Chile in our eyes Part 1: Torres Del Paine and Glacier Trekking 2

Day 3
After 8 hours of sleep, I felt much refreshed in the morning. The pain and tiredness on my feet and shoulder were significantly reduced.  Dan shared the same feeling. Because of another day with 13 hours of hiking, we quickly had breakfast, packed our stuff, and headed out. The reason for starting it early is that we wanted to hike slowly today so that we could enjoy the view. We did not want to rush to our next destination like the day before.

Also because of the 13 hours of hiking, we had to let go of French valley even though it was supposed to be very beautiful there. However we were happy enough just to look at the breathtaking view right next to our campsite

Fueled by a good sleep and hot oatmeal for breakfast, we started our day energetically. The first 10 minutes of the trail was relatively easy and flat. Dan seemed very excited with his newly regained energy

I randomly turned around to find myself speechlessly gazing at the spectacular view behind our back

After the first 10 minutes, we began our "real" hike with up and down hills. The trail was amazingly beautiful with an unrivaled landscape of mountains on one side and lakes on the other side.

The majority of this part of the trail goes along impossibly blue lakes.  That day was very sunny so that the striking blue coloration of the lakes stood out

There were many little waterfalls as a result of melt ice from the top of the mountain along the hike. The best part of it is that it provided us water to drink along our hike so that we did not have to carry water with us at all. Following the recommendation of the Lonely Planet book, we purchased water purification tabs from REI that help kill microorganism in water to prevent cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and other borne disease. We first used it but the water tasted terrible like water from a swimming pool. Therefore, I told Dan that I prefer have diarrhea to use this tab. We decided to dump all purification tabs and drank water directly from waterfalls. Luckily both Dan and I did not have any problem with our stomach and digestion system.

Dan was filling up our bottle of water

 After 6 hours of hiking, I spotted a perfect place for lunch off the trail where we could peacefully enjoy a breathtaking view of the lake and mountain without being disturbed by noises caused by other hikers. I joked with Dan if he could make a poem for me. The first and last time Dan made a poem (that has 3 sentences) for me was when we started dating for a month meaning more than 4 years ago. Here is his haiku (5-7-5 rule)

Mountain standing still
Calm wind blows beautifully
Dsquare is happy
(Dsquare=Dan & Doan)

The strong sun kept us company along the hike. It helped us enjoy the blue coloration of the lakes but it also made our hike more struggling and tiring. After the first 8 hours, we started doing a lot of quick stops to gain our breath. Our backpacks seemed heavier. The pain of my feet and blister kept expanding to my brain.

 The entire part of trail did not have much shade so that the sun made us even more tired. We did not bring our hats with us. Actually Dan brought his hat but he could not remember where he kept it.  The scenary kept dramatically spaning from the vast openness of the steppe to rugged mountain. We even crossed a deserted pampas field. Dan tried to touch a brush of cucti and he was so exhausted that he almost fell into that brush. Good for him that it did not happen because I could not image its consequences.

The view still stayed face-slappingly stunning

There was a beautiful open-wide daisy field aong the hike. It was the last days of spring so that flowers still blossomed in the Pantagonian land.

Dan started whining that why we kept going up hills. While Dan prefers to go downhill , I enjoy going uphills more because going down hills always make my knees feel terrible. Thus whenever we hike, I always wait for Dan up to the top of the mountain while he always waits for me down at the bottom of the mountain. I tried to cheer Dan up by telling him that the uphill will end soon and we'll soon go downhill. However the downhill part was so short that before  we could feel it, the uphill already waited for us.

Though I love going uphill, I started getting tired and my breath became very heavy because of seemingly unlimited uphill and heat. Eventually we had a chance to really feel that we were going downhill when we got close to the next campsite

We got to the next campsite at 7p.m. While most people decided to stop here, we decided to keep trekking to another campsite, about 1.5 hours ago so that we could hike less the next day. The campsite we passed lies right next to a big stream falling down from the mountain

After 10 minute break, we resumed our trek. The sun was gone. The entire part of the trail to the next campsite was in the forest so that it had shades all along the way. I uttered in frustration that why when we needed the shades most, we did not see anything and once the sun is gone, now we have all the shades.

