Ta vẫn cố gằng trở thành bạn thân của mi.
Hoặc nếu không, thành 1 người đủ tin cậy để mi nhắn tin vẩn vơ lúc buồn, nhưng mà cũng ko cần đủ thân để nói những điều mi thấy khó nói.
Nhiều khi ta nghĩ như rứa đơn giản, nhưng mà có khi chỉ giành 1 chút quan tâm, 1 chút suy nghĩ cho một người ở một mức độ hững hờ như rứa cũng khó. Nhưng mà ta hy vọng.
Dù ta sẽ còn lâu nữa mới gặp mi. Lúc mi buồn mà không nói ra đuợc, thử mở máy ra nhắn linh tinh chi đó, chỉ cần cuối cùng viết thêm "ta nói rứa thôi, đừng quan tâm :)" hoặc là "đừng hỏi lại" thì ta sẽ không hỏi lại. Cố gắng học không hỏi lại.

Ta có nhiều thứ muốn nói với mi, muốn hỏi mi. Nhưng mà ta cảm thấy cứ hững hờ như rứa là đủ tốt. Cõ lẽ đến mức đó là cũng sẽ là tốt nhất cho mi.

Có lần mi hỏi "rứa như răng để nhận ra một người là ở trên mức bạn bè". Ta cũng không biết chắc. Ta sợ những cảm giác mình có lại là những cái mà sau ni ta sẽ lại nói là "những cảm giác nhất thời bởi hoàn cảnh". Có khi nào cứ nhớ, cứ nghĩ về một người bởi vì chính mình đang gượng ép bản thân tìm kiếm "người đặc biệt" đó? Hay có khi cảm giác khi một người ở bên, chỉ cần ở bên thôi, nói vài câu bâng quơ mà tự nhiên làm giảm bớt đi sự căng thẳng, bực bội trong đầu làm mình lầm tưởng đó là một mối quan hệ đặc biệt?

Ta không biết. Có thể mi thắc mắc răng bây giờ ta nói những cái lung tung ni, trong khi ta đã có rất nhiều thời gian để có thể nói trực tiếp với mi. Vì ta cũng không tự giải thích được thấu đáo những suy nghĩ của mình. Lung tung vì cũng là vì rứa.
Có lẽ cũng vì có những điều mà ta ái ngại. Có những cái mơ hồ, nhưng mà đủ để ta nghĩ ta không nên nói thẳng ra. Chưa phải dịp và cũng chưa phải lúc thích hợp để nói.
Ta viết cái ni cho mi không phải mới hôm qua hay gần đây. Ta viết cách đây rất nhiều tháng, khi ta đang định đặt một cái tên cho những suy nghĩ của mình.
Mấy tháng vừa qua là một khoảng thời gian tuyệt vời của ta. Ta chờ những ngày thứ ba, thứ năm mỗi tuần. Ta được ở gần mi. Rất gần để có thể nhìn ngắm khuôn mặt thân quen. Có nhiều khi ta rất, rất muốn nói, muốn thể hiện nhiều điều, nhưng ta dừng bản thân lại được. Ta biết có những điều ta nói, những việc ta làm chắc để lại nhiều điều gợn lại với mi. Ta nghĩ chừng đó là đủ, ta không muốn nói hay làm để những đều gợn đó trở thành quá rõ ràng, thành một cái tên cho những tình cảm đó. Bởi vì ta biết rồi ta sẽ lại đi lâu. Ta không muốn có quá nhiều điều để sau này mi có những suy nghĩ là "phải như thế này" trong tâm trí. Ta không thích tạo ra một chữ "phải" nào đó. Ta có lần đã nói là ta không thích chữ "trách nhiệm" được đưa ra trong những tình huống như thế này. Tất nhiên chữ "trách nhệm" có rất nhiều nghĩa, nhưng có những tình huống, ta không muốn áp đặt một trách nhệm lên ai hay làm ai tạo ra cái cảm giác đó. Những điều gờn gợn trong lòng có lẽ sẽ dễ quên được hơn khi mà những điều đó được đặt cho một cái tên. Ta mong khi mi muốn quên, vì những điều ta viết ra ở đây, vì những điều ta nói hay làm, mi sẽ dễ quên hơn.

