Being back...

Being back to the normal life, that means have a meeting with supervisor (with something new) every other week, doing 13-15 hours of part-time job every week, going to World Cafe every Friday evening (was a wonderful dancing evening yesterday, really wonderful!!!), taking care of the being-learned-by-being-practiced eBay activities, playing badminton and football weekly as well. What a busy life, but it's a pleasure!!!

Had a 2-hour badminton session this afternoon - a good chance to test the new racket. It was fine. Believe that will improve skills quickly.

Planned to write a bit in the evening but didn't really do that. And didn't check my sister's email for her as well, too bad.

My PersonalDNA - Khá chính xác

You are an Inventor

· Your imagination, self-reliance, openness to new things, and appreciation for utility combine to make you an INVENTOR.

· You have the confidence to make your visions into reality, and you are willing to consider many alternatives to get that done.

· The full spectrum of possibilities in the world intrigues you—you're not limited by pre-conceived notions of how things should be.

· Problem-solving is a specialty of yours, owing to your persistence, curiosity, and understanding of how things work.

· Your vision allows you to identify what's missing from a given situation, and your creativity allows you to fill in the gaps.

· Your awareness of how things function gives you the ability to come up with new uses for common objects.

· It is more interesting for you to pursue excitement than it is to get caught up in a routine.

· Although understanding details is not difficult for you, you specialize in seeing the bigger picture and don't get caught up in specifics.

· You tend to more proactive than reactive—you don't just wait for things to come to you.

· You're not afraid to let your emotions guide you, and you're generally considerate of others' feelings as well.

· Never one to be found in chic boutiques or trendy clothing stores, you take an extremely practical approach to getting dressed.

· The control you feel over your life is empowering to you-- you believe in your abilities and acknowledge your shortcomings. Explanations of the world that focus on destiny or fate don't really interest you. You take responsibility for what goes wrong in your life, and also for what goes well.

If you want to be different:

· Try applying your creativity to more artistic arenas, and letting your imagination take less practical forms.

You are Faithful

· Your trust in others, respect for tradition, and caring nature make you FAITHFUL.

· Maintaining a few intimate relationships is more important to you than knowing a lot of people, and you share a lot with your close friends.

· Those who have managed to get close to you value your camaraderie, and they know that they can trust you with anything; you're a good listener.

· While you can usually see several sides of an argument, you often have a strong opinion as to which side is correct—the order of things is usually clear to you.

· Your perspective on the world is based on careful observation, and you know a lot about how people feel in—and react to—many situations.

· Your exploration of others' feelings has led you to believe that although people generally act appropriately, having clear social rules is very important to a functional society.

· Time alone for reflection is important to you—you are introspective and aware of your own feelings.

· Faithful is as faithful does—you expect those with whom you are close to be loyal to you, and you take betrayal of your trust very seriously.

If you want to be different:

· Some of the alternate perspectives that you understand may have more value than you give them credit for—keep in mind that right and wrong aren't always so clear-cut.

· While you are able to reap the benefits of your time alone, and may see interacting with a lot of people as more tiring than exciting, remember that there is a lot to be learned from experiencing things and not just reflecting on them.

Glossary of Traits

This chart shows thirteen personality traits. Each bar indicates the percentage of test takers who entered a lower value for that trait than you did. For example, if Confidence is at 80, that means that 80% of people entered lower values for confidence questions than you did. Based on a sample of 30,000 users. Click here to learn more about the traits.

30 Apps to Run your Business By

This is copied from http://theappleblog.com/2007/08/21/30-apps-to-run-your-business-by/

I’ve been a Mac user for many years now and a business owner for just as many. I’ve needed apps for everything from invoicing and time tracking to contact and money management. I’ve used literally hundreds of applications over the past few years and know how frustrating it can be to find something that works for you.

So to help with that I’ve compiled a list of some applications I’ve used over the years including the ones I think are the best. There are certainly more applications out there that aren’t listed here so if you’ve used something that has worked well, definitely let me know about it.

