Last night was the Level 7 Graduation Ceremony. Although I teach Level 6 (at least that is the level I have been teaching since I have been here) I went to it because the first students I taught at RMIT (along with my colleague Kathy Thompson) were graduating last night. It was a great night … with 18 classes graduating. Maybe half the students were there. Eighteen students got Distinguished Graduate Prizes, which were presented by Professor Merilyn Liddel, RMIT Vietnam's president. 
Two students from my class got distinguished awards last night. That meant they got 90% in every course (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing) in Level 7. Way to go Tu and Vy!!! They are the ones holding the flowers. 
In addition, 5 students that my colleague Astrid and I had in a Repeat Class got through Level 7 on their first try, so I was extremely proud of them. Level 7 is a 5-week intensive course that has extremely high expectations … it could easily be a 10-week course like all the other levels.The president of RMIT Vietnam spoke to them and that was lovely for them. Most of them are now in their business degree programs, although one of my former students is waiting to get a visa to do PhD studies in bioengineering at RMIT Melbourne. There were some lovely refreshments afterward and lots of opportunities for photos.
I know that ESL is just a step on the way to their final goal and so their English classes may not be the ones they remember in the long run, but I hope they gain a lot from their ESL classes. I certainly enjoy them.
With all this talk of graduating, I am also thinking of my former students at University of Calgary-Qatar, some of whom will be graduating with their BScN in April. Another amazing group of students getting their degrees in a second language. What an achievement! As they sometimes say to me in their emails ... Roses on their beautiful souls ....
Thanks to my colleague, Fiona Wiebusch, for these photos!
On the 5th floor of RMIT, where the Academic English Program is housed, there is a coffee bar called Bobby Brewer’s. The nicest young women work there, and as they serve really good lattes, I am a frequent customer. The staff varies from time to time, but there is a core group of barristas whom I have gotten to know fairly well. They help me a lot with my Vietnamese pronunciation.
Then there is Miss Be (sort of like Bay with an undulating inflection) who is the chief barrista and who often puts a heart on the top of my lattes. She is a latte artiste and always has the sweetest smile even though she usually works seven days a week.
Next is Miss Chau, who has got the coolest burgundy red hair. She is a student at RMIT and works part-time at Bobby Brewer’s. She is a go-getter and a lot of fun. Then there are two Anhs.
The first Miss Anh has been at Bobby Brewer’s since a week or two before Tết and she is a tall self-confident young woman who is also very forthright and capable. 
So, none of my friends had ever been to Ganh before; they had looked it up on the Internet, and thought it sounded pretty neat. 
Well, we feasted, let me assure you. We had two kinds of fresh spring rolls and one kind of deep-fried spring roll. There were a few other appetizers of meat and shrimp in rice pancakes. And of course there were delicious blended fruit drinks. As for me, I love to drink tra da .. Vietnamese ice tea. We also had seafood lau, which is the Vietnamese hot pot. Along with the seafood go a lot of vegetables, such as bok choy, cabbage, okra, beansprouts and banana blossoms, which are sort of shaved very thin. The broth was just wonderful, with a hint of pineapple in it. Yum. Or should I say rất ngon ... very delicious!
Here are 'before' and 'after' pictures.
Miss Be took me home after dinner. I do love to ride on the motorbikes! I was so appreciative of the time we spent together but also aware that everyone had to get up early. Bobby Brewer’s is open by 7:30 ... and we were all a little tired the next day. It really was a lovely evening - one I will remember!
There is a lovely walkway along the river in Phnom Penh and I strolled along, looking for a restaurant. I finally found one with a balcony and parked myself at the railing and watched the world and one elephant go by. I saw so many interesting sights... lots of women (and some little girls) carrying big baskets of lotus pods and peanuts and ??? on their heads. 
By the time I headed back I was in a better mood, and I really enjoyed watching the dancing and exercise sessions going on at various points along the river. I really felt that I could see signs of deep poverty that I haven’t been so aware of in Vietnam ... or at least Ho Chi Minh City. I saw one little guy ... just a toddler really, walking along his mother. He was carrying a big bag of plastic water bottles ... no shoes, no pants, no chance to be a little boy. Omigoodness, how sad. We are so fortunate. So, it was with some gratitude and some hope that I asked if I might be able to change rooms the next day. When I explained about the smoking, the kind young man in reception switched rooms for me ... not a non-smoking room, but no odour to speak of ... and it had a river view! So happy me.