We hiked in silence. I broke the silence by telling Dan that I will make a haiku for him. During lunch, Dan asked me to make a haiku for him. However, I had never created a poem in my entire life and I was horrible at it so that I gave him a big grin as my nay saying. Therefore Dan seemed excited with my sudden gift to him. I read ALOUD, SLOWLY, AND EMPHATICALLY my haiku as a way to encourage both of us

"Pain, sweat, and fatigue.
Sun, wind, heat, snow, and strong rain.
We will make it through"

When I generated that haiku, I added the words snow and rain impromptu. We definitely did not expect that rain and snow did come to visit us right that night and the entire following day. In order to drive us away from our tiredness, I asked Dan to play a game in which Dan made the first sentence of the haiku and I produced the next one and so on..

We got to the next campsite at 9p.m. We thought we found a perfect camping spot next to the stream so that we could enjoy hearing the sound of the water. However life is not a dream and things are not always as beautiful as we think. We did not recognize that that perfect spot is a little bit steep. That night I could not sleep well and woke up so many times because I kept sliding down to the end of the tent. In the morning, Dan also complained about the same problem. Also under his spot, there was a pebble that he accidently hit on while turning around, hurting his back a little bit.

Day 4:

It rained heavily on that night. When I woke up at 6a.m, the rain was gone and the sun rose up. I joked with Dan that we got our MOST romantic night of sleep ever with the sound of water and the rain in the middle of forest and mountain and now we are enjoying the ray of early sunlight through the forest. My joy did not last for a long time. The sun quickly disappeared and the sky became very cloudy and gloomy again. The rain and fiece wind came fast followingly.

We decided to leave our stuff at our campsite and hiked up to the tower, called Torres Del paine that the park is named after. This part of the trail is very steep and it is all the way up hill. The trail is very rocky. The wind became more fierce. I prayed that the wind did not blow me off the trail. I am generally afraid of height and I know the worst thing in this moment was to loose our mental balance so that I tried not to glance at the steep side of mountain down next to me to stay calm .

The challenges were not over yet. When we got close to the top, it started snowing. Snow and wind tapped fiercely on my face. After almost 1 hour of hiking up, we got to the so called Torres Del Paine.

Torres means Tower and Paine means blue. The entire name means the towers of blue. Here is how it is supposed to look like in a beautiful day:

Souce: The internet

Here is what we actually saw in that day. The cloud entirely covered the three spikes.I murmured myself that at least we see the blue lagoon and we can image the granite spikes by ourselves. Probably the towers in our imagination might look way much more beautiful that they actually are.

 I took a photo of Dan for memory before we headed out.

We reached our campsite about 10a.m and we quickly packed our stuff under the rain. We started hiking very fast to make it to the  the shuttle station by 2p.m where we could take the shuttle to the bus station to get back to Puerto Natales. It rained heavily in the entire day. Our poncho was enough to cover the upper part of our body. My pants got wet. Our shoes and socks were soaked with water.

We had to hike all the way up in the part that we went down the day before. Dan asked me why we kept going up again,lol. After climbing up to the top, we hiked all the way down. My knees started whining a lot and my back started hurting terribly. My entire body yelled at my brain. On the bright side, at least the cold water from my socks helped numb the pain on my feet. I had to do many second stop to rest my back.

We held hands to hike up the last small hill. We went straight up to the top where we stopped, looked at each other, and started laughing and BREATHING heavily, and then dragged ourselves to where we tood the shuttle. We made it 10 minutes earlier and immerged ourselves in the crowd of other hikers who were waiting for the shuttle. We gave each other a lingering kiss at the end of the trail. I modified my haiku

"Pain, sweat, and fatigue.
Sun, wind, heat, snow, and strong rain.
We damn finished it"

We took the shuttle and the bus to Puerto Natales where we took another 3 hour bus to Punta Arenas, our next stop, with our wet clothes and stinky shoes and socks.

That night we slept straight 12 hours to recharge ourselves.

The hike was strenuous and we were tired mentally and physically but we were more than happy that we chose to do it.  We hiked slowly in some parts but we finished it. We did not see the tower but as a cliche goes, it is the journey that's important. We beat ourselves to push through the pain and beat the diverse weather ranging from windy, sunny, rainy, to snowy to finish it.  There were so many moments that I had doubt that we could make it but our will always beat our tired body:).  MORE IMPORTANTLY, we shared all happy, painful, exciting, and tiring moments together, encouraged, and took care of each other along the hike. We took turn to sing and dance in the most silly and nonsense way to entertain and to cheer us up when we wanted to give up. We got a big fight in the middle of frustration,tiredness, and misunderstanding but we solved it to keep moving on our journey and to enjoy it. I donnot think we could request a better honeymoon than that. We cannot wait to plan more hiking trip in Portland and other places. Later on, I suggested to do a long trek in another country at least once every 4-5 years and Dan could not agree with me more.

