My SE Asia Solo Trip! (Part 1: Thailand)

HI! I am back!! And, definitely a more relaxed and tanned version of my previous self. :) My solo trip was, in short, unforgettable. It was everything I had hoped it would be, and more. I think I am going to write down something about this experience, so you can either hang along for the ride, or just skip the next couple of blog posts and come back once school starts up.

Originally, I had planned my trip as such: I would fly into and out of Singapore, because to there the flights were the cheapest from Berlin. (Around 900 USD round trip.) I would spend about a month in between, because any less than that, it simply wouldn't be worth it going so far, and any more it would just be cruel and unusual to Geoff. I had hoped to meet up with some friends in SE Asia, considering that I knew people who are living in Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea. As it turned out though, flights through South Korea and Taiwan would add too much cost to my trip, so I decided to keep it local and travel only by train and busses in parts of the contiguous SE Asia. The week before my trip (after the in-laws finished their recent visit), I laid out a very rough itinerary as such:

Singapore --> Phuket --> Chiangmai --> Bangkok --> Hanoi (including Halong Bay) --> Hue (maybe) --> Hoi An --> Ho Chi Minh City --> Kuala Lumpur --> Singapore

I say it is a rough itinerary, because even after brief researching, I already realized that it would be ambitious to cover so much distance in a month, especially because the only legs I would plan to fly were from Bangkok --> Hanoi and from Ho Chi Minh City --> Kuala Lumpur. Both intra-Asia flights were determined by the fact that I didn't want to spend more time going through Laos and getting another tourist visa. (Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand do not require advance visa for U.S. citizens, and I already mentioned in a previous post that I had gone through the process of getting a Vietnamese visa in Berlin.) But, as my trip rolled on and I learned to pace myself, I found to my delight that it was actually indeed possible to go through all of those spots in a month (even though it is admittedly rushed)!

Some logistics first, for those of you who might consider traveling / "backpacking" through SE Asia in the future and would have limited time to do so: I figured out quickly that if time is an issue, then I needed to think ahead always one city in advance. As soon as I got into a new location, I would spend the next morning buying train or bus tickets for leaving that city. Even though this sounds like a hassle, this is a good idea because often those train/bus tickets would sell out a day in advance, and this way you can be sure that you're not wasting time idling in a city when you already wish to move on. It also helps you to plan concretely how many full days you will actually have in the current city, in order to book tours or to plan/extend your lodging. Also, I know that extended travelers tend to feel OK with rolling up to a new place with no hostel yet booked, but I found it easier to just always book a hostel bed for the next city, the last day prior to leaving the current one. It saves you headache and you'd have better luck taking public transit (saves some money) instead of haggling with motorbike taxis, if you already know exactly where you are going and roughly how to get there.

Now, the fun stuff. I'll try to highlight the best of each country, starting with Thailand. Keeping in mind that I only spent a little over a week in Thailand, so I only saw the most touristy parts of the country, I thought that the Thai backpacker scene was amazing. The country has a lot to offer, from the beaches and islands in the South to metropolitan Bangkok to the jungles in the North. I was fortunate to meet a lot of good people when I stayed in Phuket (even though most of them partied way harder than me), and even met up with a friend from Klingenstein who just happened to be traveling through Phuket at the same time!

One day trip I took in Phuket to Phang Nga ("James Bond") island was particularly memorable; it was super relaxing to float through low caves in a sea kayak, and the caves were so low that we had to actually lie down and the local kayaker pushed gently against the top of the caves in order to get us through!

And, the same day we also visited a "Sleeping Buddha" temple, located inside a cave. Outside the temple there were tons of monkeys just hanging out, waiting to be fed by tourists! I didn't feed them, but it was fun to watch the kids do it.

It was a lovely experience, and I wished that I had more days to spend checking out the local beaches. The only thing that bothered me tremendously about Phuket was that the sex tourism there (or at least in Patong beach, where I stayed) was ubiquitous. There is a street filled with bars where every table inside most of the bars had several prostitutes waiting to pick up clients, and everywhere you turned you could see foreigners hugging local prostitutes walking off into the night; the sheer prevalence is indicative of how tourism is harming the country and how there are many serious social problems in Thailand that lie just beneath their smiles.

