Quang tri is peaceful. Although the program description says that it is “rural”, it was not as rural as I imagined it to be; Quang Tri is a small town in which you can bike everywhere, with a beautiful river just outside the guesthouse, and smiling students who would really like to know your name as you are biking around in town. After almost a month here, I can say with confidence that I have been met with nothing but welcome by this community. I’ll elaborate more on this on my other posts, I have not written in a while and therefore my head is full of thoughts I need to pour out on paper.
It’s weird to only have two focuses around which my life revolves around — construction in the morning, ESL teaching in the afternoon. My daily schedule is quite identical each day, and I appreciate the stability. My typical day looks like this:
5:30am - Wake up
6:00am - Breakfast (normally pho or fried eggs with bread)
6:30am - Construction
- which means mixing concrete, moving bricks, building, digging, moving dirt, working with steel frames
10:30am - leave construction site, take a shower
11:15am - lunch
12:00am-2:30pm - free time (i.e. laundry by hand, texting people, reading, sleeping, printing, getting smoothies)
3pm-4:30pm - ESL Teaching
4:30pm-6:30pm - more free time (i.e. going to the market to buy some fruits, getting smoothies with students, talking with people)
6:30pm - dinner
After dinner - even more free time (ESL planning, reading, hanging out, reading, second shower, etc.)
10:30pm - sleep!
It’s weird waking up at 5:30 when I used to go to sleep at 5am (I study best at night). Not going to lie, this lifestyle has been doing wonders for my health. It’s also relaxing in the sense that I am not trying to juggle 7 different things with my limited capacity of two hands. As I am writing, we have begun to prepare for the culture show and the soccer tournament, but even with the additional topics I am much more relaxed than at Duke. That does not mean that I am not working hard; it just means that it’s a different lifestyle, and I needed it.
Also -- a huge shoutout to our cook. She's amazing and her food is absolutely delicious! Starting this week, every Wednesday night is a special dinner, which looks like the photo below (are you jealous yet?).
It’s weird to only have two focuses around which my life revolves around — construction in the morning, ESL teaching in the afternoon. My daily schedule is quite identical each day, and I appreciate the stability. My typical day looks like this:
5:30am - Wake up
6:00am - Breakfast (normally pho or fried eggs with bread)
6:30am - Construction
- which means mixing concrete, moving bricks, building, digging, moving dirt, working with steel frames
10:30am - leave construction site, take a shower
11:15am - lunch
12:00am-2:30pm - free time (i.e. laundry by hand, texting people, reading, sleeping, printing, getting smoothies)
3pm-4:30pm - ESL Teaching
4:30pm-6:30pm - more free time (i.e. going to the market to buy some fruits, getting smoothies with students, talking with people)
6:30pm - dinner
After dinner - even more free time (ESL planning, reading, hanging out, reading, second shower, etc.)
10:30pm - sleep!
It’s weird waking up at 5:30 when I used to go to sleep at 5am (I study best at night). Not going to lie, this lifestyle has been doing wonders for my health. It’s also relaxing in the sense that I am not trying to juggle 7 different things with my limited capacity of two hands. As I am writing, we have begun to prepare for the culture show and the soccer tournament, but even with the additional topics I am much more relaxed than at Duke. That does not mean that I am not working hard; it just means that it’s a different lifestyle, and I needed it.
Also -- a huge shoutout to our cook. She's amazing and her food is absolutely delicious! Starting this week, every Wednesday night is a special dinner, which looks like the photo below (are you jealous yet?).