Making plans

I plan not to study in the United States.

My whole 18 years on earth, I'm bound with plans.

I planned to enter the gifted high school in Danang city, Vietnam, win a medal in the International Physics Olympiad, get a government scholarship to study PhD.

When I was 15 years old, I left for Singapore.

I planned to be the top student in Singapore. It seemed so easy when I read the news about outstanding Vietnamese students who have done exceptional achievements when they study overseas.

After 4 years in Singapore, I'm a normal student struggling with daily schoolwork.

I planned to win a gold medal in the Singapore Physics Olympiad secretly so that I can tell my father "I can do it without you" (my father coach many students who have won medals in the International Physics Olympiad and I have always had this incentive to outdo his students. I guess it's son's thing when he always feels the need to outdo for his father).

I got the chance to tell him in the end that I attended the Singapore Physics Olympiad - and did not get anything.

My best talent: I'm good at daydreaming.

I'm always making plans for my life. I like to live in all those best scenarios that my plans will turn out.

I probably acquire that habit from my parents. My parents could not have raised me up better than what they did. For a few years before I was born, my parents, both being full-time teachers, had to raise pigs and grow tomatoes for an extra living out of the meager teachers' wage they earn. When my mother bore my elder brother, my parents could not have enough money to "bribe" the doctors. She was then anesthetize with some cheap medication that gave her excruciating pains and made her hands numb. She said the anesthetizer faded in the middle of the surgery to get my brother out. My mom, with tears of agony and spite brimming in her eyes, told my dad that "I will not bear another child while we are so desperately poor like this". And 5 years later, my mother bore me. They have made a plan for my life since then.

My mother once told me the story of the 2 years-blank of my parents' love. My father back then was studying his post-graduate degree in Hanoi (the capital of Vietnam in the North), and my mom went back to Danang (at the middle of Vietnam) with her mother. The country was a few years after reunion and my mother just finished her undergraduate study. My father had a 10 days break and he went to Ho Chi Minh city (a city at the South of Vietnam) with his friends. My father took a train to Danang to see my mom, without a ticket.

I remember the time when I was in primary school and our family took the train to visit my father's family in the North. The train was so noisy with the clanking sound metals that my mother could barely sleep. The trip was very bumpy and my father would always have to hold me to make sure that I don't fall into the toilet (as a kid, I actually liked the train). And it took one and a half day to travel half the country. When my father took the train to visit my mom, it was 10 years before I was born, the trip took two and a half days. My father pretended to be a trader, jumped on to the train and tried to blend into the mass of traders and their chicken and bulks of fruits. He spent the nights at that dirty and stinky compartment, walking around so that the guard would not check his ticket, got caught one by a train's guard, deported halfway through the trip, but jumped back in and made it to my mom.

And now my father does not even allow me to wait for 2 hours at another city's airport. The first time I flew back home, I had to transit at Ho Chi Minh city, he went there to go home together with me. When I flew back to Singapore, he went with me to Ho Chi Minh city to see me off.

I have always been with the good kids, never experienced any hard labor more than staying up late to do homework - overall, my parents summed it up (I could feel that they are quite proud when they said) - I have been raised like a farmed chicken.

But eventually I left the "chicken farm" for Singapore before entering high school.

I, now, can make the plans on my own.

For the 4 years in Singapore, I have always been a good boy. I had the opportunities and the freedom to break out from all the plans and boundaries that my parents have drawn for me. But I guess I'm not a born adventurer and risk-taker like my father, or probably what my parents taught me are ingrained so firmly in my "chicken" head.

But I have had never accomplished many plans that I have drawn for myself.

I have not studied my way to the top.

I did not get a medal for Physics Olympiad.

However, there is one plan that worked for me.

That is I planned to learn things in Singapore.

I stopped playing soccer since grade 4. I thought it was a waste of time. I stopped drawing since grade 6. I was fed up with my teachers keep asking me to join all sort of city-level, district-level, subdistrict-level drawing competitions. I had to draw according to some theme, while I only wanted to draw about the countrysides. Coming to Singapore, I have made friends with people who are so passionate about things that they like. I joined the soccer team and I started drawing again. I learnt to do what I like.

