Some notes for my readers

First of all, I want to apology for the lack of writing for a long period of time (from April 11 till May 31, excluded The lil' pride of the black sheep). Of course there are excuses such as “finals” or “I was focusing on my Vietnamese blog”, but they are not really true. When I heard that someone considered seniors’ blogging as Petra (new) tradition, I simply felt that I didn’t do what I was supposed to. Therefore, from now on, I’ll try my best to maintain my blog weekly, no matter if I’ll have no comment at all.

Secondly, I just recently added a comment at The blessed girl as a description, since there wasn’t any comment and I am afraid of some misunderstanding about the poem. So please read it sometime to see if it helps.

The next thing is about the website rssfwd.com. I didn’t see any email telling me that Kimberlee has her new post. However, I then found the message in the “spam” section of my mailbox. So if it is a case for anyone, you can open the email, choose “Not spam”, it will be moved to your inbox, and you are done.

And the last thing I want to say, thank you all a lot. (Yes, you also, even if this is the only glance you’d spare for my blog.) From now on, I’ll try to observe things more, in order to pull something out of my head to write and post. So if it’s lame, please laugh, but not too hard. I’ll cry.

That’s it. Thank you.

For the class of 2008 in Petra Academy

I sometimes take several days to finish a post, but this is the first time I had to rewrite the whole thing. Writing something for Petra graduates is extremely hard, but to do that after I have already been to the graduation and listened to great speeches with all the sufficient points included is so much harder. Therefore, I’ll make it short.

First of all, congratulation!!! You have been through all the hard time in Petra for such amounts of time and yet survive. Even though there is a whole gigantic burden thing for any Petra graduate to bear, you should be proud of yourselves – maybe just for a few seconds. I believe that appreciate your efforts significantly contribute to greater achievements in the future.

Since now you are all petrified, there will not be any difficulty can ever stop you. (Of course I am not talking about the super power to blow a building in one punch – you know what I mean.) However, there are plenty of things out there that are entitled “glorifying God” that no individual should do all of them at once. Therefore, correct choices are important and also efficient, especially when we first “enter” the vast world.

Despite what Mr. Koenen said in his speech, I think sentimentalism can be important. Please don’t forget the time you spent here in Petra. The morning prayer times were good; the lunch times were fun; and the times when the bell rang were splendid. Please don’t forget all the intense house competitions, the Marathons, field days, and many others. You did have some great time, didn’t you?

As always, when one tale is over, another one gets started. Can’t you see, your futures are waving, with colleges, new knowledge, private places, and parties? So, fly! The whole world is waiting! Do sacrifice yourselves and do “something” – as Mr. Koenen said, but don’t forget to have fun sometime. Enjoying life is also a way to glorify God, I suppose.

So yeah, congratulation again, my brothers and sisters. May God bless you all!

The lil' pride of the black sheep.

I don’t know if anyone would care, but we here in MO just had a cultural night yesterday. This year is the first time that we Vietnamese have five people (more than ever). So we really wanted to do something for our country. Using all what we had and doing all what we could, we finally got something to show off. Even thought it wasn’t really great, our traditional dance performance was something for me to be proud of. Hope you like it.

Chong Xa (Waking Up) by Quynh Huong.

Choreographer: me.

Dancers: Ngoc Tran, Chau Do, Phat Hoang, Cuong Duong, and me.

Special thanks to Ms. Ngoc.

The blessed girl

Once upon a time
A girl was blessed
She lived with her father
A carpenter
Near a forest.

Chopping wood was hard
Using it was even harder
Having a lot of stuff to do
He was a troubled father
And so,
The girl was left in the dark
Frequently
The man was gone to work
The house was lonely.
But the girl was blessed
She knew the food he would bring home
Nice meat and bread
Just like every other time
They would all taste great.

Sometimes, the father was drunk
He shouted at her
- as a random punk
The girl got beat up
By wine
And evil laughter
But why, no tear was dropped
All she could think of
Was the new white dress
For her previous birthday
And so, she smiled
For she was blessed.