I think I should mention that in order to get to Thailand, I had taken a train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur (about 7 hours), followed by a bus from Kuala Lumpur to Hat Yai (about 11 hours), followed by a minibus from Hat Yai to Phuket (about 4 or 5 hours), followed by a tuk tuk from central Phuket to my hostel (about 30 minutes). Altogether, including waiting time, I think it was about 27 hours, and it was my first experience with such a long commute by road. We also had to get off the bus at the border of Malaysia and Thailand and hold all of our luggage while waiting in line for immigration/customs at about 5am. Pretty grungy experience, if you ask me. They did make toilet stops after about 6 hours on the bus, and the toilets are squatter toilets that you flush by hand using scooped water from a nearby bucket. My first experience flushing toilets by hand! (I think this is still eons more advanced/developed than the toilets we had in Panama though, where the whole island village shared two "toilets" that were just holes cut out of a piece of wood that hovers over the ocean.)

Anyway, I thought I should mention this because again between Phuket and Chiangmai, I had to take a bus. I think altogether it was about 27 hours between Phuket and Chiangmai, with only 1 or 2 hours of layover in Bangkok. Good thing I had a friend (Chilean girl whom I had met in Phuket) to keep me company during the first leg, and anyway I slept for most of it. But, in hindsight, I wish I had taken the train, because another traveler I met later on told me that the Thai trains are awesome because you get to sit between train cars and hang your feet over the edge, while the train passes through tunnels and over bridges.

Chiangmai was everything I had imagined it would be. I stayed in the "old city", which is the center of the current Chiangmai, surrounded by a moat that can still be seen today. It's the first time I've seen a moat! I was pretty excited, especially because you can still see parts of the old gate. In the city, there are a few temples, and my favorite one is one of the lesser famous ones, because it has a big Buddha outside! I also feel fondly for Buddhas in general, since my mom is a pretty devout Buddhist and we grew up with Buddha statues around the house. The Thai Buddhist temples are interesting; they have a triple-roof very traditional to their culture. I also learned that Thai men/boys are obligated to serve as monks sometime during their lives, the same way other cultures have obligatory military service.

In Chiangmai, you have a lot of choices of things to do. Many tourists I've met do a multi-day trek that takes them through the jungle, through some traditional villages, and then lets them ride an elephant. I did some talking to other backpackers and then some internet research, and I think a problem with these treks is that they are both harmful to the villagers and the elephants. Basically, one of the popular villages to visit is a long-necked village where women wear necklaces that elongate their necks. There are some people who say that this traditional practice is very cruel because if the ladies remove those rings, they would asphyxiate because their neck muscles are not strong enough to support their elongated necks. So, they basically wear them as shackles and stay in the village for all their lives. Other people say this is not true and that they can still survive without the rings, but in any case I find the practice oppressive and I find it pretty horrible that they're continuing the practice on little girls mostly because they can earn income from the tourist visits. So, instead of going to a village like this, I went to see a traditional Thai dance show at the cultural center. It was pretty great. My favorite parts of the Thai cultural show were the long-nailed dances and when the kids came out to do a synchronized sticks dance. Even young kids were stepping in rhythm as the sticks clapped open and close at a syncopated rhythm. It was so neat! It was clearly a game that they play from a very young age.

I also went to an elephant farm in Chiangmai that specializes in rescuing elephants. As it turns out, it costs 1 million Thai Bahts (about 25000 USD) to rescue/purchase one elephant, and each elephant eats between 300 and 400 kg of food per day. The elephant farm I went to was called Baanchan Elephant Farm, and although I had some skepticism prior to going there, after asking them some questions and watching them interact lovingly with the elephants all day (more importantly, watching how the elephants are loving towards their caretakers), I was very impressed with their sincerety in helping to rescue working elephants. There, you hang out and feed/bathe the elephants for the morning, and then you only go on a very short bare-backed walk on the elephants on their property. You don't sit on chairs (which are harmful for the elephants because they're very heavy), and the elephants don't work 8 hours a day carrying people the way trek elephants do. As I said, I had been pretty skeptical going in, but in the end I was so glad that I had this experience!!

