Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2007

A diary of DK’s first semester in UCM – Part 2

Day… month…year… I had to do an informative speech today. It was decisive – to lift my grade up. And I did it well. Every one was surprised, and the speech was chosen to be the example for years later… But I wasn’t surprised. I had tried really hard. I had practiced so many times. And… there were you who prayed for it. How could I do badly? How could I? You are just the sweetest girl ever, Orchid. Thank you. Day… month…year… Today one of my Vietnamese high school friends, BS, got angry with me because I couldn’t get her a fine picture of myself. Well, I supposed I should have stored some in my laptop then. :) In the afternoon, there was a big tornado coming by. We had to move to the basement for an hour. The rain was big, as the tornado came. I wondered what’d happen if it blew up my room? That would be sad. I’d lost the pictures which were just for you. I’d have to buy a new laptop, to …copy your pictures again… That’d be sad. But, I was warm in the basement because of the coat. Tha...

Thảm họa ở ngay gần các bạn!

Khi mà tôi vẫn đang còn bơi ra giữa miền quê xứ người, thì toàn bộ lòng tôi lại đang hướng về Việt Nam, mảnh đất nhỏ nhắn của lòng yêu thương. Phải nói thế nào để các bạn hiểu? Thế hệ chúng ta, thế hệ mà không ai chịu cố gắng, chỉ vẫn luôn ngó về lịch sử cha ông mà quên đi thời gian hiện tại và tương lai. Và thảm họa đang đến ngay sát đó. Mọi người chắc đều biết rằng hiện Trung Quốc đang trang chấp với chúng ta hai quần đảo Hòang Sa và Trường Sa. Các bạn thấy thế nào? Tức à? Chắc chắn là vậy, nhưng chúng ta cũng nên xem xét cao hơn một chút. Trung Quốc là nước cung cấp hang hóa cho phần lớn thế giới, có Mỹ, Nhật, Pháp,… và cả chính Việt Nam chúng ta… Đồ dùng của Trung Quốc xuất khẩu qua Việt Nam hầu hết chứa chất độc hại, gây nhiễm chì máu, ung thư hoặc vô sinh… Chuyện tranh chấp hai quần đảo này đã là rất lâu, cả mấy chục năm rồi. Và cả ranh giới giữa hai nước vẫn thường xuyên bị xâm lấn từ khía bên kia hằng năm… Trung Quốc những năm gần đây tung tin là cắt giảm quân s...

...and then, I changed

Simply slacking around, then one day woke up, I saw everything changed… I woke up after a really long sleep. Immediately I was stunned: it was 10h55’ – I had missed my math class, and I had 5 minutes left to get to the health class! “Oh, dear!” I laughed so hard at myself, to see how slacking I was. But I did manage somehow to get to class seven minutes later, wondered why those things happened everyday like that. But it wasn’t like other days. Everywhere was smoothly white, and love appeared from nowhere, now spread allover… It was snow! All the memories of Montana just came back at the same time, only to remember something else. “Oh yeah, it’s my …birthday, isn’t it.” Then I turned to be eighteen years old. No more a little me, no more my teen age. I stepped to a new period, to be able to feel my new strength, new responsibility. Time did pass fast, didn’t it? It’s eighteen years passing by at a glance, and I just stood there, could not cling to anything. My little sad feeling w...

tHERE & Here

There is a place where… …my little brother wants to make an Origami dinosaur but he can’t. And he said: “If only Big Brother was here…” The dinosaur, it’s too easy, really easy, but I am not there to help him. It is where… …my grandparents think about me everyday, worrying if I am doing ok. They are really weak; I am not there to take care of them. In that place… …my best friend gets struggle in his life. He becomes so depressed and lonely. And I am not there to share with him the pain, or make him feel better. Still there… …I had my break-dance class. The teacher, the classmates were so nice and I learned a lot. I am not there to continue it. And that place is where… …my love exists. But someone has taken it away, and I am not there to protect it. I am here, in the US . I am not there. I am not in Vietnam . It is that in our lives, we always have to give up something, in order to achieve something else. What I am after is big, is important. But also, I have left so many things behi...

