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.

------Continued--------

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). 

Mot mau writing tu` nhung nam ve truoc (khong nho' la duoc viet tu na(m nao)

Oi tu rat nhieu nam roi ta khong con cai kieu viet day khi' the the' nay` nua nhi?? Khong hieu ngay day' buc xuc' cai gi`  the' k biet??

"1. Tớ chỉ muốn nêu ra cái ức chế khi về VN gặp một số đồng chí đi Tây tàu ở VN là các đồng chí ấy về đấy nói chuyện cứ như ta làm bố thiên hạ, giống kiểu ối cả làng có mỗi mình mình đi Tây. Tớ cứ trộm nghĩ sao lúc ở US không tự cao mà cứ phải đợi về VN mới ra vẻ ta đây từ nước ngoài về:D.

Co’ câu truyện là tụi học sinh trường Yale có để một câu dưới bức tranh của bác Bush là "Không phải ai học trường này ra cũng đều thông minh cả".  The nen không phải ai đi US về cũng giỏi, và không phải đứa nào ở VN cũng ngu và kém đứa đi US:D.

2. cái thứ 2 này chả liên quan gì đến cái số 1 và chả liên quan gì đến cái topic luôn

Đấy là về chuyện học hành của tớ. he he. Nói chung không mấy người ủng hộ cả vì mọi người lo cho tương lai của tớ (toàn bạn tốt mà). Thế là tớ nảy sinh câu hỏi là thế tớ không học cao thì dễ lấy chồng vừa ý hơn ah? Mà tại sao học cao lại khó lấy chồng? Tại sao giai lại sợ gái học cao?


Tớ có trộm nghĩ thế này giai sợ gái học cao vì giai sợ gái sẽ thống trị mình và cảm giác bị kém cỏi trước mặt gái. Từ điều này tớ lại ló ra 2 điều là giai mà cứ nơm nớp lo sợ gái của mình hơn mình là giai hèn còn gái mà cứ làm cho giai cảm giác là giai bị gái khinh thì gái đấy là gái ngu:D.

3. Cái 3 này cũng chả liên quan gì đến cái 1 nhưng dính đến cái thứ 2 một tí vì nó cũng về chủ đề học:D. Tớ lướt qua blog của một số đồng chí bạn đang học PhD và thấy có một tư tưởng về chuyện học PhD mà tớ rất "ngưỡng mộ" đấy là học để bố mẹ vui và học để bố mẹ tự hào. Thật ra ngày mới sang US tớ cũng có cái suy nghĩ đấy nhưng với Master còn chấp nhận được chứ đánh đổi cái 4-5 cuộc đời chôn vùi đời mình vì cái suy nghĩ đấy thì tớ thấy cũng "dốt" nốt:D. Nếu thích có nhiều cách để làm bố mẹ tự hào hơn là chôn vùi cuộc đời trong những năm dài "đen tối" ấy. tớ chỉ có suy nghĩ "liệu bố mẹ có thấy vui và tự hào nếu bố mẹ thực sự biết con mình đang chịu đựng để sống vì cái danh hão đấy vì bố mẹ không".

Nói chung tớ thấy vấn đề không phải chuyện học cao học giỏi mới làm bố mẹ hạnh phúc và tự hào mà cái quan trọng là cách thuyết phục bố mẹ để bố mẹ thấy sự lựa chọn của mình là đúng và chỉ ra con đường mình đi dù ngược với ý chỉ của đấng phu thân nhưng sẽ là con đường mà mình cảm thấy hài lòng (không dám dùng từ hạnh phúc vì ai biết đâu là hạnh phúc hay khổ đau). Nghe hơi lý thuyết và không phải lúc nào cũng làm được nhưng đấy là cái cách mà tớ hay làm


4. Định viết tiếp về chuyện extreme trong PhD nhưng chả biết bắt đầu từ đâu nên không viết nữa. Chỉ biết nếu nghĩ đến dân PhD thì trong đầu tớ chỉ hiện hiện 2 người, một già và một trẻ. Đấy là những người sống với khoa học bằng niềm đam mê, niềm đam mê mà cảm giác không bao giờ cạn tắt, những người không cần phải sự dụng bất kỳ một lực nào kể cả tư tưởng extreme để thúc đẩy bản thân họ. Niềm đam mê đã mang lại cho họ tất cả. Người già là một trong ít ỏi người đứng đầu trong lĩnh vực của người ở VN còn người trẻ là người năm 2006 vừa được hội nghị HIV toaanf cầu công nhận là 1 trong 10 nhà khoa học trẻ đầy tiềm năng và sáng tạo trên thế giới. Cả 2 người đều là những người biết lắng nghe người khác, luôn làm cho bất kỳ ai nói chuyện với họ cảm thấy thật gần gũi với họ và được tôn trọng. Cả 2 người đều là những người không ngại ngùng bất kỳ một công việc gia đình nào, từ rửa bát, lau nhà, dọn của.

