TIGblogs - Cat's TIGBlog

Sunday afternoon at Harvard Square

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:02:00 EST

As they say: because it's Harvard.

Because it's Harvard, because I have never been that interested in visiting museums, I left Harvard Museum of Natural History feeling delighted by the sudden breeze the above-freezing-temperature weather. Being outside in this weather made me happy. I hadn't seen the sky this blue for a long while. I was quite happy some days ago as well, when snow was falling and it was hailing and the snowflakes landed on the top of my hat made it wet, cold and numb. Today it was totally different, but I still liked it. Many people claimed to like everything in their lives. I'd recall from the top of my hat a list of things that I liked, and they would nod to each of them in approval. After a while, I'd just give up and tell them that there's a difference between being indifferent and liking something with a passion.

Comparing to most people, I do have a wide range and number of interests - in that sense of interest. For example, I love weather and being outdoor. I was the only one sitting/eating outside on the tables in front of Au Bon Pain, facing Harvard Square, when everyone else struggled to find a seat indoor where it was warm and well-lit. A lot of people listlessly passed by; and there I was, just sitting, enjoying my hot soup and the sight of people walking. Oh, that's another thing that I do love: the feeling of not being connected. Being among strangers and watching them always makes me feel satisfied; that typical feeling at airports, cafes, unfamiliar streets - if I've been without it too long I'll feel unfulfilled.

You don't know how much I appreciated this, and how much I appreciated this weather occurring on a Sunday. Had it not been Sunday, I would probably be sitting in a class, or sorting and replying to these emails, or in a meeting or two, or doing psets, or planning something , etc, and I'd have never stopped to raise my chin, look up at the sky and admire its blueness. Some people never noticed. However, they were fine with not knowing, while I was not.

Well, I made the decision to do all the schoolwork during weekdays and nothing on weekends for a reason.

I was happy. I was very happy when a blue-ish guitar line reached my ears at the inbound entrance of Harvard T-station. The performer sat on the bench, his hair white, his forehead crinkled, his fingers swift and energetic. Our eyes met - and I missed the train.

His name was Peter. He came from Russia. He didn't speak English too well.

Can I play? I asked. I hadn't touch a guitar for 4 months, and so the familiar feeling of the guitar neck in my hand touched me deep inside. A man standing not so far away looked at me as I played, and he smiled - a smile that, as I looked at it, clearly came from enjoyment and appreciation. In that instance, I was brought back to some previous days of my life that, before this, had seemed to pass forever. But I'm a performer, and again I was one - here was an audience, no matter how small or big, and here was I with an instrument. As I tried to think of what to play, my fingers caught it. As my eyes were fixed on the frets, my heart danced and the music leaped; the harmony plucked an invisible string on my head. The next moment when I looked up, my eyes caught his smile.

The guitar was not my instrument, but I couldn't have cared less.

Every time a train came and went, a new audience emerged after the old one. quot;The person who stole Peter's guitar: Why did you do it? What did you get for it?quot; Peter showed me those words written on a piece of paper when the screeching sound of an approaching train became audible. Someone stole his guitar the other day when he went into the bathroom.

Call me, I told him. I'm not the least busy person in the world, but I wouldn't miss a chance to come and play if I could. As I said so, I opened my wallet and was reminded of my habit of never carry any cash. quot;I'm sorry.quot; He immediately made a quot;Don't worry, who caresquot; hand gesture.

The second I rose to the ground from Central T-station, I could feel the winds running through my hair. I stood by the stairs and enjoyed that feeling for a while. Just an hour before, I'd been wondering about various things, I'd not been sure about many other things. And maybe I would still be if the sky weren't so blue, the walk weren't so long, and people hadn't known how to smile.

MIT and Life in general

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:02:00 EST

I haven't been writing much, and there's a good reason for that. MIT is hosing (check #1 on http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?defid=1123604amp;term=hosed ), and honestly I just learned (I think) how to cope with it recently. Even so, I'm still occupied by many other things and didn't have much time to go and observe things outside of the Institute. Doesn't mean that I dislike life quot;insidequot; it - in fact, I'm enjoying every part of it, even the hard work (don't you enjoy the hard work that you love?); but I'm just aware that there's also much more outside its realm.

Those familiar with me and AoNikki know that this blog is not an account of my personal life, but rather an account of people and observations in my life: my Special Olympics trainees and their efforts, my friends at UWCCR and their stories, Siam Plaza in Bangkok and its luxuries, the limbless man on the pavement of a crowded street, my Hungarian roommate, the lottery ticket boy next to my house in Phan Rang,... Unfortunately, recently everything I have to say has been about me. Let's admit it, since I came to MIT I haven't been going out enough to get to know people and observe life. I hope to fix this is a near future, but in the mean time... I'm just busy.

So the reason why I haven't written anything in the recent months is more quot;I don't have anything to write aboutquot; than quot;I don't have time to write,quot; although the latter is also true.

After some thoughts, I decided to extent the content of this blog to quot;things in MIT... and outside it, too.quot; At least it's the subject of interest to some people. I'm also most likely to shift the focus of my writing from quot;howquot; to quot;whatquot;, for this new implementation. Of course, I still want to write about quot;people and other observations,quot; and I hope I'll be able to do so more often. But in the mean time, at least I'll give you things to read.

So, yeah, something to read! It's the 7th day after my first IAP (Independent Activities Period, I'd give you a link if I were not too lazy to look it up) at MIT! Classes started... or whatever.

Some background information: I'm in MIT class of 2012. I live in Random Hall ( http://web.mit.edu/random-hall/www/ , also check wikipedia on MIT undergrads dorm). I want to major in either 1-E ( Environmental Engineering) or 2 (Mechanical Engineering). I don't know what else to say.

My first IAP consisted of mostly radiation and coding. I worked at NW12 (MIT's research nuclear reactor) 20 hours a week, and took 2 classes: 6.096 (C++) and 6.184 (the 6.001 crash course), none of them for credit. But now I program in C++ and Scheme, and understand computational structure! I also hunted in Mystery Hunt with off-by-2-pi, Random Hall's team. It was awesome. I had an open art studio project for one week in TSMC under the MIT Western Hemisphere Project called Business As UnUsual (BAU2, check photo section for photos). I played a ten-day game with the MIT Assassin Guild ( http://www.mit.edu/~assassin/ ). I guess that was it in a nutshell.

Talking about the past is kind of boring. Let's talk about today.

My 1.016 quot;recitationquot; section was a lot fun. I actually have a journal hosted on http://scripts.mit.edu/ about this class : http://catthu.scripts.mit.edu/1016/ . An account of today can also be found there ( http://catthu.scripts.mit.edu/1016/?p=5 )

I stopped by the APO office ( http://web.mit.edu/apo/www/ ) for a while, sort of intended to help out with BookEX ( http://web.mit.edu/apo/www/bookexchange.shtml ) clean-up, but had to leave early for the weekly Spherio radio section ( http://web.mit.edu/hemisphere/spherio/ ). It was my first time in a radio station, and it was really cool. I can totally write a whole story on this when I have time to get to it.

In my 7.014 (Introductory Biology)'s diagnostic test, the only question I could answer was quot;What was the last biology course that you took and when?quot; Oh well, I guess I'll have fun with this class. Will learn a lot for sure.

I got a shiny, hard-back Hitch Hiker Guides Collection book that I plan on reading this whole semester.

Oh, lastly, I love things with a website. It makes explaining much less work.

Why I am not a writing major

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:11:00 EST

This morning, when the sun was about to rise, a song with Spanish verses came up from somewhere in Mass Ave and caught my attention. At first, I thought the usual buskers were starting early today. But, as the tips of my fingers touched the window's glass panel and the breeze outside momentarily chilled my radiator-warmed skin, I realized this weather was too severe for anyone to be on the street and sing for hours - even with the love for music and the passion of spreading it.

I also realized a couple of other things. Piles of wet, golden leaves somehow had disappeared altogether, and at my eye level were gray, leafless, vulnerable-looking branches. As usual, a column of smoke drifted from across the street, layered between the dull early morning sky and the concrete wall of MIT museum. The scene looked terribly industrial, but I liked it ( as I liked many other seemingly terrible things). Why, hello there, winter!

It was the 20th of November.

I should have been sleeping as I hadn't for 48 hours. But, instead, I went Christmas Card shopping. The day wasn't bright enough to sleep.

quot;Say, Jin-kun, what do you think is the most beautiful thing in life?quot; I once asked.

quot;I'm too philosophical to think about that,quot; he answered.

I could spend hours in a card shop, smiling and reading through all of them. But after coming home and being all exhausted and just in the mood of being cynical, I detested how such well-versed and heart-touching words could be mass-printed on luxurious pieces of paper, identical to each other to the precision of two decimal places inches.

quot;Tell me something else about you,quot; asked my Princeton interviewer.

quot;I love Hallmark.quot;

What's funny about it was that I often used the adjective phrase quot;Hallmark-likedquot; to sarcastically indicate superficiality, facade, and phoniness. Yeah, I guess I had a love-hate relationship with Hallmark.

Just like with everything else.

quot;If you take a gap year, you can come to California and write about cowboys and cowgirls,quot; said professor Ken Pottle, from Stanford's Department of English.

Why not? I could write about cowboys and cowgirls. I could also write about Spanish songs from a van stopping by in front of Random Hall in an early Thursday morning and what comfort it gave me after a white night. I could also write about Hallmark. I could write about science. Or I could write about why I was not a writing major - the moment an autumn leaf softly landed by my feet I could almost hear the click of the touch and the joy of the ending. That, among many other wonders, is significant.

Un olor a tabaco y chanel
Una mezcla de miel y cafe

I could write in Spanish, French, Vietnamese, or Japanese. I could describe in Spanish what Tokyo looked like from thousands kilometers up high. I could also write in music.

I would fantasize about being a flamenco dancer, laughing and swinging into the arms of a torero. I'd grab onto the back of his neck, rub my nose against his, smell the scent of tobacco from his breath, tangle his hair, until we were close enough for a kiss - then the fantasy collapsed and I'd hastily open my eyes, hoping for a confirmation. That was it. I could not write any more than that. Instead, I ended up writing about tenderness and solitude, and called it love as though I knew what it was. I knew what it was not, and I wrote about that. I stood and waited as if just one more step and it would leap, I would capture it in my hands.

quot;Although you're culturally rich, you're culture-less,quot; remarked one of my friend. I did not see the boundary. I refused its necessity. My mind was simple and I thought that this particular boundary was bad.

Simplicity is such a beautiful thing.

The plain, gray wall of MIT museum outside my window was simple. The sky was simple. Everything in this room but me was simple - and I wanted to be, too. I'd love one of those T-shirts that said quot;Kick mequot; on the back - except that I'd let it say quot;Simplify me.quot; That might just result in some people asking me if I was, say, an trigonometric equation - but who said that that kind of simplification was not desirable?

And as I gazed at the MIT's dome, with my head leaning against the window and my cheek numb with the coldness, I knew why I was not a writing major. I rarely wrote anything that made sense.

