The last post of this blog

My dearest readers,

I have stopped posting anything on this page for 15 months due to various reasons. However, it doesn't change the fact that I have had this blog for near three years now. This blog has always been so special to me, because this was where I had some of my most aspiring posts, some of my most wonderful readers, and some of my most wonderful blogging moments. For that, I am thankful.

Since I can't continue maintaining this page and, at the same time, don't want to abandon it, I have decided to combine this with my main blog. Now I have only one blog, in which you can find all the posts of this page. This is the new link:

http://dkgm.blogspot.com/

Please come visit my new blog and leave comments. This is good bye from The Popper of Petra. It was real fun. Thank you!

I'll be rich

For me, “to be rich or not to be rich” is not a question. I will be rich. And of course, I am talking about being financially rich, or, have a lot of income. The idea seems perfectly fine, so many people working every single seconds just for that. The only problem is, oddly enough, I am a Christian.

Mrs. Chapman (in case you don’t know her, she is a great person) has discussed with me about the matter of being rich. She says that we Christians don’t need to have a lot of money. What we need is being wealthy in love and some other noble characteristics. She talks about her husband, how he doesn’t have a lot of money and she has to eat a lot of beans, but she feels extremely happy living with him. I think it is great to be like that. Awesome story indeed.

Then last week, I went to the church and the pastor mentioned a verse. It’s Matt. 6:24,

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

So basically a person has to choose either God or money, and a Christian should be rich in his/her soul and mind instead. It’s funny how such a common sense like this is not so easy for me to accept. What I have in mind is different.

I think money is really useful. I don’t have to tell how many physical things we can buy with it (in case we have enough, yeah), but money can really help us to archive those other things also. For example, love. Money can’t buy love, true. But money helps maintain it. I have seen quite a number of couples have their loves given up because of financial issues. Money can’t buy life, sure, but it provides the access to be healthy, as one can pay to go to the gym and hire a professional trainer. Then can money do anything about faith?!! Tell you what, if I didn’t have enough money to go to Montana, then how could I know Christianity? How long would it take for some American missioners to get to see me and convince me somehow? I do not say that I believe in God because of money. But at the very least, I think money has helped me to get to Him faster.

I am sure there are many Christians think like this some time: “If I don’t have to work until (whatever) o’clock, I would go and help some people with something.” What I see here is that if people don’t have to work for money, they can work for other things, to be better Christians. But then, the lack of money keeps them from all of the opportunities and they get busy all day making money. I believe that if a person doesn’t have to worry about money, he/she can think and do something else. That’s it, I learn business and learn about money, not so that I will think about money all the time, but to be able to not worry about money and be able think about other things. This is my way to be free from money and to serve God wholeheartedly.

Besides, with a lot of income, I can provide a good life for myself and the people I love. For me, it is really sad if my wife wants to buy something so badly and I just can’t get it for her. It’s also sad if my son needs $300 to join the basketball team and I can’t afford it. And I feel bad every time I go to church, because I cannot put more than $10 into the plate as I am still a poor college student. I don’t think money can make people nicer, but it really can help nice people to do all the good deeds that he otherwise cannot.

So bare with me if you find this post offensive or inappropriate. Share your thoughts with me and I may learn something good from you. Once again it’s me, Anh the exchange student.

Twenty dollars

It’s easy to drop some money. A couple dollars is irrelevant to talk about. A huge amount of money is just unlikely. Therefore, if a person drops some money, it ought to be about twenty dollars.

The elders are so careful that they won’t drop money, and children shouldn’t carry that much money around. People have jobs to do will be too busy to drop twenty dollars, even if you ask them to do it sincerely. So if someone drops some money, he/she should be a college student, and college students tend to do unwise things on campus. So if there is someone ever drops some money, it’s really likely to be a college student drops twenty dollars on campus.

Either a twenty dollar-worth pile of coins or a twenty dollar bill, it’d be noticeable, so a college student will see it. Let’s say this person is a “he”, just because it’s shorter and therefore more convenient to type than “she”. So he sees this money, and because he is in college, he is clever enough to stop and think. Do you see now why I have to spend a whole paragraph to make sure that he is a college student? If he is anyone else – think about it – he’d be either too busy or too ignorant to deal with this situation, and I’d have no incentive to talk about such insignificant incident. Now what this college guy thinks and decides is the matter. It’s simple enough: to ignore, to take it and use it, or to return it.

