My Weekend Getaway

Hi All!

This blog update is coming a few days later than I promised, and I apologize! I was actually in the middle of writing another post on Friday afternoon during a slow time in office hours when some of my students came into my office and announced that we were going to play football (soccer) in 15 minutes. When I arrived in Thanh Hoa and learned that many students here enjoying playing football, I told them that I also loved kicking the ball around, which was met with lots of laughter and responses such as “but women here do not play football…” That is not entirely true; in some areas of Vietnam, women do play soccer, but in areas such as Thanh Hoa, only young girls play and once they become teenagers, it is less socially acceptable for them to run around and get dirty playing such sports. Taking advantage of an opportunity to promote the Fulbright’s mission, cultural exchange, I proceeded to talk to my students about the fact that in the United States, women of all ages were welcome to play football, whenever, wherever, and with whomever. This explanation was met with surprise and a bit of laughter, but led to my male students repeatedly asking me if I wanted to play soccer “some time in the future.” I would always say, “yes, absolutely… when?” and they would respond by saying something along the lines of “well, women do not usually play… we will see… maybe in some days.” Therefore, when the invitation to play finally came, I immediately seized it, closed down Microsoft Word (without saving my blog post, naturally) and ran out the door to change my clothes. Word spread quickly that I was going to attempt to play soccer and when I arrived at the field, located about a kilometer away from the university, a healthy crowd of students were there, laughing and cheering. I joined one of the teams as an “extra man” because they thought that I would be a non-issue, and immediately set out to prove to them that I wasn’t crazy for wanting to join in the match. My teammates did not pass me the ball at all initially, so I soon realized that I would have to start chasing down loose balls if I was going to have any part in the action of the game. My opportunity came about 5 minutes into the game when I chased down a stray ball and ended up colliding with a member of the other team… he ended up on the ground, and I jogged over, picked up the ball that had gone out of bounds just past the end line for a corner kick for my team, and kicked a corner kick to the head of one of my team members--- he almost scored--- from that moment, my team started passing me the ball, and a defender from the other team was assigned to mark me and we ended up having a wonderfully fun match that ended in a tie. After the game was over, I received an open invitation to play football any time that I was free, and I happily accepted.

I do want to tell you more about my other responsibilities and activities here in Thanh Hoa, but I first want to talk about my past weekend. A couple of days after I moved into my dorm room, I met a woman named Chinh who quickly became one of my good friends here. Chinh is a students in the project that I am a part of (and will tell you more about later…) but is not one of the students that I have in class every day. Her English is quite good, and it has been so nice to have another girl around to talk with about life, family, friends, boyfriends, future plans, etc. etc. over meals and during walks around the campus. Last week, Chinh invited me to spend the weekend with her at her family’s house in the countryside, I immediately accepted, and on Saturday morning at 8:00am she and I took off on her motorbike.

The drive to Chinh’s village took about an hour and a half which is a short time in a car, but quite a long time to be sitting in the hot sun on the back of a motorbike and by the time we arrived at Chinh’s home, I was rather sweaty, and quite ready to be off of the bike. That is not to say that the ride was not fun—on the contrary, I had a wonderful time looking out at the many sights to see along the road, from the motorbike drivers laden with assortments of cargos to seemingly endless green rice fields, to the lakes that dot the entire country. I thought of you all and tried to take lots of pictures to show you—they should be going up on facebook soon.