The next day was my last in Chiangmai, and one of the girls at my hostel had recommended me to go to the Tiger Kingdom. Again, this place is a bit controversial because their tigers are so well-behaved that people say it is because they are drugged. But, I have to say that when I was in there with the tigers, they were very playful and alert, not like they were drugged at all. They are well-behaved, as I can tell, because their trainers were there luring them with a piece of wood as their biting toy, and they're constantly drawn to their trainers and the toy. Anyway, I read that in this place, after the tigers turn something like 22 months old, they get sent away into zoos, which is quite sad. After I interacted with these beautiful animals, it really makes you think that human beings are bastards for hunting and caging them in the first place. (As you probably already know, they are endangered and the ones bred in captivity can never be restored to the wild. So, it's really a catch 22 and a depressing predicament for these regal animals.)

But, anyway, here was me patting a tiger that was I think 14 months old. He's still a baby, actually, not nearly fully grown in size, even though he looks pretty big already. They like it when you pat their tummies, like dogs do. So, when you touch their backs, they tend to roll over for more tummy affection!

After Chiangmai, I went to Bangkok for just a day. I didn't even have time there to catch a cabaret show, which I really had wanted to do. (The Bangkok shows are, of course, world famous. There are even these "Ping Pong shows" in which you can see objects like turtles, birds, and razor blades come out of the nether regions of the performers. But, anyway, I didn't see any of the shows during my brief stay in Bangkok.) I did go check out a traditional Sunday floating market in Bangkok, called Taling Chan, which serves up fresh seafood made in boats. This is not the touristy floating market because it only opens on Sundays; although I did see some tourists there, there weren't many. There were tons of locals sitting on the floor around low tables and eating the grilled fish there, however.

I had taken the public bus to the market, and it was a really neat experience. I noticed that monks not only did not have to pay fare for busses, but they also have a reserved seat in the front of the bus, probably due to their highly revered status. On my bus, there were two monks, sitting one behind the other (and the people who were sitting there previously let them have those seats when they got on). At some point, when the first monk got off, the second monk actually moved up to take the head seat. It's a sign that that seat is special for them, I think. The ride to the market took about 2 hours because of traffic, but on the way back it only took 30 minutes. If you go to Bangkok, I would highly recommend making a visit to Taling Chan Floating Market.

Overall, I think Thai people are quite nice, especially in Chiangmai. In the south, I also met a family of Thai people who offered me safety advice (because they were concerned that I could be kidnapped, "like what happens sometimes to Thai girls if they travel alone"...) and offered to give me assistance over the phone if I ever found myself needing a translator. There are a lot of people who want to make a few extra bucks off of tourists though, and that gets old fast. But, it was definitely a great first experience of being on my own, and by the end of my trip in Thailand I felt like I could talk to anybody at the drop of a hat, and I had fully conquered my fears of traveling alone.

Next: On to Vietnam!

Preparations for going Solo

I am nervous! Counting down until my solo trip. I am nervous because believe it or not, I am a total acting-on-a-whim kind of person. I just saw some good ticket prices to/from Singapore and bought them, without having really thought through all the logistics. Once I started researching and planning my trip out in more details, it turned out to be a big black hole of logistics, what-ifs, and money! Geoff has been very helpful, but he has also helped me realize that in order to do the things that I want to do in the budget that I want, this has to be a backpacking trip.

So far, I've done these things, in no particular order:

• Gotten a Vietnamese tourist visa (Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia do not require visas from U.S. citizens if the trips are short, like under 30 days. I decided to fly from Thailand to Hanoi, and then from Ho Chi Minh City to Kuala Lampur in order to bypass Laos and to skip another visa process). Incidentally, if you wish to get a Vietnamese tourist visa in Berlin, it costs something like 65 Euros for regular processing or 88 Euros for rush processing. If you do some research on the web you'll see that the fees are not published for some reason. Some say that it's because the Vietnamese government is embarrassed by them and there is a bit of shadiness going on as well. I didn't look too much into it, but you can research it if you are curious.
  