Ta không mong đợi, nhưng nếu mi có một người có thể trở thành bạn thân của mi, chia sẻ, luôn ở bên, ta thực lòng mong mi có được hạnh phúc. Bởi vì thực sự, không hề có một chút kịch khi ta nói những điều ni, bởi vì ta đã nghĩ rất nhiều về cái điều quan trọng nhất ni.
Bởi vì quan trọng nhất:

Ta muốn mi cười.

Và bởi vì
Ta thích những khi mi cười to lên, hơi ngả người ra đằng sau, tay đưa lên miệng.
Ta thích những khi nhìn mi từ một bên, để mi liếc xéo, trừng mắt rồi hơi nhếch nhẹ môi.
Ta thích mi ngồi sau lưng ta im lặng khi ta chạy xe dọc đường Bạch Đằng.
Ta nhớ những khi nhìn mi có vẻ chi đó hơi lo nghĩ, làm ta rất muốn hỏi nhưng lại thôi.
Ta nhớ những ngày dạy Anh văn. Ta thấy những ngày cuối tuần dài và chán. Vì phải hết thứ sáu, thứ bảy, chủ nhật, thứ hai mới dạy lại.
Bởi vì hơn hết rất nhiều thứ ta muốn, ta muốn là bạn mi, ở mức độ nào cũng được.

Có thể mi sẽ hỏi vì sao ta không im lặng như ta vẫn làm? Ời, ta cũng đắn đo không biết có nên viết ra những đều ni không. Chắc do ta tham, do ta muốn được một lần nói ra một chút những điều ta giữ trong lòng. Vì sao ta không nói với mi sớm hơn? Ta nghĩ chưa phải lúc. Ta không can đảm, không kiên định, có lẽ. Vì ta luôn lo rôi cái gì tiếp theo sẽ tới. Ta có thể chấp nhận những khó khăn ta sẽ gặp, ta không sợ mình sẽ nản. Nhưng ta sợ ta sẽ có lúc những dự định của ta sẽ mang ta đi xa mi hơn nữa. Và ta không muốn lúc đó níu kéo mi, vì ta không muốn để mi lại phải chờ đợi một điều ràng buộc mơ hồ gì như thế.

Ta thực sự quý nửa năm ta ở nhà vừa rồi. Ta sắp lại đi xa. Mặc dù có thể nói chuyện qua mạng để hiểu được phần nào cuộc sống của mi, nhưng mà ta nghĩ có những thứ mà chỉ gần mới hiểu được. Ta có thể thỉnh thoảng về, nhưng ta không thể ở bên mi khi mi cần. Có lẽ ta sẽ không thể hiểu được hết những chuyện của mi. Có lẽ rồi những cuộc trò chuyện cũng nhạt dần.

Nhưng nếu năm hay sáu năm nữa, nếu mi thấy ta có thể có một chút gì có khả năng để trở thành bạn thân của mi được, vậy thì lúc đó cho ta cơ hội để là bạn thân của mi mãi nhé?




Khi ta trở về và có thể ở cạnh mi lâu hơn nữa, ta sẽ không gõ >:D< nữa. Ta sẽ ôm mi thật chặt.

1. Name the secondary school teacher who has most influenced you and briefly explain why.
	Teacher Name
	Subject(s) and Academic Year(s)
	School
He/She has influenced me because:
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2. What subjects most interest you and why? (Note: This is not a commitment to major in this area.)
	Characters available 400

3. Do you have a tentative (or firm) career plan (or dream)? Please describe it.
	Characters available 400

If any members of your family (immediate or extended) have attended Carleton, please list their names, relationships to you, and graduation years.
	Characters available 400

4. Why are you interested in Carleton College and how did this interest develop?
	Characters available 300

5. From your reading, whether children's books or classics, what books or authors have particularly impressed you and why?
	Characters available 500

6. If you would like to report additional information to Carleton that you did not report in the Common Application additional information section, please do so here.
	Characters available 800

If you are interested in pursuing a B.S.E. (Bachelor of Science in Engineering) degree, please write an essay describing why you are interested in studying engineering, any experiences in or exposure to engineering you have had, and how you think the programs in engineering offered at Princeton suit your particular interests.

