Bluebellia

(a picture of myself in my dorm room. Taken in my Freshman year, 2007) College sucks! I wish that no one ever went to college ever. There was VSO – the Vietnamese Student Organization that I helped created. The people who shared the same first language, my brethren. They always tried to gather and spend good time to fill the holes caused by the away-from-home emptiness. And I hardly joined. Now I wish I had. There was that girl I met in my Micro Economics class – the one class that I felt I was a super genius who waltzed through the materials while the rest of the class struggled. When we were about done with the class, I finally had gathered enough courage and told her that she looked extremely pretty and good luck on the final. She told me it was very nice of me, and that she was about to transfer to another school far away. There was a group of International students from South Korea one of which was my roommate. They were so nice they inspired me to learn Korean so that...

The company I am working for has a tradition of sending its employees to Dale Carnegie Training courses.  At almost everyone’s desk there is some sort of diploma or recognition from Dale Carnegie hanging at the front it’s crazy. Dale Carnegie is a program that helps improving your social skills such as public speaking, doing things outside your comfort zone, managing stress, and maintaining a positive attitude. (Dale Carnegie himself was graduated from the same college I attended so hey! : ) So it happened that I got enrolled to the program and I will have to attend the three-and-a-half-hour class for the next 6 weeks or so. And I have decided to write about this as a new series for this blog. My current lifestyle has been preventing me to update this blog regularly and I am trying to fix that. Dale Carnegie is a popular program, so sharing my experience while taking it may benefit many other people. The “Interesting” Orientation Last week was the orientation an...

Ai đánh mất một điều chi đẹp nhất Nơi góc phòng, trên kệ tủ từ lâu Tại vô duyên, đâu bao giờ giáp mặt Tự nhân tình, sao không tự quen nhau? Hồng nhan thiên là Hồng Ân Thiên Chúa Hồng Ân… là cái gì Hồng Ân? Đời đã qua, sao tim ta còn lại? Ngây dại khi lại phải khóc vì em. Ngày trống trải Nên lải nhải về đêm…

Right now I am in the process of relocation, and there was a 24-hour gap between checking out of Motel 6 and having a guy from Cox coming over to install the Internet in my new apartment. (The Motel 6 in Oklahoma City has fantastic and free Internet, by the way; it’s far superior to the one in San Jose whose paid Internet service is painfully crappy.) Not having Internet access this long was a challenge to me no doubt, but Challenge Accepted!!! When facing some hardship, of course the first thing to do is to lament about it. So I stared at my laptop screen and realized how sad Life was without the Internet. More than half of the icons are Internet-based programs. I could care less of what people said on Facebook for 24 hours, but giving up Internet entirely was not fun. I needed to read the news and check emails; I wanted to look at YouTube; I wanted to play video games. They all required Internet connections. Oh how about going out to explore the new city? Let me see what pl...

Where can we find the friends who care? As someone who has been studying abroad for the last 8 years, I have no family to depend on. Both of my families, they are so far away there is nothing they can do. So in order to survive, I seek friends. I know what a good friend is, and I try to be the best one possible. I go “above and beyond” in friendships like an enthusiastic entrepreneur going about his business. I am there when people need me, offer helps before they ask, and give nice gifts on occasions (and doing other stuff a friend does to – you get the point). My best friend in school told me that he’s so sad I had to leave in a week, and then spent that last week traveling away with his boyfriend. My lovely American sister to whom I keep sending nice gifts one day finally asked me for my address, only to mail me a sales catalog from her job. Sometimes I would go down my phone’s contact list and send people text messages. But there will surely never anyone does that back...