If that college student ignores the money, he can be either too rich, or he doesn’t know how to read, or he doesn’t know what money is, which are extremely unlikely. He wouldn’t have to be a college student, would he? College students are really special people, mostly because they would stop in front of twenty dollars, instead of ignoring it and join the rest of the world.

Then what should he do with this money? Of course he should return it, and I want him to return it, or else this blog of mine would be more inappropriate than it already is. Since kindergarten we all learned to return dropped stuffs, because “stealing is bad”, and it’s bad indeed. One can even relate to the Commandment of not coveting neighbor’s twenty dollars. So this decent college guy, after awhile hesitating, decides to give up his desires of music and movies and turns the money in at a front desk of the nearest dorm. The front desk person happens to be another college student, because who else would want to do such a job? So this person goes through all the process of thinking and because this world is perfectly good, this college student finally chooses to put the money there, waiting for the owner to come and take it. How great is that?

Talking about the owner of this money, after about three weeks he will realize of the loss (it’s “he” again, sorry for my laziness). He then will think and know that it’s unlikely for his money to be untouched until now. But because people are nice so he still has his hope. Now when he wants to find it, he has no idea where to get to. Should he go and ask every single front desk in all of the buildings on campus? Because he is a college student, his rational thinking will undoubtedly tell him, “No!”

So what’s the result? The money will stay at a desk forever, untouched, forgotten forever. A romantic middle school girl will consider it as a proof for the goodness of human beings. A college student studying business like me will say it’s a waste of asset of society, especially in this economic depression. So should the guy who saw the money have really returned it?

What if we return back to the time he saw the money and have him change his decision. Now he is standing there, taking twenty dollars and then goes to a CD store. He chooses and buys the album that he has been staring at for weeks. He’ll feel so happy and lucky; he’ll work harder and study better: his life can be changed! The store manager will also be happy, and he will be nicer to his wife and children when he gets home at night. The author of the album will be happy even more, because his/her work is paid off and he/she knows that there are people out there appreciate his/her music. There can be many other people whose lives will be better but I’ll stop here because you already get the idea and I am bored.

If you really read this post until here, then I’m surprised and grateful. But really, if you see twenty dollars dropped somewhere on campus, then just keep it and use it. I already did a whole statistical, philosophical explanation for you to defend yourselves from being guilty. Remember though, twenty-one dollars is a different story, and I won’t talk about it.

Why would the Gospel kill people?

I have recently read Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which has proved to me the fact that African literature can be so wonderful. Indeed, among many world masterpieces contented in the 3052-page book I have been reading this semester for my English class, this African novel turns out to be my favorite.

It’d take me much more time to discuss about how the style of this story is much easy for me to follow, and still worth-reading because of its richness. For now I am talking about the story itself, what I think about these African tribe people, how the Europeans came and messed their life up.

This paragraph is a SPOILER, so if you really want to read this novel (which I highly recommended), skip to the next paragraph or to be even better, stop reading this post. Here it goes: The story is about a strong man, who is the greatest man of his village. He truly is a warrior, the man of action. Then some white men come, build up churches, then new government. These “civilized” people spread Christianity and conflicts take place, as far as they lock up the six leaders of the village, shave their head and stave them for days until they agree to pay money. Okonkwo – the main character, the hero – can’t bear with all of that and kills one white man. Then he hangs himself before these men can come and catch him.

As a Christian myself, I am supposed to agree with the European missioners, and I should have kept thinking, “Oh yeah! Christians rule!” or something. But I felt a strong sympathy toward Okonkwo and his people. Leaving them alone, they would live perfectly fine with their traditions and their beliefs. Now the Europeans come and this peaceful life gets all crewed up. The African people have to see their holy masks got tore badly, their hero is forced to die “like a dog” and cannot do anything because they are scared of the guns.

I am not sure what God’s opinion about this, but I think these European commissioners are evil! I don’t know what price it should take to spread the Gospel but destroying traditions, bugling money, and killing some ignorant people then enslaving the rest are not acceptable. And when people do such things using the name of God, then I say it’s more heretic than worshiping a piece of wood. Isn’t God Love? Isn’t He Hope?

