Who We Are?

We had a discussion on the question "Who We Are" in the first day of the trip to Lake District. Some people were tired after a long journey, so only 6 joint the conversation: Vera (UK), Gabor (Hungary), Kaba (Seria Lorne), Angela (UK), Lesley (UK) and me (Vietnam). Basically, we answered 4 questions in few words. Here are the questions and answers:

1. What are you good at?

• Kind, Calm, Friendly
• Patient, Will power, Understanding
• Friendly, Encouraging, Pottery
• Listening to people, Speaking languages, Taking an interest in many things
• Counting, Reading, Reasoning
  
• Friendly, Tall, Intelligent, Religiously minded
  

2. What are you bad at?

• Expressing ideas, Doing things that require too much physical strength, Playing guitar
• Accounts, Sport, Loosing weight
• Public speaking, Computers, Disagreeing (?) with people
• Bossy, Dishonest
• Practical things, Dealing with difficult emotional situations, Answering questions "on the spot"
• Cooking, Writing, Understanding myself
  

3. What are you?

• Sensitive, Caring, Try to lead the life guided by God
• Thoughtful, Worrier (?), People-oriented
• Traditional, Deep-hearted, Open-minded
• Respectful, Honest, Love for others (?), Godly
• Friends
• Polite, Sensitive, Friendly

4. What is the price of yourself?

• Priceless
  
• A dragon
• 1/5 billion
• I have a value because I was created by God to become who He wants me to be
• I am worth making people live happy lives/help to empower people
• To others and to God, I am priceless - sometimes I don't feel very valuable or worth much to myself (?)
  

Answers are in a mixed order and are not always clear since sometimes people (including me) don't really distinguish the questions very clearly, esp. Qs. 1 and Qs. 3. These answers could look funny but when you think that they come from people of different cultures, they would give you some ideas about who people are - a good guide to a very thoughtful and difficult question!

8 and 9 June 2007 - Party time

The last two days were full of parties ^_^!!!

First, it was the one with Tony and Indonesian fellows. The gathering was planned to be taken place in Tony's house but because of the changing weather, it was moved to the campus. Just met them once at Sugi's farewell party but I felt quite comfortable being among people. Tony was nice, of course, and he was the one who invited me to the. Everyone talked to him just like talking to an elder family member, respectfully and trustfully. I just now find that one of Tony's favorites is photography and he has a finely designed website here. Ima was like an elder sister of the Indonesian community and took care of almost everything: preparing food, giving speech :-D, taking photographs, etc. There were guests from Cambridge: Agi, Ade and another man to whom I talked in pleasure. Ade, Asim (a Malay guy, thanks Ade ;-) ) and I also had a funny discussion about planning the family perspective. Other people were also nice and even I couldn't remember all the names, I remembered almost all the faces ^_^. Photos will be posted once I got them from Ima. Now UPLOADED.

The other party was the one to say goodbye to Khiem to whom we played a wonderful match against Chinese guys. Taking place at Thang's house, the party was delayed due to an unexpected problem with his car and thus some ingredients for the food. I was hurry to get to the bus in the morning, so I didn't have my breakfast and was desperately hungry ^_^. But there was finally the second for us all (Thang - Thuy, Long, Hieu, Quynh - Ly, Khiem - Mai Anh and me) to raise the cups and say "Cheers" to our defender who would be drinking beer in Vietnam in a couple of days. Foods were absolutely delicious not just because they were prepared by our, or more exactly, Khiem's, great cook Mai Anh but also because most people were all hungry ^_^. The most impressive thing was "nước cà cuống" (Belostomatid essence) - a special liquid spicy extracted from a kind of small creatures found in Vietnam farms. I'm not too sure if such creatures could be found anywhere else in the world or if people there know how to squeeze the precious liquid from them. "Nước cà cuống" in the UK!! Just incredible!!!