We arrived at Chinh’s house a little before 10am and I hopped off the bike eager to meet her family and see her home. Chinh’s home was absolutely lovely and consists of a few parts. The first was the main family room/house where meals, sleeping, and visiting take place. The main room has doors all along one side that are primarily left open to help move the air and contains two beds in the corners, a small coffee table in the middle with two wooden benches on either side, an altar area that serves as the area to give gifts and burn incense to and for the family’s ancestors, and a small open floor space where bamboo mats are placed during meal times. There was also another room off to the side of this main room that contains only a bed for Chinh’s parents. Chinh has two younger siblings, Loan (M-22) and Chinh (F-24… the names look the same here, but the Chinh that I know best has a toned accent on her name, which, as I’ve learned in my Vietnamese lesson completely changes the sound to a native speaker, and therefore makes their names not really all that similar) and when they were at home, they slept in the beds in the living area. Outside of the family room there was a small concrete building that served as a bath house and had a sink and a spout closer to the ground. When it was my turn to take a bath that night, I went into the bath house, filled a basin that I was given with water, and then used another bucket to pour the water on my body and hair. The cool water felt so good after a day of sitting in the sticky heat of Vietnam and I think that I could definitely get used to cold baths were I to live in such weather conditions permanently! Next to the bath house was another water spigot that was used to wash the dishes and collect water for cooking. Behind this spigot was the kitchen building that contained a gas and a wood stove as well as the dishes used to cook and serve the food. There was also a toilet room located a small distance away from the other areas which contained a “squat toilet” which is very common in Vietnam (typically most restrooms here (including the one in my teaching building have “Western” and “squat” toilets.) Finally, there was a building that the family used to raise chickens, which ran relatively freely around the property. We ate a couple of the chickens throughout the weekend, and when it was time to have another, Chinh’s mother would simply grab the closest one to her, bleed it from the neck, and then pluck and cut it up. Here, they use and eat every part of the chicken, and we even used the blood to sauté the intestines, liver, and kidneys for lunch one day…delicious. In addition to the chickens, the family has a couple of dogs, 3 adult cats, and a couple of new litters of tiny kittens. They were about 3-4 weeks old and absolutely precious… I couldn’t stop staring at them, which made their mothers a little nervous. Chinh was surprised when I told her that I had only one cat at home and that she had had a surgery to make it impossible for her to have babies.. “why?” she asked… I told her that my parents didn’t like cats enough to take care of more than one, which is…well, very true. The animals provided most of the outside noise for the weekend, which was such a nice shift even from Thanh Hoa, which is a rather quiet city, but still has plenty of traffic noises throughout the day and night.

Chinh’s family was also just wonderful. Her father is a rather tall man who works in the local office of the provincial government and her mother is a farmer who grows rice and, as I said before, raises chickens. I did not get to meet Chinh’s brother, who is currently in Hanoi studying to be a police officer, but Chinh, Chinh’s younger sister, and her soon to be husband also came into town for a visit. (The concept of a fiancée is not a familiar one here…you are either in a relationship or married… but Chinh and her boyfriend are due to get married in either November or December of this year--- They met in January (!!) and Chinh (the younger) told me, in rather limited English, that “we meet, and then, in one week…we love!” with a huge smile on her face… I simply said “wow! Fast!” which was met with laughter by both of the Chinhs.) Chinh’s younger sister, like Chinh, is so sweet and was constantly trying to make sure that I was happy, which was easy, because I couldn’t stop smiling the entire weekend. I also met Chinh’s numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, and father’s parents when either they came by the home to see the family and meet me, or Chinh drove me to their homes. It seems that most of the townspeople are related to Chinh’s family in some way, because we made a lot of visits throughout the weekend, and we passed by a lot of houses that Chinh said belonged to her family. I particularly enjoyed the visit to Chinh’s grandparent’s home, located about a half a mile away from her house. Her grandparents are quite old but still work as rice farmers each day. The life of a farmer is hard in Vietnam, as it requires constant work and pays very little—her grandparents, she told me, eat only 2 meals per day to save money—but her grandparents built a lovely home for themselves that looked very much like Chinh’s house, but had a small man-made pond in the back with a beautiful hand-laid (by Chinh’s grandfather) wall on one side of it. There were plenty of fish swimming around in the pond that her grandparents eat on a regular basis.

Speaking of food… wow… this was a weekend devoted to eating! Chinh told me that weekends are a time in which activities revolve around cooking and eating, and I experienced this lifestyle in all of its glory for the two days that I was there. The first meal that I was there, lunch on Saturday, we cooked fish, chicken, fried pigeon (a delicacy here, so as the guest I was fed lots of it!.. it is actually quite good!) fried water spinach, and, of course, bowl after bowl of rice. All eyes were on me as the girl who occasionally spoke a fully correct sentence in Vietnamese and had hair and eyes that Chinh told me fascinated them, so my bowl was constantly being refilled with meat and rice, and I was totally stuffed by the end of the delicious meal. They were all surprised that I ate everything I was given because even the chicken and fish were cooked in a way that I was unfamiliar with, but I assured them that I was willing to try most anything. Luckily, I was not asked to eat the head of the chicken, because it is apparently a highly sought-after delicacy and will result in one becoming a successful leader so Chinh and her sister agreed to split it amongst themselves. I certainly hope one day to serve others through having a leadership role in whatever vocation I pursue, but I think I’ll risk it and not eat any chicken brains to get there! Dinner on Saturday night consisted of the leftovers from the lunch, which had been sitting out all afternoon and made me a little nervous in terms of getting sick, but I ate what I was given (and I was given a lot) and everything was fine!