To be honest, I didn’t know this was an African story because I skipped the intro. I thought it was Native American. It shows how similar the situations are: uncivilized people everywhere in this world were living happily, then Europeans came and “things fall apart”. It makes me wonder what the French and the Americans did to my country, what pains they caused to my fathers, my uncles. Notice what those Europeans came to Okonkwo’s village for: for spreading the Gospel. So the purpose of saving a country from Communism seems to be quite inferior.

Of course I hold no grudge toward French or Americans, and my faith of Christ is still in me somewhere. But I think at least we Christians really should think twice before going for a mission trip. Would that mess up their cultural in a bad way? Would that not a part of invading other countries that we just don’t unconsciously know? Of course such things don’t seem to be likely to happen, but it won’t hurt to think about that.

I've lost a girl again

I’ve lost a girl again. I knew it when I woke up and found myself alone in the room. I couldn’t help but thought, “Damn, not again!” She’s gone for good. I couldn’t do anything. I was deeply sad. I missed her a lot.

I saw her while walking on the street with my backpack like a college student (I am not sure what I was at that time, maybe highschooler). I looked at her and she looked at me back. Good thing I was smiling. Now I can’t remember her face. I know she looked Asian, and her short dark hair was so adorable.

She was on the train with me (why the train, I don’t know. It might be a huge bus with a lot of people). She came to me and asked how I spelled my name. I told her while she wrote it down, her handwriting was pretty neat. I saw that and suddenly realized that I had met her before and knew her name. It sounded Japanese I don’t know why. I also remembered distinctively that I had written down some where on my note something like this:

Ts…, I wonder how gorgeous you will be when you grow up like a blossomed flower

“Ts-some-thing” was her name and that’s all I can remember now. My memories are fading really quickly, I need to type faster.

After a while she came back to her sit at the other end of this huge truck/bus thing. Next to her was a gigantic old man just sat there unenergetically. As soon as I wondered who he was, Dang – a Vietnamese guy I knew and know – jumped from that old man to before me, saying, “That’s her grandpa”. So it was her grandfather, who was constantly coughing. She was taking care of him, sometimes looked at me passionately. I know that I felt peacefully happy; I don’t know why I didn’t just come there to her.

What happened next, I can’t remember. Even my emotions for her are leaving me mercilessly. Why did you leave me, girl? Why did you appear only to vanish forever? I would come to you, you know, with all my might and my strength, only so that you’d stay with me a bit longer.

But the alarm clock rang, and I knew it was only a dream. Nothing had ever happened; there never was the huge train/bus thing, or the huge man at the other end coughing. There was no her, no “Tsu-some-thing”.

She is gone for good. I can’t do anything. I am deeply sad. I miss her a lot.

What the Bible means to me

At the service I went to last Wednesday, a question was raised: What does the Bible mean to your life? Really simple and hard to answer.

The Bible is long, that’s for sure. And what people can tell about it is not any shorter than it is. All of those sophisticated stuffs are great to read sometimes, but sometimes only, and there’s no way what I’m telling you is sophisticated. I am gonna write down whatever I think of, and then I’ll try not to even read it again until I have posted it.

The Bible contains a lot of stories, but it’s definitely not an ordinary book. It’s not an epic, a novel, a romance, or anything as such. Why? Because it’d be so uncool for me to tell Holden something like, “Last night I’ve read five books in the Bible”. Since every single verse can be a long and passionate lecture of Mr. V, reading them intensively and quickly can only tell me the plots. I would know how David became a king but not how great he was, and what God did to his life. I would have missed a lot.

The Bible is certainly not a documentary book either, since it’s full of enthusiasm and emotions that normal documentary books lack. But to me it’s quite similar to a textbook sometimes because I tend to feel so sleepy after awhile reading it (May God forgive me!). There were times when I couldn’t get anything after reading two pages. Then a person told me that reading the Bible was also to communicate with God. The idea makes me excited, not (only) because that I don’t have to understand the verses all the time, but because… oh come on, it’s to COMMUNICATE with God! I am not too confident in being able to pray sincerely and compassionately enough to reach God, but I CAN read the Bible. Yes, even I can communicate with Him!