Time Tracking & Invoicing

On The Job - If simple time tracking an invoicing is all you need, On The Job is the app for you. It purposefully has less features than some of the competition and that is something it definitely has going for it. It’s my app of choice for time tracking.

Studiometry - Full-featured time tracking, invoice, and client management. This is really one of the most solid applications for any client-based business. The $190 price tag is seriously worth it if you need all of the features it has.

Billings - Billings is a newer player in the full-featured time tracking and invoicing market but they’ve made a solid splash. Billings doesn’t have quite as many features as Studiometry but the features it does have are the core ones you’d be using regularly anyways. It’s $59 price tag also makes it significantly more affordable than Studiometry.

QuickBooks - While QuickBooks does not have any real time tracking abilities, it does have a fairly stout invoicing system that can be very convenient if you use QuickBooks to manage your business finances.

Web alternatives:
Blinksale - I use this for all my invoicing needs. Straightforward invoicing at its best. Prices starting from $12/month (not including the limited free plan).

Harvest - Solid time tracking (OS X Widget included). Prices starting from $9/month (not including the limited free plan).

Money Managment

QuickBooks - The industry standard for business finance management. The Mac version of QuicKBooks is frequently chastised for its clunky interface compared to its Windows counterpart but in all honesty I’ve yet to have any real gripes. This app is a core part of running my business. Pricing for this is $200.

Cha-Ching - Arguably one of the best looking applications on the Mac, Cha-Ching has somehow managed to make a boring financial application hip and fun. Class OS X features like smart folders and iSight integration make this a fairly easy application to learn and use. This one will cost you $40.

iFinance - Fairly simple interface. At $15 it’s one of the cheapest solutions available.

iBank - Pretty full-featured with things like report and chart creation and budget tracking. It’s $50 for one license with a 30-day money back guarantee.

Money 2 - Jumsoft’s Money has recently seen a major upgrade to Money 2. The new feature set in Money 2 really is extremely solid though some may find the extra features as a little overkill (ie. a built in web browser). For the number of features it offers, the $40 price tag is steal.

Web alternatives:
DimeWise - Super cheap ($5 a month).

Wesabe - Includes a helpful community for tips and suggestions.

Communication

Mail - This pretty much goes without saying. I know some people prefer other mail applications but Apple’s own Mail.app really is the best mail application I’ve ever used. This app is included with OS X.

Skype - Despite the recent outage, Skype is still one of my favorite tools for phone communication. With bookoodles of add-ons from personal phone numbers to voicemail and more, Skype has raised the bar and become a viable solution for many small business owners.

Adium - Whether you think chatting is productive or not, it’s great for hitting up co-workers or clients for quick questions. This one is free in every way possible.

Web alternatives:
Mailroom - Mailroom is a fairly niche mail application in that it’s mainly built for customer support teams. Pricing starts at $9 (not counting the limited free plan).

Campfire - Perfect for group chats with co-workers and clients with features such as file attachments and chat logging. Pricing starts at $12/month. There is a free plan that would work fine for smaller groups.

Project Management

Daylite Productivity Suite - An incredibly full-featured project management application, Daylite is one of the most useful applications on the Mac today. The full suite includes some killer features such a Mail integration, shared calendars, contact management, and more. A 1-user license costs $189.

OmniPlan - One of the newer Omni Group applications, OmniPlan makes heavy use of Gantt charts to help schedule out any project you have. The full version costs $150.

Web alternatives:
Basecamp - 37signals’ flagship product, Basecamp has become the standard for project management in many offices (especially small/home businesses). I keep Basecamp open almost the entire day to help manage things. Pricing starts at $12/month.

Contact Management

Address Book - Some people prefer simplicity (myself included). I prefer Address Book to keep up with all my contacts and it has served me great over the years. It is included for free with OS X.