Like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:11:00 EST

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...
- Jack Kerouac

This is my favorite moment, when I sit alone in the dark looking at my computer screen, listening to the clock ticking every second. There never seem to be enough time during the day, but at times like this I just realized how slowly time passes.

The scars on my wrist are still visible, and one of my fingers slightly bleeds where his nail has just been some hours ago. I bet he didn't thought it was that bad. If you saw me now with that and black eye-liners and didn't know the whole story, you'd think that I'm emo - which may be not completely inaccurate. I like certain kinds of pain. Once I watched a dancer dancing, with her bare feet badly injured, as if it was one of Lizst's craziest melody that she was dancing to. Her eyes were wild, and so were her movements. She laughed. Her laughter echoed. At that moment she was the truest thing in existence; and I knew it because I knew it was painful. I'd give anything just to feel it. To dance like she did. To laugh like she did. To suffer like she did. To love like she did when she kneed down and rested by the body of the person whose name she had soundlessly shouted out in her laughter while looking up at the gray sky. It's one unreal thing that's so much more real than many other things on Earth.

Or, there is a writer whom I knew very well. She liked to write from the second person point of view. I wanted to be like her, because I could only write as quot;Iquot;. Everything else sounded fake. I couldn't even write with third person narrator. Once, she told me when asked: quot;To write about 'you', you have to start with 'you'. Ask a question. This question.quot;

I wrote as 'you' and spoke as 'you'. I also became so interested in that question which she advised me to ask that I made several videos about people I know answering it. I had a record of what everyone said. If you were asked and filmed by me at some point, you'll be asked and filmed again when I next see you. If I haven't done that to you, you might very well be the next. But don't think too hard about what you have to say - it just doesn't work that way.

Many people asked me back the exact same thing. I believe that I said a slightly different thing each time, but I often went with quot;I don't know.quot; If that's what I gave you, then I'm ready to give you a new answer because now I have one. What's the answer? Ask me. You haven't asked me yet. And you should ask me twice, probably thrice, or even more, because I would still give you different answers. You just cannot imagine how trivial they are. I know I confused lots of you as the question was raised, but did you know I'm the one who's been most troubled by it?

I just went through all the videos that I had, and some of them are just really amazing. What's more amazing is that I know these people personally, and I'm still seeking to know more and more of such people - those that remind you of no other, the first of their types you could have met. People who would take off all of their clothes and dance together under the moonlight for the whole night. People who laugh even after their throats burn, their eyes blind, their hair ripped, their muscles sore. People who look down on standards and would make love to any other who has a passion that's great enough.

No, you can't really see all of that from my videos. But I know it because I know them. Or, for some of you, because I know you.

These people wouldn't ask me what I want in my life, because they know that the only true form of wanting is to want everything and to give everything. They wouldn't ask me how much I liked what I was doing, because they knew we either did something with passion or didn't do it. They wouldn't ask about my nationality because we just don't see the concept of countries and nationalities (and they're familiar with this because we have discussed this several times). They would never question the worthwhileness of something, however trivial and unimportant it seemed in other's eyes. They would never tell me quot;I don't think you need to do thisquot; or quot;It's not as important as this other thingquot; or quot;What about money?quot; or quot;What about your life?quot; These people are always dancing their ways through life, in pain, with their chins up, and laughing wildly at the pains as well as the eyes watching them. They burn, burn, burn.

These eyes - they don't understand. They thought they had everything to be better than these crazy dancing people, but they couldn't be more wrong.

Blogger Action Day: Poverty

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:10:00 EDT

Since no new entry has been written for a long time, I decided that I should at least write something for the global Blogger Action Day. So here it is, an entry on Poverty.

Poverty for me is an abstract word. It's one of those concepts that seem to never become real, although people keep assuring you of their existences while reminding you of how lucky you are to not having to understand them. People, at the same time, blame you for this lack of understanding and the ignorant inconsideration resulted from that.

I was one of these people grown up inside the palm of poverty without being touched by it. Many years ago, when my sister and I was still living in my father's clinic, I learned to classify people. I could almost always tell whether a strange visitor was my parents' acquaintance or a patient; my rule of thumb was simple: friends looked alike. Friends rode motorbikes, put on modern clothes, made themselves home, and smiled to me. Patients were dark skin people with somewhat filthy long dresses, had a funny accent and spoke in a strange language to each other. Of course sometimes came patients that looked like friends, and I must admit I didn't really like them. There was something in their attitude that irritated me greatly.

Every child, and adults too sometimes, dreams of differences. Before I was old enough to comprehend what these differences actually mean, the other reality of those patients made an experience that I yearned for. A shelter in the middle of a vast rice field, a life in the vineyard or on a river, a small tattered house made of straw and mud, a living earned by selling home-grown apples in which my sister and I woke up early every morning and shared a small portion of rice before going to work... were things that I used to wish for. I still remember with details how I painted a one story, collapsing house of mud when told to portray my quot;dream housequot; - which my teacher looked at and exclaimed: quot;What kind of a dream house is this?quot;

When thinking back, I usually contemplated a lot about how the two worlds, namely mine and others, were juxtaposed. Poverty was something that, at the same time, so close and so distant.

Now, sitting in my desk in my dorm room on Massachusetts Avenue, looking out at the illuminating dirigible floating above, I don't really know why I'm writing about poverty. I don't know anything about it. I can't tell you what it is like or what it feels like; I can tell you what it's not like, though, but high chances are you already know that. I can be lame, and pretentious, and political, and tell you that poverty is the restrain of freedom of both individuals and society; but I won't do that. Actually, I can tell you what it feels like to watch poverty directly and with bare eyes. It aches. Sometimes it's scary. The scariness takes place when I observe the kind of people poverty produces, and it's something that you yourself have to witness in order to understand. Or of course, like many people where I grew up, you can choose to go past it blindly and without sufferings.

Poverty is something I'm working hard to understand. One of the factors that motivated me to apply to MIT was an article I found online on The Tech about a D-lab (development lab) course in which students practice poverty. Other than some inevitable freebies such as water and electricity (and shelter and many things else), they practiced living at the absolute poverty level of $2 per day, or less, for one week. The main problem with this was mostly food, since MIT students buy food themselves. Yet that only problem made them miserable - while they still having to handle the heavy workload. This model may not provide a thorough understanding of what poverty is like, but it does give an idea. As a graduate from the course, you know that poverty is something which is even more terrible than that.

Understanding is important. When you decide that you want to care about something, such as when you're inspired by a presentation, you have to make the next step to understanding in order to really care about it. That's the difference between theoretical speeches and concrete actions, and the only way through which you'll achieve something meaningful and significant. So, I don't know how much poverty means to you, but as a blog for the action day, my only message is : try harder to really understand it.

Farming with dreams

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:07:00 EDT

As Yukiko has recently posted an entry on Facebook with the same title, I guess I'll write something about it as well. So, I once wanted to be a farmer - but seriously, who hasn't dreamed of being a farmer at some point in their lives? Also, my other childhood dreams include going to MIT (I will), writing a book for children, being a journalist, being a photographer, creating Rockman.EXE typed network/navigation/PETs. But let's not worry about them for now.

This story starts with Masakazu, Yukiko's brother. Masakazu-kun loved chickens. Once upon some recent time, he persistently asked for an egg from a farmer and eventually got it. He built some kind of egg-hatching machinery; and after a while a chicken was born. Then, two chickens. Then lots of them. They followed Masakazu-kun everywhere he went, and if they didn't see him they would go panic.

Later he moved to New Zealand, and one day his mom in Japan told him that all his chickens had been eaten by a fox. He cried, suffered a lot, and I'm not quite sure, maybe he still does.

This reminded me that I once had some chickens too, although I can't remember what happened to them. I'm not that concerned about chickens though - except that I often mistake them for quot;kitchensquot;, which caused quite some problems when studying quot;Kitchenquot; by Banana Yoshimoto for my IB English A1 class. Nevertheless, Yukiko pointed out that although Masakazu and I didn't have the same level of interest for that little furry thing, we both wanted to raise our own animals and plant our own crops. You know that game series, Harvest Moon? I love it, especially FoMT and MFoMT. quot;Who knows,quot; I told her, quot;the most unlikely things can come true.quot;

quot;Let's build a farm together!quot;

quot;Cool! Let's start now!quot;

And we're off to making a plan. It's exciting, it's neat, it's weird. And it will come true.

If I saw you in heaven

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:06:00 EDT

quot;What is heaven?quot; He asked.

The candle on their table flickered, illuminating its surrounding with the reddish, dim flame. It shone on her right side and reddened the sharp lines of her profile, while leaving the other half unseen - covered by the remnant of darkness and the smoke from the cigarette between her fingers. He looked at her through the watery yellowness of a glass of ice tea, which somehow gives the place a glance of aristocratic luxury. quot;This?quot; She answered.

He chuckled. quot;What is 'this', Kate?quot;

At the next table, a little girl, about five or six, laughed out loud at the cream on her - even younger - brother's nose. Their mother wiped it with a handkerchief, her manner gentle and attentive. Not only her hand, but her arms, her eyes, her hair - all her body - were engaged in the action, as if wiping cream off a son's nose was the only thing worth doing in this world. Kate's eyes swiftly moved past them.

quot;When I was small, heaven was home.quot; She said, finally. quot;Now, sometimes it still is.quot;

quot;Cheers,quot; He raised his glass, quot;very few people can say that.quot; She responded with a smile of matter-of-fact attitude, half acknowledging, half questioning. quot;Can't you?quot;

quot;It once was.quot; He said at once, without any contemplation.

quot;Then?quot;

quot;I changed.quot;

The words came out like a reflection, prefigured by the previous answer, unaware of the restraint from the mind. He was astonished by the softness of his tone and the indifference it contained. Why did it matter, he didn't know; he couldn't see its implications, just as he couldn't see what it was in her eyes when she stared at him. Not pity. Not understanding. Not interest. quot;Higher standards?quot; she asked.

quot;No. Different standards. Or to be precise, lack of standards.quot;

quot;What is heaven, to you, then?quot; She smirked, emptying her glass.

quot;Define heaven.quot;

quot;That's exactly what I asked.quot;

quot;Oh,quot; He laughed, turning to the next table. quot;Heaven is a fallacy. It belongs to the same category with concepts like imaginary numbers. You take something that doesn't exist, give it a name, and...quot; He stopped to look at the shining red berries on top of the little girl's ice cream. She bent her head to take a closer look at them, then eagerly showed them to her father. quot;I'm listening.quot; Said Kate.

quot;You know what... forget about it.quot;

She chuckled. quot; You want to know what 'this' is?quot; She put her hand on her left chest, where her heart is. quot; 'This' is heaven.quot;

quot;By what standard, Kate? By what standard?quot;

quot;By every standard. By common sense. You'll always find heaven if you look for it inside your heart.quot;

He laughed, raising his glass before finishing the last drops of tea. quot;How about this,quot; He smiled at her, tapping his head. quot;You told me to define heavenquot;, he said. quot;I couldn't name what it is, but I knew what it isn't.quot;

quot;What is it not?quot;

It isn't happiness, nor satisfaction, he thought. It isn't fulfillment. It isn't suffering. It isn't an emotion, nor a state, nor something you can name. It isn't something to seek for. It isn't...

quot;It isn't that.quot; He pointed at her hand, still on her left chest.