Time passed by, and people just died
Families hooked up
And they all cried.
And yet, they did – the whole village
Moaning for their carpenter who fall
The lil’ girl was left
When her dad was called
A white towel was a gift
But nothing else at all…

O, he beat me up
The one who was feared
Everything…
…was my loneliness
While he shouted, with tears…

Now he’s gone, thank to God
A whole lot.

Wearing her square-holed white dress
Skipping
Smiling
And living
For she was
Blessed.

A "sufficient" text message

Hey, wassup? “Kool” for “I’m fine”; and “Oh, ok” for “Not really well”. I am heading home right now. Are we gonna do sth for 2nite? “Man, I love to, but I got some stuff to do. Sorry” for “Yes, there’s a party downtown”; or “Oh, I see. It’s ok, next time then” if you say “Nah”. So yeah, see you later. DK.

I pressed send and put my cell phone into my pocket. H. will reply soon, I supposed.

Dance till yesterday

There are different periods of time in each person’s life. Some of them can be so special that we can never forget. The memories in Montana are still here in my head, as always, as ever.

The weather in Missouri, after days freezing and windy, finally gets warmer. Here I am walking on a grass, cool wind blows by, and warm sunlight is spreading everywhere. Here I am, returning to Montana by memories…

O the smell of grass! I am here playing volleyball after school time! Here I am walking slowly by Holden in the park, and I am pulling the swing for Shadiah!

O the sound of gentleness! Here I am playing ultimate freebee, and watching everyone in the two houses fighting with water by the creek.

O the violet color of sunset! Here is Anastasia in front of me, telling me she likes my jacket, and then be gone forever…

O the wind! I am with my team performing our last break-dance show after many days practicing. And here is Kimberlee’s ice cream, nothing but sweet and cold, combining with the wind to push me collapse.

The sky is getting darker, and the air is getting colder. The party is ended, and people are saying goodbye to each other. Here comes Jungmin the Admirable, being hugged by all the girls.

There is anything but rain. Why, let it be raining, or the tears can’t be covered!

Standing alone in the grass with wind and looking at the sunset, the black sheep is home.

Saving faded ideas

There is something really interesting that I just recently realized: inspiration will be faded after awhile. Normally, all what I have been writing was something I was inspired by, no matter where or when. But recently, when my writing time was continuously invaded by many factors, I decided to write the topics down, and saved them for later. They were pretty good ideas, I believe, and I’d love to express and develop those ideas sometime.

But today, when I looked at the undone topics again, I was pretty surprised because I had no clue what to do with any of those! That was a very sad thing, as if I just had lost something interesting and worthy. So I came up with my conclusion that inspiration comes to us in a very short time, and if we are not going to do something with it, it will be gone surprisingly soon. However, the question is: why do we have to do that? It doesn’t hurt anything if you give up some random idea from nowhere, right?

Well, I believe that losing an idea does hurt anyone. Human history is thousands of years already, and therefore, countless of fantastic ideas have been made, yet people still have to make up new one in order to be successful. Since plagiarism is unaccepted and forbidden in many society, especially in the US., making up new idea becomes more and more uneasy, and consequently, new ideas become more and more valuable. To give up such a valuable thing would hurt anyone. When J. K. Rowling got some idea about a story of magic, she wrote it down immediately in a tissue, and so she got the famous Harry Potter. When Bill Gate got an idea of his own company, he gave up college in order to do that, and he became the wealthiest in the world. And when G. Washington saw the fact that his country was ill treated and needed to be independent, if he had just thought “nah, never mind!”, things would have changed extremely much.

Of course I don’t encourage anyone to give up college. (But if you believe it worth it, so go ahead. The Earth is waiting to be saved from monsters!) I also understand that there are bad ideas which would be nice if no one think about. However, as Mr. Koenen said, any idea has its own good side and bad side, and the purpose of this entry is not to argue about that. (Chelsea had to write 20 pages last year just to explain it).

When I am talking about “idea”, it includes important things such as belief or value. All of them need to be fulfilled and reinforced frequently, otherwise the will be faded. Going to church every Sunday, or studying Bible in classes, are indeed important, not only to “know God better” or whatever, but also to maintain and protect our Faith.

That’s all there is to it. It’s Valentines day today, besides loving people, let’s love our kool ideas also.

…

- Hey, I got an idea! We should wear helmets and armors at Petra!

- Well,…