Daylite - In addition to being a great project management app (as mentioned above), Daylite also does a killer job of managing contacts. I’ve used it to manage everything from new client leads to team members on a project. A 1-user license costs $189.

SOHO Organizer - SOHO Organizer is a bit less business focused than Daylite. In addition to helping you organize contacts, it also helps lets you attach everything under the sun to those contacts as well as group them together however you wish. This one will cost you $100.

Redlien Account Executive - Redlien is almost exclusively for people who are in sales. With features such as email logging and opportunity management, I can’t imagine this not helping you increase your sales to other people. Cost is $130 for a new license or $90 to upgrade from a competing applications (such as Daylite).

Web alternatives:
Highrise - The newest application from the 37signals crew, Highrise is contact management in the usual 37signals style. Simple, straightforward, no feature-bloat. It has just the tools you need to customize it to your workflow. Prices start at $12/month. There is a limited free version as well.

Miscellaneous Tools

Yep - Yep (formally known as Kip, and covered here) is an application for organizing your documents. I use it religiously to digitize and organize paper receipts and other documents so I can keep a paper-free work environment as much as possible. The $34 price tag is well worth it.

VMware Fusion - Prior to VMware Fusion’s release, I was Parallels guy. But since Fusion came out I’ve exclusively moved to it. Doing so much frontend development, I keep it open almost all day to do browser testing on Windows browsers. Right now you can get it for $60 (after a $20 mail-in rebate).

OmniGraffle - Whether you need to build a simple wireframe for a new web project or create a flow chart for any type of information, OmniGraffle is really the best option for you on your Mac. Pricing starts at $80 for the standard version.

MailTemplate - If you have a lot of email that frequently requires the same response (such as customer service emails), I highly suggest you check out MailTemplate. You create custom mail templates for either new mail or replies that will ultimately save you tons of time on responding to certain types of email. MailTemplate costs around $15.

Macware sites collection

http://www.codez4mac.com/forum
http://www.mac-bb.org
http://www.macserialjunkies.co.uk
http://rapidmac.blogspot.com
http://www.wally.in/indexen.asp
http://www.macfile.org
http://macity.uuuuuudot.com/
http://share.nigmae.net/category/mac/
http://www.loadmac.da.cx
http://www.mac-hacker.net/
http://www.nilland.com/
http://www.moderngfx.com
http://mac.the-underdogs.info/
http://macdownloadz.blogspot.com/
http://maxintosh.netsons.org/wp/

Find things on Rapidshare

This is copied from http://simple-tricks.blogspot.com/2007/07/find-files-on-rapidshare-easily.html

All of us know of Rapidshare.It is a filesharing site which alows users to upload and download fies.I have heard many guys complain that it is difficult to find Files on Rapidshare.They tell that they could get rapidshare files only from some forums.But you can get rapidshare files without going through forums.This can be done easily by some google powered search sites.They use complex google operators to make your search easy.They will find out the files easily for you

Here are some of the best sites for searching files on Rapidshare

Filez
RapidFox
RapidShared
ShareMiner
HellaFiles
FilesBot
RapidOSearch
RapidSearchEngine
RapidshareLink
OneClickFiles
SearchShared
EatPaperRapidshare
FileSearcher
MegaDownload
RapidshareURL

I am sure that these pretty search engines will do their job!!!

Some deadly mistakes of the movie "Harry Potter and the order of phoenix"

1. While in The Burrow during Christmas, Sirius called You-Know-Who Voldermort many times but that made no reactions from other people.
2. Only those who had seen death like Harry and Luna could see thestral but while riding thestrals from Hoggwarts to London, Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Nevil seemed all saw the creatures. They should have expressed some emotion when riding something that they couldn't see.
3. The girl who told Umbridges about the Requesting Room WAS a friend of Cho Chang but not not Cho herself. Even if the director would like adjust that to suit the fact that Harry would change to Ginny next part, that was absolutely unsuitable since Cho was described as a good girl and she had just experienced some sweet moment with Harry => There's no point making her the traitor. I do hate that point of the movie.