• Gotten a thorough review of my immunization records. Berlin has a travel clinic actually (http://www.bctropen.de/ ), and they were immensely helpful. They went through my entire immunization record with me (I brought pieces of paper from Taiwan, U.S., and Peru), and recommended HepA and Typhoid shots specifically for the trip I am taking, since those are food-borne illnesses related to unsanitary food-handling. That was pretty much what I had already decided prior to going to the clinic, so I went ahead with it and the shots together costed about 80 Euros. On top of that, I also got a cocktail shot that included Polio and Tetanus, among other things, because my Polio shot was from when I was a kid and it's long expired. (Polio shots are recommended every 10 years, apparently. There are new polio outbreaks in the world, so I thought it wise to update my immunization to help prevent the spread of the once-almost-eliminated disease.) The shots are not immediately covered by the German health insurance, however, so I've submitted a reimbursement and will hope for the best.
• I talked to the doc at the travel clinic about malaria pills, and she showed me some graphs and we agreed that if I get sick from mosquitoes, more likely than not it will be Dengue Fever, and I should seek medical attention immediately as Dengue has no vaccine or pills to take. I still bought a pack of emergency malaria pills just in case (they cost about 50 Euros), but the idea is certainly to prevent mosquito bites instead of working on preventing illness. So, I got some Autun (an insect-repellent I've used in El Salvador before) and also a small net to cover my face and neck when I sleep.
•  I bought a 30-liter backpack! We went to a store called Globe Trotter for this. It's something like the R.E.I. from Seattle and it was a huge store of camping and traveling gear. Geoff and I looked for a good while and picked out finally a lightweight bag that is bigger than your normal day pack but smaller than a camping backpack. It will let me keep about a week's worth of clothes and all my toiletries in it, since I'm a small person and Asia is hot. Geoff basically forced me into this, because he thinks it would be an atrocity for me to walk around Asia with a wheelable carryon suitcase, especially if I might have to walk a couple of miles to find a hotel. Anyway, the bag from Globe Trotter is 60 Euros, and it's less expensive than their standard 32-liter bags which are 100 Euros, in case you're looking at this and thinking of heading over to the store for something similar.
• Besides that, I also went to my German bank and asked them to allow my card to be used in Asia. I'm still not sure about this; the whole transaction was sehr Deutsch, because the lady just trusted that I was the account-owner without collecting a photo ID, and she never gave me a written confirmation that it worked. She just said, "Alles klar!" and that was it. On the other hand, I activated my ATM card from the States (and tested it by withdrawing some money here in Berlin), and also called my American credit card company to allow its use in Asia. Again, this transaction did not instill much faith, as I had to call them 3 times to get them to approve my purchase of an intra-Asia flight and to override automatic fraud detection. But, I will hope for the best and straighten it out in Singapore if I have to.
• I have made a rough itinerary. Because my trip is so jam-packed, I had to research train schedules in advance and to book a couple of local flights (Bangkok --> Hanoi, then later Ho Chi Minh City --> Kuala Lampur) in order to fit everything in. I will still have some wiggle room to drop things here and there to make sure I get to make those flights in case I get delayed, but I am hopeful that I'll get to see a lot of stuff on this trip!
• I've printed out and made copies of everything. Since I'll be by myself, the worst-case scenario is if I get pick-pocketed and lose my cards, or if my passport gets stolen. I still need to read up on precautionary measures, but I already know that I cannot be too careful! 
• Along the same lines, I have been reading copiously on safety issues, particularly surrounding women traveling solo in SE Asia. It seems as though the things they are recommending against are mostly things that I wouldn't do anyway (it's hard to convince me to go out alone at night after living in El Salvador, and hanging out on dark beaches by myself is really a "Thanks, but no thanks!" type of thing). Still, it's always good to know things like I need to chain-lock my bag when I sleep, my skirt/shorts should be a certain length, and Thailand has had recent incidents of rape on beaches and the Thai/Malaysian border-crossing isn't the safest.

Things I still might do tomorrow (Friday... the last weekday before I head off!):

• Buy a doorstop and a safety whistle (can never be too safe about being a solo female traveler; that's a recommendation from another solo female traveler)
• Possibly going to see a doc to get my inhaler prescription (I'm semi-worried about an asthma attack, even though I haven't had issues in recent months and tend to be OK in the warmer months)

So, wish me luck! I'll keep all my wits about me. See you on the flip side.