So what can I say? To me the Bible is extremely long and hard to understand. But guess what? When I read it I talk to God!

…

Am I being inappropriate… again?

Another Performance

We Vietnamese Student Organization (VSO) in UCM (University of Central Missouri) had our first debut in this year’s Cultural Night. This was our second performance (you can watch the one from last year HERE), and it was definitely harder to make. Hope you’ll enjoy it.

VSO 2009 Performance

Choreographer: me

Performers: Chi Pham, Phat Hoang, Dang Nguyen, Cuong Duong, Vuong Nguyen, Son Bui, and me

Music: Thuong Qua Viet Nam – Pham The My

I am screwed

This post here is nothing beautiful, sophisticated, appropriate, or something like that. For some people, this may even be offensive or even heretic. If you still want to read a thought of mine then here we go.

So yeah, I am screwed indeed. Recently I realized that since I became a Christian, I seemingly have no chance to get a wife who really is for me. This does sound ridiculous but not too unrealistic.

Here is the deal: After all of these years, I have reckoned that a good wife for me should match me (be like me). I surely know a horde of movies which are about love-without-border and Hollywood does a great job convincing people that we can get married with alligators if we have our “true love”. But what I think is: two totally different people just cannot share their lives with each other. Different backgrounds make the two experience different things, cause them to love, hate, appreciate, despite, believe… differently from each other. An American and a Vietnamese wouldn’t be a right couple since one believes in capitalism and likes Bart Simson, and the other in communism and Thanh Giong (What the heck is “Thanh Giong”? Exactly!). So even though I can easily have a crush with a lot of American girls (and actually I get several new crushes every day), I know none of them are for me.

Vietnamese then! I can just fall in love with a nice Vietnamese girl, get married, convinced her to believe in God, then live happily together forever after or whatever. Oh, if only it’s just that simple!

Actually I used to believe in that until a month ago. I attended a Bible study class and learned how a wife and a husband ought to treat each other (by some verses in Corinthians that I am sure if you ask Richard he’ll know) and so it just doesn’t make sense for a Christian to get married with a non-believer. At the same time, I was discussing with my mother about God (who wasn’t a Christian and hardly knew anything about Christianity), and I realized just how hard to share my belief with someone. My faith and knowledge was only sufficient to convince myself and strengthen my belief. To help another person to know God and follow Him is next to impossible. I won’t be able to do that to my non-Christian wife.

So I will stick with either someone who won’t be truly for me, or a non-Christian wife who will end up being in hell. And trust me, it’s not funny at all.

I know I am wrong thinking like this – to be hopeless because of believing in God/Hope. I just don’t know what is wrong.

Like the outside let it snow

So here so are

Another pretty girl

I’m not gonna fall for that

Pretty girls are everywhere.

You like my glasses, you say

That’s good, and I like them too.

But you are all beautiful

So I cannot choose

Which I like best

To tell you.

And we smile to each other

Though we each belong to someone else

It sucks, I know

But oh well, at least

We feel a bit happy right now

Like the outside let it snow.

The class is over

Like the bubbles of the sea which drop

Then splendidly fly forever

Let me keep myself the joys and the sorrows

Like the outside let it snow.

Present

Anything we love, and we hate

Rest in here, the heart of the sky.

When the world is nothing accurate,

Endlessly strive,

Not to cry.

If rain comes now, with wind blows up

Million teardrops’d happily fall

If ice melts now to snow enough

So blue and sweet, the goodness of all!

Should I forget, and carry on,

Yearning to live, forever alone?

Or I’ll come back, to have you mine,

Until we’re dead, together we’ll shine…!

Break-dancing in the gym

When I came back to Bozeman for the 2008 Graduation, I promised to Holden that I’d have a break-dance show for the Cultural Night and would record it to show him. Sadly that they didn’t let me do it since it wasn’t really “cultural”, we ended up with another thing that I’ve post previously.

But a promise is a promise, so I still recorded what I had last summer. It was intended to be posted on Holden’s birthday but, well, you know, uhm… so I am going to post it this time.