We then spent the whole afternoon to talk about... everything. We went from a topic to one another: Photography, education, politics, life in the UK and things that we missed in Vietnam, etc. All people had their all experiences, examples and arguments, so the discussion was really nice and full of knowledge. By the way, Khiem took most of his time to sleep - he had to wakee up too early in the morning, and I spent some time to play with Jack - Phong's son, and Cyndrella - Thang's daughter. Having a child seemed to be sweet and it's even sweeter watching him or her playing around and laughing...


It was a cheerful weekend! The only pity was that I didn't have time to talk to my family and to you.

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7 June 2007, farewell football to Khiem

Khiem has been our team's defender for a long time and he has done the job very well. Not too tall, not too big but he is strong and solid as if he were made of steal. As an experienced player, he plays smartly and reliably: He does not blindly jump into the opponent's forward to be passed easily; instead, he waits and hinders the opponent calmly and tightly and is always ready to stop the ball at the very best moment. In case he is passed which does not usually happen, he follows the passing guy quickly and patiently and at the decided second, throws himself as an arrow to break the threat. I always like to watch him transform himself into a bullet like that. This style, naturally, is dangerous (I have to admit that I cannot employ that style in whatever situation ^_^) and sometimes causes injuries both for him and for the opponent. But well, it's football and players can get injuries everywhere on the ground.


The guy we are saying goodbye is also good at distributing the ball and support the attack. Having clever feet, he often does short- and middle-range co-ordinations to get rid of hamperers smartly to bring the ball forward, then either makes deadly passes for our forwards or shoots the ball himself. He has scored from such situations (unfortunately not today) several times but his favorite position is still the defense. He is the most reliable defender we Vietnamese students in Norwich have ever had.


A complete win against Chinese guys (12-5 or something like that after 2 hours :-D) who doubled us in the number of players was a great acknowledgement to him. Farewell, mate!!!

Children’s Day - June 1, 2007

It’s the Children’s Day today - June 1, 2007 and we would go out together if I were at home. I would buy you a bunch of flowers and put it into a vase myself while you’d be looking at me, laughing when I did something stupid, and giving me some sweet award when I finished the job…. We would then go out to find something to eat. What would you like? Would it be fried shellfish (ốc xào) or grilled oyster (ngao nướng) or both of them? Or would it be a portioned meal in our favorite restaurant where I ate two single portions cheerfully :-D? Oh, I wish that I were at home to bring you to the Sword lake and enjoy the popular ice cream there. Whatever, we choose, I’d be happy to have it together since togetherness would be what we really want.

Ốc xào (Fried shelfish)

Having our stomach served :-D, would we wander around the city to get some fresh air? Would you hold me tightly and softly? Would we talk about some crazy things and laugh, and feel happy with all those small things? Would we stop by and take a corner on the side of the West lake to watch the water, the trees, the beautiful sunset and be together?!

Ngao nướng (Grilled oyster)

I wish that I could come back, even only for a while, with you!!!

It's a wedding day today, 31 May 2007

Two of my friends get married today, 31 May 2007!



Hồng Vân, a friend from high school, and is one of my closest friends marries a guy who might make big changes to her life. Being friends for a long time, Vân and I have many things to talk about. I just talk about one of them. It was in the summer of 1996 when we were in high school; one day, when I was studying at my seat, she came and put a small bag of something in front of my face to threaten me but I was not threatened. Instead, I snatched the bag and put it back to her ^_^, she was so scary and waved her hands, breaking the bag and there came some terribly ugly worms. She burnt into tears, I and the rest of the class laughed funnily at her... Vân, do you remember this story? :-D



Time went on and we became very good friends. It's a big, big pity that I'm unable to be in her wedding. Vân, I do wish that you have a great wedding and a sweetly happy life. Be friends forever!



A guy in my lab is gonna have his marriage today. Costas, his name, is from Greece and his wife is from Malaysia. We all bioinformatics students (Martin, Qiong, Simon, Richard, and me) are going to his wedding and the party afterward. I have never been to an international marriage, so it's will be an interesting time for me, too. Costas is a very funny and open guy. He was so nice when I first came to the lab and he is always enthusiastic with friends. He talks much ^_^, sometimes I don't really understand all that he says, but it's always fun talking with him.



Vân, Costas, have a happy life with your partners. And with us.