Continued......

PS1: On the way from the park back to Puerto Natales, our bus was full and we had to sit down on the bus' floor because the bus driver did not allow anyone to stand. Since I was the only girl among the group who had to sit down on the floor, the bus driver spoke to me something in Spanish while checking the ticket of people. Dan translated to me that the bus driver told me that there is a vacant seat next to the bus driver and I can come to sit there. I told Dan to thank him for his kindness but I prefer to sit on the floor with Dan. Later, he found 2 vacant seats in another bus in the same system and we moved there where we could enjoy our nap on the way back. Life could not get better:)

PS 2: I got sunburnt during the hike so terribly that my nose still stands out very dark compared to my face and the skin on my arms is still peeling off by the time I am writing this entry, about 2 weeks since our hike

Chile in our eyes Part 1: Torres Del Paine and Glacier Trekking

The decision to go to Chile was made after many discussions . I have longed to go to Bolivia . However Dan already went there with his friends so that I have to save Bolivia for another trip. In addition to Bolivia, Chile was an alternative. After looking for a ticket for so long, we eventually found tickets that was not super expensive.

 Dan and I camped and hiked also many times before but we had never carried our own gear and food .  Thus I suggested to do it this time at Torres Del Paine so that it would become our new experience.  In order to save our time once we arrive there, we shopped most of our food for our 4 day hiking trip in Portland before we left. We bought more bread, deli meat, and lettute later once we arrived in Chile. We tried to pack as light as possible.

After more than 48 hours including two nights sleeping at the cold airport in LA and Santiago, Chile, we eventually got to Puerto Natales around 10.30 p.m where we will depart to Torres Del Paine the next morning. Most of stores and restaurants in this mountain town were closed. We got lucky to find a convinient store where we could buy food we needed Phewwww!!!!

 The trek we did there was the "W", one of the most popular routes in South America.

The lonely planet book recommends from East to West but we decided to do the opposite, from West to East. Our main reasoning for this is that we we wanted to do glacier trekking at Gracier Grey in the second day. I would risk no chance of missing it.

Day 1:
After 6 hours of sleep, we took the early morning bus at 7.30am from Puerto Natales to Torres Del Paine.

Afterwards, we got off the bus at PUDETO and took the RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE 30 minute boat (that cost us $36/ride/one person) across Lago Pehoe to get to Lodge Paine Grande where we started hiking at 1.30p.m. 

The first day went by with gloomy weather. It helped our hike . However the downside of it was that the blue color of the lakes along the hike did not stand out.

Somehow my shoulder already started hurting after some first kilometers. When we got to the place where we could have an overlook of the glacier, the wind started being very strong. For the first time in my life, I felt so fortunate to carry a heavy backpack because it reassured my confidence that the wind could not blow me away

During the hike, we passed by black and dead trees resulted from a fire in the forest a couple of years ago

After 5 hours of hiking, we made it to Refugio Grey camp site at around 6p.m, unloaded, set up our tent, and cooked our dinner (including instant noodles, canned salmon, and some fresh lettude).

We also walked to Big Foot Base Capm where we registed for the glacier trekking tour in the next morning. The first day went by quite peacefully and we quickly fell into sleep to get ready for the second day that is supposed to be a long day with about 13 hours of hiking.

Day 2:

We got up at 6a.m to prepare our breakfast and then quickly grabbed our stuff for our glacier trekking trip that started at 7:30a.m.

When we got to the office of Big Foot Base Camp, they told us that they have to push the trip back to 9a.m because the boat from Puerto Natales was broken. Dan and i first did not have any problem. 

However things did not go as it was supposed to be. About 15 minutes later, the manager of the tour told us that they might have to cancel the trip because the boat leaving from Puerto Natales is still broken. I started raising my doubt because I clearly remembered that the manager told us that we picked up the passengers on the cruise to join us instead of using their boat. 

I told Dan about my doubt about something fishy going on here rather than the fact of the broken cruise. Then I asked him to carefully overhear their conversation in Spanish. Unfortunately people there were not aware that Dan could understand Spanish so that they started loudly talking about their problem. It turned out that they wanted to combine Dan and I with another group on the cruise. However the cruise was canceled so that the trip with the people on the cruise might have been canceled. They thought it was not worth of taking only two people to the glacier. 