I lost my composure under the time-pressurizing atmosphere of the competition. And I have been growing tired of days and nights doing the practice Physics questions that when I entered the examination hall, I have lost the zeal to compete. For a while after the competition, a thought keeps running across my mind : I hate Physics. Probably since the time I was a small child, my parent's friends have always expected me to be good in Physics and should study Physics. My parents both teach Physics; my father coaches some students to win International Physics Olympiad medals. When I was a little boy, I would ask my father stuff like, why the bike rider on the magazine’s cover does not fall although he leans to one side (he was taking a turn) or why the people on TV can breathe with “smoke” (they are people shown during the winter of Western countries). I recalled a time when my father quizzed my brother and me about Physics For once, my father put a big ice block into a cup, poured water to the brim of the cup and asked us whether once the ice block melts completely, would the cup still be full. I recalled myself kept running at the cup from time to time to check the water level. I concluded that there was less water in the cup after the ice melted, not knowing that my brother had secretly sipped some of those cool water. I recalled the time when I was accepted for a higher-level Physics class in secondary school, my father told me: you must first understand the phenomenon, that's the hardest part, the rest are just Maths. All the while, I have done the opposite of what he said. I was so engrossed with how to get the numerical answers correct, and I forgot to look closely at the phenomenon. I have forgot how I enjoy learning Physics like when I was a kid. I realized that all the while, what makes me feel Physics enjoyable and easy are not because I'm very good at numbers. It's because Physics are so intuitive to me, like the world around me and all the nuances and extras that I can see. I started looking at Physics as the world again. And I found out that I still enjoy it very much this way. My teammates used to joke that before I take a free kick, I calculated the weight of the ball, the wind velocity, the gravitational force, the air resistance, the spin of the ball before calculating the parabolic path that the ball should go. If I can do that accurately, I would have been the top scorer of the team. But the truth is, I enjoy looking at how a ball fly, how it is bended in the air by some invisible forces, how it spins to take a dip. And sometimes I would watch the ball flying and tried to explain the different way it flies. My initial plan has failed, but it may put an end to something that I have done wrongly all the while, and start doing the right thing again.

Before coming to Singapore, I have always been pampered by my parents, my teachers and my friends. With a few little achievements that I have earned so early in my life, I thought I'm the center of attention and successes would naturally come to me. I thought that things would always go according to plan. Being in a new country for 4 years, there were times when I doubt if coming to Singapore is a right things. There are times when I feel so strangely alien in a crowded mall, people passing by so oblivious of my presence. There are times when I feel my efforts going in vain, unappreciated and I just want to shout out loud in classes to get a little bit more attention. There are times when I fall sick, lying on the bed, craving for that roughness of my mother's calloused hands on my forehead. They are times when I feel "the Singapore plan" is a huge mistake. But eventually things are fine. I have had new friends, who make this place much more like home. And all the emotional hustles and failures have made me more somber, more sensible in relations, more willing to listen to people, and to break away from the illusion that I'm the center of attention to care for others. In my initial plan, I have never thought of studying in Singapore, but it turns out that I have learnt so much here.

One friend told me, when being told about my plans for the 2 years in Junior College, asked: "Why do you keep making plans? Isn't it make you have too high expectations for yourself? For me, I never make expectations, that's why I'm happy with my life".

He would have been true in a sense. But they are the plans of my parents that have always kept me away from the wrong paths. They are the plans that I made that kept me striving, to try for much more empowered life. But I have also learnt that life changes, plans may fail or prevail. It is not an excuse to give up, but to learn, to pick myself up quickly, sometimes take a detour, craft a new plan and work harder. My plans would not come out as I dream of, and I must keep a positive attitude about it, and to make adjustments.

Since the first holiday in Vietnam, I started taking flight directly flight to my city so that my father does not need to fetch me. But last year, I took a flight via Ho Chi Minh city again, without my father (although he insists that I should have his friend picking me up at the airport). It did not go well, I nearly missed the flight to Danang. I booked two flights too close together without thinking that the earlier one might be delayed. I aboard the airplane as the last passenger, all sweating and gasping. With all the passengers staring at me, some looking quite annoyed because I have delayed the flight for 20 minutes, I thought "I barely made it, this is fun".

When my father was deported from the train, he would not have dared to jump back on the train. When I knew that by the time I got to the other terminal, the gate to the aircraft would have been closed. But that would not have mattered. If my father had not met my mother that time, he must have found another way to see her. If I have not missed the flight, I must have found another way to go home. Things would have not worked out at the end as we planned, but

we must always figure out another plan.

I plan not to go to the United States. I hope my plan will fail.