When I was only a small boy, my favourite toy was a Lego set. Lego was a genius game, not because of the rule of the game, but because the game is rooted in the ingenuity of human player. I would scatter those colourful blocks on the floor, mixing them all up. Then I would tiptoed to the centre of that mess and sat down with all the pieces lay around me

While our group was crafting the idea of a geodesic dome shaped greenhouse for the Create2010 competition, we got stuck. While a geodesic dome is normally built from the top down by high cranes, our greenhouse needs to be easily assembled by the farmers. Somehow the thought of the Lego block spopped up in my head. That inspired me to propose the idea of having the greenhouse built from the bottom up with similar blocks that can be combined together as easily as Lego pieces are. Each block contains algae. The amount of algae in the buildings block can alter the amount of sunlight entering the inside, which may be adjusted to create a suitable condition for the crops grown in the greenhouse. The algae can be later turned into fuel. The shape of the geodesic dome helps the air to pass through ventilation fans from any angle to both cool the inside and condense water from the air. Another source of drinkable water comes from evaporated seawater collected in a supporting unit made of old car tyres. The crops are chosen to improve the soil’s fertility in the arid and barren areas, where we want the greenhouse to be built.

After making through the preliminary round, our group prepared for the final presentation. I spent days in the school’s physics lab to build our prototype. Although the prototype was very primitive that merely serves the illustration purpose and to let us see how a geodesic dome will look like. Nonetheless, it takes far longer than I thought to build the model dome. I had to calculate the dimensions for the pieces and made a paper model before making the real prototype with acrylic glass. I shuffled between the pre-season soccer training and the physics lab to try to finalize the prototype and the presentation.

Eventually, we won the first prize of the competition.

It’s difficult to tell what I truly love to do. There is the whole world of opportunities that I have not experienced. I wonder how to know tell whether something is a fleeting attraction or a lasting passion.

It must be something that can keep me invigorated, make me feel restless, make my heart pump faster, make my hands sweat. It must make me feel like as if the opportunity will pass if I don’t start at that moment. That’s my idea of the idea of my dream work for now. That was how I felt while I was working on a 3D model of a dining hall for my computer science class. That was how I felt when the idea of the idea of a greenhouse with the wall filled with algae popped up in my mind.

Many people warned me that it will be difficult to pursue a career in invention or engineering. I believe that it’s true. It’s difficult to think of a new machine or to imagine a whole city. It’s difficult to make others believe that my idea can become reality. It may be true, but I want to spend my youth working on what I love: I want to create things. The path may be tough, but I’m willing to put my mind and my soul to to make something real happen.

Now thinking about my Lego set, I think Lego is such an attraction to so many children because I could feel like I’m able to create anything from a juxtaposed mess of blocks.

I don’t think I can play with a Lego set the same way that I did when I was a small child. Even I may try, but cannot be as unconsciously creative as I was. A huge building used to be able stand on a tiny pole, but now a thought will automatically appear in my mind “Hey. It may not be possible”. A child just cannot wait to leave its first contribution to the world; a child must believe that he or she can make anything happen.

Creativity needs the perspective of a child, someone who is not yet used to the idea of what’s possible and what’s impossible. But I have also learnt that from an idea to a real product, there are a lot of complexities that I need to solve. I’m not always a patient person, and I’m not always fond of playing quizzes, but there are so many moments that I feel so energized when I face the challenges of an engineering project. I love to believe that behind those complexities and messiness, there lays something real that I can piece together.There are so much more I want to study to solve those complexities. I want to make the geodesic dome spring up like an Origami folding, to reduce the number of different blocks needed to make the dome. I want to analyse the stress level in my greenhouse walls, the optimal amount of wind should enter the ventilation holes.

