Pizza, Bowling, Dance Competitions and Halloween Parties

Well if that title doesn't sound like the most random assortment of activities, I don't know what does. But that's been our life for the past few weeks. I've been meaning to do something fun like make a video, but haven't found the time to sit down and focus. So instead you'll get a quick blurb on what's been happening and a link to our latest pictures. (If you want to skip right to the pictures, click here.)

Pizza: A couple weeks ago we invited a few of the students we've gotten to know the best to come to our place and make pizza with us. It ended up being a blast--it was only the first or second time any of them had had pizza. One of them told us the next day that she had been so excited she stayed up until 1:00 in the morning writing in her diary about the pizza-making experience.

This group of students has been pretty great. They're funny, they enjoy each other's company and their English is at a level where we're able to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with them. We felt like this was a "breakthrough" night, in that the students didn't just come over to have a semi-formal English conversation time with us, but felt free to just hang out and be themselves.

Bowling: A few days later we invited some of the same students (and some others) out to the Quy Nhon bowling alley. That's right--the bowling alley. Though it only has 8 lanes, the feel of the place is 100% Americana, right down to the stale cigarette smoke in the air. Well, maybe 95% Americana, due to the lack of chili cheese fries and the fact that Steven had to bowl in his socks (size 13 bowling shoes in Vietnam? Are you kidding me??). Joelle whooped everyone soundly.

Dance competition: Next in the parade of wackiness was the campus-wide dance competition. Each class participates (in VN students stick with the same group of students for every class through all 4 years of college, so they grow pretty tight-knit). We went to the competition just for the foreign language department and there were a good 400 onlookers. They took their dancing seriously. Tomorrow are the finals, in which the best teams from each department go up against each other. Will there be any halftime entertainment, you ask? How about a couple of off-key foreign teachers doing their best to sing "Stand By Me" to several hundred students? Yeah, that sounds about right. We'll let you know how it goes.


Halloween: American holidays are big here. We went to no less than three different Halloween parties, two of which were organized by us. We run an English club with Jill and Jason that meets alternate weeks--one week with 1st and 2nd year students, the next week with 3rd and 4th year students. We threw a Halloween party for both of those groups, and both times it was crazy-go-nuts. With a trivia competition, word search, "see who can make the most ridiculous costume out of common household items" competition, bobbing for apples, and plenty of Vietnamese candy, how can you not have a blast?


Things were made even crazier by the fact that Steven invited his 1st year students to English club for the first time this week (since they started classes a month later than everyone else). All three of his classes showed up almost in their entirety, plus several 2nd year students. We figure we had somewhere around 65 people packed into our one-room apartment. A little tight.

Well, that's been life for us lately. The year is going by fast, and we're looking forward to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and visitors from home for the holidays (woohoo!). Good times. Good times.