. I swear, some people should not be in business. I hope next time they would just send me an email terminating my services.

This year all the classrooms have flat screen TV's and I hook up my iPad to it and can show videos and all kinds of lecture materials, which makes the teaching much more effective and fun. I am teaching again at Nha Trang University and  have 4 classes. All of them pronunciation. I really feel like a professor now. The students are so eager and cute.

I've been studying Vietnamese now for more than 3 years. This year I am passionate about learning it faster. So, I'm taking two classes a day. Between teaching 2 classes and taking 2 I'm quite busy and very happy about that. I also squeeze in time to practice my violin and guitar and run 5 miles in the morning. That leaves me with absolutely no time to get into trouble.

Even my love life has improved. Last year I was pretty attracted to one of my students but we did not express any interest in each other until after she got a job and stopped coming to classes. (The free ones at Crazy Kim.) Anyway, we exchanged email addresses and spent the summer Skyping each other most days. We've been dating since I returned. I'll just say the relationship is very comfortable, and she is quite remarkable. Maybe I've finally met one of those Vietnamese women that I've heard so much about but never seen.  We are still in the infatuation stage so I won't make any predictions. A few things about her: has a good job working in a lawyer's office translating documents into English, nearly as tall as me, extremely pretty, sweet as can be, very ambitious but not greedy or materialistic. And she has a smile and laugh that can stop amaze me every time.

So, life is good here in Vietnam. I'm feeling useful, helping eager students to learn English. And I'm getting to learn a lot of things myself. Of all the things I can think of, there is nothing like learning and helping others to learn that is more rewarding and satisfying.