Otherwise, the movie is good.

Rate: 7.5/10

Saying Vietnamese names

If you were to ask me to write down my full name, I would write as "Nguyen Thanh Binh". But if you were trying to call me "Nguyen" (this could be very hard for you to pronoun). I'd not understand that you were talking to me. That's because in Vietnam, we write family names first, first names last and we now don't call people by their family names but most often their first names. This blog will help you understand our name structures and thus, call us the way we understand :-D.

A Vietnamese name usually consists of 3 parts: Family name, middle name and first name - in their writing order. For example, my family name is "Nguyen", middle name is "Thanh" and first name is "Binh", then my full name is written as "Nguyen Thanh Binh".

In Vietnam, in most cases (more than 95%), we call people only by their first names (the last written part). In some formal cases (more than 4%), when calling actors, actresses, artists, reporters, etc, we call them by their middle names plus their first names. That is, if I were a, say, a reporter, people would call me "Thanh Binh". In very formal cases (less than 1%), politicians are usually called by their full names. So, if I were the president of the country, others would call me "president Nguyen Thanh Binh". Remember that first names are always at the last positions.

The above is the most general rule. However, you should be aware of situations when a name does not consists of 3 parts but 2 (middle name omitted) or 4 (double family names or double first names) or even 5 (double family names together with double first names). In cases of 2 part names, the general rule still applies with the exception that actors, actresses, painters, etc are called by their full name (family names + first names). In cases of 4-or-more-part names, general rule applies normally, noticing that you should be able to recognise if the family names and/or first names are doubled.

Some examples of names with 2 parts are: Tran Luc (a film director), Nguyen Son (a general), Hoang Van (a musician).

Examples of 4 or more part names could be: Le-Dang Viet Nam (double family name), Hoang-Le Bao-Tram (double family name and double first name, no middle name), Nguyen Thi Thu-Hang (double first name),... I could not find a 5-part names at the moment but if you see one, it's most possible that it has a double family name, a middle name and a double first name. Usually, people in the South of Vietnam have more lengthy names.

Lastly, Vietnamese is monotongue, i.e. a word produces exactly ONE sound no matter how long it is. This could make you a bit difficult to say names like "Nguyen", "Huyen", "Luong", "Truyen", etc but I'm sure with a bit of practice and help from your Vietnamese friend, you'll say them acceptably.

Cheers,

Binh

ProjectW is back!!!

ProjectW is back!!! What a wonderful news!!!

The website was shutdown by its owner several months ago after 3 years of being built-up and bringing fun to many people.

There was a wave of discussions, arguments and even bad sayings concerning the event. Someone was so angry hearing the news that the owner was selling the domain name at the initial price of $5,000. A series of websites and forums claimed to be alternatives to ProjectW, some boasting that they had attracted famous posters of ProjectW, etc. However, the trademark seemed to be so powerful that none of the so-called alternatives could really get the old site's members...

ProjectW is back with a new interface, and most probably a new owner. However, the member database seems to be conserved (I can log in with my old account quite smoothly) and even more wonderful, the resource database also seems to be protected. The website of course is being developed again, rapidly!!

Welcome back old friend, ProjectW!!!

25 July 07 - Internet comes back to the attic

Today, the internet comes back to the house, and thus to my small attic!! The event finishes the last 2 weeks when I had to stay a the lab until nearly midnight to work/to surf the web and do all other crazy things. It was quite a long time with late dinners, boring bus waiting, etc. Without the internet at home, writing blogs seems to be also uncomfortable. The laptop at home has slept for dozen days... Well, how life is so hard without the internet.

There was some difficulties setting up the new service but finally, here we go: The world comes back to the small attic...

Links concerning using Latex

Cambridge's Text processing using LaTEX:
http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/textprocessing/

PSTricks tutourial:
http://sarovar.org/projects/pstricks/

Using L^ATEX to Write a PhD Thesis
http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/latex/thesis/index.html

8 July 07

Feel tired on bored suddenly.

