My Life in Vietnam: March 2012

Great Things from my Preschoolers

For the past few weeks, I've been teaching my preschoolers how to write their names in English. They haven't even learned how to write their names in Vienamese yet so we've been doing a lot of tracing sheets and abc singing, etc. 10 out of the 13 students in class are now writing their names on their own, so as a treat I let them write their names on the floor instead of the tracing sheets. I'm so proud of them!!

Belle and Austin (you can also see Justin, Zack, and Timmy's work)

Tom

Tom and Alice

Amy and Kate

Tom, Alice, and Alana

Fat and Old, but still tumbling!!

Okay so.. the company that owns my school has a talent show every year, and last year they gave out gold bricks to the winners. This is my first year with my school, and I'm going HARD for this talent show. Show me the gold! I want the gold! I'm doing a gymnastics slash all-star cheerleading routine (yes, back in the day I was a gymnast and college cheerleader - my university was the national champion). So I'm a few years older, a few pounds heavier, and have lost a lot of flexibility.. but still trying to recapture some of my youth.

Today, I worked on my routine and cleaned it up a little. I'm opening with a triple toe back, and imagine the look on all those thin Vietnamese faces in the crowd when this big, old, fat white man opens up with this. I got a video of it today, and you can see it by clicking the following link:

http://qik.com/video/5B63F04C41724B8CA1CDBF0A48E95065

Tell me what ya think :) P.S. The vid cuts off a little early, but I promise you I did stick the landing on that back tuck.. several times, actually. And you KNOW I'm gonna be hurtin' tomorrow!!

School Photo Shoot

Last week we had a photo shoot for my school, Asia Pacific College Dong Nai.

Below are some that I thought were blog-worthy. Enjoy!

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The joys of teaching preschoolers in Vietnam

As I mentioned in an earlier post, every Tuesday I travel down to Thu Dau Mot to teach at Bambi Preschool. In the afternoons, I teach little tots who don't even speak Vietnamese yet so it's fun to just sing with them. Today, as usual, they were more interested in their bottles than in singing.

And, this.. well.. this you don't see every day in the states.. unless you're from Mississippi, I guess.

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Preschoolers: Itsy Bitsy Spider

My preschoolers singing Itsy Bitsy Spider :)

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Self Esteem

I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing, because I’m probably somebody who wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of self esteem as I am considered a minority and if you are a woman, if you are a person of color, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it’s going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. Especially women’s and gay men’s culture.

It’s all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you’re worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, ‘Ugh, I’m so ugly, I’m so fat, I’m so old.’ Don’t you know that’s not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising.

Magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around crème that doesn’t turn around shit. If you don’t have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life.
You will hesitate to go for the job you want to go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to call yourself an American. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote; you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

-Margaret Cho

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