Day 47: October 6, 2014

While I wouldn't say that I enjoy the music that blares from the courtyard every Monday morning at 7am, I am definitely getting used to it. If anything, it helps wake me up a little bit before I have to go catch the bus. Today was the hardest day so far for me to actually get out of bed, and I found myself wanting to fall asleep on the bus to class. I somehow made it all the way through Vietnamese class, though.

After Vietnamese class, I had plans with Kem, a girl I met at Open University English club a while ago, and two of her friends. I met them in front of the university and they took me on their motorbikes to a coffee shop. It was much more expensive than I was anticipating, but I had a soy vanilla shake which was pretty good. I know some people at home are probably rolling their eyes at the soy aspect, but it was all they served! We chatted for two hours about all kinds of things before I had to go back to the university.

I headed back to the university and went to the canteen to get a quick lunch before a meeting I had scheduled at 2pm. I saw Nhi and Alex, who are both partner students, and asked them if they would help me order lunch. Usually I can do so by myself, but today most of the rice was gone so I had to request a noodle dish. I told Nhi that I wanted yellow noodles, which are like macaroni noodles, with a fried egg. Last time I ordered this, I got a plate of noodles with vegetables and an egg. This time however, a bowl of broth with the noodles in it came out, much like a bowl of soup, with the fried egg sitting on top. Not what I had in mind, but it was very good.

When 2pm came around, I headed downstairs for my meeting, which was actually an interview. As part of our Vietnamese homework, we had to interview Vietnamese teachers in Vietnamese. The interview was very brief (what is your name, how old are you, do I speak good Vietnamese) and lasted less than two minutes. I'm not sure how well I did, so we'll let the professor decide.

After my interview, I headed back to the canteen and sat with Alex and Nhi again. We basically talked for the next three hours about everything under the sun. Right before class, I decided I wanted a snack so we wandered in front of Open University. I ended up getting a green bean sweet soup, which was exactly what I wanted. As I finished eating it, we said our good-byes and I headed to class. Class went rather quickly, and afterwards it was back to the dorm after almost 12 hours away.

Turns out that we actually were in the newspaper from the time we went to the landfill. The three links are below, but sadly they are all in Vietnamese so I am unable to read them.

http://nld.com.vn/doanh-nhan-doanh-nghiep/sinh-vien-my-hoc-ve-moi-truong-tai-khu-lien-hop-xu-ly-chat-thai-da-phuoc-20140927175046017.htm

http://www.thanhnien.com.vn/pages/20140929/sinh-vien-my-hoc-tap-thuc-te-ve-moi-truong-tai-da-phuoc.aspx

http://www.tienphong.vn/giao-duc/sinh-vien-my-trai-nghiem-ve-xu-ly-moi-truong-tai-viet-nam-764940.tpo

Also, I'm going to put a plug in for Cate's blog, www.happyhepburn.blogspot.com. She updates about once a week, so much less frequently, but it gives her time to write better posts.