She had been sitting still, waiting, perplexed. The dark corners on her face looked hollow and bottomless; although her cheeks, her forehead, her chin - everything exposed to the reddish dim flame - seemed burning, burning like the suppressed anger or a hidden passion suddenly revealed. Her confused face finally turned to a faint smile, which seemed to say quot;we can never reach an agreement, can't we?quot;

Heaven doesn't exist, he thought, not because it's an impossibility, but because it's a contradiction.

quot;Hey, why are we talking about heaven, after all?quot; She asked casually.

Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven
Would it be the same, if I saw you in heaven
I must be strong and carry on
'Cause I know I don't belong here in heaven

If I saw you in heaven (totally fictional - just something I thought of when listening to Tears in Heaven)

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:06:00 EDT

On arriving home

Sat, 31 May 2008 08:05:00 EDT

These people, these glasses, these songs - they somewhat resemble the image I have had of this live music café since the last time I came. But the feel has changed, and that bothers me. I cannot find myself; and the person I was before suddenly becomes a mystery. What was she thinking, feeling, when she was sitting here, staring at the stage - was she tapping with the beats, or mentally playing along with the drum part like what I'm doing now? Time seems to have halted somewhere long ago. I could sense their immobility when sitting behind my sister on her electric bike, looking at the sides, feeling like Caufield inside the museum where everything remained simple and unchanged - except for the observer. This is where I come from, but now I don't belong to it.

That inflexibility makes me feel like a different person.

Well, I might be a different person from the last time I was here last year, and from the last time I spent in Jazz Cafe in Costa Rica. The change to the latter happened in just one long day. Just yesterday, when driving home from HCMC, we stopped at Long Khanh to buy some durians. Mom kept on bargaining with an unpleasant, unwelcoming face, scorning the fruit - not for the sake of truth which needed to be told, but out of self benefits. The woman - the seller - consistently refused mom's request to open up the durian with the repeating argument that Long Khanh durian sellers had their pride on their products and would never trick their buyers with something inferior. Another durian seller, from Hue, strolled by us and stopped to show what he had. Despite our unhidden lack of interest, he stood blocking our car's door, wouldn't let go, steady decreased the price until he decided just to give us one for free. quot;You know,quot; he said quot;everyone living in life has to have a heart to other peoplequot;.

quot;Yes, right, right...quot; answered dad reluctantly.

quot;We from Hue,quot; the peddler went on quot;never cheat anyone. Dare you say we do?quot;

quot;Look, we never said that. We just don't want to buy any more durian.quot; And by that we managed to leave.

Suddenly now, in my own room up on the third floor, I have all the privacy and aloneness in the world but much less autonomy; suddenly I was reminded that sometimes life is so complicated, not in an intellectual or philosophical way, that integrity becomes a luxury - something which people fool strangers that they have but teach their children not to abide if they want to be survivors. People grow up being clichés and identically aggressive without noticing it. I had never thought about all those things this way before.

The lighting in the café reminds me of the nightclub in Tamarindo, at Chaseten's wedding. I was sitting away from the dancing crowd, next to Ken, whom I told that I had been a bad daughter. quot;Why, I don't think so, you got into MIT and your parents must be very proud of that.quot; He said.

quot;That has nothing to do with being a good or bad daughter.quot;

quot;Is it?quot;

I shook my head. I wasn't too surprised by what Ken said - in spite of his ages, he was raised up in a Western point of view, where some values different from mine are used to measure the quality of relationships. But it really bothered me that one of my Vietnamese friend - the only person I asked - thought the same thing. I cannot understand that; and I'm not sure since when I have been always taking it for granted that academic achievements don't say anything about how good a child you are. I thought that it was a crystal clear and logical notion that almost everyone, if not all, had. It seems like I have mistaken. But still, I cannot understand and for me there's just no connection between which school you go to and how treat your parents. No correlation, thus no exception.

Talking about Ken again reminds me of one evening when Atalya told him (and QQ and me) that her not doing her homework or preparing for exams was not a lack of respect for the teacher - as Mr. Villarino usually put it - but a personal choice based on the matter of priorities, or in other words, studying was just not her first priority there. When I think about it, the quot;Occupationquot; field on custom forms always comes back to me - and I disagree. One can only talk about priority when he has the choice to do or not to do it; and for students, studying is not to be ranked in priority order - it is a duty. Students would say quot;Studentquot; when asked about their occupations, just as teachers quot;Teacherquot;, doctors quot;Doctor, businessmen quot;Businessquot;, housewives quot;Housewifequot;. It is the students' occupation in the society, something they have committed themselves to as their duty, and thus, it becomes a matter of doing all what they have to do when they have they have to do it, than a matter of preference. I'm saying this because joining education is optional - although taking advantage of this optional-ness is strongly discouraged and preference to it is often not affordable. So if someone chooses to get an education and does get it, for me it's been always his duty to fulfill all he's expected to do - the way a doctor is not supposed to say quot;noquot; when a patient knocks on his door, or a teacher when his students request a tutorial. And, it's also a matter of gratitude.

That leads me to think about the talk that shifted my decision and the next 4 years. Life, college, career - it's not a race, you know. But this is an education that I chose to strive for and did get it. Once I finish my drink, stand up and walk out, I'll be looking into this spaceless society again and trying to break this timelessness - for me it's a duty, and more than that, a duty that I enjoy fulfilling.

On leaving

Thu, 22 May 2008 12:05:00 EDT

Rain in Costa Rica has a particular feel to it. Sometimes you find yourself stepping out of City Port Java when it drizzles and notice the smell of soil perpetrating your nostrils, and can't help exclaiming quot;What humidity!quot;. That nostalgizes me - not that it reminds me of something in my past. The glimpse of white, foamed, bouncing drops paints an exotic, separate reality whenever I happen to catch it: my childhood here, in Santa Ana, or my growing up as a Tica, frequenting volcanoes, sunsets on beaches, rain forests, rice and beans, ludicrous infrastructures. It's the ramification of my having observed numerous small and carefree souls enjoying themselves under the rain. That sort of thing can be seen almost everywhere, and goes directly to the heart of everyone on Earth who has in his or her past a somewhat peaceful childhood. Then as an older, worried child, I always stop for a latte, listen to something melodic, gaze at the membrane of water and the distorted perspective behind - no matter where I am and what I do. Now that I'm about to leave, again I am assured that rain is what connects my realities and keeps me from falling apart. Coincidentally, 'rain' was the very first word I said.

It's been noticed that I was not the sole rain gazer in the school. The gray and striped cat, looking as omniscient as Socrates but is forever hungry, could always be found sitting comfortably on his little 'veranda' - just wide enough to keep his waterproof mind safe from the repercussion of Newton's third law (namely, the rain drops' bouncing back after striking the ground). This is very misleading, though, because when it's sunny and dry and maybe windy, he turns out to be an scared brat, wandering around the waste baskets every meal, waiting for something half-decent to eat, fleeing whenever someone attempts to get closer, leaving the friendly cat-lover feeling ostracized. I would say that if he was such a mysterious (and thus seemingly able) philosopher, this revelation would be real ignominy. But he doesn't seem to care much; and to me, his indifference makes a virtue which most of human beings - who want to live happily and ignorantly - are deficient in. Now that I'm about to leave, I look for him whenever passing by the cafeteria, hoping to see his cynical eyes. Those hostile eyes always stare at me as if pointing out that my ideas of him were just a set of fallacies. I named him Caulfield, and ascertained that he was fond of it.

Something that I also enjoy doing when it rains is playing bass. I'm not sure how the low pitches get along with the ra-ta-ta-ta's, but it's real consolation. It's been my favorite time of the day, when I just mindlessly go through the four finger technique, fret by fret, while pondering the big and small things happening behind the membrane of rain outside. Although it's not the best way to practice, I admit, it's actually for the clarity of my thoughts more than my musicality (which needs to be worked on too). Knowing that I won't be touching a bass for a while after leaving here saddens me.

I pick up a tattered clover. It feels heavy as if the gray sky has fallen on me.

Ben Jonesamp;#39; departure

Fri, 16 May 2008 02:05:00 EDT

http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/misc/miscellaneous/big_news.shtml

Not until my future classmates and upperclassmen publicly declared that Ben Jones was the reason why they first wanted to go to MIT had I started thinking that he was probably the reason why I did, too. I'm sure if you search my blog archive, you will find somewhere an entry where I rambled about how one of his blog posts ( http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/the_selection_process_application_reading_committee_and_decisions/its_more_than_a_job.shtml ) inspired me - and surely it wasn't the only one. Come to think of it, his blogs, along with other bloggers', were what really brought MIT so close to me and made it feel like home.

So, Ben Jones. He was the man whose words I have been reading and felt grateful for. He was part of the MIT admission committee, with whom I had had the best and warmest experience during my college application process. He read my application, checked my scores, read my essays that I had wrote from my heart - and he admitted me to MIT. Or quot;investedquot;, as he put it. You know what it means - he trusted me, even when I wasn't sure of myself.

Then I checked out his appreciation thread on MIT class of 2012's discussion board, and listened to everyone telling everyone else what a great person he is. Upperclassmen recalled his warmth of personalities, how he had been a major support to them, how his office became their second home where he was like a surrogate parent who talked to them about everything in life. People in class of 2012 recounted their few moments encountering Ben Jones at Campus Preview Weekend, who instantly recognized knew who they were - from their applications that he had read - and welcomed them quot;homequot;.

After the news, I added the man on facebook, with a short note: quot;Bye Ben!quot;. Ironically, I thought, my first direct word to him was a farewell. It somehow disappoints me that I won't see and get to know Ben as a person, while people around will surely be talking about him. Our lives have just run tangent to each other's - and strange as it may sound, I feel like I've just missed something significant.

Up Close amp; Personal

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:04:00 EDT

The title has nothing to do with the content of this entry. I just felt an inexplicable liking for the phrase. Well.

Two things.

As many have known, I have made a point of giving as less personal information as possible in this blog, and have also been trying to make it stop turning up on google when someone searches my school's name (which didn't seem to succeed by the way, although I haven't really checked). However, as many have somehow sensed something between Jin and me, it's perhaps alright for me to leave some words about that here - although for many of you this quot;newsquot; is already months old. So what happened? Nothing happened.

Nothing happened. Tendai once said that there was a difference between doing nothing and nothing happened, and doing nothing then something happened - and this occasion is exactly the latter. So nothing happened, and that was exactly the problem.

Second thing.

When walking out of the staff room the other night, I was in a completely different state of mind: not in doubt but almost certain, not just knowing but kind of understanding - and above all, I was left contemplating how unstable the most seemingly stable people could be. Had I always missed the point before, or did I just never take his words seriously enough?

When I walked into the staff room just before that on the same night, my intention was the emails I sent Ken and what they were about - but actually, we never talked over that. We did mentioned it; but on thinking back I always realize: (hm,) that wasn't the problem. Well, maybe it was, but not the one I had had on my mind when pressing that quot;sendquot; button on yahoo mail.