Người già ngày xưa chẳng quản chăm sóc mẹ già ốm đau, chẳng quản lăn vào bếp chuẩn bị thức ăn và bón từng miếng cháo cho mẹ già. Người già luôn làm cho người khác khâm phục mình bằng sự bao dung. Và người già là người đã bên cái đứa đang ngồi viết entry này từ lúc nó nằm trong bụng mẹ. Và cái đứa này hay cãi người già làm ngược lại với ý kiến của người già nhưng người già luôn hiểu và cuối cùng luôn ủng hộ cho con đường cái đứa này đi vì người già biết con đường đấy sẽ mang lại hạnh phúc cho nó (nếu không biết thì cái đứa viết entry này lại phải dùng hết khả năng để diễn giải và thuyết phục vì đấy là người mà cả đời này nó không cho phép làm bất kỳ điều gì để nó hối tiếc). Những giây phút mà nó thấy cô đơn tột cùng ở trời Tây thì nghĩ lại so 4 năm người già ở châu ÂU thời xưa nó vẫn may mắn và hạnh phúc hơn nhiều. Dù nó có cô đơn nó vẫn có internet, có điện thoại gọi về bất kỳ khi nào nó muốn. Còn trong 4 năm thời xưa của người già, nỗi nhớ chỉ có thể trôn chặt trong lòng hoặc thỉnh thoảng được bùng phát qua các lá thư tay.

Còn người trẻ là người đang dẫn dắt sự nghiệp nghiên cứu của nó, người nó đang làm cộng tác, và cũng là người mà lần đầu tiên bước chân vào cuộc đời public health nó được làm việc cùng. Đầy cũng là người mà luôn làm nó phủ phục trước sự uyên bác của anh. Nếu nó theo sự nghiệp nghiên cứu và ở lại VN làm thì đấy là người duy nhất nó muốn làm cùng. Được biết là người trẻ ấy dù trăm công nghìn việc nhưng tối nào anh cũng dành ít nhất 1h để đi dạo cùng vợ con ở khu Lăng Bác. Chẳng hiểu những người mà ít việc hơn có làm được thế này không:D"

a special lunch

Despite a lot of work waiting for me, I feel like writing something after having a lunch with a postdoc in my program today. I've known her for more than one year.  She is a very smart, hard-working, deep-down, and wise person.  She used to tell me that she always helps me at her best. However, today is my first time to actually hang out with her and have a serious talk about my future.

It has been a long time I could talk with a friend about a lot of things in life and future. The last time I had such feeling is when I spent 4 or 5 hours talking with one of my best friends in Seattle. We were so into our conversation that I missed the flight back to Houston. Also, it was due to that we had not seen each other for almost 5 years since my friend left Vietnam.  That night, we talked a lot about our old days, my boyfriend, his ex-girlfriend and shared with each other about future plan, our lives, and values of the life we should respect. I was so happy that my friend is still the same after 5 years. He is still the same guy that I met in the English group 6 years ago though we did not talk to each other much since we went to the states.

Today, my conversation with the postdoc was around those topics but the situation was a little bit different.  I've been concerned with my thoughts about future and career a lot.  I'm struggling to define my career path.  I'm a little bit ambitious person.  Whenever I do anything, I really want to make it really good. I'm barely satisfied if I think that I can make it better.  It is so true when it goes to research.  Since my dad is a very good scientist, I really want to be a good scientist like him in future. Sometimes, I'm a little bit afraid that one day I might focus on research so much that I will forget other important things of my life.  I feel more scared with this scenery when i think of female faculty in my school.  They are successful, beautiful, nice, kind, and sweet but many are divorced. Dont get me wrong, I know that divorce is not something terrible. If two people don't love each other and they feel like suffering from living with each other, divorce is a better way to go.  It is a solution to release them from each other and their children too. I have some friends friends who had to witness numerous fights between their parents during their childhood and they still feel really painful and mentally hurtful till now when things are over. They told me that they wish their parents could get divorced earlier so they could stop witnessing those fights. I know that it is not easy for them say that thing but once they said it, it means that everything used to go over their tolerance.  Therefore, If one day I get married and have kids, I really want to give them the best environment to grow up. I really want them to grow up in a happy family with a lot of laughs.  However, doing something is never as easy as saying it.  Developing a theory is always easier than practicing it.  In particular, with my passion for my career and a bunch of different hobbies, I know that it is harder for me.  I don't want to be a successful woman with a messy life.  I want to be a successful woman with a happy life.  Also, I dont want to let life take my other hobbies away.  However, what choices I have to make to obtain my dream is an unsolved question for me.