All the CamTESOL presenters had been given an opportunity to visit various locations in order to familiarize ourselves with Cambodia and the level of English among Cambodian teachers. I couldn’t remember what tour I had signed up for, but was told it was the self-access centres. That sounded about right, as I knew I hadn’t wanted to sign up for anything too sad. So an interesting thing happened as I walked to the bus to take us to the SACs ... the first person I saw at the bus was Marina, someone whom I had met in Qatar and who would have been my colleague had I been able to take the job at Weill-Cornell. So, I was able to get all caught up on the news from Doha! Then the next person I met was Beth, a woman from UCanberra, who guessed I was Canadian by my (non-existent) accent, and when we got to talking, is good friends with Robyn, one of my colleagues at RMIT. Like Robyn, Beth had lived in BC, and had stayed in Canada for many years before returning to Australia. In fact, she studied French at UVic and went to Shippegan for their summer French immersion program ... so in the space of 10 minutes we knew that about each other. Now, how many people in Phnom Penh do you reckon would have been to Shippegan, NB? I had only been to the Nort’ Shore just the once, but it was a really colourful memory. My mother would say I never go anywhere without meeting someone I know or who knows someone I know ... and I guess that was true in these cases. Those two were enough to have me positively extroverted ... and I met lots of nice folks. I met a lovely Thai woman named Apiwan, who is studying for her PhD in Linguistics at Macquarie University. It happened that she was also staying at the Cambodiana, so we travelled to and from the conference after that. Another really friendly person was Ilene,a young woman who teaches at Southern Connecticut University, but who is in HCMC on a Fulbright, working with the University of Pedagogy. All the groups ended up at a restaurant that teaches street kids to work in restaurants, and while I didn’t love Hagar’s quite as much as I love Sozo’s in HCMC, it was pretty good. Cambodia has lots of NGOs and volunteers trying to do good works. In fact, a common career destination in Cambodia is to work with an NGO, whereas many of my students would have no clue what an NGO is.
The hotel, the Angkor Spirit Palace, is lovely and a bit quieter than staying in the town itself.
Siem Reap is full of tourists and new hotels are being built all over the town. It is a bit of a tourist hustle, but I just consider it training for Sapa.
It took me a while to realize that the nuns in Cambodia don’t wear robes, but rather white blouses and dark shirts. They do have their heads shaved, though. Chamreoun said that an important monk had died and this was his funeral procession.
There is much reconstruction going on, so the initial approach is a bit marred, for a good cause, no doubt. I wandered around on my own for two or three hours, looking at the amazing friezes that depict much lore related to both the Hindu and Buddhist elements that are evident at Angkor Wat. I ended up taking lots and lots of pictures of asparas, the heavenly nymphs.
There was quite a line to climb up into the central tower, but it moved quickly and so I decided to go up. Compared to the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon at Teōtīhuacān, the stairs were easy-peasy.
But I am sure I was pretty red in the face as I reached the top! In fact, I was reminded of Teōtīhuacān at several points, but Angkor is very different in most ways. Once in the upper elevations, it was lovely to wander around at my own speed and look at everything. Once I made my way back past the temples and over the moat, off we went to Angkor Thom. One of the most incredible temples there was Bayon, with all the towers with huge faces on them. With my interest in masks, it was an incredible place to be. 
Chamreoun and I stopped for water and a little shopping here and there. It was incredibly hot. I kept thinking the tour would be almost over, but they kept coming.
Omigoodness. At the last one, I saw a large reservoir that had been hand-constructed for the King ... nice to see some local kids swimming in it. I imagine no commoner would have been allowed to swim there during the reign of the god-kings.
Arrived in HCMC after a 45-minute flight ... followed by a one-hour taxi ride. Nice to be back. Hope all is well with everyone. I look forward to hearing about your adventures! I will post pics on