So Quique just missed it. Or Ken missed it. Or I did, in the first place.

So what was the problem? I'm not sure if it's still important enough to be told. These days I have heard from friends everywhere around the world, and soon realized that comparing to many others' situations, mine was much better to be in. It amazed me how many times I had told this story over and over to different people; and it seemed that for virtually everyone, there would be a time - sooner or later - when they just need to hear it. So here it is, this time written down, for YOU. Maybe this is the right time for you to read. Maybe now it just goes over your mind, but at some point later, it will do its job. So...

Almost one year before, last June, I transited in Miami for two hours before flying to Dallas. Two hours wasn't a redundant amount of time, considering that there were many things to be done: checking in to the US, switching to the domestic line, getting and re-checking my luggages, and getting to the right gate at the right terminal. I was, however, stopped at the check in counter and asked to wait in a room with some other people (later on, I found out that a Vietnamese guy with the same last name Nguyen had lost his passport). Time just passed by, the waiting seemed to be forever, and the officers weren't seem to be doing anything in spite of my keeping reminding them that my next flight would take off soon... and not until there was only 30 minutes left had a black officer gestured me to his office.

quot;What's the problem, sir?quot; I asked him after sitting down.

quot;There's no problem.quot; - he answered.

quot;There's no problem? But...quot;

quot;There's only a situation, like all other situations we're working on.quot;

I was really perplexed, so he went on, quot;look, young people's problem is that they see everything as problems. You have to understand that there are different situations in life; and when something happens, you're just in a situation. A problem is intimidating and hard and pessimistic, a situation is not - and sometimes the difference is just your own attitude towards what happens. So, do you want to rephrase your question now?quot;

He talked so fast that it took me some seconds to really digest what he was saying, after which I said skeptically: quot;So... what's the situation, sir?quot;

He picked up my passport from the drawer, and started to explain. It was about 25 minutes to the flight.

(FYI, I did missed that flight. I got free dinner, hotel, and breakfast, and was still on time for the flight after that since I would have to lay over in Dallas for 14 hours, according to the initial plan. That whole trip from Costa Rica, to Miami, to Dallas, to Toukyou, to HCMC, was just crazy. Believe me, this incident was just one of many things happened.)

quot;You hurt me every time you say that, because it means you don't value me as a friend. And friends should bother each other!quot; So he said in reply to my saying that I shouldn't have bothered him. I immediately wanted to say quot;You never bothered me.quot; Don't get me wrong though, I had no doubt about the sincerity of his words or his intention behind them - which was the reason why I chose not to say that. They were just words, after all.

Random Quotes

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:04:00 EDT

quot;Why are you always counting us in? Let me count!quot; - Ksusha

------------------------

quot;I love you babe. It's been years since I last seen you.quot;

quot;It's been three months and 27 days, dear.quot;

- 'Random' phone talk

------------------------

quot;There are two sides of everything: my side and the wrong side.quot; - someone I can't remember

------------------------

quot;What can I do about politics? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.quot;

-------------------------

quot;Have you ever performed so terrible that the audience demanded you to go away?quot;

quot;No.quot;

quot;So you've never been on stage.quot;

- 2006, Jazz Cafe

--------------------------

quot;There is no problem in life. There are only situations.quot; - an airport officer in Miami.

--------------------------

quot;What did these soldiers come here for?
If they're for peace why is there war?quot;
-Michael Jackson, quot;We've had enoughquot;

--------------------------

quot;Paul C. has met the second most awesome person he knows... after himself, of course.quot; – facebook status

---------------------------

quot;Look at the horizon.quot;

quot;Huh?quot;

quot;It keeps reminding me that although no one can escape from their past, you shouldn't think back to it too often. There's the road ahead.quot;

- 2007, after Natchan's incident

----------------------------

quot;Grief? That's the best emotion in the world.quot;

----------------------------

quot;Sadness is an emotion, just like happiness. I personally don't prefer any emotion to others.quot;

----------------------------

quot;It sucks to be me.quot; - Avenue Q

----------------------------

quot;You know, they don't require a high school diploma. That means technically I can just drop out of school now.quot;

quot;Yeah, why bother?quot;

quot;Well, it's good to finish what you have started.quot;

----------------------------

quot;One night you pick up a cigarette, and the grief goes away instantly. But you've got a burden for all your life.quot;

----------------------------

quot;It's normal. It's up and down.quot;

----------------------------

quot;There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.quot;
- Gertrude Stein

----------------------------

quot;Conservatives? What kind of conservatives is that?quot;

----------------------------

quot;The time came when I realized that I was not what I had been. I wasn't even what I'd thought I had been. And I wasn't capable of caring for everything or everyone. And I didn't understand people, and I had never been understood. And then I realized how foolish all these things were.quot;

----------------------------

quot;I'll fall.quot;

Just random thoughts on the spot - Wind of Change

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:04:00 EDT

It looks like rain.

Rain whitens the sight of green bush and red-floored corridors outside of my window. Rain dances on the rooftop cheerily and tirelessly. Rain chills and slows down the outside, and warms the inside. Rain reminds me of many things: Monday evenings jumping over puddles, running after quot;the guy next doorquot;; afternoons sitting at the veranda listening to quot;Pieces of Peacequot; (and day-dreaming); hours sitting on the back saddle of my father's motorbike - making its way through the flooded streets - in one rainy season, heading to the nearest convenience store. I often hid myself in a dark corner, pretending to be indifferent to the harsh sounds of people cursing and water-invaded motorbikes' engines. I also liked to fold tiny origami boats and stand at my high-enough doorsteps, looking at them floating (with a self-introducing letter inside) - just to find them lying tattered on thick layers of mud when the water had all gone down in the next days.

Some memories are more vivid and well-remembered than others; some others are so well-forgotten that I don't even know that they have been a part of me. I somehow believe that time will come when they're rediscovered and reminded of - but it suddenly occurs to me that many of the memories that I'm embracing so tightly today, will also one day be covered by a membrane of mist and time. Some of the people I care so much about might cease to play an important role in my life, and some values I'm dying for will soon become ridiculously insignificant.

So, why do you have to grieve that much, boy? You're too used to getting what you want and you are foolishly defeated by your first major failure in life - which, in fact, will not remain quot;majorquot; when you think back of it later. You should sit down with a cup of coffee, in a rainy day, to realize that the situation has offered you much more than what it has taken away from you, to remember that a door shut means another door's opened, and that you are not moving backward - you're just progressing in another direction. You should say to your friend too, that his decision is by no mean a proof of quot;a man's dream and honorquot;, but just a foolish, childishly romantic vision of life. Say that to him, for he's craving blindly to get into Harvard - but he doesn't know anything about the school beside its name. Say to him too, that one day he will regret his decision to turn down other great offers just to wait one year and again run after the reputation.

Or maybe I'm thinking too much about other people's business. But then I think of her... and everything is just so different.

She's trapped. She's trapped by the contradiction of this school's Mission Statement/ promises as an SOS school, and what it offered to give her. She may be torn by seeing the opportunity again slipping away from her without being able to take any action. But why? It's not her fault to be poor. It's not her fault to dream big. I know that by being here, she will face many difficulties than what everyone can imagine - but I want her to be. But I could not do anything more than wanting her to be here. I could just stare at the computer screen as she thanked me for something that I could not do anything about.

And yet, it won't stop raining.

quot;It's the beginning of the end,quot; he said, knowing that school is ending in just a few weeks, and our class is graduating.

quot;Oh no. For me it's the end of the beginning.quot;

It startles me to see how true it is. It's like two different people looking at the rain outside like this, recalling different things in their pasts. One only sees the greenness, while the other see a vivid meadow. It's called perspectives.

Thousands people would pay anything to be able to see that meadow.

I only see the greenness in her eyes.

She is another remarkable person. Whenever I look at my quot;newquot; room now, although I'm not terribly bothered by her absence, something indeed touches me. It's the empty space in the middle (made available by taking her bed out), the distance from the beginning to the end of the room - the distance between MJ and me, the faintness of the yellow-dim bed light in Saturday evenings, the quietness, the absence of different people on campus that have stopped coming here ever since she left. And a lost piece of me in it, as well. And we're just some streets away from each other.

I realize that so many quot;last timesquot; are coming - and many of them I will miss a lot, a lot. (Now it feels like the beginning of the end.)

I have a feeling that there are many things he wants to talk to me about. But we just stand there, looking at each other, being diplomatic, conversing about trivial things - and it's been a while since the depth of our conversation matched the depth of our relationship and understanding. Sometimes I want him to speak, but then I realize that I am not speaking myself. Why don't we both understand that we only have 5 weeks left, and it will be a long time until we see each other again?

Everything can be explained with two cows. This is the two cows version of me: I have two cows. It doesn't really matter, but yes, I have to cows.

What's wrong? No, seriously, what's wrong? Nothing is wrong. Sure.

The expropriation of individual expectations. The repercussion of caring. The volatility of the minds. A discrepancy between me and those of my type.

Soy sauce and green tea. Cold water and tattered origami boats. Drum sticks and an eye to the dark. A nothingness that lasts to infinity.

Chin up and stride, kid.

Here, there and everywhere - my idealistic vision of my life

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 07:04:00 EDT

When I woke up at 8, I felt a strong (and strange) need to check my emails immediately - not sure whether it had something to do with the fact that there had been a power cut since early morning. But when the power came back again, this was what I'd received since around midnight:

From my father, about my gap year

From thay Kenny (Stanford), in reply to my email about my admission to MIT weeks ago

From Raphaela, my German cousin, about the same thing (and some other things as well)

From a current sophomore at MIT

Thay Kenny and Raphaela are my two occasional contacts who write in a seasonly basis (which means every three months or a little bit less). So, after the initial delight of hearing from them, I was left with some amounts of things to read. Then I had to think about what I'd read and its corollaries.

It was funny how thay Kenny and Raphaela's stories and suggestions of what I could be doing during the gap year came at the same time as my father's reminding me of how my whole extended family really disapproves of the quot;taking a break from schoolquot; idea. Maybe I'm just too young to understand - because although I know they're referring to a family member's real experience, I find it really hard to accept their reasoning that something, such as international conflicts or terrorism, might happen in that one year and prevent me from keeping this opportunity. But by the same token, as they have kept on reminding me of how MIT's prestige will help when I apply for a job in the future, or that I must carefully choose a major that will be trendy and lead to a well-paid job... I know that there are also certain things that they do not understand. Despite having been abroad for many years, my grandmother's mindset is still very typical Vietnamese when it comes to education; and my mother is even thinking that here in Costa Rica I'm living the same life, exactly the same way as in Vietnam ( she didn't want me to go abroad in the first place). I totally understand that, but don't want to see myself compromising. Actually, I have given a lot of reasons why I wanted to take a gap year, but they didn't even bother to refute - they just simply ignored - except for their insisting that quot;We understand that in your gap year you can study and prepare for the maths and sciences that you will be doing and thus gain a higher grade, but....quot;. Practical much?