Kẻ xấu xa

Người con gái nói: - Ở cạnh anh, em thấy vui. Cạnh em, anh thấy bình yên. Thế là đủ, phải không? Người con trai nói: - May be we have different way to show off our feelings , but those're the same meaning ... We love each other ... … Tôi không phải là cô gái ấy – đương nhiên, trời ơi! Tôi cũng không phải người con trai ấy. Chẳng là ai cả trong tình yêu của họ. Nhưng, tôi lại là người thứ ba. Đau! Trong khỏanh khắc của sự bất chợt là nỗi đau kéo đến và kí ức tràn về. Người con gái ấy, xuất hiện trong đời tôi nhẹ nhàng và bình thản. Trong những ngày tháng khó khăn của đời sinh viên nơi xứ người đã không làm tôi trùn bước, khi mỗi tối lại được gặp em. “Gặp em” cũng chỉ là chat với em trên mạng thôi, đơn giản thế thôi nhưng là cả con người tôi thay đổi. Tôi cố gắng bắt chuyện, nghĩ ra đủ thứ để nói với em. Tôi trở thành 1 thằng đi sưu tầm truyên cười lúc nào không hay. Cố gắng tập luyện mỗi ngày cũng chỉ để trở thành 1 breakdancer xứng đáng với em. Tôi trở thành 1 người...

Chỉ là một cơn gió thôi

Cuộc đời cứ mãi thế, bình thản cuốn trôi mọi thứ, để ta mãi nhìn theo, mãi cố níu kéo trong vô vọng để rồi tiếc nuối không nguôi. Đành phải đi thôi, trở mình thành làn gió nhẹ, mãi trôi… Chỉ là một cơn gió thôi. Chẳng là những cơn gió hiện lên để cuốn vào những câu chuyện buồn cùng cây và lá. Chẳng thể nào trở thành như thế, cũng chẳng bao giờ muốn trở thành như thế. Chỉ là một cơn gió nhẹ thỏang qua người ta, len lỏi trong kẽ tóc để lại tiếp tục bay đi. Chỉ là một cơn gió thôi. Không lá, và cũng không cây. Sẽ cứ thổi mãi thôi, chẳng thể ngừng. Cứ thế trôi giữa dòng đời nếu như chẳng gặp lan. Chẳng là cây, chẳng là lá, chỉ là những đường nét thong thả, giản đơn mà đẹp lạ lùng. Bất chợt nhận ra sự bình yên, niềm hạnh phúc và hoài bão lớn lao bấy lâu ngủ vùi, nay bùng lên giữa vòng xoay của số phận. Nhành hoa lan ấy, nhành hoa xanh biếc như màu của bầu trời lấp lánh bên trên, vẫn tiếp tục dòng trôi của riêng mình. Lan vẫn đi học, vẫn làm việc, và vẫn chat vào mỗi tối. Chỉ k...

I hate Yahoo

There are many bad things around, but Yahoo should be the worst, especially Y!Messenger. One time I was chatting with Orchid, and she told me she just bought a new cap. When she was going to show me her picture with it, my Y!M immediately signed out. O.0!!!! What the…! I quickly signed in again, and she was still there. It’s really awkward to ask her to share the picture twice, but I did. This time, the loading bar didn’t work =.=, though it was only 10Kb! The picture was right there but I couldn’t do anything to get it. Only thing I could get was: T_____T’ That time, my body was shaking in anger. Arghhhhhhhhh!!! One crazy Y!M is a problem, but both Y!M are crazy should be a tragedy. And Orchid’s Y!M was crazy – even crazier than mine =.=. One time, her Y!M suddently signed out, I thought she was busy, so I said goodbye to her. The next day I turned my laptop on, I saw messages of her – from the day before: Orchid: oh, you are busy now  Orchid: good bye  Orchid: see you later ...

