Day 64: October 23, 2014

This morning started off with Vietnamese class, where after learning a short dialogue we asked if we could learn our colors. We also had Vietnamese assistants for the first time in quite a few weeks; their final exams are finally over! It's nice to be able to practice Vietnamese in class with actual speakers rather than each other.

After class I headed to the canteen to finish writing my history paper, which took me very little time to write. I guess it's the thought of having to write a paper here that makes me put it off until the day it's due. Alex, Tori, and I had lunch with partner student Alex in the canteen. Tori and I each just pointed to some meat dish to have with rice, expecting that it was either pork or beef. When we sat down to eat it, though, we realized that we had beef (?) and shrimp with rice. Not my favorite meal, although the banana was good. There's just something about eating shelled shrimp that throws me off. Having a not so great lunch, we decided to head to the Family Mart across the street to get some ice cream. Thankfully, our 10,000d ice cream was exactly what we were expecting.

Alex and I took the bus back to the dormitory and did some homework. I submitted my history paper, finished my final poster for environmental science, and even got my schedule figured out for next semester. What a productive afternoon! Soon it was time to head to DRD for service learning, which went a little slower than usual. Afterwards, though, Wilson, Summer, and I ate at a restaurant near DRD. We had beef hotpot as well as beef on the grill. The beef on the grill came out first, and we got a charcoal grill with a curved plate on top, a bowl of oil, and a plate of raw meat. Thankfully, the workers helped us figure out what we were supposed to do. They took the oil, spread it on the grill, dumped the excess off, and then began to lay the beef on top. It also came with eggplant and okra, and it was so...refreshing...to have something that contained neither rice nor noodles. We took turns eating the beef and vegetables, and we each had our own horseradish-y and chili pepper sauce to dip our food into.

When we had finished that, they brought out our hotpot. This was a gas burner with a big metal pot on top that contained a broth, pork balls, what may have been cow skin, tofu, and some vegetables. We also received another plate of noodles and a plate of raw beef. Once the broth began to heat up, we added the noodles until it was boiling. Then, we added the beef and waited for it to cook. Once we decided everything was cooked, we ladled ourselves small bowls. The broth was my favorite part, and it reminded me of soup more than anything else.

I got back to the dorm around 9:15, right in time for English Club at the dormitory. Tonight's activity was careers, and I participated in some of the games as well as circle talk. We were only supposed to be in groups of five, but suddenly my group contained about 10 people. I saw some of the Bach Khoa partners, which was really nice considering we don't do much with them anymore, but I also met all kinds of new people. Not surprisingly, they were all interested in what I had to say and were impressed by my Vietnamese. Neither I nor anybody else was ready to call it a night when the lights shut off at 11, signaling that we all needed to go to our rooms.

One thing I want to mention that I forgot to write about yesterday. When I was eating with Thao, I asked her how often she has rice and/or noodles because lately I've been feeling like there is a food group I've been missing out on. Her response? Everyday. I then asked her what she eats when she is sick of both of those options, to which she replied banh mi. I explained to her that I felt like I was doing something wrong by having rice and/or noodles everyday. She told me that in Vietnam you change the dish up depending on what type of meat you put on it. Thao also said there is a saying in Vietnam that explains how people eat rice and noodles. It basically compares a man's wife to rice and his lover to pho, saying that the man loves his wife but one day may decide he needs something else. She said that people eat rice everyday until they get sick of it and decide to eat noodles, which they then eat until they get sick of that.