 

Road Trip with the Coxes

To blog a bit about our recent travels, the (future) in-laws have been visiting us for about two weeks. During this time, we took a 9-day road trip with them to Heidelberg and Prague, and along the way we had also stopped by the "Disney" castle, Neuschwanstein, and the city of Dresden. It was a lot of driving for Geoff over the course of 9 days, and a lot of wine and champagne and meaty German/Bavarian/Czech food consumption for all of us, but overall the trip was a really great opportunity for me to get to know the Coxes better, and definitely a rare and lovely/special occasion for Geoff and his parents to travel together in his adulthood!

Here are some pictures from Geoff's phone (therefore excuse the weird borders and stuff):

Among other things, we went to an aquarium in Berlin where you can ride an elevator up through a tube of cylindrical fish tank.When you are riding up through the fishtank, you can see through it to see the aquarium hotel that surrounds the fish tank. It's a tourist trap, but a rather nice one.

We also did boat tours in every city (Berlin, Heidelberg, and Prague). Ironically, the weather for our boat tour in Berlin was the best out of the three. Heidelberg was steamy hot and Prague was rainy on the days of our boat tours. Berlin, which is consistently rainy, was actually nice and breezy and dry during those first days of the Coxes' visit.

As one would expect, we imbibed plentifully. In Berlin, Geoff took his parents to the Hofbrauhaus, which is a chain brewery/restaurant that originated from Munich and that has huge beer halls and huge steins of beer, Oktoberfest style. His dad thought the traditional fried pork knuckle from there (Schweinehaxe) was fantastic.

Heidelberg is beautiful. Smaller than Berlin, but a college town and full of buzzing young people. There are charming houses and traditional red rooftops all over, and some random castles and fortified houses up in the hills. We were here for a few days, and it was pretty slow-paced and nice.

We took a drive down to Bavaria from Heidelberg, to visit the Schloss Neuschwanstein. This is the castle that all of the Disney castles are inspired by. The inside is only 1/3 finished because the king died halfway through its construction, but I think the parts that are done are very rustic and medieval-looking; it's worth a visit. My favorite part is a man-made cave next to the king's bedroom. Really random and eclectic interior design!

You cannot tell from this picture, but that day it was about 30 degrees Celsius. I had to strip down to my undershirt, basically, because it was so damned hot. The view from the Neuschwanstein Castle, however, was stunning. It made me really miss Utah from last summer, because there is simply no view like this in the flatlands of Berlin.

Next up, we went to Prague. In Prague, the local food was amazing -- something that I had not experienced previously when I went as a chaperone on a school trip. This time, we ate our hearts out and quite literally every restaurant was amazing. Here is me munching on a trdol, which is a hollow bread glazed with sugar. (They make it simply by slapping dough around a rotating rolling pin, and then sticking it over some coals; afterwards, they add sugar or glaze it.) The bread reminded me of the brioches from Berkeley's Cheeseboard that I had once loved so much.

 

And here is a photo of the roadside "Prague old ham" that is sold in the center of the town. We tried it; it was delicious and juicy, but (in my personal opinion) you should try the sausage from the same vendor. They have the best sausages I've ever had. In my life! The sausages are spicy and literally bursting with juice upon each bite.

Geoff's mom had steak tartare at the same restaurant 3 days in a row, because it was that good. Also very notable is the Czech style of preparing garlic bread: they first fry buttered toast, and then they serve it with raw pieces of garlic, which you need to cut and rub onto the toast. It's sinful how garlicky and buttery the whole thing tastes!


Here is a picture we took in front of an apparently famous water wheel, as seen from the Charles Bridge. When we took this picture, we didn't know that this water wheel was the subject of many artists' paintings of Prague.

Another view of the gate next to the famous Charle's Bridge:

We also went to the Prague castle, obviously. Here's a view of the cathedral, from outside and inside. This cathedral is nice, but not quite as ornate on the inside as the St. James' Cathedral downtown.

