Back to School
First week at school has been really intense, but also just what I wanted. Learning Vietnamese in a group of 10 fun people with good teachers, in a bustling little university in the middle of Saigon. The class is 8 Koreans, age 22 to 60, 2 Brits including me, and one Japanese guy age 60. Really good mix and I'm glad I've done this.
Learning Asian style is also fun, lots of group chanting words to learn them, and the alpabet, and the tones, then doing it individually, then more learning. Then having very ... hesitant .... conversations in Vietnamese with the teacher or class buddy. The teachers use less and less English too, now they've taught us the word for page, and the numbers, and 'listen and repeat' etc, they use those in Vietnamese, so you have to be totally focussed all the time. Draining but challenging and fun, although I did wonder on day 2 if I'd be able to keep up. Teachers say I'm doing good though and they like my tones, which are hard for us euro's to do.
Here's the view from the classroom!
Saigon is amazing, manga towers like the photo but also a million little alleyways and coffee shops and bars and blade runner style streets. You could explore forever, and if you just sit by yourself somewhere people will come up to talk and invite you for drinks and practice their English. Pretty nuts.
I'm planning on living like a monk this month, so I'm getting up at 0530 for breakfast at the hotel, walking 10 minutes to the uni, spending an hour revising for class, then 4 hours intense tuition. My mind is done at the end, but for the first time yesterday I could face doing another session in the afternoon, so I hope I'm over the hump. My class buddy 'Jamie' from Korea was looking pretty down though and said he was finding it hard, so I guess yesterday was his hump.
After lunch I'm doing some of my own company work, which is moving along slowly but nicely, then it's an early night. Sometimes I think about this shop.
Conrad's wife is due to give birth in a couple weeks which they want to do in Saigon as the medical facilities are better, so they should be down soon for a week or so.
So all is good and I'm happy!
Learning Asian style is also fun, lots of group chanting words to learn them, and the alpabet, and the tones, then doing it individually, then more learning. Then having very ... hesitant .... conversations in Vietnamese with the teacher or class buddy. The teachers use less and less English too, now they've taught us the word for page, and the numbers, and 'listen and repeat' etc, they use those in Vietnamese, so you have to be totally focussed all the time. Draining but challenging and fun, although I did wonder on day 2 if I'd be able to keep up. Teachers say I'm doing good though and they like my tones, which are hard for us euro's to do.
Here's the view from the classroom!
Saigon is amazing, manga towers like the photo but also a million little alleyways and coffee shops and bars and blade runner style streets. You could explore forever, and if you just sit by yourself somewhere people will come up to talk and invite you for drinks and practice their English. Pretty nuts.
I'm planning on living like a monk this month, so I'm getting up at 0530 for breakfast at the hotel, walking 10 minutes to the uni, spending an hour revising for class, then 4 hours intense tuition. My mind is done at the end, but for the first time yesterday I could face doing another session in the afternoon, so I hope I'm over the hump. My class buddy 'Jamie' from Korea was looking pretty down though and said he was finding it hard, so I guess yesterday was his hump.
After lunch I'm doing some of my own company work, which is moving along slowly but nicely, then it's an early night. Sometimes I think about this shop.
Conrad's wife is due to give birth in a couple weeks which they want to do in Saigon as the medical facilities are better, so they should be down soon for a week or so.
So all is good and I'm happy!
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