This is what I do...

This is where I work...

This is where I live... (Or, be it ever so humble...)

You can click on the pictures to maximize them.

(Left: The white building is our guesthouse next to the IIR campus. Right: The lake across the street as seen from the guesthouse roof.)

(Upper Left-The guesthouse common area as you enter. Upper Right- My apartment door. Lower Left- My bed and "wardrobe". Lower Right- My desk as seen from the doorway.)

(Upper Left- My bathroom in which I shower in the middle of the room. Upper Right- View from one window. Lower Left- View from the other window. Lower Right- The guesthouse roof.)

In Hanoi...

I could not let my last post be about China for much longer. I'm in Vietnam. I teach at Học viện Quan hệ Quốc tế but that's really hard to say so let's call it the Institute for International Relations.

I'd love to hear from you by letter or by e-mail ̣jfitzgibbon@elic.org and if you care to send a package, let me know. That'd be great....

China - They call it the Middle Kingdom

I slept all the way from LAX to Shanghai. Then I woke up to get off the plane and get on another one. Then I slept all the way from Shanghai to Beijing. I'm not sure how I was able to do this but it made the trip pretty easy to handle. I think it was a subconscious coping mechanism to deal with all the anxiety and thoughts of "What the heck am I doing..."

From Beijing to Qinhuangdao...

After spending the night (like 6 hours!) in a great hotel (though not as nice as the Lakeside Hotel in Hanoi), we headed by bus to Qinhuangdao, a port city due east of Beijing, and home to Yanshan University - the site of our 2 week training. Once again, as in Cali, ELI continued to impress me with its organization. We were well taken care of. The training was good and introduced me to a lesson plan for the first time. However... there was probably no way to prepare me for the actual university experience I'm deep into right now. Adjusting to teaching high-level students has been difficult but even being creative enough to come up with games or other interest-holding & English-teaching activities has taxed me very much. But, I continue to adjust.

Oh yeah, and we saw the Temple of Heaven... a throw-back to a monotheistic time in China's past. Very intriguing. And did I mention climbing the Great Wall?
This was also a time I experienced lots of fatigue and developed some dark circles under my eyes. A light stomach ailment hit me after a week of real Chinese food... not sure if it was a bug or just trouble adjusting.

I once spent some time in Rancho Cucamonga

On August 9th, I arrived in some suburb of Los Angeles to meet some 50+ new people, a few of whom (pictured above), I would be spending nearly every day with for the next year. From left to right: David, Me, Melia, Scott, Deena, Will, and Nancy. The Vietnam Teaching Fellowship.

4 days at a Best Western with orientation on company policies, health info, team building, cultural relations training, and so on... not to mention a sweet game of Ultimate Frisbee that for me, really made the experience.

An American Abroad

"He was a Midwestern boy on his own..." Bob Seger

It's a strange thing to leave. 2 years of life since Michigan State have seen lessons learned, new friendships made, old friendships enjoyed, some old friendships lost, and a faith deepened. I learned who I am - coming to terms with myself. I learned who people are - every person another opportunity to serve and love selflessly. I met a girl for coffee and she became a close friend. I played catch with a guy and he became a buddy and a roommate. (but not for long enough) I bought a pair of shoes one day... and who knows what will come of that. I wish I did.

I was trained at one of the last great corporations. People went out of their way to show me they cared. I glimpsed a better way of doing business for patients and employees and it affected me profoundly. I made mistakes but there are few regrets since every moment was a teaching moment.

I count as friends men and women of all ages. Each relationship imparted to me a little wisdom and a little refinement. 1:1s, walks around the track, office chats, lunches - first Chinese and then, as we became more adventurous, Japanese. What a great birthday I had, turning 25 on the 25th. I had the opportunity to be a part of great things.

And oh, those Monday nights on Clinton Ave. in the Edison 'hood. Living in the tension as we sought the deeper meaning of those same passages we had read so many times... but maybe this was the first time surrounded by people being vulnerable and saying, "What if we actually did this?". So awkward, so good. We tasted revolution.

And then, I left... and those levels of needs that had been filled... by a job, friends, an apartment, family, romance... they were empty. And this is where I live now, in Hanoi, missing so many things, but trying to give out of my own small poverty... there is nowhere else I want to be right now.

(Pictures: Left - Me at my farewell party. The next day I packed up my office and I have not worn a suit in some 80 days. Right - Me in the Beijing airport enjoying a taste of America before boarding the plane to Hanoi. That coffee cost me at least 4 times the average cost of a dinner in China.)

We'll Meet Again...

"I don't know where and I don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day." Johnny Cash