One night, we decided on a whim to go catch a performance of parts of Don Giovanni at an old opera house in Prague. We decided to do this because it was the original theater where Mozart himself had directed the same opera, which he had written in Prague, for the people of Prague. The music and the singers' voices were absolutely enchanting, even though the lyrics were a mix of Italian and German and we couldn't follow the storyline. The theater was magnificent, and the experience of sitting in a box seat (Geoff's parents had decided to splurge a bit, so we went along with them to stay altogether) was also unique and very luxurious. (Of course, I did not bring appropriate attire on the trip for such luxurious occasion; you can't see it here, but I am wearing sneakers.)

On our last night in Prague, we had the most delicious meal on top of an old clock tower in a restaurant called Zvonice, because Geoff's parents wanted to relive their fabulous experience of dining there 7 years ago. (It's not the famous astronomical clock tower, but another one downtown somewhere.) It was expensive, but mostly because of the awesome wines we had. I think you could have a terrific meal in this cozy restaurant with breath-taking views, for about 30 to 35 Euros per person, which isn't too bad considering the phenomenal experience you would have. You could even see in the corner of the picture below of the large bell that still hangs behind Derek in the middle of the restaurant / tower. My lamb dish was every bit as good as it looks, and so were all the other dishes.

  

On our drive back from Prague, we stopped by Dresden for a bit. Not my favorite German city, unfortunately; I don't think it has that much character, to be honest. If you are familiar with the history of Dresden, basically 95% of the downtown area was destroyed in the air raids of WWII, so what's left now is mostly a reconstruction of what the old, beautiful Dresden had once looked like.  We walked through the old town, which still has remnants of the past glory. The food in Dresden was also mediocre -- typical German fare, and a pale comparison to the complex flavors offered by the cuisine in Prague, sadly.
 

But, all in all, it was a fantastic trip! Now that I have a flip-flop tan, I am truly in the summer mode. :)

To the End of the Roaring 20s

I have been doing some thinking about how adulthood has simply snuck up on me. I am turning 30 in about a month! This trip through Asia will be my last opportunity to do something big all by myself before I turn 30 (even though it was not intended as such).

And, in the end, the 20s were more glorious than anyone could have ever told me it would be. In hindsight, I think that if you just follow your heart, there's not really any way to mess up your 20s unless you're doing drugs or setting out to hurt people. No matter where you live, what you do for a living, no matter if you party all night or decide to tell your boss 5 months in advance of leaving a job, no matter if you move across the country without knowing anyone, no matter if you are disappointed and cry your heart out, or if you end up living in a 9ft-by-5ft bedroom infested with cockroaches, in the end your life will always turn out to be better than you could have planned it out to be.

One of my most memorable grown-up moments was when I cried over money for the first (and thus far, only) time. I had always been an idealist, and I never thought that this could catch up with me. I realized sometime soon after switching into teaching, that I needed to transfer a fairly sizable amount of money out of my savings account in order to help out my parents. In consequence, I also realized that my own life choices do impact those that I love, and I cried then, with the hope that there would never come a day when someone I love needed my help and I couldn't afford to help them.

One of my biggest "growing up" realizations about myself is that if I believe that things are possible, then they become entirely possible. Sounds like BS, but it has made all the difference in how I perceive my pursuit of goals. One of the examples of this was when I auditioned for a swing dance troupe in NYC, and at the time I simply was not technical enough for it. I gave it my all and I was crushed when I did not get in, and the next year I gathered up all of my broken hopes and did it again, after first requesting a private lesson with the troupe director to fix some of my bad dance habits. And the second time, despite all of my self-doubts and feeling of absolute foolishness for even giving it another shot, I was in!

Being part of a swing dance troupe in my 20s was an amazing experience. I had to place complete trust in myself and someone else in order to even attempt an aerial, and then to pick myself up repeatedly when I kept falling on my butt or on my old injury of a bad knee. I felt like I triumphed over my fears, the same way I felt when I jumped off a 30- or 40- foot high cliff and almost hit the side on the way into a volcanic lake or when I climbed up 4 or so stories of ladder-stairs in Tikal. I know that down the road, when I have to replace my knee, I'll still think this dance adventure was completely and absolutely worth it. We got to perform at Frankie's 95th Birthday Celebration in front of swing dancers from all over the world, and I also met some awesome and passionate people through this experience. It had changed me for the better, because I got to experience something that was made possible only by leaving myself fully vulnerable.