The next morning, however, was the true culinary adventure of the weekend, as I woke up when Chinh did (we shared one of the beds, which was just a flat wooden surface.. not all that comfortable, but once you curl up the right way, you can sleep quite well) around 6:30 and we went out to start cooking breakfast, which her parents had already started. I grabbed my camera to take some pictures of the morning light and when I went outside, I saw Chinh and her father sitting on the ground with a bowl of snakes… yes snakes… in front of them. They were peeling the bones out of the freshly killed snakes and laughed when they saw my face (I hate snakes) and asked “will you eat snakes?” I swallowed hard, and said “absolutely!” and they smiled, and said “thank you… we are having rice soup with snake meat for breakfast and we worried you would not eat it.” As it turns out, rice soup with snake meat is really delicious, and I enjoyed my many bowls of it (Chinh’s mother, I think, put herself on “refill Hayley’s bowl any time she stops putting things in her mouth” duty for the weekend, which was so kindhearted and generous, but even Chinh thought it was hilariously excessive and tried to get her mother to stop when I got that “I’m going to literally pop” look on my face toward the end of each meal. After breakfast, we walked outside, and Chinh’s younger sister and boyfriend grabbed a bucket from inside the kitchen and walked outside. I followed them to see what was going on, and just as a stepped onto their level, Chinh accidentally dropped the bucket and about 15 still-live snakes fell out on the ground. Everyone started laughing and grabbing for the snakes in order to finish killing them for lunch, and though I did my best to be helpful in all tasks throughout the weekend, I must admit that I did not join in. Finally, the snakes were all corralled, killed, and turned into a few dishes that we ate for lunch with our rice: snake sausages, which were crushed up snakes with onions and spices and fried in a skillet (pretty good, but didn’t really enjoy the crunch of the bones as I ate them) and another dish of snake meat boiled in snake blood and then cooked with parts of the banana tree plant that I actually thought was quite good. Beyond the food being delicious, I loved mealtimes sitting cross-legged with my bowl and chopsticks with the family because it gave me the opportunity to watch them all interact through conversations, jokes, and laughter… I didn’t understand a word of what they said, but I knew what was going on and that I had joined, even for a short time, a loving family like my own, and it made me feel so safe and happy, and “at home” in a place very different from Huntsville, Alabama.

Before we left on Sunday, Chinh took me to see her village’s “town of dead people.” During my time here in Vietnam, I had seen areas in the countryside that had small buildings that looked like miniature houses or pagodas, and wondered what they were. As time went on, I started thinking that they were probably cemeteries, and I was hopeful that if they, in fact, were, that I would have the chance to learn more about them and perhaps see one up close. On our drive to her home, I saw one such sight and asked Chinh if it was a cemetery. She didn’t know what the word cemetery meant, but said that it was “the town of dead people” and told me that her village had its own “town” that I could see if I wanted. I eagerly accepted, and Chinh and I drove there in between breakfast and lunch on Sunday. Besides a cow grazing in the grass growing in the area, we were the only people visiting the cemetery that morning, but it was clear that many of the graves had frequent visitors by the sight of freshly burned incense that stood at the front of many of the gravesites. The graves were aligned from South to North, and I asked Chinh if this had any significance. She told me that it did not, and asked why I was curious about the directionality of the graves. I told her that in most cases in the U.S. bodies are buried facing eastward; she responded by saying “I guess in the United States people want the dead to see the sun rise…” I told her that she wasn’t too far off… She then told me that the towns of the dead typically face the road that they are closest to, but that there may be a deeper custom of which she was not aware. In the cemetery, each family has a burial area that is marked by stones and in most cases, there are miniature “houses” that serve as the markers of the bodies. Often there is also a gravestone or marker with the person’s name and date of birth and death. Chinh first took me to her father’s side of the family, and showed me that there were no houses or stones to mark the bodies, but only mounds of earth to show where the bodies were buried. This, Chinh told me, was because her family was very poor and could not afford to purchase homes. Throughout the weekend, Chinh told me of her plans to study abroad in order to get a good job upon her return to Vietnam so that she could support her family. The purchase of homes for her ancestors, she told me, was just one of the things she hoped to be able to do after she received her master’s degree. Chinh then took some time to pray to her ancestors, which, as I’ve written about before, is a practice of roughly 90% of the country. After visiting her father’s family, she took me to the gravesite of her mother’s side of the family. Her side, she told me, has lived in the town for a shorter period of time, and therefore only her grandmother is buried here. Rather than purchasing one of the typical houses that I saw throughout the area, Chinh’s grandfather built a cylindrical concrete home to mark his wife’s grave. Chinh told me that she did not know why her grandfather had chosen to build the home in such a way but that she had not asked him. Chinh also told me that many times in Vietnam, families bury their dead in a really unique way: the body is first buried in a coffin, but after a period of 3 years, the family has a ceremony in which the body is exhumed and the bones are removed from the coffin and placed in a new container that is then reburied. It is not until this time that a house is placed over the grave. I had never heard of this tradition and have tried to find more information about it upon returning home but found none, so I am not sure if perhaps this is a tradition isolated to Chinh’s area. In any case, it was fascinating to hear about. After spending a few more minutes looking around in silence, we walked back to the motorbike and drove home through the enchanting rice fields, and I looked out in awe at the backdrop of the beautiful Vietnamese mountains sitting in a backdrop of a gorgeous clear blue sky and could hardly believe that I’ve been given such an opportunity as this… that feeling hits me roughly once per day and it never gets old.

