Quarter Century Y.O.

Yes, Cassell students, today's the day you find out my age... as long as you can figure out what a quarter of a century is. =)

Before I talk about how my day was, let me start first by sharing some lovely e-mails form my students I woke up to the day after:

"Dear Anna Nguyen ( i like Minh-Giang Nguyen name more^^). thanks you! i was a member of group 8! this is the first time i am taught by you, i am really love you, you are so humorous and lovely! In fact , i don't have favorite about American Culture because i don't know anything about American Culture. I really want to know all of thing about American Culture, so i hope that, after this American Culture course with you, I can understand many things about American Culture and i will have my favorite about American Culture ^^. I will try my best to learn anything that you will teach me. Thanks for your teaching and wishing you will have funny time in Vietnam - our country ^^.
Take care of yourself!"

"Dear Ms.Anna

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

This day is your birthday, I do hope that you will have great time with your beloved friends.

Also, I want to send an email to you just to say hello.

I don't know how to express my feelings but I really like the way you talk and make friend with us this morning.I like your voice,you're friendly and humorous. that is the reason why I felt more self-confident when I and my classmates talked with you. I think I can learn a lot from you to improve my English skills because in fact i'm not good student. I hope that you will help us know about American culture more and more and have good time together.

P/S: Can you "ignore" my grammar mistakes?

Once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!Have good time in Vietnam"

Quite possibly some of my favorite birthday greetings ever... along with some that I received from family and friends. =)

Maybe the reason why I received such nice e-mails was because I had such a good time with my class the morning of my birthday. The night before class, I took in my co-teacher's advice about making the slides simpler and focusing on certain vocabulary words throughout the lesson. I also went straight into introductions rather than doing the name game. The result? More participation, understanding, interaction, smiles and laughs. Some of the students were really confident when they presented to class. For example, I asked them: What do you know about American culture? One female student responded that Americans are more open with their feelings and she started talking about PDA in comparison to how Vietnamese couples interact with one another. One male student talked about how American culture, students often raise their hand to participate, unlike Vietnamese students. (He actually sounded spiteful to the rest of the class. Haha.) I made sure to affirm their answers, while responding that while those things are true, they aren't always true. Oh, the difficulties of explaining such a heterogeneous culture.

During lecture, I made sure to compare everything I was talking about to Vietnamese culture, especially since their goal is to be able to understand American culture in comparison and in contrast to what they know about their own culture. Again, I used Vietnamese words to entertain them, and as with the rest of my students, they enjoyed my example about eating dog meat to talk about how we shouldn't generalize that just because one person does thing, that everyone else does it as well. By the way, not all Vietnamese people eat dog meat, ya'll. In fact, no one in my class admitted to trying it before, even after I put on the board, "Thit cho -- ngon qua!" ("Dog meat -- so delicious!")

At the end of lecture, I played music to share with them my favorite part of American Culture (also something for them to look into for homework). Then my co-teacher Thu approached me with a birthday gift -- a bronze ring formed into eagle feathers! It was so nice of her. The rest of the day, I caught up with friends, blogged at a nearby cafe that had faster internet, and indulged in some White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies with some milk, and napped. (People nap a lot in Hue -- especially between 11AM-1PM, the hottest time of the day.)

My pre-nap / birthday treat. I like to dissolve crispy cookies in milk so I can drink it like a milkshake. I'm odd -- I know.

By the time I woke up from my nap, it was already dinner time! I got ready to meet with my friends, and we headed to a quan nhau, which is a place that is designated to drinking beer and snacking on delicious food. Huda is the main brand of beer in Hue, so we ordered several to share. Some new friends we made at the next table also ordered us a round, and one bought me a bouquet of roses upon finding out that it was my birthday and got the whole restaurant singing the birthday song to me. It was a definitely a great way to spend the evening.

Amy, Jenelle, our new friend Truong, Jared, me, and Steven enjoying our dinner and company.

After that, we went to Backpacker's Hostel to hang out in a more quiet setting. Amy surprised me with a delicious chocolate cake -- chocolate cake layered with chocolate mousse and topped with chocolate shavings. I was in chocolate heaven! I satiated all cravings for chocolate upon scarfing down a piece within two minutes. We also ran into a couple ex-pat and Vietnamese friends, and also joined with the friends we made at the quan nhau place. Overall, it was a wonderful birthday experience, and I have my new friends as well as my friends and family from home to thank. =)

My birthdate (day/month)

The crew!