This was recorded in a gym, soon after that the gym was closed in order to be renovated as a new recreation center in the campus. So I was apparently the last person who danced there, pretty historical isn’t it?

Performer: Anh Tran

Choreographer: Anh Tran

Filmer: Anh Tran (put it auto)

Music list: 1. Moments in love - The art of noise; 2. Cameo - Word Up; 3. Cali Life Style - Freakin (Remix).

Non-believer vs. Atheist

Note: it's 12:37 in the morning, so my mind gets messed up. "Non-believer" or "Unbeliever"? I know not anymore... T_T

I recently have realized that many people seem to be confused between “non-believer” and “atheist”. This happens to both Americans and Vietnamese and possibly people from other countries. I believe that the unlikeness of the two should be clarified better, since the notions of “non-believer” and “atheist” are hugely different.

It would take more time, effort, and wisdom to discuss about such thing sufficiently, and I currently don’t have enough incentive to be “devoted” to this topic, so I will just give whatever I have.

I personally feel that in the eyes of many Christian, we tend to consider simply whether a person believes in God or not, and consequently, we tend to treat those who don’t the same way – whatever the way is. However, as a former non-believer myself, I see a big difference here. Non-believers, like I was, don’t usually have much clue about what God is, who Jesus really is, or what He has done. This type of people is somewhat innocent – like a blank paper (and no, I am not praising my old self or whatever). If they get their chance to know God, they tend to be able to receive Him rather easily (although, yeah, not too easily as we all know). To talk about Jesus to these people, a good attitude and an additional level of Christian knowledge should be good. He will do the rest.

Atheist people are a different story. They have knowledge about Christianity either some bit or a great due. Some of them also possess a high level skill of philosophy and rhetoric and usually form their own belief. These include those who are anti-Christians who are really scary for me. (I was really close to be beaten up by some, ask my brother, he may know the story). Regardless of whoever atheists are, discussing with them requires a really good Christian knowledge, conversational skills and also experiences. (I am still way to far from this level and have been trying to improve myself to be a better Christian).

That’s all I have for this time. I feel really sleepy and tired right now (“sleepy” and “tired” are different also, maybe I’ll write about them later), so I stop here. At a glance I know that this post is full of incompleteness, ignorance, and other errors. Please feel free to add and fix stuff, saying “You are wrong, stupid!” or whatever. I love comments and may someday I will marry one. No, I should go to bed now, okay.

Another adventure of Anh

I want to see my family in Vietnam again. That’s what partly makes me to screw myself with two-and-a-half jobs since last semester. I also had to give up visiting my other family – the one in the Boze. Yeah, most of you already know, the rest just don’t care. I am simply telling the reason why I had been bugged strongly with the fact that I would not go back to Mt. Consequently, sending cards to my Sukut family should be the very least thing I should have done to… “redeem” my responsibility (I am using words unseriously so please don’t take it serious).

On the 21^st, I finally got the mailing address of the Sukuts (no, I am gonna use a lot of the word “finally” so I should just say, “I got the address”). At that night, I found out an astonishing fact: there was not any single Christmas card in my room, and I had to buy some really soon. The only place to get cards that I knew was Walmart, and it was miles away. I didn’t have a car, nor any of my friends around. At that night, I – mysteriously – failed to catch the bus, which was really painful. Next day, things didn’t get any brighter and no car or bus or plane or ship came to my life. So after trying all the possible plans I could possibly make (and failed all), I decided to just walked to Walmart. (Well no, I did think of standing at the crossroads with a piece of cardboard but I preferred not to do it).

So I walked to Walmart. Some times like this makes me want to be smarter (so that I would at least come up with walking early) and to be in wonderful places like Narnia (so the weather would be sunny and warm and nice). Unfortunately none of these happened, and I started walking to Walmart at 10 pm and the temperature was about 5 F. (And no, I am definitely not praising myself or doing anything of that sort. This IS a story of mine, and you should simply read it just like a lame article on a random newspaper). It was not so warm to me and walking right next to cars in the dark was pretty adventurous. Well, finally I got to Walmart and was so thankful. Another “I survive” was said.