After our lunch and daily nap on Sunday (it is the tradition here to take a nap after eating lunch, simply because it is too hot to do anything but lie still with a small fan blowing on you) Chinh and I left to come back to Thanh Hoa City and arrived back here around 5:00pm. I worked a little on lesson planning, but was rather exhausted from the weekend and went to bed early last night. It was sad to leave Chinh’s family as they were so wonderful to me, but they invited me to come back for Chinh’s sister’s wedding, so I hope that I will get to see them again.
I’m back to my life of lesson planning, teaching, enjoying Thanh Hoa and, of course, dealing with some of the daily frustrations that have come along with this working experience that I really shouldn’t go into much at all. The next post from me will be about my working and daily life here, though I am quickly coming to learn that there is no such thing as a “regular schedule” in my life here at Hong Duc, which I am learning to laugh about, pray about, and take in stride, rather than allow my blood pressure to take a hit during the particularly tough moments. Talking with and teaching students here is absolutely fabulous and thinking about my moments with them helps me to see past acute frustrations with a bit more clarity and peace. Hearing from you about your lives is also so nice and I sincerely thank you for keeping me updated and hope that you will continue to do so. Know that you all are in my thoughts and prayers, and until next time, I hope that all is well.

Lots of love to you all!

A bit about where I'm living and what I'm eating...

Hello Friends and Family!

Greetings from Thanh Hoa City, my home for the last 2.5 weeks and the next 8.5 months! I am really very sorry that I have been so remiss in updating my blog, but things have been absolutely crazy in my life since my arrival here in Thanh Hoa and every time I have tried to set aside a few moments to collect my thoughts and write to you all, I have been pulled in a different direction or simply been too overwhelmed to think, much less write, in a clear manner. In this moment, however, I have completed my lesson plan for tomorrow, written my series of daily reports and done my food shopping for the week, so I will do my best to fill you in on the wonderful adventure that is my life right now.

I arrived in Thanh Hoa two and a half weeks ago on a hot and rainy afternoon and was taken immediately to my 3rd floor dorm room at Hong Duc University. The dormitories here are built of concrete and have open staircases and doors that open to an outside balcony. My room is long and narrow with a tall ceiling and windows on only one side. Inside, I have a bed, mini-fridge, rice cooker, and a wardrobe, as well as a desk with a computer. There is no wireless internet access here so having that computer as a source for internet has been absolutely wonderful. I have had to get used to my bed here, because most people here sleep on only a flat bamboo pad and while I do technically have a “mattress” it is still rather like sleeping on the floor because there is no padding in it whatsoever. Rather, it appears to be a piece of hard foam in a covering, giving entirely new meaning to the concept of a “firm mattress.” On the first night when I placed my bottle of water next to my head as I fell asleep and woke up the next morning after moving around a bit in my sleep and laughed when I saw that the bottle had not moved a bit. I also learned quickly not to try to “flop” into bed after a long day when I did as much and ended up with a nice bruise on my hip and a bit of a headache from hitting the hard surface. After a couple of restless nights, though, I got used to the mattress, and while I occasionally still dream about the day when my mattress is more than 5cm thick and forms to my body a bit when I sleep, I now sleep quite soundly and have learned to appreciate the fact that my bed can serve not only as a place to sleep, but also as my dining room table and a place to practice yoga, which I have attempted to take up each day for 20 minutes or so as other opportunities for regular exercise are hard to find and yoga is the perfect activity after a long and stressful day.