However, after the talk with my friend today, I feel released from all my thoughts.  She gave me a lot of good advice how to balance life.  She reminded me of values we should respect in our life and what truly makes us happy from the bottom of our heart.  She told me that whenever I'm stressed, image one day when we are 80 years old and look back to our life, what makes us most regretful and happiest.  Then I can find my answer to what I'm doing. She also shared with me a lot of her thoughts about life and advice she got from other faculty in the school.  Her sharing is extremely valuable and it makes me feel so much better and more confident with each of my steps to the future:)

PS: Yesterday, Diane's message again reminds me of treasures I'm having in my life and how lucky I'm compared to victims of Sept 9. This lady is always my role model for how she balances her life and how she lives in her life.  Whenever I want to loose myself in life, thinking of what she is doing is like having a massage for my brain.  Life is great when I have wonderful friends around who help me grow up each day.

Life is a choice

Note: This picture was taken by me at the Craters of Moon National Park in Idaho. This plant is among a few kinds of plants that can survive in the lava field

One night, I randomly looked at the YM status of my close friend “I’m basically OK”. I joked with her that why it’s just “OK” not “advanced”.  She did not say much but I could feel her tiredness and the burdens she is carrying on her shoulder. I could feel her effort to keep her life going.  She told me that she admires me for my perseverance and adaption to a new environment.

Another night, I randomly read the most recent writing of my good friend that describes her feeling about life since she got back to Vietnam. She sometimes loses her interest in what she is doing. Her dream is sometimes shaky because of what she is witnessing and going through in the Vietnamese society. She chooses to be apathetic about life in order to have a peaceful state of mind. I don’t want to make any comments about her decision but I do miss her enthusiasm, youthful spirit, and energy when I first met her in New York.

Those friends make me think back to my former boss who has had a significant influence on my outlook on life. My former boss grew up in a high class family in Vietnam. When she was young, there were many guys who asked her out for a date. Finally she chose one she wanted to date.  After dating for a while, her boyfriend, who is her husband now, took her to visit his family in the country side.  She said that he took her to a very wide field. She looked around and saw no houses anywhere; so, she asked her boyfriend where his house was. After he pointed at his house for her, she was almost in shock. She couldn’t believe in her eyes what was called a house. The house was built by soil so it looked like a pile of soil in the middle of nowhere.

Despite the situation of his family, she chose him over other rich guys. After her marriage, she did not really receive support from her family.  Her husband and she had to start her own life from nothing. All what they had was love and support to each other. Her husband and she managed to build their first own house themselves. Currently, they are happy and wealthy. She has two children to whom she is very close. Her children confide to her their most intimate moments in their lives from dating stories with different girls to everything else.  She lives with her mother-in-law who even likes her more than her own son.  She is always a great example of people who know how to choose to stay happy and positive.  Although she went through a lot of changes in her life, she never regrets anything she’s chosen and never feels that she is a desperate person in this world.

Speaking of career, my boss is a prominent figure in Public Health in Vietnam. She got her Master’s at London school, one of the best Public Health Universities in the world.  During her life, she chose to never stop fighting for her career though at some points, she might have taken a break for family matters.  She took a stand for reproductive rights for Vietnamese women and raised awareness on the issue at the international population conference. After many years persistently fighting for the cause, reproductive rights for Vietnamese have improved immensely.

My friends make me think of my father who implicitly teaches me how to persevere in this life.  My dad comes from one of the poorest families in my village. He was the only person who could go to school in his family. He had to manage by himself to survive during his college years with a little financial help from his family. I should say that it’s not that his family did not want to support him but that they didn’t have much to offer.  Despite a lot of difficulties, my dad graduated from college with an excellent degree.  After years working, he wanted to do a PhD abroad.  It should be noted that in the past, in Vietnam, there were not many scholarships for a person who wanted to study abroad in the past in Vietnam. If anyone wanted to go abroad, he/she had to pass an exam given by the government.  Normally people who wanted to take the exam took some classes to get prepared for it.  Because my dad couldn’t financially support those classes, he prepared for the exam by himself.   At the exam, my dad ran into his former teacher who was also attending the exam. The teacher looked at my dad with and asked what my dad was doing there. My dad said that he came here to take the exam. The teacher said that my dad should go home because he would fail for sure. Man, what a bad teacher. My Dad said, “We’ll see.” The ending of this story was that my dad went abroad while the teacher stayed in Vietnam.  During his time abroad, he chose to talk with little kids in Bulgaria to improve his language because no one there was available to help him out.  He was fluent at Bulgrarian finally.