After Dan's translation, I could feel my face started getting hot. However we tried to stay silent to see what they wanted to do. As expected, the manager came to tell us that they have to cancel our trip because of "technical" problem. After my series of questions about their "technical problem", the guys there still indirectly refered to technical problems with the boat from Puerto Natales. Their lie hit the boiling point and I started yelling at their face for not treating their customer right. I barely yell at anyone but when I do, I really do it. After a long argument, I told them that if they want to cancel our trip, they will have to pay us cancelation fees. To that point, they agreed to take us to the the glacier. Damn it. If it was not the only company that operated the trip, I would never do the tour with them.

After a rocky start with the company, at 8a.m we eventually left for our glacier trek. Their boat picked us up and dropped us at the bottom of the mountain where we hiked up to get close to the glacier. On the positive side, at least we got an awesome tour guide who shared with us a lot about Chile and Rock climbing. He recently started working for the company.

The glacier came into view from our boat. The glacier is estimated to have the length of 28 kilometers and a total area of 270 square kilometers, starting in the Patagonian Andes Mountains to the west and terminate into Grey lake, what we are seeing. It owns a striking blue coloration caused by the absorption of both red and yellow light and leaving light at the blue end of the visibal light spectrum. 

After almost 1 hour hiking up, we got close to the glacier where we strapped crampons onto our shoes, put the helmet on, and started hiking into glacier

 The site really became more amazing when we walked on it, saw, and felt its solid texture. 

We were completely blown away by its unique blue beauty. We did get some meltwater there to drink. 

Those holes in the glacier are the results of trapped rocks that absorb sunlight, melting ice around it.

Ice crystals inside glacier water

I was trying to walk down to a little stream in the glacier with the aid of our tour guide who held me with him through a rope

We lost ourself in the glacier for about 4 hours. I tried to run with crampons on to see how it felt. 

On the way down

Glacier is lying down on the top of the mountain

On the way back, we were randomly "visisted" by a "dude" who is seperate from his "big mama" and freely floating on the lake

 We got back to the Big Foot Camp Base around 3p.m. Couldnot believe that 8 hours flied by so fast. The tour was overpriced but it was totally worth it. Glacier trekking became no doubt one of the highlights of our trip.

However our joy was quickly gloomed by our 8 hour hiking ahead. At the Big Foot Base Camp,I still kept my very cold face to the manager till he officially apolosized us for what they did in the morning. Given our awesome tour guide, I accepted his apology, gave him a big smile, and then we quickly headed out to our next campt site.

I tried to capture the last view of the glacier before we were back on our trek

on the way back to Lodge Paine Grande

The trekking quickly became much more streneous and exhausting than we expected. My shoulder hurt and blisters appeared all over on my feet. Having blisters while running or hiking is one of my worst feelings. Every step I put down, the pain was expanding to my brain. Dan was not in a better situation. later after 7p.m, the weather stopped favoring us with strong wind and rain. We did not have any alternative option. We had to make it to the next campsite by all means despite how much tired we were . Knowing that but there were many moments, all what I wanted was just to lay down on the road and forget about our hike. We stopped many times because my painful feet and Dan's back.

I thought of what Erik WeiHenmayer, a blind guy who succesfully climbed Everest, said " Some limits were real but many more limits were conceived and imposed in my mind and there was a torturous beauty in crossing them."  Then I thought how I tried hard to push myself to finish the marathon 2 weeks ago with all blisters on my toes. I thought of pure happiness once we push through the pain. I felt energized again. I tried to hupnotize myself onto each of my step instead of thinking of pain and giving up. I tried to encourage Dan that if a blind guy could climb Everest, we should be able to make it at least to the next camp site.

The strong wind and rain kept us company for almost 2 hours. Those hours, in no way, could be describd as fun. Instead, it was miserable for us but we knew that it would make our honeymoon memorable for the rest of our life and the beauty of us getting over our limit.

I eventually found some tree branches that could be served as our hiking sticks. I banged the stick to the ground strongly at each of my steps to release my frustration, madness, and exhaust.  I barely curse in both English and Vietnamese. However at that time, I kept cursing whenever I banged the stick to the ground. Actually it did help me a lot to escape my pain. Little by little, my mind was floating with the sound the stick made on the ground instead of thinking of my pain. Dan also later told me that the sound from my stick helped him too.  He moved his legs according to the sound from my stick and tried not to think of exhaust and pain.

 I had no doubt that Dan felt worse than I did. Dan can beat me at a high-intensity workout but I can beat him at endurance. Also I still had endurance from training for the marathon.

We reached our camptsite at 9:45 p.m, 10 minutes before darkness came. 14 hour hiking that day. My tears almost came out when I saw the camp site. We kissed each other for the huge effort we made.

