Day 92: Happy Teacher's Day!

Today was Vietnamese Teacher's Day, which is basically a day when students give their teachers gifts. Our first class of the day was Vietnamese, where we spent a lot of time focusing on numbers. No worries though, as I can now say numbers like 1,234,567 in Vietnamese. We gave our professor a card we had all signed, which based by the other gifts I saw is basically nothing. For example, the dormitory was lined with huge flower arrangements and OU had flower arrangements all over the front steps and a huge lunch set up for teachers. In fact, for celebration of Teacher's Day OU students didn't have classes! Many of them still came to school though to give thanks to their teachers and spend the day with them, however.

After Vietnamese, Cate, Alex, Summer, and I headed to L'Uisine, which is basically a Westernized café. I had promised Cate that I would go with her sometime, and today was the day since we had sociology later. Stepping into the café was like stepping back into the United States simply because of the atmosphere. Everything on the menu sounded delicious, and it was hard to choose what I should get to eat. I ended up getting a mushroom and olive stuffed chicken sandwich on a baguette with a side of pumpkin and potato hash. As expected, everything was fantastic. My only complaint is that my sandwich could have used some soy sauce--there is the influence of Vietnam talking!

We spent a few hours at the café and then headed back to campus for a makeup sociology class. We gave our professor another card, but he had also brought cake in to celebrate some of the Loyola student's birthdays. He didn't want the extra cake, so I ended up bringing it back on the bus. I feel like I might have gotten a few more stares than normal because I was holding a cake on Teacher's Day, which could have easily been a gift to a teacher.

After packing for our trip this weekend, we headed to our final DRD. We received two awesome presents, a bamboo spoon made by people at DRD as well as a keychain made by a blind woman and a man with polio. We saw a slideshow of the semester, listened to some great speeches, and ate some more great food. It was strange to begin saying the goodbyes of the semester, and it just proved to me how tough saying goodbye to the university students will be.

I joined English club at 9pm and had the chance to catch up with Yen, which I really needed to do. The topic tonight was final exams, so we just spent two hours talking about exams and how we prepare for them. Afterwards, I went to the canteen with Binh and two of his friend to listen to the guitar club perform. We headed back to our rooms around midnight, but after messaging each other Binh and I decided that neither of us were tired. We met back down in the courtyard, where I introduced him to the wonderful world of Froot Loops and cereal. Surprisingly, he didn't think it was too sweet or sugary. We spent the night the same way we have been, talking about all kinds of things and trying to keep quiet enough so that the guards don't make us leave the courtyard. It wasn't until 3:30am that the guard told us we needed to leave. At that point, however, I can't believe he told us to leave since it was already so far past the 11pm curfew/shut down time. But let's be honest, if it weren't for the guards telling us to leave each night I'm not sure I would have been sleeping at all this week!

Walking around Saigon I've definitely noticed that Christmas decorations are beginning to be put up. It was weird to see fall and Halloween decorations because the leaves weren't changing colors, so it's especially weird to see Christmas decorations out when it is still 85 degrees everyday. It's also kind of sad to see because it just serves as a reminder that the day I leave is getting closer and closer.

I leave tomorrow morning (or maybe I should just say "in 3 hours") for a trip to Ta Kou Nature Preserve for environmental science. There won't be any Wi-Fi, so don't expect another post until Sunday!