March 1st, 2010 
cbrodzky I’ll admit, there are times in Vietnam when I get really frustrated. Sometimes when I try to order some food in Vietnamese, the waiter or waitress never know what I’m saying. When they finally understand what I’m attempting to say, they’ll pronounce in what appears to be the exact same way I just did.
Other times I’ll just be walking along the street minding my own business and some random person has to obnoxiously yell “HELLO”. I get it, you’re not used to seeing someone like me and you want to speak English, but that’s not exactly the best way to go about becoming my friend. Also, people love to stare at me. As one of the other English teachers said, “This must be what it’s like to be a celebrity or prostitute.”
As frustrated as I might get, I love telling my students about it. I’ve become really good at using my hands and body to act out the different situations; I do this just in case they don’t completely understand some of the words that I’m saying, at least they can pick up on my body language to fill in the gaps.
My students love hearing about my life in Vietnam and it actually makes them laugh really hard to hear what happens to me. Hearing them laugh helps me to not take things so seriously, which in turn makes me laugh at my life too.
[...] and rainsbows. There are a few things that frustrate me about living here that I’m trying to cope with. Here they [...]