We quickly set up our tent on the last light of the day. We were so exhausted that we could not afford to put our shoes on to eat outside. We made sandwiches with salami and lettude inside our tent, finished our meal in 5 minutes, and quickly collapsed into our sleeping bag without brushing our teeth or washing our hands. so gross, I know :|

Darkness covered us. Mountains were silent. Only the wind was whispering with the trees. We passed out the second we laid down. My entire body was whining. We were more exhausted than we had ever been but I was happy that we pushed it through the pain to make it.

Continued....

a season in which every leaf becomes a beautiful flower

Houston is in the middle of a hot and humid summer right now.  There are sometimes some scattered showers but they cannot beat the heat and humidity.  However, today was such a surprisingly pleasant day with a cooler weather. I woke up early in the morning, savoring each sip of my homemade chai latte tea while enjoying fresh and cool air and listening to birds singing aloud on the balcony before deciding to head  out for a very easy morning run in Hermann park and Rice trail.  This kind of weather makes me reminisce about the fall.

 Among four seasons, Spring and Fall are my favorites.  The transition from winter to spring, signaled by abundant growth and flower blossom, brings new birth and hopes.  Spring triggers the thought that life is going to be beautiful again no matter how cruel winter is. In the contrary, the transition from summer to fall seems to bring life close to the end when winter comes. The heralds of the fall are when weather starts getting cooler and drier and the days grow shorter.  Close to the end of the fall or at mid-fall, leaves start changing its color from green to red, yellow, brown.  All leaves become vividly colorful in full splendor as though they were singing the last life song before they fall off the trees to prepare for a long winter's rest.

Those photos were taken during my trip to Arkansas to see foliage
Though leaves might be sent off to the ground after their life last song, their song will live forever as long as we hold it in our memory

"I will still be thereAs long as you hold mein your own memoryRemember 
When your dreams have endedTime can be transcendedJust remember me
I am the one star that keeps burningSo brightlyIt is the last lightTo fade into the rising sun"

"It's not a sprint, it's a marathon"

My philosophy in life is to follow my passion. I believe, if we love what we do, and we try it very hard and wisely, we’ll be successful.  Money shouldn’t matter.  Money will come.  I didn’t come from a rich family, but I know that I am not going to stay hungry or have to beg anyone for money/food one day given my education.  Many moments in my life I felt that everything seemed to fall apart, but faith in what I did always brought me hope.  Hope that something better was right around the corner.  And, I was never wrong.  My effort and hard work had always paid off, that is until last year when I started losing my passion for what I have done.  Everything happened like a dream. Just like one day you woke up, and you felt like you fell down into a bottomless dark canyon.  Darkness covers you.  I hit rock bottom for the first time.

Running is a great outlet for me when I think I’m losing my passion.  Running is my most favorite sport.  Dan introduced me to running almost 3 years ago.  I remember during my first run, I sprinted very fast for 5 minutes, then stopped and could not breathe. It took me many months to finish 3 miles without a stop given the absence of my stamina and endurance.  

One day Dan and Rob decided to do a 10K run.  Dan told me about the race only a couple of weeks before the race.  I was a little annoyed because he didn’t ask if I wanted to join them.  I don’t think he was being mean, but you would probably do the same if you were him.At that point, I could barely finish a 3 mile run without many stops and walking. Thus forget about 10k (~ 6mile).

When I asked Dan why he did not invite me to join them, he gave me the answer exactly as what I anticipated. He told me that I cannot do the 10K because I could not run even 3 miles.  Fair enough.  However, what he said triggered my winning attitude. I decided to participate into the race despite Dan’s warning about the possible injury I might have.  I thought it would be a good challenge for me to do what others think is impossible for me.  I got 2.5 weeks left for training.

I entered the race with the thought that I might have walked 2/3 of the race.  Dan even told me that it was OK for me to walk the whole race if I was tired and I should not try to catch up with them.  He ran with me for the first mile and then he started speeding up with Rob.  I tried to forget the fact that many people kept passing me.  I solely stayed focus on my own pace. I finished mile 1 without stopping.  Woohoo!  After mile 2, I still kept running.  Beyond my expectation!  Then the 3rd mile without stopping.  I was startled.  At mile 4, I started feeling my heavy breath and my leg muscles began tingle and tired.  So I started walking.  But 15 seconds later I managed to run again.  I used an old guy a few feet ahead of me as my imaginary competitor and motivator.  People still kept passing me, though I did pass a very few peopleJ . Whenever I was exhausted and started walking, I looked up at my imaginary competitor and kept telling myself that I am younger than he is and I should be able to keep running if he can do it. Then my adrenaline was high again.  When I hit the last mile, I was completely fatigued.  The sun became very strong.  I felt dehydrated and dizzy.  I still competed with the old guy. I think he knew that we were competing with each other because we kept taking turns to pass each other.  All of a sudden, I was near the finish line, and I could see Dan standing at the finish line with his eyes wide open as he saw me approach. I ended up finishing the race 7 minutes later than Dan and Rob!  Though I almost collapsed at the finish line, I still felt really good with the result.  It was not about the time of my run.  It was because I beat my own expectations.  I beat the little voice in my head telling me to quit sometimes during the race.  I did walk, but I didn't stop, and I finished what I started.