And want nothing now.

Best experience - A recognised associate tutor

It was in the Autumn semester when I was working as an associate tutor in mathematics for 2nd year computer science students. A girl did the job in first 5 weeks, then I took the remaining 5 weeks.

At the first time when I came to the classroom, there were only 2 or 3 students and they did not seem much excited with the subject. I felt that and I tried to get their attention since I knew that maths would be very useful for CMP students. I usually reminded them of the theory they were taught in the class, then I explained that more carefully and tried to extend the theory so that they could have a broader view. I summarised formulas, wrote them down in a corner of the blackboard, then helped students solve their problems. While doing that, I often explained every step very carefully, keeping students refer to the theory and formulas so that they could understand the basis better and be able to apply that to similar excercises. Sometimes, I asked a student to come to the blackboard, represent his solution and asked help students analysed the work of their classmate. I did like this method since it made student more active, thus got to understand the problem more deeply. I thought that the methodology was good since more and more students came to the sessions afterward. Comparing some 10-15 students each session with 2-3 of them in the first time, I was very happy.

There was a girl in the class and she was the only female student. She came with a guy from my 3rd or 4th session and kept coming very regularly, even when the mentioned guy did not come. She seemed doing well. And she had beautiful eyes. There was a time, normally, I asked her to go to the blackboard and represent her work. She went to do that while other students, including her friend, kept smiling very strangely. I noticed their actions but could not know why they smiled that way. Anyway, the girl did the question perfectly and I was pleased.

It was the last session of the unit and the girl came. When the time was finished, I went to my lab and the girl went to the same direction. Naturally, we had a talk. And I found somethings that surprised me so much: The girl was not a member of the class (!); she just came because her friend told her that the tutor was good and she kept coming because she found that herself(!!); and she was in her 5th year at the UEA, completing her PhD in Education (if I remember correctly) (!!!).

You can imagine how I was surpried and happy. I was unable to say anything but said some stupid thanks to her. You know, and I know, when a famous professor/boss gives a talk, people from different places come to attend his session. But what was I? Just a humble associate tutor! And that happenned! I knew why other students smiled so strangely!! I was extremely happy!!!

Everytime recalling this memory, I still feel the happiness inside. Thanks you so much, Kiki, to bring me such a sweet moment to my life...

29 June, Mom's Birthday

Yesterday, 29 June, was Mom's birthday!! I called her twice, gave her best wishes, talked to her and made her laugh! I knew that she was happy!!!

But that's nothing! That's absolutely nothing comparing to my love to her and her love to me!!

Mom and dad have been struggling all their hard life to bring us the past, the present and the future. They have been spending every minute to take care of us, to teach us to distinguish the right and the wrong, to help us grow up physically and emotionally...

In many cases, people have to accept what their words could express and so do I. But I do wish I could have some way to let her know how much I love her!!! That's impossible. But that's also unnecessary! Because I believe that she knows how much I love her!!! Because she loves me!!

Mom, you have done enough for us! Take a rest and let us take care of you, let us make your life easier and cheerful!!!

Happy birthday to you, Mom!!!

Hurry Up, Man!

These're extremely busy days:

• Finish reading two papers to discuss tomorrow.
• Write a summary on Euclidean Steiner tree for Lauren, due on Friday.
• Write some more codes to continue the experiment on La Palma data, get the results, do comparisons and produce some comparative comments, together with some suitable pictures. This should be ready by next Wednesday.
  
• Discuss with Andreas to finish the abstract for Cambridge conference, due in next few days.
• Combine writings up to now, due in next two weeks.

Hmmmm, come on guy!! Come on!!!

@Update: Both the abstract for Cambridge and paragraphs for Lauren due tomorrow! Results on La Palma and the comparative diagram due next Monday, not Wednesday!! OMG, come on!!!