My bedroom was also equipped with a television, but I was told soon after moving in that there was no antennae to be found and even if there were, there were roughly two channels that I could receive and both of them were in Vietnamese. The TV, thus quickly found its place at the top of my wardrobe and out of the way. My room does have air conditioning which is a wonderful blessing in the intense heat of Vietnam and also keeps the mold somewhat at bay. I initially felt a bit guilty for having air conditioning when my students (who live around me) don’t, but I soon learned to accept it as a gift and be thankful for it, as it allows me to get a lot more work done in preparation for classes and such without being distracted by overwhelming heat and humidity. Along the back wall of my room there is a door that leads to the other “room” in my living space. This area, which has an open wall to the outside (covered by a decorative metal grate and a piece of glass that helps to keep some of the bugs out) is not air conditioned and serves as my bathroom/kitchen. On one side, there are two stalls, one of which contains my toilet and the other of which contains my shower and kitchen/bathroom sink. On the other side of the room is a countertop with a small gas stove and a hanging rack that has my dishes: two small plates, six small bowls, a spoon, a knife, and lots of chopsticks. (As you may have guessed, I’ve gotten quite good with chopsticks in the time since I’ve arrived and yesterday I impressed my boss by being able to pick up and eat small roasted peanuts with them… I’ve also really come to enjoy using them regularly and have decided that any future residence of mine will have chopsticks as a dining utensil option.)

I will take pictures of my room and post them soon so that perhaps you can get a better idea of what I’m talking about—I don’t know if my description really makes a whole lot of sense. What you should know, regardless of whether or not you understand the specifics of my room’s layout and contents, is that I am quite comfortable and very much enjoy my living area.