1.5 years later, Vanessa and I were talking about the 2011 Austin-half marathon during a random conversation.  I thought it would be a good chance for me to level up my running.  At that time, I could do 3 miles without stopping.  No more than that.  Dan was cautious again about a long run for me because from his own experience, he  badly injured his IT band during his pursuit of the Chicago marathon in 2008, which he still hasn’t fully recovered from.  But, as usual, Dan supported my decision, and he did not forget to warn me about the race.  I entered my training with excitement, fear, and faith by using a schedule found on the website of runner’s world.  Unlike the 10K, I was better prepared for the race.  Before the race, I ran 9 miles once, though my endurance was a little bit inconsistent. 

The day before the race, Dan warned me about some big hills at the end.  He wanted to take me to see the running course so that I knew what I had to go through during the run.  However I decided not to do it because I wanted to keep it as a surprise.  I also tried not to fathom how I could finish a 13 mile run given my inconsistent endurance.  

When I got to the race, many runners covered the area already.  However something happened to me 15 minutes before the race started.  Something went wrong with my stomach.  Crap.  I could not remember what I ate the day before.  I ran to find a bathroom.  There were long lines at every single mobile bathroom.  I started being hectic. I cannot quit even before the race starts.  Eventually, I could manage to make it back to the start line only a few minutes before the race started.  Phew.

The Austin-half marathon ended up being a great half-marathon, with a lot of people cheering along the street, music at every corner, children going down the street to hi-five the runners, and beer offered sometimes.  All that exciting stuff distracted me from my tired legs and heavy breath and  I enjoyed every single moment during the run.  There were some moments I was completely exhausted mentally and physically, but I used my mental power to keep myself moving forward.  Eventually I saw and approached the finish line with the result that did not disappoint me.  My time was not too bad but it’s not what I really cared for.  I was very happy to beat my expectations and to finish what I started. 

I have already overcome the darkest days of my life when I felt completely directionless and powerless.  I have already overcome days when I freaked out and felt empty every morning when I woke up. I read an article saying that your brain cannot distinguish the real and the imaged (http://bigthink.com/experts-corner/how-to-rewire-your-brain-for-success).  If you keep faking your feeling, one day it becomes true.  Every morning I tell myself that today is going be a good day and I feel better.  I keep smiling at everyone every day, enjoying other moments of my life, and keep running.  I’ve learned how to stay balanced and positive, how to start standing up again, and other life skills along the way. I still keep tirelessly searching in all directions to find a way out the dark canyon.  

I started this note by saying to follow your passion, but to be honest, I have yet to find my passion since I lost it.  Some lost is meant to be found and some is not meant to be found.  Passion is always meant to be found for me. There are many moments I clench my teeth or let tears continuously roll on my cheeks when flashbacks of my energy and passion in the past suddenly came back.  However, I am starting to gain an interest in several things in my career, and I keep my hope that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.  The passion is gone, but I will find it all again surely one day if I don’t give up. And I am never taught to give it up.  I have a faith in rebirth!

 "Believe that you can run farther or faster. Believe that you're young enough, old enough, strong enough, and so on to accomplish everything you want to do. Don't let worn-out beliefs stop you from moving beyond yourself."
-John Bingham, running speaker and writer

My fifth thanksgiving in the US-part 1

We don't celebrate thanksgiving in Vietnam. I started adopting thanksgiving and its atmosphere since I came to the US in 2007.  There are much more important thoughts shared later, but first of all, I'd like to share a couple of my personal facts about thanksgiving after experiencing it for 5 years. Again they are personal so that they might not be applicable to other people. Thus don't get mad/upset if they are not true for you.

- I've had turkey three times during thanksgiving, and I've concluded that a roasted turkey leg (in carnivals/festivals) is much more tasty and yummy than Mr.Turkey.  I can finish a whole roasted turkey leg but I can barely finish a couple of bites of the roasted turkey despite how tasty the sauce is. Sorry Mr.Gobble Gobble!

