December 22, First day of work.

Yay! Today I finally started doing some paid work.

Unfortunately, since I was in malaysia, and they couldn't reach me on my cell, they gave my job to someone else. On the plus side, they were still able to give me some work in the evenings: 5:30-6:30, and 6:50-8:10. Realizing that I had some time, I decided to return home, catch up on sleep, review my lesson plans, and eat. I returned to the school for a brief meeting, and a chance to sit in on some classes. The first class was cool, the teacher took me under his wing and treated me to a delicious 1000 rial Vietnamese coffee. The second teacher also took me under his wing, and let me experiment teaching his class a bit. Everything went smoothly. The kids here actually listen to the teachers, the only problem is getting the kids to produce an answer - they all seemed quite shy...hopefully they get used to me and the active learning really starts to happen!

I met a contingent of Nigerian teachers, one of whom complimented me on the blazer. Then he said, and I quote "you know you look good when even the guys are attracted to you"...haha...awkward. To make up for the awkwardness (or add to it?) when I asked the students what they wanted to know about me, the first question was from one of my 18 year-old students "are you single...*awkward pause*...sir?". Houy, in some ways this could be a long, long semester.