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20-10

An incredibly heartwarming and touching experience. Many people have told me that this has been their best 20-10 yet, and I couldn't agree more.

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31 people in a 16 person van.  I didn't think it was possible.. only in Vietnam.

I felt bad for the guys standing in the back..

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mid-autumn moon festival (:

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living in the dorms.  getting fliered.  it's a familiar feeling.

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I cannot get enough of these 2 things right now.  They will def. be missed when I return.  Why can't coffee in America be this good??

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I am thoroughly impressed.

I just got back from the craziest bike adventure.  I suppose they would call it normal here.  But sitting on the back of a bicycle, soaked to the bone, while the tiny little girl in front of me is biking through a flood, my feet dragging through water, there's nothing normal about that.  I don't know how she did it.  She told me it's been a while since she's showered in the rain like that, not since she was a little kid.  I'm glad I can bring a little bit of adventure and childhood spirit with me.  I am even more impressed after my failed biking attempts in Hoi An.  Bravo, bravo.

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I realized this week

that these students were never really taught or encouraged to think creatively.  I saw it quite blatantly both yesterday and today.  Once when we played the story game (each person takes a turn and adds a sentence to the story).  I started it by throwing in a dragon, and the students were just so thrown off.  They had so much trouble thinking of plot lines and new ideas, each student needed a minimum 2 minutes of standing there awkwardly before they could say something.  Needless to say, that one ended in about 15 minutes after the 5th student or so killed off the main character and announced The End.

Another one was when we wrote words on the board and had them create a story within their groups.  With the words boy, girl, bike, park, flowers, snake, and die, guess what kind of a story they wrote?  I was enormously underwhelmed.

I understand that there's a language barrier and all, but still.  Even in our high school Spanish classes, we'd come up with some dumb, silly, creative stuff right?  Or at least added in extra hand motions, random gestures, and dramatic acting to make it seem so.  It's a bit of a culture shock I think to realize to what an extent these students have been limited in their free thinking and creativity.  I want to bring that back to them, see them exercise their imaginations again, and to be excited about thinking outside of the box.

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isn't it weird how quickly we can adapt to a different way of life sometimes? it's only been a week..

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camp. i miss it already <5 forever a fiverfly.

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yosemite & hawaii, tomorrow I leave for camp! it's been a crazy month! pics when I get back, so excited (:

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so wonderfully green. take me back.

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with you by my side, i feel infinite.  i finally understand what charlie meant.

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<3 (:

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Is that what you really want?

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my gorgeous, I miss you already <3 take me back.

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