Across the street from the University, there is an open market where I go to buy all of my food except for yogurt and “cheese” (actually more of a faux cheese spread, but it’s the closest thing they have to cheese here and I love it!) which I purchase at the small grocery store in the middle of the city. The market is absolutely lovely and I look forward to the 2-3 times a week when I walk over to buy my food. I have become a “regular” at a handful of the stands and the women there all smile, wave, and return my “Chao Chi” greetings with affectionate “Chao Em!” responses. [As a side note to explain the difference in greeting: In Vietnam, it is quite customary for people to ask you for your age soon after meeting you, regardless of how old you may appear. This is because one’s relationship to you in terms of your age dictates the manner in which you will greet each other and refer to each other and oneself throughout the conversation. Most commonly, the personal pronouns used are: Em (for the younger person), Chi (for females who are older), Anh (for males that are older), Ong (for people the “age of your grandfather”--- I still have yet to receive any specific clarification on just how old this actually is--- I tend, therefore to defer to anh), and Ba (for females “the age of your grandmother”). It seems as though I learn a new word, though, each day, that is “better” than these more common words. When I think about how to determine if and when to use these words, which requires me knowing whether the man I am speaking to is older or younger than my father, my head starts to hurt and I generally just give the person trying to (re)explain the system to me the “I’m totally lost” look.]
Okay, back to the market…
Once a week, I visit the lady who sells me my chicken. She usually sees me coming, waves me over, and grabs a freshly killed and plucked (well, a few feather remnants usually remain) chicken, cuts off the head and feet, puts it in a plastic bag, and I give her 60,000 VND (about $3.30), exchange a few sentences in my still-horrible Vietnamese, and go on my way. Once I return home, I stick the chicken in the kitchen sink, scrub it with soap, and then put it in a big pot of water and boil the entire thing. Unlike most of the chickens found in the States, chickens here are actually free to run around during their lives and therefore tend to be leaner and tougher. I’ve found that cooking the entire chicken in the skin makes the meat nice and moist. After it cooks completely, I pull it out and grab any piece of meat I can find off of it, and put it into my Tupperware container that I bought recently at the store. I then throw the pieces into my rice or stir-fry at the last stage of cooking to warm them up and it is delicious! Usually the chicken lasts a good 4 days or so (I eat it for lunch and dinner) and when I run out, I cook a pot of lentils for my protein for the rest of the week… then it’s back to the market! Speaking of which, I still need to talk about the rest of my market shopping. Vegetables here are unbelievably cheap, and I usually purchase tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, pumpkin, potatoes, garlic, onions, and a plant called rao muong, or “water spinach” at the market. Muong, I’ve been told, is seen as a weed in parts of the United States, but I think it is delicious when fried in oil and garlic and I can buy an entire bushel for 1,000VND, or $0.05. Because my American stomach is quite vulnerable to parasites and bacteria, I have to be really careful with the vegetables that I buy, and everything has to be soaked in a special wash, then rinsed with clean bottled water, and cooked well, so I’ve come to enjoy the taste of cooked carrots and tomatoes. There are also many varieties of cooking oils here, which make cooking easy and delicious. Interestingly, most of the oils sold here are rich in Omega-3s (the only word I can read on the label)--- I think that there was a big push for added nutritive value to the oils here at one point recently simply because they are used by people in almost every meal. I don’t usually buy any fruit at the market because there is a wonderful woman who lives downstairs in my dorm with her husband and sells fruits to the students every day. Most evenings when I return home from work, she calls out to me “Chao Em!” and grabs a nearby watermelon, cuts a slice for herself and me and we sit eating together. She speaks no English, and as I said before, I am still totally helpless when it comes to Vietnamese, so most of the time we just stand and enjoy the watermelon together in relative silence, smiling, and spitting seeds onto the dirt area in front of the building. After a couple of slices, I usually buy a couple of pieces of fruit (I have to buy fruit with peels here for food safety reasons, so I usually buy dragon fruits, which are gorgeous and delicious, oranges, and pommelos (a grapefruit-like fruit that I love!)) and then head upstairs to my room to begin cooking dinner.

Like I said, I cook all of my meals in my small kitchen, which I enjoy most of the time because those moments are times when I can reflect on the day or (very often) daydream. Sometimes, though, cooking for one gets a little tedious and the cleaning process is complex because I have to first scrub all of my dishes and then boil water to sterilize them, etc. etc. Luckily, though, I’ve made a nice system out of it, and I hardly think about it being a hassle anymore. I’ve also made some good friends in the building who I eat with and/or cook for at times, which is really nice. I have also come to love my rice cooker (although I put too much water in it at lunch today which led to a bit of an explosion of water and steam… huge mess) and I have rice or stir fried potatoes at every meal. Most of the time I stir fry some vegetables, but on other days I’m content with just eating a bowl of rice with some chicken and maybe a bit of the faux cheese spread I was telling you about earlier, stirred in. While I love the food I’m eating here, I do miss things like chips and salsa (especially because it’s football season), oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies, bread—tricky to find around here, pizza, cereal—non-existent in Thanh Hoa, fresh salads, the ability to grab an apple and sink my teeth into it, and finally, dark chocolate!... As time has gone on, I’ve really stopped craving all of those things too much, which is a good thing, since it will be awhile until I have them again… needless to say, though, you know what things will be on my “menu” when I come back home!
Like I said before, I do have to be careful to clean up after each meal because I share my living area with lots of ants, plenty of long-legged spiders, and… rats. Yes, massive scary rats that love to tear into bags of garbage, and have made it necessary for me to take out any garbage I have after each meal. I have yelled into the holes from which they come that as long as they stay out of my bed and don’t give me the plague I won’t use any noxious chemicals against them, but I still squeam every time I see “remnants” of their scavenging (though lately to no avail!) presence in my kitchen each morning when I wake up and walk out that way. I think (hope) that they will soon realize that I have stopped leaving any food in that area, though, and will stop coming to look so they may become a non-issue in the coming weeks.

There are lots of other things going on here besides sleeping and eating that I am actually more excited to write about, but I think I’ll leave that for tomorrow. I’ve got to get home and get started on dinner, and my office hours are coming to an end (I’ll tell you a great story about an hour I spent with one of my students this afternoon when I write next… oh I love teaching!)

Until tomorrow, stay well and keep in touch!

Love,

Hayley