That Joe Roelle Guy

There is a Canadian guy names Joe Roelle. He works for UNICEF in Vietnam (yes, Vietnam), and his Vietnamese is absolutely phenomenal. Living in Hanoi, Vietnam for roughly 10 years, he’s become a very popular blogger with his (of course) Vietnamese blog. His two published books, one of which just came out this February, are two top-sellers in the Vietnamese market. Having a chance to enjoy his new book, I was put to awe. Knowing too well of how difficult Vietnamese can be to Westerners, I can say that Joe has archived something extraordinary.

Learning another language is usually challenging. Someone who has been interacting with English since forever like me still has his incompetencies, and that makes me believe that it takes a life-time of effort to master a second language. Now I am trying to get to Korean, it gets even tougher. Will I ever become tri-lingual?

Let me tell you a secret about that Joe Roelle guy: he started learning Vietnamese when he was 25! Twenty-five years old! It means one thing: You don’t need to be a child to learn another language. If we are committed enough, we can be as good as Joe in any language. True enough that I am not living in Seoul for the next ten years (which would really make a difference!), I can still try it on my own. And guess what, 10 years from now, I may speak Korean fluently with a unique accent. : )

Oh, and he has a website. Try him!

------------------------------------------
Related post(s):
The Ineffectiveness of English

My New Artwork! It's Colored!!!

(click on the picture for a bigger resolution)

The newest artwork of mine, celebrating Arwen's successful GMAT result. This is the second time I tried coloring my works using Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 (the first time was that silly comic poster). The characters are in Vietnamese high-school students' clothing.

"You are to be loved by me", 2012.

Em Là Để Yêu

Duyên hồng phận nhỏ Trời thương

Nhìn em muôn kiếp nghìn phương mơ màng

Phút giây ngoảnh mặt quên nàng

Hồi lâu thức dậy, ngỡ ngàng: anh sai!

Dẫu mai tháng cạn ngày phai

Dù thương dù giận nào ai vô hình?

Nắm tay, nắm trọn chữ Tình

Vì em là để cho mình anh yêu!

How I Draw Dragons

I like drawing dragons. Today I am gonna share with you how I complete a dragon picture. It’s been awhile since the last time I posted something tutorial-like, so I am pretty exciting. Should be fun. Here we go.

What have been going on

More updates if you will:

1. We finished a brand-new comic!
I may have said this before: whenever I don't have to go to school, or to go to work, I will be... extremely busy with self-appointed projects. About 4 weeks ago, I decided to join force with my best friend DO to participate in a huge Vietnamese comic competition. We worked hard on that, and the result was satisfying. The comic is in Vietnamese, regrettably, but here is the link if you want to take a look. : D As the competition is still going on, I am only allowed to post the poster (title page) of our comic here.

2. My brother has a fundraiser
My brother Holden is entering the Nashville St. Jude Country Music Marathon, and he is trying to raise some fund for his school New College Franklin in TN. Here is the page. Please take a look, vote for him or support him with donations.

3. Bluebell is back
Bluebell, once was the co-writer of this blog, is now back! Let's hope that we'll see her new posts soon. :)

4. I have finished reading the Bible!
Yes, the huge book of Holy Bible! The book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was read in an afternoon, but the Bible took me roughly a year. When I saw the last page of the book of Revelation, I was super excited. Amen! :D

That's all the updates I am sharing this time. Next week I'll post something rather new and special. : )

Another break announcement

I am taking a break. As I recently stopped working for BofA I was switched to "doing nothing" mode. The apparent freedom turns out not to be the case, as I am finding myself swimming in various self-made projects. Life is good, though, but I currently am quite busy.

So I will be back, because there still is a lot I want to share! My experience as a teller for Bank of America; maybe the 2012 Lunar New Year moments; maybe some pictures or fun stories about Vietnam; maybe a brand new music video; or maybe some more Origami!

So yeah, I will be off for a little while. You may want to check back in a month: I'll definitely be back by then.  

One Interesting Thing to Share

How popular is this blog? Shouldn’t be “very”, because I never receive more than five comments for a post, and the like/dislike button doesn’t seem to help with getting feedback from my visitors. I am not really concerned, though, it’s just that I have this interesting thing to share today. 

I didn’t find out about this myself. My cousin shared me a link one day: LINK. I clicked. It’s just a Vietnamese article about various “interesting” café places for young people. I scrolled down and I saw this: 

O... kay… so it was a picture of mine! Moreover, it’s from an Origami post in this blog! As you may guess, neither that Origami post nor myself has anything to do with the café which my picture demonstrates. And to say, if it’s not because of my cousin, I might never get to see the article. So this is what I decide to think and do:

- Hey guess what! I am on newspaper, and this blog of mine is popular!!! :''D