my vietnamese teacher started crying in class today. it was very surprising. yeah, she's always been a somewhat emotional person but this was bad. she started crying while she was yelling at us. apparently she was extremely frustrated with the numerous mistakes in our quizzes. i mean, yeah, i know we're not exactly geniuses, but this *is* a beginner's class. i think she forgets that sometimes. she started accusing us of not being proud of our heritage because we can't spell correctly. first it started out as a stern lecture. then she started yelling. and she got louder and louder until she started crying. it was really weird. i think everyone felt really bad because the entire class was silent and she's not usually like this so there must obviously be something else wrong (she's got a lot of issues). i mean, obviously (i know i just said that twice), i felt really bad about it too and i'm pretty sure there must be something else to this, something else must have provoked her and she's just taking it out on us, but still....it was really weird and i didn't think it was right for her to accuse of us not being proud of our heritage. yeah, i'm not exactly miss asian pride but the reason all of us are in that class (well, maybe not ALL of us) is because we want to know how to read and write and speak in vietnamese. i'm excluding the idiot fobs who already *know* how to read, write, and speak and are only taking this course for an easy A, of course. but our errors aren't proof that we don't care. this might sound terrible, but if anything, it's because the class is very disorganized and the lectures are unstructured, in my opinion. it's easy for me to say this because i'm taking italian at the same time, and i can compare how both language classes are taught. it's especially obvious since my vietnamese teacher is NOT a language teacher; rather, she is a history professor. so...anyway, i don't know what my point is. i don't want to sound heartless or anything, since i DID feel pretty bad that she started crying and i know she didn't do it to guilt trip us or anything because she's not like that, but i still felt she put us all in a pretty awkward position. however, if it does turn out that all of this was because of something else, something personal, then i would completely understand.

aaaanyway, that was my weird moment of the day. i got pictures back from the beach and the zoo. well, most of the pictures from the zoo, not all of them. the beach pictures turned out really cute. i love our little sand boy. i have GOT to scan that in and show you guys. later, though. i really really need to read this italian play. i told myself i'd keep up with my italian readings this quarter...and i haven't. so i need to do that now.