Maybe I am being too idealistic, maybe I still have no idea of how harsh life can be without money and status, maybe I'm too immature when thinking that I can stride in life without pragmatic concerns - you can call me all that and still I won't change my way of thinking, at least for now. But, isn't it because I do understand the importance of the coming four year, that I want to take a gap year? So that I can begin my first day at MIT with a clear mind and some ideas of where I am, and where I want to be, in life?

But when my father said that quot;If you want to travel during that one year, it may be costly for usquot;, I knew that I was not in the position to make the decision. And I felt like it was a crime to hesitate, to contemplate, to doubt, to differ, to desire, to be idealistic, to object.

I thought about what I'd like to do if I could have one year off.

I would work on my environmental project (The GH project), which I'm truly inspired about and have been planning for months but didn't have time to carry out. As I saw those of various of my friends left the papers and became real, I couldn't help thinking that I was a liar falling behind and didn't really do anything good. Not that I took it as a competition.

I would read. As I watched the list of quot;books I'd like to readquot; becomes longer without getting any shorter through months and months, I felt like I couldn't even keep my promises to myself. I would re-read The catcher in the Rye and The God of Small Things. I would finish Atlas Shrugged, Crime and Punishment, Great Expectations. I would start reading The fountainhead, Waiting for Godot, Beloved, Norwegian Woods.

I would come back to my province's Service of Sciences and Technology's chemistry lab to finish my agriculture research. Unfinished research is a waste of public money and individual's time.

I would love to volunteer in the army. Every time I told my friends to stop their unfair judgment on people doing their military service, they shut me up with the question quot;What do you know about them?quot; I want to be a living proof of what I say, and shift the Vietnamese society's prejudice against this.

I would play and write music as a hard-core.

I would apply for a job for the first time, and would earn my first bills. I did make some money in the past as a freelance journalist, but it's really hard to think of that as a job. It's really hard to say quot;it's workquot; when you're doing something you enjoy.

I would sit down every afternoon, and sketch, and paint, as I have wanted to do.

I would plant a tree.

I would continue to learn Spanish, French, and Japanese.

I would learn to cook, to swim, to dance, to fix electronic things, to bake cakes, to knit, to photograph, to play the zither better. I would drift. I would just stroll, and if I came across somewhere or someone that needed me, I would pause.

And I would write.

And then, hopefully I would be ready for higher education.

All that I had been excited about for the whole year would then come to me. I would step on the soil of the place that I've been wanted to be for years, being even more eager for all the opportunities awaiting. I would be in Mission 2013, I would enjoy my staying in iHouse or MacGregor, I would try to join a UROP, I would take all that physical education classes and private music lessons. And play in bands/ ensembles/ orchestras if I was good enough. And be happy. And think about what I want to do afterwards.

I want to continue doing research, however well-paid (or poorly-paid) it will be.

I want to be an non-professional musician.

I will learn to drive, but I won't have a car. I will cycle, or walk, or use public transportation to get to everywhere I want.

Maybe I will have a cat. I will write to people about how my cat's been doing.

Can be really contradicting with the idea about money, but I want to travel - with aims and without aims. I want to spend some years away from the cities and civilization. I want to talk to people sitting on the shores or sailing at sea.

I will remain unknown (maybe).I will drift. I will just stroll, and if I come across somewhere or someone that needs me, I will pause.

And I will write.

Ciudad Colon, una vez mas

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:03:00 EDT

Sitting at my dark little space, I look at people shouting in the pool, silhouettes twisting on the walls of the disco-light-lit room, and listen to the commotion - as if protected inside a vulnerable, invisible bubble. It's a strange feeling to witness the group (which I was told to be a part of) from a distance and be able to silently name their false sense of cohesion. An ant scurries on my left foot. Just five minutes ago, I also scurried away from the rows of white tables sandwiched between the heat of bodies swinging and the coldness of water in this windy night.

Ken and Helen share not only this corner with me, but also the intention to seek a space for some unrelated thoughts. Every word of their conversation about the situation in Zimbabwe comes and stays in my mind, despite my preference not to listen to or care about it. Sometimes I too question the reasons of my indifference for politics; and quot;because I know that I won't be able to do anything about itquot; - what I have been telling people - appears to be not much more than an excuse, although there is a long story behind it. In fact, I have come to understand that I am not capable of caring about everything; and choices have been unconsciously made. Thoughts are therefore kept, and words are muted at the tip of the tongue.

Real as everything before my eyes is, I feel no affinity with it and perceive no difference in emotions between seeing this and watching the party scenes in quot;white people's moviesquot; that my childhood friends back in my hometown always looked up to and dreamed about. quot;Unrealquot; is the right word. But of course, nothing happening in this play yard is truly real.

The more I look at it, the more I'm sure that I don't belong there.

The left-overs

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:03:00 EDT

Every time I witness someone standing in front of the cafeteria, pouring left-overs from their plates into the gray plastic bins, I shiver. The sound of dry rice, meat bones, potatoes, and various other things falling onto each other remains in my mind as I'm there, still, looking at the medley of food and the hollow spot where stood my schoolmate just some seconds ago.

The food thrown away is no different from the food lying on my plate when I walk out of the queue with the familiar blue dining tray in my hands, and sit down at a table.

On my left, Tendai buries himself in a Stephen King's book, put on top of the tattered Bible he always carries. His right hand is still clutching the folks - not for the sake of eating, but to avoid the tedious idleness. quot;Hi, Cat.quot; He lifts his eyes off the small-printed letters, lets his hand free from the silverware and reaches for some water.

Robert, sitting opposite, stirs the rice nonchalantly while Youkey, with her vegetarian portion, settles herself on my right side and starts praying, with her eyes close.

quot;How can you eat that?quot; Asks Robert smilingly.

quot;Huh?quot;

quot;Rice with nothing else. That's like... I don't know, maybe I can try to do that with Asian rice, but not with this kind of rice. It's horrible.quot;

quot;Well, at least it's still something to eat.quot;

quot;Not for human. No human can eat this kind of shit.quot; Tendai suddenly decides to join the conversation.

quot;Humanness isn't defined by what you eat, you know?quot;

quot;But there are still certain things that cannot be associated with being human, and eating this is one.quot; He raises his left hand and makes a gesture - just to quickly lowers it back to flip through the pages, trying to get back to where he was before. But the moves are too sudden that the book loses its balance and falls off the Bible's top.

I go on with the folks and knives, until what's left in front of me is an empty plate. But sitting there, in the yellow-light-lit room, I just cannot understand it. I can't understand how he can close his eyes, cross his fingers, thank God for the food given to him - and then throw it away right in the next moment.

I can never understand that.

Friday amp; half way through mocks

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:03:00 EST

Darkness and this kind of music go well together.

Sometimes I wonder what people in the school do at night. Some study. Some work. Some go out. Some gather and socialize. Some party. Some just do nothing and think. Some sleep. Some weep.

I write.

quot;Have you ever thought about being a writer?quot; More than one person have asked me so. quot;No,quot; I always answered without hesitation, quot;writing and music are two things that I never want to be professional in. I enjoy them, and thus I don't want them to have anything to do with work or money.quot;

quot;I thought you always said you'd like to work with things you're enthusiastic about?quot; - to that they always said. And they were right - it will be such a painful tedium if you have to commit your life to something you dislike. But that's a totally different kind of enjoyment. Sometimes they merge together, sometimes they need to be distinguished.

quot;So what do you want to be?quot; is another classic question. quot;I don't knowquot; has been its classic answer. Many of my friends back home, who had spent hours searching the internet for predictions of future trendy and well-paid careers before filling out their university examination forms, often called my lack of self-knowledge immaturity. I disagreed.

quot;I just want to be a human.quot;

quot;Don't be silly,quot; said my best friend once, quot;it's high time you think seriously about your career, so that you don't make any stupid choice.quot;

quot;What are the stupid choices?quot; I asked her. quot;And what's wrong with wanting to be a human? It's already the most difficult thing to be. As long as I can be one, it doesn't really matter if I am something else.quot;

I heard a lullaby echoing in my head. She'd been lost; but despite my attempts to seek for her melodies, she didn't want to find her way home. She just stayed there, haunting me, filling my mind with contemplations - to the point of unhealthy depression. Who am I?

I had been asking everyone about their identities, but never found an answer for myself. There may be a good reason for that - and that reason can be expressed in different ways, depending on how you view it. I may not be who I am yet; or, I am just a temporary state, not a concept to be defined.

In either way, just like everything else, I change from day to day, time to time. And once in a while, we do something wrong without even knowing it... and we always get something out of that. Like me, like today.

(i did not want it to happen i have no reason to i turned round but i saw nobody and heard my name no more so i thought that it was just me and went on walking i honestly did not see her waving because I was overwhelmed because I was not very conscious whatever reason or excuse it might be but i swear i did not see her)

I just learned that: there's a difference between knowing what the right things are, and actually doing them. In that same logic, wanting to be responsible is one thing, and actually being responsible is another.

quot;It's just not like how you usually are.quot; QQ said to me - and I took it as an implied compliment. He might have overestimated me, or he might have gotten a somewhat inaccurate impression of me through our talk about general responsibility the other day. And me too, maybe I also overestimated myself. I thought I knew what responsibility was and tried to be responsible. But did I?

I always strolled about our campus, with my notes on my hand, thinking that it would have been such a waste of time to be at the ongoing residence meeting - since I would do nothing and gain nothing. But wasn't it my responsibility, as a resident, to be there?

I had been always unwilling to stop my work and go to check-ins, since there would be basically no punishment. But the staffs, some of which had to stay late at school, fulfilled their job of being there and checking people in. Then wasn't it my responsibility to leave my room, walk a few steps, and show myself up?

Wasn't it my responsibility to be on time on every commitment I had?

Wasn't it my responsibility to let she know that I couldn't get the CDs, so that she could plan accordingly?

Wasn't it my responsibility to email him and let he know that I was alright, so that he wouldn't worry?

... and numerous different things that aren't labeled quot;responsibilityquot;, but are indeed so. Not a matter of rule-abiding or being kind.

A kid I have been.

And just then, I realized that there existed a gap between quot;them allquot; and me. I did enjoy quality time with people. I liked many of them. But, should I do, who would I cry to, on this campus? No one.

Why is that?

Stupid question.

But I like it this way, I like the core of me and what I want to become. I know, I can't be an insider - not that I want to.

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
Oh it's getting hard to be someone but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me.

Ciudad Colon

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:02:00 EST

Sounds of metal scratching on the ground interrupted our conversation. We stopped talking abruptly and turned to look at an old man wearing an apron, raking leaves and litter just a few steps away. quot;He's a characterquot;, said Marcos.