So basically I got the cards. The next step was to write them and send them. So on the 23^rd, I had to send the cards at any cost in order to get them reach Mt hopefully on time. However, things just got more and more hilariously unfortunate. I somehow finished writing the cards at 4: 40 pm, and the post office would close at 5. When I saw my watch, I realized a terrible thing: it was actually 4:50pm – 10 minutes later. Any second in such situation is critically important, so I didn’t even have time to be stunned but rushed my best to the post office.

One wonderful thing about Warrensburg was that it could get awesomely cold, but still rained like out of nowhere. And when the raindrops got to the earth, it froze to ice. I hadn’t seen anything that slivery in Montana, so even though I tried Holden’s Judo row, I fell on the street. My basketball shoes were totally useless and there was a “curly” bridge for me to go through. So I literarily used both arms and legs to move, and yeah, I got stuck there for at least five minutes. After that, the road didn’t get any less slivery but somehow I could run and jump and row with out falling again. And here we go, the post office!

It was 5:07. I stood in front of the closed door and couldn’t think or do anything. And since crying was still inappropriate for a man, so I ended up shaking my head and laughed.

The next day, the 24^th, I went to the post office right after I woke up, and yeah, it was before 5:00pm so the cards were finally sent. “They will reach there on Saturday”, the woman said. Ok, whatever.

So yeah, that’s my story. It is too late now for a Merry Christmas wish, but the whole world is waiting for the new year to come. So this time I’ll say,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

The extreme of randomness

When English wasn’t complete, there were two friends hanging out at the field. One of them was self-claimed to be a knowledgeable person who knew a lot of vocabularies. Suddenly his friend pointed toward the sky and asked:

- What is that?

Without any hesitation or even looking back, the so-called wise guy answered:

- It’s the sky.

However, his friend didn’t seem satisfied and said:

-Uhm… really?

- Yeah, the sky. – The smart guy started to be annoyed.

- Well, I don’t really think so… - His friend continued.

Now the smart guy reluctantly looked back.

- Yeah, that’s the sky! The sky, man!

Still pointing upward, the friend said:

- No, not the sky. That.

Really fast the smart guy said,

- Yeah, it’s the sky…

But this time he saw the strange thing that his friend was asking about, flying up high in the sky. So…

- It’s… sky… er…ky… tk…! – He started messing up.

- “Kite”? – His friend asked again, still looking at it amazedly.

- Yeah, it’s a "kite". Nice, eh?

Yup, and that’s how we have the word “kite”. The end.

The story is true, can you believe it? Well, except not, I just make it up. Never mind.

Anastasia is actually alright!!!

It was a rainy evening, and I just came back to my room from work. As usual, I checked my e-mails, and here I saw the most surprising thing I could ever think of: a message saying that a person in Myspace wanted to add me, and it was… Anastasia. ANASTASIA!!! Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! I looked at her last name, and it was really hers. And the profile picture, it was her right there. It really was Anastasia, at last…!

How long was it? One year or two years? No, it was forever, since the day she left. Oh my, what a great joy! What a great pain!

Surprisingly, thinking of her still makes me hurt deeply even now. And just like any other time I did, memories just come back to me all at once…

-Anastasia, when you disappeared I was so confused. No one told me anything - any single thing! And I was just nobody but a powerless exchange student. So I just randomly heard Nam asking Chelsea: “Huh, her (some one) died?”, and assumed that it was your brother. And the next morning I asked Petra people to pray for him. (And it was actually Maria’s grandmother who died). Knowing the story, Mr. Baker said, “Well, then keep praying.” How amusing! Painfully amusing indeed.

-Anastasia, the Battle-B team and me had a break-dance show in the end and it was fun, though we screwed up a bit.

-Ana, we did our presentations about the Civil War, and we did really well. I presented mine while drawing a portrait of “Stone wall” Jackson, and it was ok.

-Ana, our house Pendragon have fought splendidly with Avilion that year, thought we lost in the end.

-Ana, we had the Renaissance Fair, and it was awesome. I got second place in drawing and singing with Nam. And my costume too, I made it with some sticky tape…

-Ana, we went to Helena to visit The Houses one day, and the trip was really nice. Everyone was observing and learning things, while I kept looking at the crowds for nothing.

-Ana, we played volleyball in the end of the spring, and it was fantastic.