- I cooked turkey once last year and I don't think I am patient enough to do it one more time. To me cooking turkey is similar to babysitting, requiring a lot of work and attention. We had to keep "entertaining" Mr.Turkey by basting him while hoping it's a right amount of sauce and time to make him happy so that he could serve us good food. Same as you do with a baby. You have to keep "entertaining" the baby while hoping that the baby is happy so that he/she could give us a good time by not screaming/crying

- After trying different Thanksgiving food, my most favorite Thanksgiving food is sweet potato casserole.  I always love sweet potatoes and I can have it anytime. I usually use a "lazy" recipe for sweet potato that is to microwave it for 5 minutes. I make fried sweet potato for Dan's dad sometimes when he is in town because he loves it. Other than that, I never try any other "recipe" for sweet potatoes.  However, last year my friend, Diane, brought her sweet potato casserole to the potluck in my apt and I found it really yummy and tasty in a different way from my "sweet potato." I got it again this year when Dan and I had a late lunch with his brother's family and I could not stop eating it. This dish will be def in my to-do list.

- In the past, my most favorite thing about Thanksgiving was that I had a long weekend to get some sleep back. I did not really care about what Thanksgiving was about, but knowing that I could sleep as much as I wanted after sleep deprived days as a result from school work was enough to make me happy. Sounds weird but in the past, whenever thanksgiving came, the first thing that came to my mind was a bed and long sleep.

Later on and now, my favorite thing about Thanksgiving is that I have a chance to get together with some friends. I remember that the 2nd thanksgiving back in Atlanta, one of my school friends invited people in town to come over to her apt for Thanksgiving dinner and it warmed me up. I currently do not care much about what i have for thanksgiving or whether I liked Thanksgiving food.  More importantly, it's a chance that we can share our laugh, stories, and thankful thoughts about what we value in life.  I used to argue that we do not need to wait for Thanksgiving  to think about valuable things in life. Instead, we should do it all the time.  So true!!!! However later I realized that it's more theoretical and ideal. There are many moments in life we tend to forget and appreciate what we have in life. In particular, when we are mad, upset, or when things go wrong, we keep blaming that life is unfair and our life is full of crap.  To me, Thanksgiving is another chance to remind us of what we should be thankful for and what we should appreciate in life. Knowing that there are many invaluable things in life always calms me down and makes me realize that others should be secondary.

- My most favorite joke this thanksgiving is "who is never hungry during thanksgiving." I raised this question during the meal with the family of Dan's brother. Beyond my expectation, his 7- year nephew responded very quickly in moments that it's turkey.  And again beyond my expectation, his reason is that we eat the Turkey so that the Turkey is not hungry. So cute and very innovative. I hope that you all are able to find the actual reason for why Mr.Gobble is never hungry during Thanksgiving.

- Shopping: I went with the flow- going to a mall  to get deals at midnight two years ago. I swore myself not to do it again after that experience. We went to the outlet mall at midnight and we stayed there till around 5a.m. Until now, my bf still cannot stop laughing at what I purchased after sacrificing 5 hours of sleep to beat the crowd and to patiently wait in a long line (for both trying on clothes and checking out) . Yup I ended up getting the only 10$ shirt for me and a 20$ jacket for my sister.

I don't know much about electronic stuff because I never shop for electronics on Black Friday.  However for clothes, I think having good deals on Black Friday is more about a perceived norm rather than what it actually is. You are still able to get deals but not all good deals happen on Black Friday. For example Anna Taylor has 50% off discounted items and full-priced items on days other than Black Friday. This Black Friday, it's only 40% off discounted items and 25% off full-priced items.  The Limited sometimes has 50% off discounted items but this black Friday, its 50% off full-priced items. However, again you still can get a good deal. For example, Levi's offers 40% with free shipping that doesn't always happen.  Also, today I got tennis shoes for me and my bf with reasonable prices at Tennis warehouse that I long wanted to have . My advice is to be alert and do not be too obsessed with shopping on Black Friday.

Speaking of clothes shopping, I prefer to shop on the weekend right before Thanksgiving. A lot of stores offer deals that weekend. During thanksgiving, the price is not much different regularly.  More importantly, I am able to find my size that I was not successfully able to do when I shopped during the crazy midnight of Black Friday.  Plus I hate competing against the crowd for clothes or waiting for a long line to just check out a 10$ shirt.

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Babies are smarter than us??