The old man quickly moved from the pavement to the street, where tight rows of cars and their headlights could not prevent him from doing his job. His gray hair curved around his long, wrinkle face, on which permanent traits of time can be seen and felt. Nevertheless, every of his movements differed from what you thought you would observe from a silent street cleaner: he strode, his back stayed straight, his raking appeared appealingly decisive, and the way he just stepped in the line of coming cars, to reach for more litter, was full of indifference and confidence - as though it was something trivial.

quot;We see him here very often. He just stays around and helps people. Sometimes he cleans the street, like this. But if you need help, just come and ask him and he'll be truly happy to help you.quot; Explained Marcos, putting aside our ongoing conversation about UPeace.

quot;Isn't he a street cleaner?quot;

quot;No,no. He just does it because he wants to.quot;

quot;And not that he's homeless, either.quot; He went on. quot;I often see him in early mornings, just some blocks away from here. He always wears clean clothes, brushed hair, holding roses...quot;

Our eyes followed his thin and tall figure, worming its way through the crowd of cars and smoke. quot;Does he live in the area?quot;

quot;Yeah. We just don't know exactly where.quot;

quot;We should talk to him, you know.quot;

quot;Oh, some did. He's kind of knowledgeable too, especially about capitals. If you tell him where you are from, he'll tell you what your country's capital is. Me, I have no idea what the capital of Vietnam is, but I know he does.quot;

We looked again at the rows of red and yellow lights, tenfolds more crowded than usual because of an ongoing festival. quot;Where is he?quot;

The old man and his rake had disappeared somewhere in the commotion of engines and smoke.

quot;It's really hard for UPeace students to really make a change if they just stay for 1 year, I guess?quot; I asked as we wandered back to where we were before his appearance. quot;Every year, the new generation comes; and it takes time for them to rediscover the problem and to start everything over again. There's no passing on or continuation, and that way, it's hard to make any progress.quot;

quot;I agree. And people have different levels of interest too. There's a professor who is really devoted to UPeace and making it better. But most of the people just want to live with it, because after one year, all this thing won't matter for them. And after all, this is not what they have expected. You don't really gain more than you could have - if yes, maybe it's just the reputation of United Nations.quot;

quot;It's just a brand name, nothing more than that... or is it?quot;

quot;Nothing more than that. And we really had to question our education and knowledge when, in model UN, UWC students outdid all of us. And I mean, common, we are master students, and you are high school kids. Some of us even worked for the UN. But we weren't as good.quot;

quot;Well,quot; I raised my hand and felt the wind sweeping through its fingers, quot; things are the same everywhere, UWC has its own issues too. There are vision and reality, and there's the gap between them. Outsiders only see the ideal vision; insiders, on the other hand, live in reality. If you expect no gap at all, then you will surely be disappointed. The question is actually : what will you do about it? In that aspect, we may be in a more advantage situation than you are, since our classes are 2 years.quot;

The image of the silent raking old man flashed back in my mind. quot;Things are the same everywherequot;, they really are. Not just UPeace or UWC students' and their schools, but individuals beliefs, like mine, were also under the same principles. There's vision of what we would like things to be - and believe that they would be one day - and there's reality. It always seemed to me that quot;the evilquot; - as Tendai liked to name it - had dominated the good. But once in a while, I encountered people like this old man, or the woman who got off the bus long before her destination just to show me the way here - and I was again assured that I was not believing for nothing.

Project week in Pancuare

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:02:00 EST

We were back in the city when it started getting dark.

From inside the taxi, we looked around. People are everywhere, walking along the cemented pavements, beside tall and illuminated buildings. Feeling suffocated, I asked for the windows to be opened on both sides. The cold air slipped in, bringing along with it the feelings of the commotion outside. Neon lit signs flashed through the mirror in the upper right corner of the taxi, and that reminded me of how long it had been since I last seen a reflection of myself.

The driver played a 50 cents CD, and wanting to or not, we were all drawn into the small LCD screen. My foot started tapping with the beats, and my hand with the bass drum patterns. I knew, one week was not something long enough for habits to be lost and feelings to dry out. But I was very well aware that I hadn't done this for a while - whereas before, I had listened to and played music every single day.

But maybe not 50 cents.

Sandwiched between my friends, listening to the music reluctantly, I shortly realized that the beats were quite exciting - overall, not that bad musically. But I couldn't like the lyrics, the images from the videos, and the materialistic lifestyle they constructed. Big houses and swimming pools. Cars and naked women. quot;You are just as cheap as you name yourselfquot; - I thought. I knew that I shouldn't, and should just keep in mind that I was in no position to judge his lifestyle. But with all of this, he was leading a large portion of teenagers into false values, and showing their (somewhat egoistic) ambitions the wrong way of expressing and achieving them. I called it a crime. It affected not only a few people but a whole generation of mankind. A crime upon societies.

I found it hard to believe that just some hours ago, at a place just hundreds kilometers away, I had been in a totally different world. Not necessarily more respectable or desirable, just different. Better in some ways. Worse in some others.

It had been really good to be away for one week.

--------------------- In retrospect: Monday 4th, Feb ----------------------------

Sitting on the fishing boat, gazing at the water waving up and down, I recalled something back in elementary school. Once we were told to describe the sea, or a river; and most of us - after reading sample books or attending extra classes - wrote that it had shone with crystal sparks, waving as soft and graceful as a big velvet cloth. Despite the absolute domination of these extra classes and the obvious disadvantages of not attending them, I never took any during all my years in Vietnamese schools (I was too lazy to, perhaps, and felt satisfied with my own studying at home). As a matter of fact, I had never understood that comparison of the sea and the velvet cloth - until now, when I could observed the water surface moving rhythmically and harmonically as our boat passed. And it did shine under the intense tropical sun/heat.

At night, when looking up, we could all see the starry sky. Never before had I seen a night sky that clear and stars that bright, or had I felt a sense of freedom like tonight. Lying on the sand, listening to the peaceful sounds of the waving ocean, I thought about our astrophysics experiment some weeks ago - which didn't really succeed due to the clouds and the lights. I knew Ylva would love to see this sky, the constellations, and how they clearly move across.

Or just to experience the feeling of lying underneath such a sky, thinking that we were really a part of the universe.

--------------------- In retrospect: Tuesday 5th, Feb ----------------------------

I loved the smell inside the Vivero: the watery soil, the earthly scents, the green aroma of trees. And I hated sunblock, which I used for the first time in the morning - and would never again. I wouldn't mind sunburns, being no stranger to it. However, I realized that despite having been living in a coastal town, I understood nothing about the sea.

To my (unreasonable) surprise, this place resembled Vietnamese rural areas a lot. Not living directly there, but had experienced much of it, I could give an accurate comparison. The houses looked perfectly the same as those back in my country, with simple non-aesthetic wooden walls and sand-cemented gray floor. In the late afternoon, after finishing working, I helped with building the quot;roomquot; (if you want to call it so) beside the kitchen ( with charcoal stoves - which I had not seen for many years). The process was pretty much familiar to me: we put sand with cements and water, mixing them in some ways, and Bomba - waiting inside - would use that mixture to cover the floor. I guessed once you had done a lot of it, work would become boring. But for Cesar, Paula and me - who was helping the boy (Gregorio) - we had fun doing it. Our amateur-ness might actually amused him. In the end, my clothes was full of gray stains, incredibly like those of those masons back home. Not that I complain, though.

There were a lot of coconuts around ( Robert had become obsessed with chopping them). We all drank the juice inside the coconut shell, and scraped the edible part with one piece of cut coconut skin. That reminded me of the very old days, when in my eyes, my grandfather's vineyard had still been fabulous and prosperous. Once in while, when my sister and I came, he would climb up a tall coconut tree nearby, let us drink the juice also this way and then give us a spoon. There was a small river just next to it as well.

Looking at the piece of coconut skin in my cement stained hand, I guessed that my standards of cleanness had changed a lot.

After dinner, some of us sat down for some music - that means we sat down and sing. Sometimes I played the harmonica, which had been bought from school. Easily portable. Musically good. Not even a bit less festive.

I would buy a chromatic one as soon as I had chance.

Later in the evening, Meyling and I sat on the beach again, with Ariel and Rasty (the dog) about 30m away. The dogs' eyes scarily shone in the dark. Perhaps the dark sea was supposed to be scary as well - Meyling said it was indeed. When she was smaller, she lived just right next to the sea, and her parents always told her tales about some monsters from out there, who would abduct and carry her into the sea at night if she didn't behave. I suddenly recalled once when darkness could make me hide deep under my blanket on my bed, with my eyes closed. It had been a while. From whenever, I had developed a liking for the dark and almost taken it for granted that no one at my age would be afraid of it anymore. But I guessed I was wrong.

I really loved the sound of the ocean. I could sit still on the sand like this for hours, just to listen to it and smell the saltiness. Underneath the starry sky.

--------------------- In retrospect: Wednesday 6th, Feb ----------------------------

We found a swing next to the Vivero, which was actually a trunk hanged on a branch by some kind of firm white cloth, hovered on the lake. Being the first one to try it, I had a slightly thought that it hadn't been firm enough and would fall down into the water. But no such thing happened, and in reward, the feeling of swinging on the water surface was amazing. Despite my yelling and screaming, Ariel pushed me so hard that the swing was almost horizontal. It unbelievably brought a lot of fun - you could never thought it would.

In the afternoon, I borrowed the cook's bicycle and rode south, along the road. This place was a piece of land, lying between the sea and the river (water was taken underground), and only one road ran through it - you couldn't be lost. After about 3 or 4 km, I ran into a space where they kept turtle's eggs. Sand covered the way there, preventing me from going cycling further. A small boy of about 7-8 years old stood timidly until I started the conversation. His name was Andrey.

Andrey accompanied me back the way I came, even showed me the way along the beach to avoid the aggressive dogs at La Tortuga Feliz. We ran into an old man whom I met at our place two days ago, when we were learning about the turtles. He spoke acceptable English and Dutch, and introduced himself as Koki. Somehow, I decided to go with them back to Andrey's house, where I met some other local guides, including Miguel, who also presented at our place on the same day as Koki did. They all remembered me. I did not fully understand them, because of my limited Spanish, but to that they were incredibly friendly and warm. Andrey - the little boy - signaled me to the back of the house where there were some pigs kept in almost open space. He told me to touch one. He must have thought that I had hardly seen them before and thus talked so excitedly. As I had said, this place didn't have that many differences from where I once used to be; but I didn't know whether I should tell him that. I appreciated his eagerness and friendliness so much, and I was not sure if I should let him keep his imagination of the world outside his or just say as I would about me.

quot;Puedes leer?quot; (Can you read?). He shook his head.

I wrote his name on the sand. quot;Te escribiré despues que llegamos a nuestro colegio. Tienes que me responder, de acuerdo?quot; (I'll write to you once we're back in the college. You have to reply to me, agree?)

quot;Si.quot; (Yes)

quot;Pero tú mismo escribes. Aprenderás, si?quot; (But you yourself write. You'll learn, won't you?)

I hoped he remembered.

Leaving Miguel's place, I went with Koki to his quot;housequot;. It lay next to the river, on one of the coconut farm lands, a large number of which were his (hence the name Koki). Daniel, an Italian computer programmer who lived in the same place with us (at Roberto Solado's) was also there. I got a Papi (orange coconut).