-Ana, we had a play about Tom Thumb, and we did well in the play and people loved it. Oh, and I was the bailiff…

-Ana, I got only one B (in Mr. V’s class) and the rest were A’s. I graduated in the end, Ana, with a speech that even made some people cry.

-And Anastasia, I became a Christian! I am a Christian, you know, just like you. Oh God!

NO! I don’t want to tell you like these. I can’t. I only wished you had been there, if only you had! Now I don’t even know what to start to tell you with. Days and months have passed by, and things have changed so much. Now you have someone you love, and I am going to have mine. I don’t even know what to start with. We are just strangers now, Anastasia. But you know, the little nerve crush of a high school boy two years ago was just too clear as the sky of the day you left, and too deep as the last look I had from your eyes.

I ran out to the rainy night. The sky was crying.

Thank You, my Lord, for that what I have been praying is fulfilled. She is alright after all…

Spinning Halloween

Here is was I did on 10-31-2008:

12:00 am: I was home after work, and started reviewing for the tough finance test.

2:00 am: I felt quite hungry and made some noodle with egg. Tasted good.

3:00am: I finished eating and studying, I went to bed.

I slept.

8:15 am: I woke up, thinking how early I could possibly wake up like that.

I looked at the clock, realized that I forgot to press the button before going to bed.

I put on my shirt.

I changed my pants.

I ran straight from my room to the class. About half of the way, I felt exhausted and started walking.

I arrived. The test had started 15 minutes before.

9:00am: I gave my paper to the professor, and ran to work at the office.

10:30am: I am done working.

I came home, wrote a short essay for my scholarship application.

12:00pm: I sent my scholarship application, and headed to the cafeteria for lunch.

Then I ran to the library to finish my research for my Composition 2 class.

I realized that my backpack was opened, and my binder was gone.

It was at the office, so I ran there and take it.

3:00pm: I am done researching. I printed it and ran to my instructor’s office to put it in her mailbox.

3:15pm: I arrived at my workplace, knowing that I was 15 minutes late.

My friend called, telling about the Halloween party. Shoot, I didn’t have a costume. What could I possibly think of…?

Many of my co-workers were gone for parties, so there were only two people there. I did the work of several people at once, while my boss was messing with Facebook.

7:30pm: I was done, finally.

I came home.

People were gone for the bonfire. I was late for that.

So I didn’t have to get a costume, I thought.

7:33 pm: I sat down. Done.

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BONUS:

The haunted house in Kansas City

Truly is scary

But since there is hope

Surely there is peace

As I can see…

Warrensburg, Oct 31, 2008

A "blast"

What happened last week was - as Richard would really likely to say - a blast, only this time it was really a blast literally. Here goes the story:

There was an indoor-soccer tournament in UCM (University of Central Missouri, my college), and we Vietnamese formed a team of five and joint it, and I was the goalie. The other team was all Americans, which had two characteristics: they were huge, and they didn’t play soccer much. So as a matter of fact, we had to face big guys who were playing kick-ball, which was bad, especially for the goalie. So for the whole game, I tried my best to cover the wide goal desperately. When I caught the ball, the American attackers still tried to kick the ball, so I got kicked and fell many times pretty painfully. (The referees were also Americans, and they didn’t know the rule well neither, so there was no foul.)

When the game had only 25 seconds left, it was a tie: 5-5. I said to my self that I would not let them score anymore, even if it’d cost my life. And this was where I had “the blast”. In the very last second, one huge guy from the other team managed to get the ball through everyone, and before I knew it, the ball went straight to my face, one spectacle of my glasses got pulled out, and the metal part of the glasses was bend and cast away. I got totally knocked out as an epic loser. We lost.

Right after the game, I had to get to work, and there I acknowledged a new dimension of harshness, while walking under the freezing rain, with my glasses bended, my legs sore, and my right thumb broken.

Well, what can I say now, I survive!

An entry on 10-18-2008

I don’t remember how but, while watching the debate between McCain and Obama, suddenly I thought of the cute little Shadiah. She has been taught all the stuffs, including many things about American presidents from the beginning. But one day when I randomly asked her, “Shadiah, who is the current president of America?” .She hesitantly answered, “Abraham Lincoln?” I laughed, so she turned a bit shy and answered me again really softly, “Is it ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt?”

