December

Beautiful Lotus

Well ... December has come and gone. It started out with such promise ... an ambitious Career Week venture, major assignments from my MBA students, and visits from Errol and Dave& Lois Thornton, culminating in a 3-day stay at a nice resort in Hoi An. But there were some very rough patches along the way.



Students at an Employer Table

First, Career Week was a great success, I would say. In the past, there have been Career Days with a panel presentation and Career Fair with between 17-20 employers participating. However, this year we have the REC ... Recreation and Events Centre ... and so a much larger venue for events such as a Career Fair. In the early stages of planning, it seemed as though it would be a good idea to expand the event to a week, with daily presentations and panels, along with workshops and seminars, with a major plenary session and a huge Career Fair with 45 -50 employers. All the people at the Career Centre worked on the project, along with our colleagues in Hanoi and with huge contributions from External Relations; however, the chief organizer was our colleague Chris Gunn. What a job; hopefully next year there will be some templates in place and the events manager might be able to help out with the logistics. Chris did a great job of keeping track of everything. We had more than 2,000 people at the Career Fair and it was an awesome and very exciting day. Several of my students got interviews as a result of contacts they made at the fair and a few have had job offers. I only know of one acceptance so far, but that was an unexpected side benefit, as it wasn’t actually a Job Fair ... some of the employers thought it was, though ...(^_^)...

A Bird's Eye View of the REC

My major role was in trying to make sure we had the English Department included in the planning and implementation of the project. So many English students see Commerce as their career destination without having any clear idea of what they are getting into. We feel that being better informed about programs and careers at the outset might make their choices more informed and hopefully their careers more satisfying. So we had very good involvement from English ... and lots of ways to improve our service to them. However, we certainly noticed the presence of English students and were very happy they participated in the ways they did.

While all this was happening, I was trying to mark presentations and final projects (3,000 word research/reflection papers) for my MBA Work and Careers course. I wanted to mark them rather soon after I received them, as it is always nice to receive feedback on your work quickly, but also because of moderating grades with Melbourne. Every marked project/assignment needs to be approved by the course coordinator in Australia. I guess this is a quality assurance issue, but it also adds time to any process. However, it is nice to know that results are checked and monitored to be consistent with Melbourne, as the degree RMIT Vietnam students get is the same as students in Australia. Luckily, I had a chance to meet Arthur, the coordinator, when I was in Kuala Lumpur, so it is not exactly like sending the grades off to a total stranger. And I know he also has a frame of reference when dealing with me and my comments. Anyway, marking papers like that is slow going, as there is much that needs to be looked at. So, I was not exactly finished when Errol arrived on Dec 14. (In fact, I finally got the word from Arthur a day ago and marks went out to students within the last few hours.)

I had been looking forward to Errol’s visit. I had always been quite surprised that he did not seem particularly interested in coming to Vietnam. We met in the era of antiwar protests; in fact if Errol hadn’t come to visit our draft-dodger friends and brought draft-dodgers up to Canada, he and I would never have connected. And Errol knows so much about Vietnam and esp. Vietnamese War history that I was surprised he wasn’t anxious to come and visit shortly after I got here. But, for whatever reason, he did not seem particularly keen. However, this time I really encouraged him to come, especially once I knew Dave and Lois were going to be here, as we all know each other and get along very well. Since I don’t get a break at Christmas, I figured Dave and Lois and Errol could hang out while I was at work and we could all be together when I was off.

Errol in Hoi An

EXCEPT ... poor Errol had been very anxious before coming to Vietnam and had gone to see our doctor who prescribed Lorazepam/Ativan and he had an adverse reaction to the medication. He got extremely disoriented on the flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong and was not at all well when he arrived in Saigon on Dec 14. He continued to be confused and disoriented for the remainder of his time in Vietnam, so much so that I decided I had better change his tickets and accompany him back to Canada to ensure he would be less anxious and more supported. It was really an awful time for Errol; what with his reaction to Ativan and complications related to diabetes and jet lag along with other possible medical problems, he was miserable. He tried to be kind one day, but he told me it was the worst experience of his life. I feel so guilty about pressuring him to come to Vietnam and just terrible about what happened to him. I took him to the clinic in Saigon where they administered lots of tests, but the best they could do was to say he should rest and drink lots of fluids to flush the Ativan out of his system.

The Thorntons and Errol in Saigon, near Ben Thanh Market

A very bright spot in all this was the time we got to spend with Dave and Lois, our friends from Doha. Actually, they are from Perth-Andover, New Brunswick, where they live in a big house that is right on the Maine/New Brunswick border. Lois is my former colleague at the University of Calgary-Qatar, where she teaches nursing. We became friends during my year in Qatar, and I have missed her tremendously since leaving. It is always nice to have a kindred spirit and I appreciated my strong bond and friendship with Lois, whom I often call Lily. Although Lois is a very tall, strong and capable farm girl, I quickly twigged onto her delicate and sensitive nature; she in turn, calls me Lorelei, in the hopes that I will channel my inner zenlike and calm self from time to time. We drove to school and went to church and sang in the Doha Singers together and Errol and Dave were walking buddies when they were both in Doha. We lived across the street from each other in the Al Zahoor Compound. Such great people!

