Teacher training

The Bi-texaco tower

Today is a good day. Its one year ago that I started my teacher training at ILA. Today is also the last day of my full time schedule for the semester so now I have two weeks off. I still work at my old school until Sunday but after then I have two weeks off. When it comes to Sunday I will have worked 59 out of the previous 61 days which I feel pretty good about. Teaching is going well and I'm now at the point where I get regularly asked to have new teacher sit in my classes to observe an 'experienced' teachers lesson, which is quite a complement.

View of Ho Chi Minh City from the 49th floor

This works in my favour as I tell my students someone is coming to watch them to see if they behave so naturally they do. I've got two teachers coming to watch one of my classes this Saturday - its my rowdy class, 19 11-12 year olds who enjoy messing around. It should be interesting.

I went up the Bi-Texaco tower the other day again to see the sunset. There is a great viewing platform on the 49th floor. It was nice to be up the tallest building in Ho Chi Minh City but sadly the smog prevented a good sunset. Although I did get some nice pics which you can see on the blog.

Smoggy sunset across Ho Chi Minh City

One of my teacher chums is leaving ILA today which is sad, another one is leaving this Sunday which is sadder so this afternoon we are going for another all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ which I'm excited about, we are also going for beers and since I don't have to get up tomorrow I can let my hair down, which will be nice. Some good news is that I'm buying one of my mates motorbikes for $200, so ever cloud has a silver lining. Details of the motorbike are that it's red, it's reliable and it gets me from A - B.

Ho Chi Minh City at night

I've booked a ticket for an overnight sleeper coach this sunday to go to a place called Dalat with a friend which is supposed to be very pretty and is in the Vietnam hills. The journey takes 7 hours and I have my own bed, it leave at 11pm and I will arrive at 6am, refreshed from a good nights sleep. As its in the hills I'm told it will be cold and that I may need my fleece. I've not even come close to needing my fleece since I left Heathrow over a year ago so have my doubts. If anything it will make a nice pillow.