Last Tuesday, I finally pushed myself back to my Ted talk club. Our theme this week is about babies. No, I am not talking about sex education, pregnancy, family planning, or how to change diapers or feed a baby.  It is about babies' brain and its development.  Thanks Luke for picking a very interesting topic as usual.

Have we ever wondered if we should learn how to learn things from babies? That thought never came to my mind before. Well, probably I do not have children so that I do not interact with them a lot to realize that there are many things that I should learn from them. To me, babies are ingratiatingly cute when they are happy and smiling but very messy and troublesome when they start crying for their demands.  However, the talk by Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology at UC, Berkeley and the second given by Patricia Kuhl, a professor of Speeach and Hearing Sciences at the University of Washington that we watched on Tuesday provides us different perspectives when we look at babies.  They are not irrational, illogical, or egocentric as we think.  Instead they are deep thinkers and they own great learning and innovation skills that we should learn from them. 

Here are the links of two Ted talks

The speech by Alison provides a general idea on the ability of babies to learn and pick up things very fast.  For example she conducted an experiment with babies to investigate if babies figure out what other people are thinking and feeling.  Basically, she gave babies one bowl of broccoli and one bowl of goldenfish rackers and tried to figure it out if babies knew what her student likes or dislikes between them, broccoli or goldenfish rackers.  She first realized that all of the babies preferred the crackers to the raw broccoli after they tasted them.  However when her student acted that what she liked was the opposite of what the babies liked (she acted as if she liked raw broccoli rather the crackers) and then her student asked the babies to give her one of two things they have.  She found out that surprisingly, 18 month old babies gave her student raw broccoli instead of goldenfish crackers.

Alison proposes a couple of hypotheses to explain the powerful learning ability among babies.  First, the babies have long childhood than any kind of animals that allows them to solely focus on learning.  It can be true to me. Babies do not have to worry about anything.  They entirely depend on dull, sluggish, sleep-deprived parents, who are fond of them, for survivalJ.  When the babies have nothing to worry, they might be bored, leading them to observe and explore things around them to keep them busyJ. Second, it is about the development of the prefrontal cortex, a part of our brain.  The more we activate prefrontal cortex, the more it becomes flexible and more plastic, thereby sending more signals to our brain.  She found that babies’ prefrontal cortex is flooded with more neurotransmitters that are good at inducing learning and plasticity that adult’s. 

Although there are a couple things she overstates in her talk for example saying that our adults should take all babies’ idea and put them into practice, in general, I like her take-home message.  We, grown-up adults, should stop being lazy thinkers and should keep our mind activated and keep our brain open to new things, if we want to own the powerful learning and innovation ability like babiesJ. 

The second talk by Patricia specifically focuses on the ability of learning new language among babies. Her experiment reveals that the linguistic ability of the babies develops very early.  Babies can distinguish different sounds from different languages in different countries very early, unlike adults.  However, babies and children are geniuses in language till 7 and then this decline keep reducing sharply till puberty, in which we fall off the map.  The reason for it is that babies absorb new languages, changing their brain while adults are governed by memory that is formed during the early development.  Thus, like Alison, she emphasizes the importance of openness of our brain to new things when we are still little kids.  However it seems that adults tend to lose this ability when they grow up and get older.

 Those above talks remind me of the story of Joshua Foer, the US memory champion and the author of the book “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything”.   To cut a long story short, Joshua describes his process of training him from a person with an average memory to be a champion who could recall 107 first and last names associated with each of the person after staring those names and faces in 15 minutes, 88 digit mixed up in 5 minutes, and setting up a new record of memorizing deck of cards in order after they were flashed in front of him in one minute and forty seconds.  Joshua said that our brain and memory is trainable and the process to train our brain and memory is the same as the process of building up our muscle.  The more we train and it active, the better it is.

Back to the topic of the post about if babies are smarter than us. I do not think that babies are really smarter than us.  However, they are better than us at opening themselves to new things and keep their brain active.  Grown-up adults tend to shut down our brain to new things. It can make sense because we have so many things to worry, or we sometimes get used to mundane activities that do not require us to think much, or we become so focused on what we are doing, we forget that there are other interesting things.  If we can keep our brain active and open as babies and children, we should be able cultivate our learning and innovation skills as they do. Any skill is able to be learnt.  Despite easier said than done, back to the old saw practice makes perfect.

PS: Another suggestion is that you should record all activities of your babies and show those videos to them when they become a grownup.  In doing so, they can remind of themselves being an awesome learner when they are little kids and who knows that they might be able to utilize some of their innovative ideas they come up during their childhood (j/k).