Well, it’s a bit surprising when she didn’t know who the current president was, while she probably knew many other presidential facts than I did (tales, maybe). She was a little girl anyway. This leads to a more interesting thing: what would a little girl likely to remember would be the things which are significant (like A. Lincoln), and things which are somehow related to her (such as a teddy bear). Things should be similar to little boys also, and if parents and teachers can take advantage of this, well, they can somewhat control what they want the children to learn and believe – useful though scary.

It’s Chelsea birthday yesterday, so, happy birthday to you, my dearest sister! (maybe she doesn’t even know about this blog, how amusing… ^^)

I am back.

It’s me. It’s Anh. I know, I have not posted anything here for decades. And I surely have been feeling terribly sorry. Excuses? I suppose I have some, since lives change, and my life has changed surprisingly since the new semester started. But as Mama Sukut said, “The busiest person I’ve ever known is Mr. Gianforte, but he still blogs.” Therefore, no excuse is sufficient. Most people don’t accept lame excuses, but unfortunately I like giving explanations. So here is it.

For every single weekend I have been thinking, “I have to post something up there! I have to post something up there!” But then, just like T. Coraghessan Boyle describes how a murder response to a detective’s question “What happened next?” in his story Greasy Lake, “I don’t know, something came over me. Exactly.” Exactly. And failing to keep my promise takes away my courage to read others’ blogs, and things get only worse.

Because of that, couple minutes ago, I said to myself I had to fix this as soon as possible. And so, trying to forget all the tests and works and stuffs for a moment, I am typing something for this blog right now. Yeah, I am back.

Things need to be changed a bit. I can’t really blog every weekend as I wanted, so I’ll change to …Mr. Koenen’s solution, which means I will blog here whenever I do. Secondly, I will sadly change my purpose of blogging in this page. I will not always be “composing” here, but instead will do what Richard has suggested, “telling what happens”. Hopefully this will make things easier.

This sounds like a sad stuff, but I have to go now. I am being late for my job. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some to eat before working. So yeah, I will read and comment your blogs later. Good to be back again.

B for Becoming better

When I graduated from Petra, I clearly understood that I was an incomplete graduate, that I lacked so many things which any true Patrafied graduate should have had. Since then, I have been concerned how to become more sophisticated.

I was thinking about it again yesterday night, and suddenly realized one stunning fact: I have learned almost nothing from Mr. V’s Bible Interpretation class! I remember I have tried to ask several questions about Christianity, but they were all off-topic, so Mr. V denied to answer them, and Richard’s responses to my questions weren’t really efficient since I couldn’t understand much what he said back then. As a matter of fact, the only thing I think I’ve learned in that class was merely knowing “what’s going on” in the books Esther, Ruth, and the Gospels. I did not understand the “points” or any innate lesson from them, and I didn’t have any idea what the book Philippians was talking about. How crazy it truly was!

Surely, I am not going to criticize Mr. V at all, especially after watching “true” graduates making their speeches, any single one of them expressed how challenging Mr. V’s classes were, and how many things they have learned from him. However, I truly don’t think it was my fault neither (bad me.) I did try in that class and I got an A for the final, and a high B for the class. The only thing bothers me is that somehow I’ve missed a chance to be a better interpreter, and if only I could go back and attained his class again, I might have been appreciate the class much more (and maybe I would have mentioned Mr. V in my speech also.)

Back then when I received my final grades, I kept thinking that if only I have got an A in my Bible class, I would get straight A’s and become… another Richard (never mind about this.) As now I am thinking back, I am actually glad that it was not an A, or else things would have become really ridiculous.

The thought leads me to wonder if I really deserve all the A’s in the other classes. I realized the difference was that in those classes, I really learned things and my knowledge in those fields have improved a lot. Because of that, I was given A’s even though I was still so far behind my classmates. An A was not showing what level I was at, but how big the improvement I got. Realizing these, I am extremely thankful.

“Hey Anh, how're your grades in college?”

“Are you asking about the official grades or the real ones?”

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I wrote this post last night, after I went to bed about two hours.