Wow! To say that these last days have flown by in a bit of a whirlwind would be an enormous understatement. Here's a bit of what's happened since I arrived Saturday night:
* A four and a half hour drive from the airport to Long Xuyen City, including two river crossings by ferry and arrival at my home for the nex two years at around 4:00 AM.
* My first of many interesting breakfast experiences: Fish noodles and iced coffee. (Really, really good... even at 10 AM). Since the first morning, I've also enjoyed vegetarian noodles with fried eggrolls, beef noodle soup and a cheese sandwich with pickled carrot, diakon, and cilantro.
* A workshop where students presented incredible action research projects on IC3. These presentations highlighted areas of strength and growth for the curriculum and its implementation at AGU.
* Meetings with Foreign Langauage faculty as well as the deans and directors of non-English major departments about collaboration with/integration of IC3 and the MDP projects, including the use of Global Classroom technologies.
* A full day in Can Tho meeting with their faculty of English Education and the newly formed School of Social Sciences and Humanities. They have agreed to pilot the use of IC3 with their second and third year students this year as well as join in the International Film Series. What an valuable opportunity to work at partnering with another school in the Delta.
* Countless introductions and overwhelming signs of welcome: I've felt very welcomed by all those with whom I've interacted over these first days and I look forward to taking everyone up on their invitations to go for coffee and help me get settled in here now that Dan's leaving for Hanoi and I'm pretty much on my own.
* Jet-lag. While I'm pretty much acclimated, it's still a bit of a challenge to stay awake much past 9 and I'm usually up right around 6. Those of you have worked with me know that this is quite a change from my sleeping in at home.
* HEAT: Walking outside in the morning, my glasses steam up and I am considering writing to Revlon to let them know that their foudation is NOT sweatproof, like they claim. But, I'm already appreciating that the rains help to cool things down substantially and staying inside the AirCon between 11:00 and 1:30 is helpful. I've been reassured that eventually I'll get so used to the heat that I won't be drenched with sweat in the first few minutes outside and that visitors will marvel at how 'crazy-cool' I am. Until then...
Well, that's certainly not everything... but it should suffice to give you all a glimpse of what's beein going on with me. I'm sure I'll have more to say soon when I'm more settled in and such.
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