Koki was a short, somewhat fat, very dark skinned, long gray haired, old man. When younger (many many years ago), he worked on a ship which delivered exported coconuts to different countries. For that he went to The Philippines many times, from where the coming coconuts were moved to other countries around, including Vietnam. I was not sure about this though... (do we really need to import coconut in Vietnam...? )

We talked a little bit, about Italy, Asia/ Vietnam, and things in this place. (As always, food set up surprise and interesting discussion.) Koki said that although we were next to the sea, the underground and river water was sweet. Once, however, in 1991, the water became salty because of an earthquake which caused a quot;smallquot; tsunami. And it had remained like that for the next 5 years. During that time, all the used waters had been taken from coconuts - most of the time when the coconuts were young and the water had not yet to become sweet.

In the evening, a group of us walked on the beach (in the radius of 2km) to look for turtles and eggs, but didn't see any. Since we must not scare the turtles, no flashlights were allowed on. It took a while to get use to the darkness, but after being able distinguish objects and trunks from the sand, I somehow found walking like that therapeutic. The sounds of the waves were amplified as the tide went up (sometimes there were hardly any space for walking). It was like being in another world.

Sands fell off into piles when i threw my shoes down the bathroom floor. Who knew, perhaps I loved being dirty.

--------------------- In retrospect: Thursday 7th, Feb ----------------------------

Not until the afternoon, when I had asked about the date did we (Yiran, Robert and I) suddenly remembered that it was Lunar New Year today.

Every lunch, I felt like a vegetarian. Rice, beans, potatoes - not that I complained, though. At school I almost never ate beans and potatoes, and I just didn't know that they could be as good.

After working in the morning, I joined Daniel in polishing the bamboo tubes, which later would be used as mangers for the chickens. Then we (Daniel and I) wanted to go fishing, but the boat's motor just decided not to work (normally it did). We managed to go about 30m before it stopped - after which we had to row back. Bomba then went back to building the quot;roomquot; beside the kitchen - now in the process of hammering pieces of wood to form walls. I asked him to saw another bamboo tube, chopped into two, and started polishing them. That kept me busy until dinner, after dinner, when lying on the beach with Ariel (but it was so cloudy today that stars couldn't be seen), and during the whole evening.

The other groups wasn't lucky with the patron either.

--------------------- In retrospect: Friday 8th, Feb ----------------------------

At first, Bomba seemed to be the unfriendly kind of man. He was pretty old too, but, unlike Koki, tall, very short haired. Really dark skinned. His face always looked like he was angry about something. I couldn't understand all he said, again because of Spanish, but through his words he appeared to me much warmer and more caring than he seemed to be.

He fished in the river, and at sea as well when the waves became less vigorous. Everyday, he walked along the beach for four hours, until 12, for the turtles, then went to sleep and rose at 4. Four hours sleeping everyday. We would get used to it for a while, he said.

This morning, Ariel woke Meyling and me up early for the sun rise. But the weather didn't seem to support us. It had been raining during the night, and the sand was wet. Dark clouds loomed at the horizon, gray and blurry. I recalled the article about the fishermen at Da Nang who had stayed with the ocean forever, leaving their wives and kids. Sea, sea. Out there, are you taking more lives and leaving more in vain?

I carried Robert's professional camera around, taking pictures of things in the early morning. The dews on the leaves. The spider webs. The illuminating clouds. The glittering sand.

A family of monkeys jumped from branches to branches.

The rest of the morning, I continued polishing and painting the bamboo half-tubes. One for Daniel, one for Koki, one for Bomba. Bomba seemed to be indifferent as always when I gave it to him, but as he saw my drawing of the fisherman sitting on a board on a river, he smiled. I always thought that he should smile much more, he looked really nice when he did.

Smell of water hovered around the air. And so we left.

On the way, sitting at the pizza stand, I heard Cesar saying that we had to pay $15 per day per person to be there. At first it seemed to be ridiculous - you shouldn't pay for volunteering. But on second thought, I realized that it was just reasonable. We used up water, electricity, and food, during our staying there. That was not to say Roberto had to pick us up and see us off; and being where they were, the costs of delivering rice and beans, and other necessities there were surely significant. After all, that place was not somewhere you stayed just because you wanted to earn a living, but because you cared about nature, the conservation, the turtles, and whatever else you could name.

With all that thoughts, I finally arrived in the city again.

Post before project week : Reasons and goals/ Graham Guest and blues piano/ Pancuare

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:02:00 EST

Wednesday, when I stepped into English class, Melody was talking to the early-comers about one of her previous school, a Christian school in Hongkong. I'm not sure how the story was brought about, but she mentioned a question that some teachers back there were probably asked: so they were there because they cared about education and wanted to dedicate their little service (to God or not). Then why were they teaching all rich kids and receiving really high salary for it?

And there was a response from one of the teachers, who spent many years in India. She (that teacher) said she had loved, and enjoyed, teaching all the poor Indian girls, seeing them growing up and telling them about all the unjust that Indian society had imposed on them because of their gender. And most important, she had taught them to fight against it, to strive for a better future. Maybe these girl would grown up and lived well in the society, would have a good career, a good family. A good life. She had taught them to change their own lives.

But there in that school, she got to teach and have impact on the kids that would change the world. These kids had not only the power to change their own lives, but to change the world.

The idea, I think, is that both poorness and richness shouldn't be prejudices, neither do we have to turn our backs against the so-called corrupted and extend our hands to the oppressed to show that our care. It's our goals that matter, and we should act accordingly. We want to make changes in a large scale, we work with these powerful people. These rich and educated kids, they will grow up to be doctors, lawyers, human right activists... They will grow up with power in their hands. And one of these things which we can do is to tell them what to do with that power - to lead them into the right way.

It's the same idea as that which I have thought of quite long ago, after Model United Nations: to look down on something because and to go away from it means that we can no longer make any impact on it. Say, this is a system, or an organization. Despite of its ideal vision, it's not doing anything. It's corrupted. But actually, when thinking of it, that's exactly the reason why we should be there.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday night, and I've just come back from the Blues Concert - hosted inside my school, given by Graham Guest (blues pianist), Ken's friend from Alberta. It was great (not to say that this was the first time I'd got to see Ken's real performances with his saxophone). Graham Guest was an amazing pianist - he looked like a musician, and performed like a real great musician (if not to mention the fact that he really is one). But after great moments, people think. So did I. And I felt scared.

I talked to Guest, but it didn't go anywhere beyond introduction and compliments. Not that I didn't want to talk - just didn't know what to say. Or, I had so much to say that I didn't know where to begin. As the concert ended, it started to get overwhelming. I suddenly became so unsure of what I was doing, and doubted whether one day I would be somewhere close to be as good.

Carey talked to me about his son, who was also a musician (a bassist I think). Similarly, one day, after watching someone's performance, he was really down. He thought that all he had been doing was pointless, and then he couldn't play music for a while. He just couldn't. But eventually things came back to normal. I guessed he just had forget all and go for it, or just live with it.

It's like, well, a big fish in a small pond who suddenly gets lost to the sea and becomes a small fish in a big pond.

I don't think I'm good enough to suddenly not be able to play something - but yeah, I feel kind of depressed. Excited, but depressed as well. And overwhelmed. It's a hard feeling to describe.

We'll see.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Next week from Monday to Saturday, I'll go for project week at Pancuare - one of these famous parks all around Costa Rica, a (so-called) jungle, a nice place not that far from the beach. Unlike last year in Monte Verde, which was a rain forest, Pancuare is dry and much warmer. There will be no electricity, and this time here in Costa Rica, it often gets dark at half past 6. The plan is that we will work on the jungle during the day (what exactly is yet to be known), and spend early mornings (at 3 or 4) walking around the beach and help the turtles. I can't be more excited to be away from school and all the burly-hurly - or any trait of civilization, as a matter of fact - and do something different.

Not that I don't like school, though. I love being busy or being an all-nighter. However, sometimes changes are just needed.

The reason (Hoobastank)

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:01:00 EST

One nice Saturday afternoon, while rehearsing for Valentine Day concert, we saw Ken dropping in to give us advice and say that we need a bass player. And then came David, ready to improvise! =)

The song is The Reason by Hoobastank. Filmed by camera... although the bass guitar and bass drum are not really audible in the video... they were very loud if listened directly.

Edgardo, Ksusha, David, Tanya and me.

If you want to hear Abed drunk and laughing, Tanya swearing, Ksusha singing, check out take 1 (audio)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTahNX24xfI

Little unknown, quo vadis?

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 04:01:00 EST

These few days passed with little internet access and almost no instant messages. I’d have to admit that life without them has been quite constructive; now I see the reason why my little boy refuses to IM and am thinking whether I can also quit it completely. Busy as I should be, I have had plenty of blank time and space to reflect on myself – and no, not the kind of reflection we had had in random Tuesday afternoons last semester lt;inside joke for my schoolmates.gt;

I have figured out what I would like to do.

It just suddenly became clear to me after I read an article (link) about some Vietnamese fishermen lost (and maybe dead) in the sea and how their families were those days, as Lunar New Year is approaching. Before that, I spent six continuous hours rehearsing, three with Los Escarabajos and three with Edgardo, Tanya, Bilsana, and Ksusha. Overall, I realized a couple of things:

Thing 1: Knowledge is useless unless we can do something useful with it. So to me, it no longer makes sense to watch The pianist or Grave of the fireflies just to shiver at the cruelty or to weep at the grief. It makes no sense for me to browse VNN everyday and read successive news about my countrymen’s listlessness, immorality, or pragmatism, just for the sake of entertainment and gossiping. What’s the point of continuing reading or knowing if I’m not doing anything about it? I’d rather be one of the “ignorant happy people” and live my ignorant life happily, or I’d rather forget about the shortness of life and do what I’ve learned says I should do. I don’t want to be anything in between – it’ hard to be. It hurts.

Thing 2: But sadly, ignorance can never be regained.

Thing 3: Music, mathematics, and physics may not help for this purpose, but are what I personally like. Considering my limited time, during the last whole year I had constantly searched for a compromise between this and my ideology of what should be done - and this had also been the reason for my answer quot;I don't knowquot; to the question of what I want to study in college.

Thing 4: lt;Someonegt;'s saying: The only way to quot;help the worldquot; is to do it one person at a time. There, with my harmonica and my backpack, I want to travel. It doesn't actually matter where I'm traveling too. It doesn't really make a difference. Wherever between the sky and the ground, wherever there are people, I want to be there.

Thing 5: I love the small town where I had grown up. No matter where I go, once in a while, and eventually, I will come back to it.

Reflection, opportunity cost, trade-offs, and the question of worthiness

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:01:00 EST

Looking at her on the white sheet bed, I contemplate about how most of us don't know how lucky and short-lasting we are.

The smell of sterilizer reminds me of the old days back in the late nineties in my seaside town, when I came to the local hospital every late morning after elementary school. I strolled around the buildings, looking for my mother; and after finding her in the Internist Department's faculty room, I would ask for 2,000 VND (20 US cents back then). The money would be used to buy some coke, contained in a plastic bag - afterward thrown into a trash bin, on top of potato skins and terribly rotten tomatoes.

Or sometimes, I would come to my father in the Pediatric Department, asking for the same thing.