I want to study the size of drainages needed to prevent flooding in a city. I want to study how much water will be blocked by the road in a mountainous area. I want to study to find the answers for so many other questions of mine in the top engineering department in Princeton. With energy and environment at the top of societal problems focused by Princeton University, I believe that I will learn a lot My ambition is to ultimately become the director of my own architecture firm. I hope that I can have an opportunity to benefit from the initiatives to promote entrepreneurship in engineering career in Princeton to materialize my goal. I want to become the overall director to redesign my city and other places in Vietnam and other developing countries.

Four key societal problems set by P

Engineers without borders – Princeton

Entrepreneurship in engineering

Vietnamese

Essay for Colgate: really something that I have wanted to write about for a long time

thân thương, yêu thương, yêu quý, yêu dấu, dấu yêu

"r" sound is pronounced differently across Vietnam, in the North, it sounds like "z", further to the South, it sounds like /r/

Different words can be added to the end of a sentence as a signature of the region. In provinces in the middle of Vietnam, "răng" - which means "tooth" when stands alone - is added to the end of emphasize that a question is being asked. Because of the variety of accents and the presence of a such signature words, a person from Hanoi - the capital of Vietnam - will definitely be confused and bewildered when he or she ever speaks to a person from my city - Danang, a city at the middle of Vietnam.

You is a general term to address another person in a conversation. In Vietnamese language, there are different words used to address the person based on age, relation ...

the same word may carry different meanings that sometimes are interestingly ambiguous. For example, a boy may want to address another younger girl by a term that either means "younger sister" or "honey". Same goes for the girl. Love may carry different level of "intensity" to address different type of relationship: the love between family members is different from the love between a boy and a girl. By combining different word, one can vary the level of intensity of the word love to show one's fondness toward another. There is one word for someone that one's fond of but does not want to reveal the intention yet. There is another word to hint the interest vaguely. There is a different word to explicitly show the emotion.

Vietnamese language carries a lot of subtlety that one, by dissecting the use of words can figure out the counterpart's intention without the other tell explicitly. It can be as simple as when one is asked to stay for dinner, by judging the person's use of words, the host can figure out whether the person is just trying to show his "politeness" by declining the invitation. Or it can be as complicated as when I want to

Any language in the world must have evolved and changed over the years. Any language in the world sounds differently when it is spoken in different countries. Such subtle variation tells not only the origin of the person, but may also mean a different mindset, a different way of thinking.

why is it important? The language carries a culture. If everyone gravitates towards to the common, there needs to be somebody to voice out the contrasting

Speak up in class about the way we behave towards the teacher. In a Vietnamese mindset, that's too way out of casualty and became disrespect

it takes time to experience, to feel and live in a new place to learn discovered the missing pieces of the half-truths one may hear before hand about the place. Otherwise, one may easily fall into the trap of either become overtly-chauvinistic or antagonistic towards one's own home.

An influential person in my life - Princeton Supp

It is not what money can buy that will win you the championship. It is what money cannot buy that will make you a champion in life.

Mr. Low never told us me things like "Prepare to be a left back. Prepare to be a substitute. Prepare to take a free kick. Prepare to go insane". Those are my words. They are not just words I made up for a sake of writing an essay, but more of the summary of what I have gone through in Soccer. It was a burning desire of me to write this down, a memorable journey of my life, or rather a detour from my normal life to face so many challenges but also to learn so many new lessons. Mr. Low words naturally appeared in my mind when I started writing about my two years in the soccer team. His over-inspirational pre-game team talks, post-game nagging have been hard wired too deeply in my mind that they just naturally popped up in my hear. Of all the things that he has taught us, there are simple words that always stay in my mind: "Do you really want it?". At the end of the day, preparing to take a lackluster position, to hold a supporting cast, to dare stepping up in crucial moments, to be willing to throw in anything to make something happen, it's really not about showing anything to people. Not even to achieve the championship. But to show to myself whether I really want it. Soccer. Dream. Life.

Free the Children - Read more about the organization
Children of Vietnam
Me to We

Think about the plan
Show how the project will look like

Let me write this down.

Don’t know where to put this yet. But it will definitely be put somewhere.

“Some people needs a streak of insanity to make their lives worth living” – Lee Ai Ling.

Insane moments in soccer: the scorer runs wildly shouting nonsensical words, adrenaline rush.

