I still believe that I have not unearthed all my potential. I want to change the environment, to find the world to really explore the things I want to do, to put my heart and mind into the job and finally discover the value of myself.

Growing up in the adolescent years without the support from the parents

Include how different the way I think, how a new environment helps to think differently

Prelims is ending

Oh dear, what an interesting period. People seem to start churning out complaints/shoutings/bitchings all over facebook during this period. They said they are fine, they don't care what they get, they don't care that they will fail. But apparently, their tone and what they said reflected the opposite.

There are so much trauma, so much anxiety, so much hatred going around. And I wonder how about myself?

I will stay my usual neutral stance on Facebook - Don't ask, don't tell - I love that phrase.

Many of the foreign students here have been telling me that I seem to be so relaxed with the test papers because I'm much more capable than them. They keep banking on the idea that RJC is an elite world where "the second winner is a loser". That, in a sense, reflects the high standard expected in RI. We international students, many fed before coming to Singapore with the idea that we can excel easily here, just like the so many successful stories told on the newspaper at home. So it was quite a shock for many of us, 15 years old callow youths, without much guidance from anyone in such matter and further cocooned by the teachers when we first came to Singapore, to realize how far we are from our dreams. It is so easy to feel timid here, and like some of my friends, they gave up striving all together, saying that their ability is insufficient to achieve anything outstanding. It has never been true that I'm care-free and feel relaxed in the face of a major exam. Indeed, I'm highly anxious and worried during the pre-exam period.

The difference between me and many of my friends is that I try to tune my action with what I think. It's so easy to give up, but it's harder to find a reason to carry on. Many foreign students, much more capable, much brighter than me when they first came, have let their talents wasted , either because of having no reason to discipline themselves or because of early failures and difficulties. The most disappointing are those who actually think they have wasted their four years of their life in Singapore. I'm fortunate than my friends that I have somehow drawn much resilience against such negative sentiments to carry myself forward. It's even more fortunate that I have found a reason for myself to carry on. I'm not the top student of the school whatsoever, I may not belong to the top-notch of the school's cohort. Nonetheless, there has always been the urge for me to strive. It may not have been obvious all the time, but it has always been there to push me forward. Only recently I realized how important it is and how much I want to reach that goal.

Second last paper - Physics MCQ tomorrow, and it's nearly 1am now.

Eminem is always the best. Another night watching Eminem shows and I got myself writing this. Not exactly for the essays, but I got the glimpse of how to improve part of my current one.

Dear Mr. Sim

I have already booked a slot to talk to you on Monday about where should I apply as ED (or even to apply ED at all), the reason why I have such doubts are quite lengthy so I think it's better if I write them down in case I forget to mention something on Monday.

Honestly, I have thought about applying for US colleges since years ago. I thought that I would only opt for the top schools, the sort of MIT. But over the years, I have felt that it’s really just a fantasy that I sometimes dwell in rather than a viable aim. Until the middle of JC1, I have always felt that my command of English is horrific (it still is now), and I was quite scared that I may not pass my GP in JC. I think I have devoted a significant amount of time for reading and for practicing English, which eats up a lot of the time I can pursue other academic interests. I enjoy reading and studying English, but the time spent on doing so has, partially, made me unable to buff up my portfolio. Moreover, before actually talking to the colleges’ representatives, I did not really have an exact desire to motivate me to take the application process seriously. That explains why I have been hesitating to take SAT, and more importantly, to study for SAT. I have not won some really awesome prizes like Olympiads.