After my dad finished his PhD, he returned to Vietnam to do research in Vietnam. In that time in Vietnam, research materials in his field were very scarce.  Also, those materials were mainly in foreign languages such as Chinese, etc.  However, language barriers did not stop his passion for research. He taught himself different languages so that he could understand those materials. My dad is always a great example of people who chose to never stop following their dreams. He always inspires me to live my own dreams by telling me his life stories. Whenever I lose my strength, thinking of what he’s done in his life always pushes me up. I believe that there is always at least a path for me to follow in this life. Also, I believe that whenever one door closes on me, another door will open up for me somewhere else. The more I grow up, the more deeply I recognize that I’m never allowed to choose to give up my dream.  I can fall down on the way to make my dream come true but I have to learn how to stand up to continue following it.

My friends make me think of Dr.Beasley Palmer, a director of my program and a developer of the Hepatitis B vaccine that is given to every baby now. After discovering the link between cancer and the hepatitis B virus, he went to the WHO to talk about the possibility of requiring every baby to be vaccinated for hepatitis B.  In the beginning, no one in the WHO wanted to hear his story even though he demonstrated his scientific evidence.  He did not give it up. He went everywhere to talk to everyone who he thought could possibly be of some help. He tirelessly collected effort from everyone to convince the WHO.  Now hepatitis vaccine B is given to all born babies worldwide.  His effort saved millions of people in the world. What would have happened if he had given up his dream? What would have happened if he had chosen not to persevere in his dream?

Those thoughts make me deeply think that life is our choice.  When we face difficulties, we choose to fight for what we want or just stay in the corner crying out about an unlucky life and wishing for luck.  When we fall down, we choose to stand up and keep living our dream or just lay down there and let our dream die out.  It’s our choice to value each moment of life and live to the fullest or let everything go to waste.  We choose to stay open-minded to new things or close ourselves to everything.  It’s our choice to stay positive or negative when everything does not turn out the way we expected.  It’s our choice to give our big heart to everyone and receive another big heart or let our heart live alone forever. It’s our choice to learn how to forgive to have a peaceful mind or live our life with anger and revenge.

I do believe that there’s no such thing as destiny. Life is a choice. If we want to have anything, we have to go out and fight for it. People blame the context but if we don’t do anything to improve our context, when can it become better? I’m not an experienced person in this life but I do think that life has its ups and downs. It’s our choice to keep it up whenever it has its downs for the rest of our lives.

I dedicate my writing to all my beloved people and myself too. I hope that my significant people choose to stay happy and positive in their lives. Also, I hope that whenever my life is down, reading this post will remind me of dreams I choose to followJ

