First Week Update

  Things are starting to get better and I am starting to (slowly) get used to everything about Vietnam. I started exploring the area the apartment and even ducked into a small Korean market to pick up a few food goods so that I could cook meals at the company apartment that I am currently living in. Not going to lie, it was nice seeing some familiar things. Even just the other day, when we (my roommates and I) went to a bigger general grocery store nearby, there were still a lot of Korean brands that I recognized, as well as affordable cheese! Grocery stores are always very fun to visit when you are in a different because there is always something familiar about watching people sort through vegetables and peruse all the different aisles to see what there is to buy, no matter what language everyone is speaking or the signs are written in!! Plus there is also the chance that you can find some local treat that you have never seen before, or learn that in order to buy produce, you need to have it weighed and stickered before you go to the checkout counter or you leave a whole line of people waiting for you to run back to the produce section to get your green peppers weighed!

  But yeah, I am definitely not scared of being here anymore. I'm not going to lie, the first few days I was here, I was seriously questioning why I was here and if I had just made a horrible mistake. The city confused me, my head hurt from language overload (because I was focusing so hard on what people were saying in hopes that magically I could understand them), I was terrified for my life every time I had to cross a street because traffic laws are more of a suggestion here, plus I can't read anything so it was almost impossible to find anything. It is still a little difficult adjusting to life here? Yes. Am I as dramatic or overwhelmed? No! I still can't really understand everything and am a bit nervous about going out and exploring on my own, but I have figured out a lot of stuff that was scary/overwhelming when I first got here. I have (kind of) figured out the currency, crossing the street still makes me a little nervous but I can do it, now that I have data I can google map places and use translate to figure out what things are, and I have become a master at Uber! All in all, I feel like I am going to really like it here once I get used to how the country works.

   One thing I will never get used to though is going to a doctor's office in Asia. No offense to the doctors that I have been to though, they have all been very nice and very good at what they do, but what I will never get used to is how shocked and concerned they get about my weight. While I am a bit over the recommended weight category for my age and height (a category that was created in the 50s and is based on the idea that everyone's bodies are the same), I am by no means in danger of having poor health/health issues because of my weight (I have talked to my healthcare provider in the US), I just hate the fact that the doctors I have seen in Asia act like I am about to drop dead of a heart attack at any moment during our consultation! After all the tests were run at the hospital here in Hanoi, the doctor pulled me aside and told me everything was great, that I had nothing to worry about, but that he was extremely concerned about my weight and wanted to put me on a diet plan. While I do trust his opinion and am planning on eating better while I am here, I keep having to remind myself that I am not like the Vietnamese people that he sees every day. Out of all the Vietnamese women, I have seen here in Hanoi, on average they come up to my chest and have smaller frames than me. So of course to him, my weight would be something to be concerned about, because if a small Vietnamese woman has my numbers, yeah she would be in trouble of having health problems! I don't know why what the doctor told me bugged me so much, but just hearing him bring up my weight as a big issue, not once, but FIVE different times during the conversation, really ticked me off. I've really been working hard on body positivity and self-love for a few years now and so to have him tell me that was a real set back. But like I said, I just need to take it all with a grain of salt and keep on doing me! 

  So I know I kind of turned this into a big long venting session, but I promise this week was actually pretty fun! I have two roommates in company housing who are from the UK, so we have been staying up late a lot just talking about living abroad, training, our fellow trainees, and the differences between our two countries. We get along great, which is making me wonder if I should look for a room in a shared house rather than look for a single apartment when I move out to Hai Phong. But then again, I have a feeling I might need to have a place where I can get away from the world and recharge on my own. Most of the other people in training that I have talked to are thinking about renting rooms in shared houses, so maybe they'll rub off on me (we'll see). 

   Now that the first week of training is over I'll have a day to just relax and get to see Hanoi before I start up my second week. For next week, I will mostly be training for my admin duties and shadowing other FMs/Headteachers and then getting ready to head out to Hai Phong the following Monday. Then I will be meeting with the teachers that I am replacing and the BM to figure out what is the best course of action for the branches. So by the sounds of it, I should be working full time in my position by the 30th! But for now, I just need to get through my second week  T^T