Just another effort...

Since time keeps passing by, and things keep being changed, we have to try our best everyday to survive. Not every effort will get good result, we all know it. But when it does, it’d be great. It’s just a normal day when I accepted to help the council of the building I lived, to make the banner for the “Homecoming” event. When I said I would draw it, they screamed and jumped around excitedly. “Wow”, I was surprised, “I’d better try my best then. =.=’ ” One woman gave me the material, which was a …huge bed cover (to draw at O.0!!!) I had to draw something about football, and a mule. (A mule is a child of female horse and male donkey. It’s also the mascot of UCM -my school.). I had to show how strong the mule was, so I tried using …superheroes’ images! I had the picture in my mind, but the banner was really big for me. In fact, it was the biggest picture I’d ever made. It was so big that I had to …creep around to draw, and when my elbow avoided touching the lines I just did, my feet...

It's time to change

(I write the things below as a serious person. It’s not a joke. And I’ll accept all the criticisms) Every day sign in to Y!M, I saw people discussing about Nh ậ t Kí Va`ng Anh. Many messages, so many attitudes, so many opinions. Well, it’s an adult movie, then. So what? Isn’t it that so many XXX movies have been being sold everyday, everywhere, even in Vietnam (though illegally)? I feel funny when everyone freak out and despite the film. Many people get involve in one problem which is not strange. Having sex basically is not bad. It’s only bad when people do it inappropriately and irresponsibly. Because of some old cultural affection, that now we feel disgusted with it. To me, we are not close-minded, but we are fake. Just look at the statistic: many people want to see it, and they tell the others how they despite it. Consequently, legal XXX movies would never be accepted, and the illegal ones would still be expanded. And obviously, no thing would be fixed. Why don’t we look at the si...

Origami Supreme !!!

“Origami” is a Japanese art of folding paper to make some shapes of animals, humans and a lot of other stuff. I was about six or seven when my mom gave me my first origami book. The book was about dinosaurs, and it amazed me a lot. But I was still too young for it; therefore I needed help from my mom. I still remember the days that my mom, my cousin Minh and me gathered together to figure out how to do it. It had a lot of fun, until my mom and cousin Minh gave up. Only me left to try alone, until the day I achieved it. Origami since then became one for my favorites, especially folding dinosaurs. It was such a long time from now, and my old hobby once again revives. Let me show you some of them. Hope you’d like them. Note: ALL of them are John Montrol's inventions; I JUST made them based on books. ALL of them were made by only one uncut-square paper. :) Part 1: DINOSAURS STRUTHIOMIMUS (It was hard to make him stand only on his legs :D) KUEHNEOSAURUS ELASMOSA...

A diary of DK’s first semester in UCM – Part 1

Month… date… year… Today was crazy. The computers of US immigration department didn’t work until 6 hours being fixed. Therefore I missed my next flight to Kansas City. They gave me a “standing by” ticket, and I’d get stuck here forever. Sorry Mom. There’s no free wireless here for me to use the internet. The telephone card here is so stupid that it didn’t let me call home for a second. Please don’t be so worried. I’ll get to UCM soon. I promise! ... Month… date… year… I decided to stop playing some games with my friends, in order to come to my room early – to chat with you. DK: Are you there? Orchid: Yea :D … And it was my happy day. You wouldn’t ever understand. Month… date… year… Today I promised to Orchid that I would perform popping in the Cultural night on spring. So from now on, I have to take it seriously. I know I’m not so good at popping as your Korean guys. But I’ll keep practicing. It doesn’t matter if I won’t get good result. It’s that I will ha...