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!

A note for family...

Dad, mom and sisters went to West Lake resort yesterday.

Planned many times and that was the first time being realised.

Swimming, water-sliding, and others were enjoyed. So happy listenning to dad and mom laughing.

Such a hard-working life, always be sacrificial, being worried much more than being happy...

How could I bring you more, and even more happy times?

Miss you all much...

PGR Day, 12 June 07

So it's called a day!

An excellent and useful day supported by such a hard-working day yesterday!!

It was so difficult to decide which content to put in the poster due to the limited space. There was a ridiculous problem setting the size of the slide but finally it was solved. The printer worked perfectly. The A1-sized poster was produced to a good scientific standard and very good aesthetic appearance!

Well organised meeting! Interesting talks and discussions! Good food and drinks! What more should one expect?!

Vote for a talk? Johann's.

Vote for a poster? Mine! :-D Actually, I like Costas's one since it was produced in LaTex! Well, I'd vote for him, not for me! ^_^



To see more photos, go to my Flickr corner.

Cheers.

Should developed countries be responsible for the world's poverty?

This was a part of the topic discussed in World Cafe three weeks ago. The other part was "if so, what would we [developed countries] do?". We sat around tables, making a big circle like King Arthur's knights did. There were "for" and "against" reasonings and the final voting resulted in "for" outnumbering both "against" and "ignore" ^_^. Belows are my arguments which develop into four aspects:

First, legally, there's NO obligations to make developed countries responsible for the world's poverty! Actually, if there were such an international law, it would be developed and agreed among rich countries who would not bind themselves into something that could be potentially troublesome to them!!

Historically, the development of rich countries was partly attained by exploiting the remaining bodies of the world, making these entities poorer and left behind. There was a time when Spanish and Portuguese ships kept coming to, mostly South, American and brought gold, silver, precious spicy,... back to Europe. There was a time when "the sun never set on the British Empire". There was a time when black slaves were brought to Europe, American to be sold and treated as animals. There was a time when the big closed China was divided like a cake by 8 western countries each of which had its own interests on the land of "the center of the world". There could be more, many more such examples to show how the development of some countries caused the poverty of the others. However, history is a sensitive issue. It's NOT really reasonable to ask current people in rich countries to be responsible for what their ancestors has done! It's also strange to me if someone said that I had to do some compensation because my grand-grand-grand-...-grand-grand-dad did something wrong. So, I'd not say that because of the events that happened in the past, developed countries HAVE to do something but because of those FACTS, they SHOULD think about doing something. Nevertheless, the discussion is about "should", not "have to".

(Source: http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/GlobalAffairs/)

My third argument comes from the view of humanity. There is a bundle of examples showing the inequality between the life of people in the western world and that of people in other area of the planet, especially in Africa. I did not collect facts and figures supporting this point but Justin had an extensive collection showing things like "the amount of money spent on perfume in 3 richest countries was enough to buy food for billion of starving people in Africa" or similar. As a human, it is really necessary to think about that, especially when you live very comfortably.

Finally, globalisation has been becoming an unavoidable trend. Investments are reaching to further corners of the world. Transportation is being expanded. Travellers are visitting places that they have never been to before. A stable and safe international environment is really important for all these purposes. And such an environment would be realised better if living standards were improved all around the world. Otherwise, environment has recently become a global interest: Forests are being cut pushing up the desertation, causing floods; global warming is melting ice in the two polars of the earth, increasing the sea level, threatening not only one country; etc. People in poor countries contribute a lot to destroying the environment but they are too busy seeking food so that they don't care about the surrounding trees and animals. However, they are not the only one who will be affected by the environmental consequences. Therefore, while helping poor countries get rid of the poverty, rich countries are also helping themselves.

So, 3/4 of my arguments lead to a "Yes" answer to the question raised in the title. Of course, how to handle the responsibilities is not simple and may make another piece of writing.

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!!!