A quick tally:
August- I ride my bike into a rice paddy and destroy my camera (I have to buy a new one).
October- I give my (new) camera to a teacher at my school, who drops it, cracking the screen.
February- my computer's motherboard breaks (not sure how). I take it to a repair shop- it last three days before breaking again.
Later in February- my kindle updates, but won't turn on. Not sure- it just won't turn on. I leave it alone for a week (checking every day). One week later- it turns on. No idea but weird.
End of February- my computer breaks again (same thing). I take it to the same shop- it lasts three days and breaks again.
March- in Hanoi, my computer breaks for a third time. I take it to a Hanoi repair shop with a woman from the Rising Dragon hotel to help translate. They tell me that there is a 95% chance they can fix it and 5% chance it will be broken forever. Also, it costs $60 either way. I tell them to go for it- all my stuff is backed up.
The next day, my phone charger breaks- no idea, it just stops charging my phone. I try every conceivable fix (checking online). With about 10% left on my phone, and no computer, I found a new charger from an "unofficial" Apple store (there are no Apple stores in Vietnam).
My computer was fixed the next day. Mostly. The motherboard works, but the mouse no longer does. Further, every 5 to 10 minutes it freezes and I can type and stay in the window, but not click on other links. I figured out that if I right click on my trashcan, I can reset it. Lets just say this: I'm looking forward to getting back to the States and getting all this stuff fixed for real (and maybe replacing my 5 year old computer).
On the positive side: my watch still works!
Hue
At the end of the February, I continued my travels around Vietnam with a visit to Hue: the Imperial city. Fortunately, (actually, the embassy requires it) an Fulbrighter was placed there this year. Diane, my friend, the "mom" of the Fulbrighters teaches at Phu Xuan University. Even Diane has taken many other Fulbright visitors around the sites, I was glad she was willing to be my tour guide too!
For those unfamiliar with Hue (as I was before actually going there), Hue is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the location of many massive Nguyen Dynasty tombs and an old Citadel (but huge- I'll come back to that later).
Sadly, there were no planes in the times I wanted to Hue, so I took the train. I wrote the test for the Lao Cai Provincial English Olympics, and was a judge. I left judging at 12 on Thursday. I took the bus to Hanoi, arriving at 5. I got to the train station at 6. My train left at 7:30. I arrived in Hue the next morning (13 hours later) at 9ish. One side effect of travelling in Vietnam is that I no longer blinck at journeys of less than 7 hours. 5 hours to Hanoi? Easy! 20 hours total time from Lao Cai to Hue-one way? Done. I'll no longer dread long car drives- I'm now a pro!
My first day in Hue was somewhat uneventful- it was cold and rainy. I was tired and cranky (I hate overnight trains when I just have a hard seat- not even a soft seat or bunk) and Diane was stressed- it was her first week teaching after two months off for semester break (from December to February). We mostly just wandered around. Then, it got even colder and rainier. So- we caved and watch Deadpool and Zootopia back to back. Interestingly, Deadpool was fairly heavily editted from the version I saw in Singapore- a lot less swearing and female nudity. Zootopia was of course excellent- I recommend everyone see it.
Saturday, we signed up for a tour- it was an efficient way of seeing everything! We spent the morning on a dragon boat hopping from site to site. We went to some pagodas (including seeing the car of the monk who self-immolated in Saigon) then had lunch. After lunch, we started going to Nguyen Dynasty emperors. The capital of Vietnam used to be in Hanoi. However, it was moved to Hue by the Nguyen Dynasty in 1802 and eventually moved back after it fell. (The Dynasty was coopted by the French and eventually was no more than a figurehead). These tombs are BIG (the guide- if you trust him- told me the inside was 25 square kilometers). They took over 20 years to build, and they had to encapsulate quite how wealthy these emperors were (for example, all had over 100 wives).
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| Dragon Boat |
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| Car of theguy who self-immolated |
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| We are DEEP DEEP inside the tomb complext (maybe 10 minutes walking straight back) |
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| Tomb of Khai Dinh, known for its French influence. I didn't see it. |
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| Ah. Here it is! |
On Sunday, we went to the imperial Citadel. Sadly, the Americans bombed this like crazy in the war, but from what's left, its really impressive. Think Forbidden city type stuff (in fact, the inner sanctum is called the Forbidden Purple City). It took Diane and I all morning to walk around it. For a sense of scale: google map search Hue Citadel to see what I mean- it is basically a city!) The Citadel was used as a stronghold by Nguyen Emperors but now functions as part of the UNESCO World Heritage site, in addition to having families living on the outside part.
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| Random (unimportant) gate in the Citadel |
FELC (Fulbright English Language Conference)
In Hanoi, the embassy told us that we'd have grants to carry out small projects in grant. I thought-sure, whatever. A couple weeks later, we got urgent e-mails that we needed to submit our grant proposals. Wait, what!? One ETA, Olivia from Yen Bai, wanted the 6 northern ETAs (me, Chelsea, Josh, Karen, Chin Yee and her) to do a conference with our schools. I'm lazy and didn't have a better idea, so I went with it. I didn't do much planning- leaving most of it to Chin Yee (whose school hosted it) and Olivia (who has high-level Vietnamese and conference-planning skills).
The conference ended up consisting of 6 delegations (4 students each from Grades 10,11,12 and 3 teachers) for a total of 90 and 10 embassy guests and 70 or so local teachers. So- it was big!
Most schools left Saturday morning and arrived Saturday at noon. We had events all afternoon, then a dinner and dance party in the evening. We had events in the morning on Sunday and closing ceremony at noon. My school was too far away, so we left Friday. We made some stops at local temples (like Chu Van An's temple; a famous educator, we prayed for luck there, A note to be careful, the students and I saw these weird tunnels in the temple under the alter with people walking underneath. The students had no idea what they were! So- we went through. Turns out once you start you have to go through 36 times to get good luck! We skipped that- maybe that is why we only won one competition!)
We (the Fulbrighters) planned competitive and non-competitive events (skits, debate, quiz bowl; team work olympics, dance party, etc) for the students, and hosted some workshops run by American teacher trainers for the teachers. We got really good feedback- the students had an absolute blast at both the competitions and just getting in groups to do stupid, fun activities. One teacher remarked that "you should do this every year, maybe more than once a year!" Again, it was a fun, but exhausting weekend!
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| Lao Cai delegation at lunch on Day 0 (Friday, our travel day) |
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| Chin Yee and I preparing bags for guests (mostly Chin Yee) |
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| Setting up |
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| ETAs relaxing after Day 1 |
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| Waiting for the conference by showing me and the other teachers youtube video |
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| Workshop on creative thinking |
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| During break times, we played 4 square! |
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| Grade 12 debate. Not bad! (of course, I only teach Grade 10 and 11) |
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| Lao Cai Delegation |
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| Quiz Bowl competition |
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| Closing Ceremonies |
On a last note, the conference marked the beginning of my final quarter of my time here. As of writing, I have fewer than 10 weeks left. I will post an update soon on what I feel I have gained and what I hope to accomplish in the last 10 weeks. Truly, the end is in sight.
Onwards. Always Onwards.
Daniel
