This space will be used to document and record my adventures in Vietnam and throughout South East Asia over the course of the next year.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

NYC in July

Today I booked my flight back to New York. I plan on going back in June to a city that I will have been gone from for ten months. It's strange that a place can be your home for so long, can be so clear and real to you that nowhere else seems to exist and then one day you pick up and leave. And then a new place becomes your home and you adjust to your surroundings and the same feelings develop in relation to your new place. Routine, enjoyment, security.

But I can feel that it's time to visit New York and see my family and friends again. I've missed the energy and excitement that pulse through New York. I've missed conversing in English and really hammering at current events in the world. I've missed new music and movies and a public forum where art comes to life and is unavoidable to anyone on the street.

I'm excited to visit all of these activities and feelings and luxuries. And I'm excited to make peace with the call of NYC from so many miles away and to really understand where home is.

Motorbikes, tunnels and an uncle

I conquered a major fear of mine this past weekend and rode a motorbike again. For those of you who might remember, I was in an accident a few months ago and landed up in a cast for a full month. Being in a cast is never fun, let alone when you live in a city where it's difficult to walk around as it is and your bedroom is on the fourth floor of your house. So I've been weary of driving ever since I was a hop-a-long and had not yet climbed on a motorbike until this weekend.

My uncle was in town for business and we actually sat down and spoke for the first time in a few years. It's amazing how quickly time can pass and, before you know it, it's been 4 years and a lot of maturing before you speak to a person again. We decided to drive out to the Cu Chi tunnels, located 2 hours away from Ho Chi Minh City. After an hour of driving along the same road in the city, it dawned on me how huge HCMC actually is. We tend to stick to our neighborhood and those surrounding us but it becomes clear that you live in a sprawling metropolis of 12 million or so people when you're actually trying to get out of it.

We drove along highway where the Vietnamese actually wear helmets, displaying the first signs of being concerned for their skulls that I've seen. And we turned off the highway onto smaller country roads and wound our way through rice fields and country homes.

Once at the tunnels, we crawled through the claustrophobic caves and listened to the good-natured attitude of our Vietnamese tour guide who fought with the Americans and has no gripes for either side of the troops. And then I mounted the bike for the first time in months and off we went, back through country roads. We stopped several times for sugarcane juice in hammocks and later cold beer before we returned to the heat and smog of the endless stretch of city.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Procrastinate

I'm supposed to be submitting an article to TEFL magazine tomorrow and have not started writing it yet. This behavior reminds me of my college days when papers started to get written the night before while a panicked "I can't do this....!!" came gargling out my mouth. But the papers were always written and I always made the deadline.

The situation right now is looking a little different. Any of you who may check my blog occasionally in hope that I have updated will know that I am currently stricken by a writers' block and am finding it difficult to get thoughts onto paper. This makes writing a 1500 word article fairly difficult.

I guess my major hindrance in writing the article is that I lack confidence in what I have to say. The story is about my experience here as a teacher in Vietnam and right now all I can think about is "what the hell do I know? I'm still bumbling around in the dark out here." Teaching has come naturally to me but it's a constant challenge to complete the days and impart knowledge onto my students in a way that satisfies my innate desire to succeed. So now, as procrastination in the multimedia lab of my school, I am going to do some of the free writing that I press onto my students on a regular basis and see what comes out.

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More to come later...

Saturday, March 12, 2005

A post

A month without posting...again. My life continues in a whirlwind over here with constant sights, sounds and experiences that change my life's course and perspective and meaning on a weekly basis. I've come to recognize my street as home and my neighbors as colleagues in this wonderful adventure that has slowly become my daily life. I've hit the 6 month mark and I'm here and happy with a stellar job, home, life. But for some reason I have trouble getting my thoughts out onto paper. I sit in front of this screen often and dabble with words but they just don't come. Perhaps my overwhelming exposure to the English language at work deprives me of expression of my own. Or perhaps I read the exciting and crazy posts of my friends out here and think to myself, wow...my life just isn't that crazy. But it's wonderful and exciting and fresh and I love the exposure I'm gaining over here and the lessons that I'm learning. So I'm gonna try write more often, I'm totally going to try.