Love in the ice

…Daremo ga dare ka ni aisareru tameni Kono you ni inochi wo kiramekaseru no sa… The song gets stuck in my head now. “Love in the ice”, the first Korean song ever that I listen to. TVXQ should be really special and …lucky (!). Why this song and why these guys?... I was trying to concentrate on practicing the speech for the class tomorrow, but I could not. The song was still there and became louder. I tried to push it away but …I was just absorbed to it… …Sore ga moshimo boku nara Mou ichido kimi no kokoro wo Towa no yasashisa de atatameruyo … The sentences were so good, so …dangerous. I felt myself more and more become the man in the song… Am I in … …love? If it was me… I would make your heart once again… warm with eternal tenderness… What the song said become what I was thinking, murmuring in my head. Your heart was right there, and I wanted to hug it so much. But, though very sweet, you were so cold. And I was frozen - spiritually. The room was getting cold, but ...

The Old Folks of Mine

Today is September 14th. So it’s been exactly ten years since the day my grand-mother died. Until now I can still remember pretty clearly that day. My family rushed to Hanoi to see her. She was lying there on her bed, while my Mom and her sister-in-law cried so hard beside her. I cried too. As a seven-year-old kid, I didn’t believe that she was dead. I hoped that she would wake up again, smile with me tenderly and kiss me on my forehead. But she never wakes up again, though I kept waiting. The mother of my father left me since then, forever. And I think about my grand-father. It’s ten years that he lived alone. It would be really, really sad and lonely. Not any more Grandma for him to talk with, to take care and to be taken care. Sorry Grandpa! I am a bad grandson that had not visited you for years until last summer. And you didn’t complain anything. You smiled and told me to study hard as uncle Ho said. And I think about my grand parents – my Mom’s parents. My family used to l...

Sudden death in minutes

When I was on my way to UCM (University of Central Missouri – my current college), I heard people discussing about someone had been shot ‘till died in a church. After that, just a few days form today, one UCM student was attacked and was stolen his money and room key on Pine Street. And yesterday, a guy in frond of me was saying something about another murder… People are so easy to be killed. And so am I. When will it be my “turn”? I was on that Pine Street at that night, also. If it hadn’t been someone else, it’d have been me properly – means I’d be died by now. Imaging that a blade, or a bullet, was stabbed at me in my back. A few minutes later I’d die. I wonder what would I do in those few minutes? I’d cry, for sure. I’d cry for my family. I wouldn’t know what they’d feel when they have known about this. I’d cry that I’d have made them cry, pushed them to the infinite disappointment. It was me that they had poured unhesitatingly their love, perspirations, and hope. It was...

StarCraft - Forever more...

During these years, game market has been increased surprisingly. Many new games appear, while many others were just simply kicked out. And it affects the society of gamers significantly. People rush to find kooler, more exciting one. Living among this situation, can we possibly find an-everlasting-game for ourselves? Yes. For me, it’s not anything else but StarCraft. How long for a good game to survive? Can people play a game in years –still interestedly? But it was suprising, when I think about StarCraft. The first time I saw the game, I was only six or seven (so it should be about 10 years ago!). I came over to Duc’s house, and he was playing it. At that time, computer wasn’t even popular. And StarCraft was there, how incredible! But I hadn’t involved in the game much, until I got my first computer when I was in grade sixth – it’s in 2000 -7 years ago. I was interested so much, that I played it in all my free time! I was n’t good at typing, but I was so good at …typing StarCr...

