HEY!

So we are starting the 3rd week of our English teaching program and so far everything has been great.  I have a wonderful group of students who are all very friendly, talented, and eager to learn.  I teach mostly teenage girls in the day for 3 hours, and then teaching a mixed group of college aged kids at night a few times a week.  They are an absolute ball and just fun to be around.  It's always fun to teach students that WANT to learn, and want to know about American music, sports, and culture.

This is a picture of my class and I on the first day... the pic is a little dark I know... but you can see some of my students.

Singing is an enormous part of Vietnamese culture and they absolutely LOVE poppy music.  If its Top 40 in the U.S. and catchy... they love it.  For the past two weeks, I basically have only been listening to Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Ashlee Simpson.  It's quite humous actually.

My students singing!!!

This is Tim goofing off in class with my sunglasses.  Probably post-Britney Spears sing session.

In my free time I have been keeping really busy.  We have been singing Karaoke and traveling on the weekends, and playing lots of Basketball during the week.  We went to Lavang last weekend and saw a special town for the Catholic population of Vietnam.  Apparently there was a Virgin Mary sighting there in the late 1700's.  Pretty interesting actually.  We also went to the most famous Pagoda in Hue and to two former Kings of Vietnam's Tombs.  Hue used to be the capital during the monarchy ages and so there are a lot of King's Tombs in the area.  We also have been flying kites near the giant flag pole in the late afternoon which is really really fun.  Reminds me a lot the Kite Runner.

A shot of me and one of the Monks at the Pagoda.  He was laughing at me for being from the U.S.

Hanging with Long and Kim at King Duc's Tomb.

The massive flag tower where everyone hangs out in the late afternoon and fly their kites.

Vic and Bao getting ready to fly a very flamboyant Batman.

A friend I made at the park... don't worry... he killed me at Badminton.