life is short

A couple of months ago, my mom informed me of the death of my dog. I almost busted out with tears immediately. Mom said that my dog actually passed away more than 10 days ago but my dad did not want to let me know.  Because I kept asking her about the dog, she eventually told me about the bad news. I got the dog since I was at the 9th grade. We almost grew up together. He was such a convenient dog. He normally ignored me whenever mom/dad was at home. It was due to that though its my dog, mom and dad were the people who took care of him. I mainly just played around with him.  However, whenever my parents were out of town, he suddenly became very close to me. He followed each of my steps in my house. Also, he followed me whenever I let him sleep on my bed. My mom did not want him to sleep on the bed because she did not want to see his fur falling into the bed. However, he somehow always sneakily jumped up on my bed and laid down there whenever he did not see my mom around. Of course, I always became his accomplice. I think mom knew it eventually but she still let us do it. Because she knew that though she kept telling us not to do it, we could find some ways to do it behind her back. I remembered the old days when I was very sad but I did not know who I should talk with. I ended up holding my dog on my lap and started talking and crying with him. He sat there quietly. I did not know if he could understand me. However, he was there when I wanted to talk with him. And there are a lot of memories we had together.
since I've left Vietnam, whenever I called my parents, mom always put the phone to his hear so I could say, "Hi" to him. Whenever I visited home, he always excitingly ran into me and licked my hands or face. Everything was ok until my trip back to Vietnam in December. He became much more skinny and one of his legs was very weak. He used to climb up from the 1st to 3nd floor in my house. However, by that time, my dad sometimes had to pick him up because of his weak leg. He also became hostile to other people. He still ran into me when he first saw me but afterwards, he barely let me be close to him. Mom told me that he did the same thing to everyone. He did not like anyone touching him.  He also got some problems with his digestion system so he did not eat very well and he could ask for a walk at 4a.m. My heart was breaking down when I saw him getting weak. But he still did well. He was just a little bit weaker than before. On the day I left Vietnam to come back to American, I said goodbye to him. I wanted to hold him before I left but he only stood far away and looked at me. he did not let me come close to him. I did not recognize that it was the last time I could say goodbye to him. just one month after he left, my dad told me that he was very sick and Mom said that she was afraid that he could not wait for me till I come back. and one month later, he passed away though my parents tried their best to cure him. Even now, I still could not believe that I wont see him running into me when I come back Vietnam next time. He left me after we spent 15 years together.  My tears are running when i'm writing those words. Do you think everyone/everything waits for us until the rest of our life. hell, no. its just an illusion. I wish that I could have spent more time with my dog during my last trip. I thought he would be there when I come back next time. But I'm completely wrong. Now, even if I wanted to spend time with him, I don't have a chance to do it. Life does not always happen as how we want it to be.

When I spoke with my Dad on Monday, he told me that my uncle just passed away few days ago. I could not believe in my ears and in his words. He was still healthy. I dont remember exactly his age but he is around 55 years old. He is a very good guy and I still remember his voice and tone whenever he spoke with me. He got a heart attack while he was in the hospital but I dont think the stupid hospital gave him an intermediate treatment. I called my auntie and she told me she couldnt believe in what just happened either.  She said that my uncle talked a lot to everyone and he did not look weak at all few minutes before he passed away. He even smiled to people there. I do not understand fully what exactly happened because i dont know if its appropriate to ask my auntie while she was very painful for her loss. I did not know what I should tell her. I just suck at it. I know that I should have said some condolence words but I did not say anything. I just couldnt believe that just happened. It was too fast. During my trip back to Vietnam in December, i was thinking of visiting them but then I was busy with other stuff so I did not do it. I told me dad that I will do it next year when i'm back. But now he's gone forever. I wish that I could have done it. However not all wishes became truth. Now I'm writing with my tears and regret.

Life is short. We tend to think that everything lasts forever. We put off other things aside and think that we have another year to do it. We do not say to people who we love that how much we love them. We do not pay enough attention to our beloved people because we assume that we can do it later. but nothing waits for us. People sometimes say "time is money". However,we can borrow money but not time.

My grandmother passed away three years ago when I was in Atlanta. I did not have a chance to see her before she died. I never told her that how meaningful she is to me. I never told her that thanks to her, I  have a wonderful dad. I never did it though I know that she knew it. However, I do believe that some words are always worth of being said.  Also, sometimes, we worry too much about the trivial  and forget precious things we have in our life. We are busy buying clothes or chatting nonsense with other people to the neglect of care for people we love.
We keep complaining our own stuff is while forgetting asking how life of our people is.
We keep complaining how terrible our life is while forgetting that we are always happier than other people in society.
We complain about how much homework we have while forgetting that at least we have a chance to go to the school and to pursue our dream.
We complain that our life is miserable while forgetting we are beloved by many people around.

Today, I got an email from a girl in Singapore who wants to ask me about her choice and application of the public health schools in America. She does not know what she wants to study. Some people advise her to choose the department that she can find a job easily after she graduates. Additionally, some Vietnamese PhD students in American tell her to study the field from where she can earn money later. I do not know if those people ask her a very simple question, " What is your passion for and what do you want to do in future", before they gave her any advice. Money is important but what does money mean if we do not enjoy what we are doing. We fear taking a risk. We fear being poor. We fear being jobless. We fear and we fear. But we have only one life to live. I always believe that if we follow what we want to do and find an right strategy to do it, we can do it. There is always a path for us to go in this life

We dont know what happens tomorrow. We dont know how long we can live. We make a dream and leave our dream there because we seems to think that we can do it tomorrow or next week or next month or next year. But what happens if tomorrow never comes. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow. If life is a torch, burn the torch strongly by all your energy.

Its my first post in my blog and its also a reminder of me about what I'm having and what I need to treasure in my life