A Word of Welcome...

On September 1, 2011 fifteen young people from a range of high schools around the U.S. arrived at Noi Ba International Airport in Ha Noi. Jet-lagged and overwhelmed, they spent the weekend getting oriented to their new home amid Independence Day revelry and celebration. Now one month later, they are members of host families, interns at various community organizations, students on a university campus and participant-observers in a foreign culture and society. Thus begins their year with School Year Abroad – Viet Nam.

This monthly blog will chronicle the students’ lives in Viet Nam outside the SYA classroom. A process of sharing and peer-editing in their English class will precede all posts thereby creating an individual and collective narrative. Travel-journalist Tom Miller said “The finest travel writing describes what's going on when nobody's looking.” May these young writers seek out and find their moments to see, with new eyes, what no one else sees. May they write their stories with sensitivity and passion. And may you, our readers, enjoy imagining their Viet Nam.

Becky Gordon
SYA English Teacher

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Where Am I Now?

Becky Gordon

We are approaching the end of the first semester, after which half of our students will go back home and half will remain.  For this month’s blogging, I asked them to pause and take stock of where they have each come to at this point in time. They were given the question: Where am I now? Their responses reflect a range of concrete and abstract interpretations of the question, expressing the physical and emotional spaces in which they presently find themselves here in Viet Nam, and in their lives.

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