My biggest award is to win 1^st prize for this competition called Create2010, an engineering idea competition. I won a trip to visit Munich. But honestly, I was quite lucky because 2009 was the first time the competition was organized in Singapore. The organizers told me that in the future, they wanted to make it a big thing like Olympiad. But obviously, when I won the prize, well, it was a new competition, and only limited within Singapore. Nonetheless, the competition was the opportunity that somehow made me think seriously about what I want to do in the future, which in turns led to my decision to at least try to apply for the US colleges. My idea was a greenhouse that can self-sustain and improve the environment at arid, coastal areas. During the course of the project, I have gone through a few books that interested me. The first book I read about the topic was “When the river runs dry”. And I was quite surprised finding how much I enjoyed such environmental issues. So after the competition, I thought seriously about pursuing environmental studies/architecture… in the future. That was when I looked into the schools that offered good Environmental Engineering Science – as I thought was the most relevant course for what I wanted to do. So I first did my “primitive” research on colleges by wiki the course. The two schools that Wikipedia says to have the best courses were MIT and UCL Berkeley. After that, it has been a long months that I kept thinking, fantasizing about those two schools. Back then, I did not even know that Berkeley does not offer financial aid to international students. I have not been close to the seniors who intended and finally got in to US colleges, so I did not learn much from them about the application process. That explains many stupid perceptions that I have had until recently, and the poor portfolio that I have built for myself. So when I first made up my mind that I should just try, there was a quite long period that I feel very lost because I don’t think I’m qualified to apply for any school. And so when people ask me where I want to apply, saying “MIT”, even as the most bizarre, unrealistic dream, makes me feel embarrassed.

One other thing that makes me want to apply for US colleges is that when I started writing essays, laying down my thoughts, my little principles in life, I started thinking that I want to go to where people actually bother to read these things.

I’m sorry that this lengthy thing actually sounds like a list of excuses for my inadequacies. I'm only taking my first SAT test next Sunday. Since I only knew until you told me a few months ago that since I need to apply for financial aid, I should apply ED. I still can't decide where I should apply for:

1. Connecticut College:

- This is used to be the school that I wanted to apply ED for. I talked to the admin officer that came to RI and somehow I'm quite interested in the school.

- The college offers Architectural Studies.

- The admin officer mentioned that the school has an Economics Professor who is entitled distinguished professor in the Vietnam National University in Hanoi. I read on the school's website about their overseas programme to study Vietnamese economy in Vietnam. I think I will really enjoy if I can study about Vietnam from such a perspective.

- I like the kind of bucolic sight of the campus. And I really like to be able to stay close to the sea.

- SAT scores are not compulsory for applying to Connecticut college. I know that even though they say so, SAT scores are a an easier way for them to gauge my academic standard. But since I don't really have my SAT score, would applying for such a school may somehow increase the odds?

2. La Fayette College:

- I had second thought about my choice of school for ED after the interview with the La Fayette admin officer. He said that it would be good if I consider a civil engineering course in college to learn the technicalities before applying for architecture in graduate school. The admin officer from Kalamazoo also mentioned similar thing.

- Since then, I thought that since I want to enroll in a liberal arts college to have the freedom to study many things that I want before I decide my career, I thought it would be even better if the school offers both engineering and art courses, just in case I wanted to do civil engineering and the sort later on.

- La Fayette has the the Engineers without Borders organization, which is something I really want to try.

- I know La Fayette is highly competitive so without SAT, I don't know whether it should be a viable option for ED. But I'm not sure that if I leave it until RD, I may not stand any chance at all.

3. College of Wooster:

- I thought about this college last. The school offers double degree program in Architecture in University of Washington in St. Louis, which was the first thing that attract me during the college's fair.

- It's only until I read about it in "Colleges that change lives" that I really thought more about applying for Wooster. The book said that this college would be one of the best choices for the non-A students, which I think may be the level where I'm currently at.

I'm still uncertain where I should (and want) to apply for ED among the 3 schools. I really appreciate your advice about this.

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

A bit scared ...

Seemed like I might have just screwed up my Econs paper again.

This sucks ....

I read those blogs on Blogviet again. Somehow today I don't really feel connected to those writings anymore. But just one thing, I seemed to be able to make up my mind. I won't tell Hanh how I feel about her when I go home ....

hopefully

Something

Quê hương là chùm khế ngọt, cho con trèo hái mỗi ngày

It is the love, the memories that are embedded in its skin ...

I used to think the answer to my friend's question is easy.

It's only when your shells are all peeled out, that when I feel scared and lost that I'm able to see how I miss my mom, my dad, my brother, my home. Maybe everyone looks for that one reason that keep them going, keep their lives meaningful. Possibly I used to look for things that are so distant, dreams that are not mine and forget the most simple but most intimate to me. Only those things that have been embedded so deep down inside that will never fade away with time.