Waiting for them to finish their work and take me home, I walked between corridors with large crowded rooms on both sides. Sounds of babies crying, grandmothers singing, nurses talking; smells of sterilizers and ammonia; both familiar and remote senses of indigenous and abject poverty - they all used to be a part of me. Everyday, I had the fear that both my mother and father would thought I would come home with the other, and leave me alone in the hospital, amid all those things.

Later on, after entering high school, I no longer came regularly. But the smell of sterilizers kept clinging to my daily life behind my father's clinic entrance door. I never found it unpleasing. It had never succeeded in drawing my attention.

That's why when stepping into this hospital in a far away land and realizing I had somehow noticed that familiar smell and its harshness, I felt my identity had been shifted.

quot;But, funny,quot; I thought. This is the first time I visit a hospital for a sick person.

She pants hardly, covering herself with the blanket. The heat from her forehead startles me as I touch it; and her words I don't really comprehend. On the table, the juice box and the soup remain untouched. The wheelchair catches my eyes - I'm not sure why it didn't earlier, and I turn to look at her legs, which has now turned blue and stiff. She can still move them, though.

Despite having two doctors as parents, my medical knowledge is just merely average. As far as I can understand, she lacks vitamins - as she has done in the past, a chronic thing I guess. She was supposed to carry on her medical treatment; however, being an Afghanistan growing up in the time of political turmoil, she moved to India, and her illness was given into the hand of God. Recently she never had breakfast, she didn't eat enough, didn't rest enough, but stressed enough. That might be the reason, they said.

Why, I never knew that the IB is this tiresome and stressful.

How did I pass my first UWC year? I don't think I put much emphasis on the academic aspect of it, although I know my former roommates and many others would say otherwise. On the other hand, I never saw this girl without her books and notes. Yet I had the physical strength to survive - not really satisfying, but surviving. She's still struggling, and is having much more difficulties than I did. Me, I had been granted a free pass through all of that. That's something I should have been thankful for.

Today is a long, eventful day.

Atalya decided to come back, and arrived here, after two months. So did Carl. And so did Yukiko, who used to have the thought of not coming back. They didn't really change - but, in fact, it has been only two months. Nothing should significant changes.

It surprised me that even someone like Atalya was afraid that she wouldn't get into any college.

quot;I'll go to the army.quot; Answered Atalya when I asked her what she would do next year, considering that her coming back is now too late for US applications, which she used to study a lot for. quot;Is it compulsory, or is it your choice?quot;

quot;Compulsory. For 2 years. No exception.quot;

Israel is the only country in which girls have to serve the army. quot;We are afraid, we have a reason. We are surrounded by enemies that want to attack us anytime.quot;

So I imagined what the Israel army would be. Teenagers and some 20s. But being in the army could be a worthy experience, I told her. But she didn't really think so. Would I still think so if I were in her shoes? Probably yes. I believe that life is not what given to you, but what you make out of it. quot;Then?quot; I asked.

quot;I'll apply to colleges.quot;

A two year break could be nice.

Carl also intended to take a gap year, for the same reason. I asked about his family and his future plans, and he, although never lied, was always optimistic. Unlike Atalya, he knew what he wanted to study. And with that, he believed he would find his way anywhere. His answer to my quot;who are you?quot; question was something I would never forget:

Who am I? Well, who am I... I will give you three options. First, I can give you an account of who I am in the common sense of the question, such as name, nationality, jobs. Or, I can give you the philosophical answer of what I think I am. Or third, I can give you the foundation through which I define who I am. Which one do you want?

And there was Peter, who got into U of Chicago through early action, and still applying to other schools. quot;My mom wants me to go a public school,quot; he said, quot;because public schools cost less, and she said she would give me only this amount of money.quot;

quot;Can't you ask for aid?quot;

quot;Well it's difficult, because it's not that I'm poor, my mom just doesn't want to give me more money for college. So when I told her that I got into U of Chicago, she was just like : oh that's nice! But work on your other apps!quot;

quot;I find it very strange that your mom wants you to go to a public school instead of private, though.quot;

quot;My mom doesn't know the difference. College is just college.quot;

And later in the day arrived Yukiko, who then gave me an envelop with documents and new year card from my family, which she got when visiting Vietnam just a few days ago. Her brother somehow decided to quit school in Malaysia and move to study in my country instead. Why, I'm not sure. But I always feel that for her family, every decision is easily adopted.

Not so long ago, she used to consider the option of not coming back.

These are all people whom, after this June, I won't know when I'll see again.

And did I say anything about what an eventful day it has been? The musical meeting. Yearbook meeting. Band rehearsal. First draft international trade economic commentary due at midnight. Spanish presentation outline.

Just like last year, my meetings keep overlapping each other. I feel guilty to people in the yearbook, because this year due to the musical rehearsal schedule, I haven't done anything or attended any of the meetings.

We had the first Los Escarabajos band rehearsal of this semester - again after four weeks of winter break and me playing music alone. It was amazing how we all played Let it be together - what we did over and over to the point of boredom before break started - and again excited by it. Something about dynamics and the musical sense without the vocal part, I think Ken said. He also told me that we would have a real Beatles event close to our graduation, with all the repertoires we played last year and about ten more songs. How I love it here, and how I love the Beatles. At the end, I skimmed the day - people, places, music, talks, what I've done - and the answer quot;I am mequot; just suddenly made sense to me. Who am I? I am me. It's not a kind of knowledge, it's a sense of identity.

Well, I don't know who I am, but even when I don't know, I am still me. Here is the place where I have lived for one and a half year; and now it feels like it again.

Actually, I came late. As I stepped inside the room, Quique grinned and Ken smiled, saying his usual quot;you're rehiredquot;. I realized that Ken, Quique, and Paula too, I would hardly see them again after June. Would it make a difference for them, when next year comes with rehearsals without me and Juani? That's if next year all three of them will still be here. It always those who stay that feels the difference more deeply. Those who leave usually don't - they are two occupied with numerous differences to feel one single one.

I rediscovered two things:

My time is valuable

And

My time is limited

When I am writing this long post, I could have done my 700 word economic commentary first draft. Yes it's tedious, it's agonizing, but it's short, it takes about two hours only each draft. I could have been writing my extra economic commentary too, and maybe I can get three more points to replace and perfect my already existing 17/20 point commentary.

Or I can be writing this, which I am actually doing. Or I can be here, looking after the girl. Or I can hang out with Yuki to the Japanese restaurant. Or I can stay longer at rehearsals. These are all what I'm already doing - I just have the option to do more of them.

These are the opportunity costs.

Let's talk about the long run. Japanese food doesn't matter, uncatchable hours of playing music doesn't matter, thousands words for myself doesn't matter, some nights away doesn't matter. My economics grade does matter.

But. Relationships matter. Memories matter. The experience matters. Being able to look back at myself matter. A sense of people and place matter. Or, simply put, as Ken used to say: imagine you're having dinner with the Queen. What will you talk about, your math portfolio, or the Beatles concert that you performed in?

No, some more points for a commentary - graded collectively with three others for 25% of one of my 6 IB subjects' grades - don't worth it. Some hours for a first draft of the same thing probably won't worth it either - considering that I always revise when writing and too lazy to carry out to the end a proper revision.

Talking about which, I already missed the deadline for emailing that first draft.

To be, or not to be

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:01:00 EST

This morning, I woke up and left my room in a rush. After three days suffering from insomnia, my mind started to work like the distortion function on an electric guitar amplification: I couldn't think really clearly, everything seemed to be somehow convoluted. When having just come back to my room at 3, I realized both of my hands' wrists had been aching. Well, quot;achingquot; is not really a precise word. It's the feeling of being numb and the strangeness of carrying mobile, inflexible joints. And I realized my body was sending me signals that I was under some kinds of mental stress, even though I myself didn't feel it mentally.

But why was that?

These recent days, my identity had been continuously questioned. First of all, I had to think of it indirectly through the process of writing personal statements. Now when looking back, everything seemed to be carried out naturally. I sat down, I thought, I chose something that I considered would represent me well, and I wrote. However, although now I don't remember it so well, the mental selection of appropriate topics taking place in my mind at that time was somewhat intense. It was so tiresome that now my memory of it is just a total black out.

I went through that somehow.

And then school rolls back in with TOK presentations coming first; and I soon found myself looking for a TOK topic. After tries and retries, I finally came up with something called perception of self. As abstract as the concept might sound, the main idea of the whole presentation is to look at how people answer the question quot;Who are you?quot; As a result, I have spent lots of time strolling around campus, nicely asking people out of the blue: Who are you? And soon enough, one of my interviewee interviewed me back: so who are you?

Who am I? Although I had been asking that question to everyone, I wasn't ready to answer it. quot;I don't know who I am.quot;

It kept haunting me until now.

Then my state of unsureness about my own identity came back to me during an English class, when we were reading the most famous 12 lines of Macbeth. At the moment, remembering the exact wording appears to be an impossible task for me, but I do remember two things:

Life is a shadow

And

Life is just a tale on the stage, told by an idiot

The idea scared me - it really did. It was the ephemeral feeling when realizing that I would never be seen after my death. No one would again see me as a person, all they would remember, if any, would be just my shadow - my life. My life becomes how I'm defined and reflected. It is a shadow that follows me every single day I'm alive.

And in that shadow, every day, like an idiot, I write my life down - like a play on a stage, seen as entertainment for a large audience who tap their feet and whistle when what must come finally comes.

Just a play. Just a quick spark in the universe. Doesn't matter.

And then, I was told by a total stranger that he was just an outcome of my imagination. I didn't know what she (assuming that the stranger was a quot;shequot;) meant, I didn't know where she got that thought from. But I realized that it struck me by a deeper level than she might have imagined it would.

Who am I?

I like nicknames, and I have different ones for different major parts of my life - and later on the nickname someone calls me will characterize our relationship and how we influence each other. But I can't pick a name, not any of them, to answer the question. I am not my name.

Who am I? A student. A Vietnamese. A girl. Daughter of my parents. Friend of my friends. Are these what I mean to me? Are these what I mean to the rest of the world?

And he, who is he? A Canadian. An MIT boy. Son of his parents. So? Are these what he means to me, and to the world?

And most important of all, does he really exist? How can he exist when I don't even know who he is?

As a result of the distance, my images of him are mostly due to imagination. Reality, whenever it chooses to come, instantly crashes it. Isn't it surreal? Sometimes. But how do I know if, eventually, he is a tangible concept and not just a shadow that I've happened to catch?

How do I know if my dear roommate, who says quot;good morningquot; to me every day, is real? How do I know if she's not another shadow in my head, another product of my vivid imagination?

How do I know if anything else, but me, exists? How do I even know if I myself exist? Maybe I don't. Maybe I'm just a nightmare in the middle of a sleep, and one day I will wake up realizing that none of this, including myself, is real. Maybe I'm just a tool, a fool, or a toy, or a model. Maybe I'm just a concept. Maybe I'm even none of them. I'm nothing at all.

Maybe everything's characteristic is imaginary. How can I justify that?

---------------

I'm supposed to stay productive on campus.

But this is too overwhelming for me. I need time and space to evaluate my existence.

I'm going to sleep, and hopefully after this weekend - with no studying, no internet - I'll get something.