A2 PN-Cấp 3 xa vời

Cuộc đời của mỗi người dài cả mấy chục năm, nhưng có những giai đọan chỉ vài năm thôi, đã trở thành bước ngoặt. Ba năm cấp 3 vừa qua chính là một khỏang thời gian “để đời” như vậy. Lớp chúng ta đã gặp nhau như là 1 sự …hài hước của Thượng Đế. Lớp A2 là 1 tổ hợp của những người “vui tính” đến trình độ tối cao đáng sợ. :) Chúng ta đã quen nhau lâu ra sao, chơi vui thế nào, học cực làm sao… DK không cần đề cập đến. Chúng ta đều hiểu rõ và sẽ nhớ kĩ. Nói ra thì, 1 người “xàm vô đối” như DK cũng được các bạn …”chứa chấp” cũng là điều may mắn. Thầy Hoan cũng thật là tuyệt vời khi sống sót sau 3 năm dung túng bốn mươi mấy phần tử xấu của xã hội. :)) (đọc đến đây mà bạn nào quá tức giận thì cũng đừng nên …tức giận quá nữa ^^) Thế là lần đầu tiên trong suốt 10 năm học, DK đã tự nhủ “hôm nay mình được đi học!” o.0 Chuyện cứ như đùa, phải không? Trình độ “quởn” của DK vốn đã rất cao đã trở nên …rất rất cao (!), khi tiếp xúc với DW (Trường Giang), DO (Quốc Thảo) và DD(Nhật Anh –đúng hông ta? ...

Pretty girls - everywhere...

I used to believe in true love. Pretty girls wouldn’t attract me so easily, as I believed – they were everywhere. With the deep pain I already had, who would be able to make me pay attention at? But then you came, along with new thoughts, new pain… I saw you in a break-dancing class, and I was surprised. You were so pretty. Your clothes were stylish, and one of your ears had three earrings! I tried not to care about you. I knew that I would never be able to have a “chance”. You were not really special anyway. Pretty girls were everywhere. So I didn’t even look at you, but focused in …showing some kids how to do windmill. And you, didn’t care about anything but practicing your moves. You were staying alone, talking to no one. How serious you were! You were not just “cool” but “cold”! And so, the time passed by. Nothing happened… until yesterday… None of my little students wanted to practice hollow-back. So once again, I looked at you. You were still …”you”, standing separately from t...

My struggle

I was born in late 20th century, the period that the many historical things had already happened. The war in my country, Vietnam War, was gone years before. Now it's just standing by World War II and others in the gloomy past. How am I supposed to know, to understand all of these? In Vietnam , I've been taught for years how they happened. I learnt that to destroy the Nazism, the Red Army (Russian) had to fight for many place. Millions of them were killed by the enemies. What they did was much greater than the rest of Allies, and they actually saved the world. V. I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin were great communist leaders. About my country, I've leant that when the French colonist invaded, many people tried to protect Vietnam but unsuccessfully. And our hero, Ho Chi Minh, appeared. He decided to travel to other countries, to find the right way to protect the country. He alone went to many countries, doing many hard and dangerous jobs to live, as he didn't have any thing....

I am an exchange student – my own adventure

I am an exchange student. Many of my friends are exchange students. Many kids are going to be exchange students. Being an exchange student is not something really cool, or really special, but it is sure not too easy. So I think, my experience is still …not too bad to talk about. At least, hopefully, it has something unusual for you to read, or maybe it can help somebody about something, even just a little bit. My story started when I was at home, Vietnam – my country. At that time (and even now), people found the great way to have a good future, and many other stuffs was studying abroad. But it's a big deal to have enough …money to do this solution normally. Of cause someone would think about a really sound one: good scholarship. I agree it's awesome if you can get one, but excuse me, I am NOT a superhero, monster or something similar to it. So the chance for me to study abroad was hardly possible. But at that time, a new solution appeared: AYP – Academic Year Program! And so,...

Human Future

We are now staying here, working, earning money. The age of cavemen, in which people working for only food has gone so far. We now need something more. It's entertainment. We need games, we need fashion, we need movies, and much more. For a long time ago, people have been having art. Many kinds of art. And emotions. They make our lives become so colorful, so wonderful, so beautiful, so awesome. But are these pleasurable things everlasting? I have watched some movies based on some graphic novels illustrated by the Wachowski Brothers, The Matrix Trilogy and V for Vendetta . These movies don't talk directly about future, but not about present, neither. And for me, they are all about future, a future that children born in machines or tubes, and grow up in struggle lives as in the army in wars. What they eat, what they wear are not important. There is no activity but training, fighting, navigating, destroying or being killed. These ideas are familiar to The Terminator , in whi...