Skip to main content

As a Normal Person



Anything which humans have ever achieved, I believe, comes from a dream. Dreams can really be found in almost any place under various forms. To a child, it’s the state of ableness; to an athlete, it’s a passion; to a leader, it’s a vision; to any normal person, it can be any sort of future expectation, the goodness that lies await in the unknown. That’s why when Dr. Martin Luther King was well aware of its true name – a dream, his speech about his dream became everlasting. I am a normal person, someone who has seen his dreams busted over and over and over during the course of growing toward maturity.

Talking about dreams, we’d think of America (“American dream”). Ironically, I have been in America since I was 16 until now when I am nearly being able to buy alcohol legally, and these are the years for someone to develop his/her individuality to its highest. The period of being in America is the period of me witnessing my dreams leaving me at a ridiculous level.

I came to Montana, and a dream of high school got busted. No crowded classes full of pretty girls. No activities nor teams of any sort. No super easy homework that would guarantee easy A’s. My dream left me without any tiniest trace.

The dream of having top colleges inviting me to enroll was then busted. Despite the fact that I had tried my 150% capacity and earned an impossible result in an impossible school, no scholarship was coming to me at all. The one who tried best was nothing better than the biggest slacker.

Even when I got into UCM, I continued dreaming. Well, if my GPA was exceptional, if my performances were remarkable, then huge scholarships and good job offers would come embracing me, right? Unfortunately not, in the harshest way possible. I am here being a senior, and the graduation is drawing near. Yet I still do not see how any of my effort ever gets paid-off, as if for the whole time, I could simply mess around and would as well get through. It never was the matter of trying, it’s that after I try, I’d realize the vanity of my effort and see my dream get busted. Like any other student, there will be job searches, interviews, movings, and busted dreams await.

I can nearly see how my dreams look like: colorful balloons filled with water and still somehow fly high in the sky. When each of them gets pierced by a cold needle, the water would explode and fall down like teardrops. And when I see them I see great sadness.

In the end, all of those just to make me finally realize that I am just a normal person out there, losing sign of the dreams which are now long lost. Then, with this very reason of being normal, I once again see another dream afar. This time it seems bigger and a bit more vivid – as dreams normally would become. And I also see myself running below chasing it, in the most typical manner ever.

Comments

  1. we can have multiple dreams. You may not realize some of them, you can still dream of the others. Dreams make you try harder and reach for the best. At the end of the day, how many of us are living our dream?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not many. I agree with what you said.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hạnh phúc là hành trình chứ không phải là đích đến.

    Không có một giờ phút nào quý bằng giờ phút hiện tại.

    Hãy sống và tận hưởng từng giây phút.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Words in This List That You Know?

How are you doing on your readings in general and more specifically in developing your vocabularies? Recently I started reading a book for my Finance class called The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein. In the very first chapter of the book – a short 6-page prologue, there were many words that I did not know, and I am listing them here: destitute somnolent bulwark scrutinize (to) prick quiescent laudatory salient fervent (adj) frothy parlance umbilical (cord) placate carnage plenitude opiate dictum stupendous I was so surprised to see so many new words in such a small amount of pages! How is this Roger Lowenstein guy? You would think that while reading a finance book, the only words you would stumble upon are technical terms or lingos. Or maybe I am just bad. How many words in the list above that you already know?

Fei's Mooncakes

Fei is a Chinese guy at work who is socially awkward. He does not hang out with others, nor does he talk to anyone beyond “Good morning” and “How are you.” It’s not that Fei doesn’t want to: he’s unable to. But he would bring food to us as gifts – Chinese cakes, Chinese candies, Chinese snacks – for Lunar New Years and other Chinese festivals. That’s what people do in Asia as a way to maintain relationships. A social obligation. The Mid-Autumn Festival is near. No one at work besides me, another Asian, knows about this festival. Fei brings mooncakes, a type of round-shaped pastries, to work and gives each of us a box. The packaging looks gorgeous: a red square box with gold patterns depicting a lady dancing next to the moon. Inside is eight round pastries, about two inches in diameter. “Thank you very much!”, I say, as Fei hands me a box. Every day since, Fei comes over to my office and asks if I have tried the mooncakes. I have not, but I will soon, I tell him, feeling slightly guilty

The Ineffectiveness of English

I have interacted with English since kindergarten, and for the last four years I have been living in the US, using solely English for daily communications. Despite my effort of continual self-improving, I can’t quite understand the language. There have been explanations, of course, such as how it’s not my first language, how cultures and traditions get in place… Only recently, it strikes me with a more understandable reason: English is an ineffective language. There are so many disadvantages of English. First of all is the way one person talks to another. You can only use “I” and “you” no matter if the person you’re talking to is an earthworm or a high king. The same with “he”, “she”, “it”, and “they”. All the languages that I have ever associated with, which are French, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Cantonese, they have different words to address different people. I believe this should be the way to talk, since each person requires to be treated with respect, order, and