Most of all, I will always remember this decade as one filled with love and happiness. Geoff and I have been together for almost 6 years now, more than half of the decade! I love him dearly and I could have never imagined that I would be so lucky some day to have someone like him. But, even before his time, I had the good fortune to share my life with some wonderful people, truly amazing friends, my beloved family, and even some pretty great boyfriends.

So, cheers to a marvelous decade, and I hope the 30s live up to their promise.

My First German Post: Traveling

Ich werde sehr bald weg gehen! Ich bringe mit mir Kleidung und Geld fur einer Monat. Ich bringe auch meiner Kindle, weil ich werde auf dieser Urlaub alleine sein. Ich fliege nach Singapur, dann im Zug fahre ich nach Malaysia, dann nach Thailand und dann endlich nach Vietnam. In Singapur habe ich zwei Freundinnen, und ich werde mit einem bleiben. Ich freue mich schon darauf! Tschuss, und bis bald! xoxo.
 
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Mini-reflection on my progress with my German tutor: I am pretty happy so far with the bits of German I've been managing to pick up, and most recently I was able to converse simply for about 90 minutes straight with my tutor, mostly in German with only bits of English when I got stuck in the middle of a story. I feel that compared with people who have been sitting in a traditional Volkshochschule setting for the same amount of time (in terms of months committed), I am at least on par in my ability to express myself, even though on average I put in less than half of the hours they're putting in, per week. But, the drawback of studying with a private tutor is certainly that it's very adhoc, and less social. My listening isn't as strong as it would be if I were in a group setting, because my German teacher is relatively introverted and I typically have to keep the conversation going on my end. It's great because I get a lot of speaking practice, but my listening (always a weakness anyway, in any language) is lagging behind. My grammar is also weak, because we learn grammar in a pretty adhoc way instead of systematically as we would in a traditional class, so what I can say is based on my natural feel for languages instead of based on learned rules.

I am considering switching it up and enrolling in a Volkshochschule class in the fall, but I am not so sure yet about the 6 hours/week time commitment or the commute. (It'd be a significant step up from 90 minutes/week, at a cafe 3 blocks away from home.) I am still thinking about it, because I don't want to wait too long (ie. another 6 months or a year) and get to a point where my immersed fluency becomes much better than my grammar and I would have to enroll in a class that is really boring for me most of the time, just to fill in all the missed grammatical bits... Eventually, in the long run, I want to finish proper B-level classes and then take on a tandem conversation partner so that I can gain real German fluency, but these goals conflict naturally with the additional responsibilities I wish to take on at work next year. So, I am still thinking about it.

But, I am in a good place. I feel that when you acquire a new language, the first real break-through is when you can start to understand the gist of most conversations-with-strangers directed at you. Because, after that point, you can start picking up more vocabulary and grammar purely by context. That's where I am at, and I find that finally the words on a page are no longer words on a page, but linked to real auditory interactions as well. So, I am in a good place! Happy about getting here by the end of our first year in Germany, even though I cannot remember where we were with our Spanish by the end of the first year.

The Mathematics of Scheduling Classes

After a chat with my colleague from the math department who does the scheduling for the entire MS and HS of our school, I have become very intrigued by the mathematics of scheduling. His background is in Discrete Mathematics, and the professor under whom he had studied way back when has recently been awarded the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics. So, this colleague is a semi-expert in tackling problems such as this. He took over the task of programming for our school's MS and HS schedules a few years back because of his personal interest in the complexities involved. He told me it's like a big Sudoku puzzle that you don't know whether there is a solution for. Even though he uses software to help, much of it is too complex for the software and he has to manually do a lot of it. Often, when the software gets "stuck" from all the rules that have been inputted, he has to go back to the drawing board, try asking departments to change their teaching assignments on particular teachers, in order to enter in new rules, in new orders, in hopes of getting the software "un-stuck" and to progress further. Tough task! And, as it turns out, it is most mathematical.