There is only one thing that makes me wander the Earth

There is also that one thing that makes me want to go home as soon as possible

I go so far just to realize that I always want to be home. And I just found another home for myself. To go is to learn, but more importantly, to learn the deep-down root in myself.

Love for a home is just a way to call all the beloved bonds that I have had with my family, my friend, my childhood. Sometimes just one such love is overwhelming enough.

"All the mothers in the world are like the salt over there. Though it's the start and the finish of all the food, they melt their souls and silently play their parts"

" The number of flavors in the world equals that of our mothers"

- The Kimchi Contest

I can go anywhere looking for that taste, but found it nowhere but home.

I used to ask my parents why they do not hire a maid. When I was a small kid, I always thought that having a maid is the most convenient thing. I will not need to sweep and wash the floor and more importantly, someone will arrange the messy piles of books on my table. A maid would prepare proper meal if my mom could not be home early. My mom is a high school teacher. There were years when my parents both had class in the morning while my school was in the afternoon. She would not allow me to go out to eat. One time I tried to cook myself and had all the tips of my fingers burnt; my mom no longer allowed me to cook again until I was in secondary school. My mom would rush back from the school at 11:30 am, arrived at home at 11:45am to prepare lunch for me to leave for school at 12:15pm. She would go directly into the kitchen with changing her long dress (áo dài) into something else to prepare either dry noodle or soup noodle. Dry noodle was plain noodle with onions fried garlic in vegetable oil and fish sauce. Soup noodle was noodle in the soup of pork boiled with slices of tomatoes. I loved the dry noodle and hated the soup noodle, but my mom wants to cook soup noodle because she said it was more nutritious. I would spend my lunch with my mom because my father's school was far from home and by the time he came home, I would have left for school. My mom always insisted that I must finish a big bowl of soup noodle before I can leave no matter how much I protested. Now my mom always asks me to go eat outside with her whenever I go home during school holiday. But I usually asks her to cook for me "anything but soup noodle". Because my food at home is always the best - my mom always gives me the best. She would always take the blackish-burnt garlic in my bowl into hers. She would take the tough bit of pork from my soup noodle from my bowl into hers. With the leftover rice from the previous meal, she would fry it up because sometimes the rice had the smell of fermentation and never let no one eats it but herself. My father once told her jokingly "men and women are equal now, but why don't you let me eat that?". It was not only because of that difficult period of our family, but until now, my mom always save the best food for me. "The number of flavors in the world equals that of our mothers". There is nowhere else that I can find my mom's flavor because it is always the best flavor.

"Đất nước là câu chuyện ngày xửa ngày xưa mẹ kể"

A place in itself thousands of stories and tales. A person absorbs such stories to become who you are.

Played soccer in the yard of the office. torn the skin. fell into kẽm gai. the trees in the garden. my future home

For a long time, I have forgotten how I used to dream. I used to dream that I can become a great man, to do great things. I dreamt of building a new house with a few mini-soccer courts for the children to play with a huge garden with all kinds of fruits trees for them to climb. I used to dream of

People and Things

I went to have lunch "with" Dr. Fang today.

Actually got quit a lot of people there. Surprisingly.

Our side of the table did not have a chance to talk much to her.

It was quite fun. Mainly because of all the craps that we talked about. We really annoyed other people in Thai Express ...

The meal was ... expensive. And somehow I felt quite bad afterwards. I don't know why I felt that way. Probably because I took the train back alone. And I started thinking about things.

Contemplating. Being concerned. They may be the best characteristics that I have. But they are really, really tiring though.

There are a lot of things that I don't seem to react too, but they actually registered in my mind. And that's annoying. But probably everyone feels that way, too.

I guess it's just that there are things that people don't experience the same way as me, don't live in the same world as me, don't grow up with the same people as me, so they don't really understand the meaning of such things. But probably that same thing applies to me.

Somehow I feel relieved about being underestimated. This, in the end, is what I have wanted for many years. Just being a nobody. I'm the best when I'm nobody, I guess.

Long and tiring day.

Kalamazoo interview tomorrow.

I finally found a reason to study for Prelims. While reading through articles, I realized that there is no more chance for me to study for. No regret ...

LIST OF WHERE I WANT TO VISIT

Denmark: the wind turbines

Japan: agriculture