Errol, Lois, and Dave in Hoi An

So, Dave and Lois arrived on the 16th. We could only do some things together, as Errol was not feeling very well, but the Thorntons are very resourceful and we all made the best of the situation. They saw some of the sights in Saigon and went to the Mekong for a day. I don’t think they were too enamoured with Ho Chi Minh City (funny, neither was Patricia, Sally, or Parker) but we did go to some pagodas, the backpacjer district, to Ben Thanh Market, to a banh xeo restaurant and went to the chuch in Tan Dinh and shopped at some knock-off tailor shops.

What is this flower?  It is really common in Hoi An...

After two or three days they went to Dalat, where they hooked up with some Easy Riders and had a great 2 or 3 days seeing the sights around Dalat on the back of motorbikes. I think Dalat was much more to their liking. We met up with them in Hoi An, where we had booked rooms at the Life Resort, a place that had come highly recommended by colleagues at RMIT. It was nice to have a place that was close to the ancient town and allowed us to walk here and there and then come back and relax by a pool.

Shoes of every colour and style are all available ... and only take one day to make!

Hoi An was fun. While Errol was still very tired and often disoriented, he did enjoy parts of our being there. It is a beautiful small town (I call it the Santa Fe of Vietnam ... Lois and Dave likened it to St Andrew’s).

Evening in Hoi An

It is very much catered to tourists, but if you go through the market, it is obviously a very active working market and the town consists of more than just tourism.

On the Thu Bon River

It is a famous place to come and have clothing custom-made. Lots of silk and tailors. Lois got some clothes and shoes made in Hoi An and seemed quite pleased with her purchases. I hadn’t focused so much on the shoe-makers before in my previous visits to Hoi An, but they did a nice job on a pair of shoes for Lil. We spent a good long while looking for the church and went to a service on Christmas Day.

It took a lot, but we finally found the church!

We had a ride on a boat down the Thu Bon River (and made a connection with Vuong, the guy that managed Patricia and Sally’s stay in Hoi An), but never got to the beach, unfortunately.

We had some nice meals in some nice restaurants and were able to find our way back to a neat little restaurant, called the Secret Garden, which was all booked one night when we were wandering down some small alley streets on our way back from church.

Lunch at the Secret Garden

We popped in to shops here and there and made some fast friends. Dave and Lois find it easy to connect with people and seemed to enjoy themselves. And they got the wonderful news that they are going to be grandparents; their son Paul and his wife, Jenn, are expecting a baby in the summer.

Hoi An is full of lovely silk lanterns

We left a very rainy and cool Hoi An together ... Dave and Lois dropped us off at the Danang airport and continued on to Hue by car. After a couple of days in Hue, they headed up to Hanoi and Halong Bay before going back to Qatar. I haven’t heard about the final two H’s (they made it to the big 5 ... Ho Chi Minh City, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, and Halong Bay) but hope they enjoyed their trip to Vietnam. It was great to see them and spend some time after a year and a half of not being together.

Men playing chess or checkers

Errol and I arrived in a blessedly warm Saigon on the 26th to find out Errol’s mother, Ezell, was in the hospital. She had been suffering from congestive heart failure for several years and had had several heart attacks over the years. We had talked to them when Errol arrived, but hadn’t been able to make a connection from Hoi An. Thank goodness for Skype. We called the hospital in Vinita, Oklahoma, and got to talk to her and Errol’s brother, Joe, almost immediately. Ezellie sounded short of breath, as she usually does, but it was great to talk to her and have her be so cheerful and upbeat.

I worked two more days and finalized new flight plans to accompany Errol back to Canada (he had been originally routed on United going from Saigon-Hong Kong-Chicago-Toronto), which was a very convoluted arrangement, from my perspective. I mean there are lots of non-stop flights from Hong Kong to Toronto ... thereby avoiding US security and an unnecessary terminal change in Chicago. Errol’s London travel agent was not any help at all in changing his plans; thank goodness for the great agent at Flight Travel in Saigon who was able to book tickets and reserve them on spec and more. The next time I feel inclined to complain about Vietnamese customer service, I hope I recall this instance and remember who came through in the pinch and found us great seats on Cathay Pacific in the middle of the peak holiday season ... Finally, on the 29th we set forth to go back to Canada. We called folks before leaving ... had a lovely chat with Ezell and Joe and my mom and Cait. It was nice to talk to everyone. Our flight was delayed for 4 hours as planes arrived late due to US storms, but that was the only snag. Cait was waiting patiently for us at Pearson and we arrived home at 1:30 or so. Sadly, when we got back to London, we had a message from Joe saying Ezell had passed away a few hours before...