Here are some basic things that make scheduling for our MS/HS school tricky and difficult:

• We share facilities (such as art pavillion, cafeteria, and gym) with the elementary school. So, all of those classes are blocked out during certain days and certain times. 
• We are an IB school, which means that kids get to choose in Grade 11 and Grade 12 (and to a lesser extent, in Grades 9 and 10 as well) any combination of high-level and standard-level classes from our offerings based on their interest. Because we truly believe in kid's choice, we don't limit the types of combinations they can have, but it also means that we need to weave together the classes to allow for a variety of combinations.
• Imagine kid 1: English-High, Math-Standard, Chemistry-Standard, History-High, Economics-High, Music-Standard.
• Imagine kid 2: English-High, Math-High, Biology-High, History-Standard, Economics-Standard, Spanish-Standard.
• Imagine kid 3: English-Standard, Math-Standard, Physics-High, Economics-High, Music-High, Art-Standard.
• All of these combinations of schedules (and all other possible combinations) need to be supported, which comes into conflict with our next constraint....
• Because we are a relatively small school (only about 60 kids per grade), that limits the number of classes that can be offered. So, for example, there is only 1 section of High-level mathematics in Grade 11. All 10 or so kids who are interested in taking that class will need to be able to fit that one class into their schedules. We cannot afford to open up an additional section of High-level math in Grade 11, when there are only about 10 kids total who are capable of taking math at that level. Same with kids in High-level classes of most other subjects, probably.
• FYI: High-level IB math is really intense. It goes into differential equations and stuff, well beyond Calculus AB of the A.P. system.
• In the IB, each kid is required to choose 3 High-level classes to take. Again, this means we need to have a master schedule that supports the variety of possible combinations of High-level classes that kids might wish for. A TOTAL MATH PROBLEM!!!!
• Because we want to allow the flexibility of students changing their choices of high- and standard- level classes during the year (typically in Grade 11), we need to piece together department schedules in a way that allows a student to change options without too many problems during the year. Hopefully as well, this means that they will incur minimal changes in teachers of their other classes.

As a result, one of the consequences of these cross-constraints is that all Grade 11 math classes, regardless of levels, must be taught at the same time. Same with all Grade 12 math classes. (It's not obvious perhaps why that is, but it's a natural fallout of reasons #2 through #4 above.) Another indirect consequence is that all teachers must teach a lot of different "preps", so it is common for a teacher like me to teach 5 different grades during the week, because at the same time that I am teaching, my colleagues are teaching other sections of the same age group.

So very interesting, eh? Have you worked with scheduling before? Can you chime in to say something about the mathematical nature of this problem? Notice that we're not even talking about physical space constraints above. This is mathematical problem-solving at its richest!

Math Pop-Up Book Samples!

Here are some results from my Grade 7 and Grade 9 math pop-up books! They are really fantastic. Up side: The kids were really excited about the project and doing good math all the way through the last week of the year, even though it was not graded. One kid even said she wishes she had been able to finish the book before her family packed all their stuff for their move. (No worries though; I'll make sure I mail it to her.) The down side: tomorrow's the last full school day and I'm still not done giving last-minute feedback on all these Grade 7 books. I plan on getting to school early tomorrow to finish mistake-searching on all of them, and then give the kids 40 minutes in class to help each other fix them before they take them home for good -- but, fixing on our last day!! What a rush job. :( But, they've already done a terrific job and most of them have only very small fixes still to make tomorrow. I think it's doable. Crazy ambitious of me though! I hope next year, if I repeat the same project, I'll have to be smarter about pacing it as to avoid all this end-of-year stress.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/averyseriousmimi/sets/72157630208077148/

PS. This post is a follow up to this post where I had conceived the idea and written a bit to include the project descriptions. If I were to do this again though, I'd re-work the project description to include the phases of the project:
Phase 1. Gather at least 4 problems per topic, of appropriate difficulty. Need to sufficiently address all listed sub-topics with these problems. (2 to 3 days)
Phase 2. Write rough-draft explanations and get them reviewed by the teacher. (3 to 4 days)
Phase 3. Start to build the book. Get the first pages checked to make sure format of "pop-up" is actually useful and interactive. (3 days)
Phase 4. Peer review, followed by teacher review, for mistakes in arithmetic or algebra. (1 day)
Phase 5. Fix the parts of the book as necessary. (1 day)