When I looked back, the moment I joined soccer as my CCA seemed to be one those most insane moments.

I knew the stakes of doing so. I have thought for long about how I wanted to focus mostly on my academic matters for the last 2 years in Singapore. I wanted to go to a big university. To me, for a long while, to get into a good university is the most important goal for next few years of my life. My parent’s goal. My peers’ goal.

And the moment I joined the soccer team, it’s like I threw away those dreams. I knew that I would have to endure the strenuous trainings. I remembered the nights when I returned to my room at 9pm, shoveled my cold, packed dinners, took a shower, took the attendance in my boarding school before falling on the bed and slept like a dead log. I knew with all the training loads alone, I would probably doze off during a few periods in school. And yet I enjoyed being in the soccer team. I enjoyed soccer enough to stay on and to put in extra training time.

But when I think more closely, I realize it’s not one of those insane moments that I have had. To many people, what I have done might probably anything close to insanity. I have never been to some isolated corner on Earth. Singapore was my first overseas trip, indeed, a first trip to a distant place without my parents. Indeed, my life can be nowhere qualified to be the closest to “insanity”. Soccer team stood out because it was a long process, long enough to make me think about being insane.

Many things I did that I now consider as “insanity” were sometimes just unintentional fumbles or veering off the track. With the soccer team, being insane means I, normally considered as quite a geeky boy, to joined a bunch of much more care-free …. boys. Sometimes, I would choose to read a book while my friends are all geared up for exams, not because I don’t know the importance of the exam, but because something in the book kept my attention, just a sudden, vague feeling that what I read is important to me. War stories, war movies, animorphs …

My friends tell me that I sometimes think too much, too far for my age. When I tell my mom that I may want to work as an entrepreneur with a start-up companies, I thought she would say something like “you are still a kid, no need to think of such stuffs”, but instead she said “yah, it’s about time you should think about working”. I’m nearly 20 years old, by this time, Bill Gates …. Steve Jobs … would have … For me, I would probably have been shielded off from the insanity of the world for too long, so coddled and protected that I thought simple things that I have done as “insanity”. “Some people need a streak of insanity to make their lives worth living” – insanity may be just be the very things that I normally sway from. But they make lives worth living because they sometimes give me a chance to see beyond that sane life that I have had. I only just made a full sense of that lately. It is definitely not early for me to realize that. People tell me that when I get older, I won’t think about crazy ambitions anymore. Probably because by then I will have a lot more burden and responsibilities that I cannot recklessly do insane things. May be I will be like that, maybe I won’t. I don’t know. But realized that as I am who I am now, at my age now, I have too much energy that such insane dreams are the only way to help me get loose of my energy. But I’m also not too childish anymore to just blindly do crazy things, I realized that I could actually make sense from my insanity.

(Not I need to answer the question about Why Reed? Well, the first thing I found on google when I searched Reed college is about pot smoking in the school. May be probably that happens everywhere, but somehow the thing that the school is open enough to let the people know about such thing is quite something. I read that it’s because Reed is full of young people who carry too much energy and enthusiasm in them and such insane behaviours are just an elongated part from their search for an identity in this word. Well, I guess I want to see more insanity in this world to figure it out.

Sometimes by taking those insane paths, we got a chance to look back at the very world that we have been living. To think of the why we have been there? Sometimes by trying to figure that out, we got a chance to realize how wonderful that world has been, to appreciate its value more. Or to decide to leave the familiar land behind and take a new path. Sometimes being a bit insane, knowingly or willingly, we unintentionally put ourselves in a whole new perspective.

Why engineering

Sometimes I feel restless with my time. I feel that there's something missing. My mom always tells me that I always have too much energy to spare. I don't really like reading my school notes all the time. I always feel like doing something new with my time. Every time I read my notes, I would always find something new, but I still feel like doing something new. I like the time when I did a 3D modelling project in my secondary school. I stayed up for 3 days and only dozed off while waiting for the rendering. But I felt good. I felt tired but at least I felt like I have released my energy. When I was in junior college, I took up an engineering project. Days and nights writing the report. Days spent after training in the school lab to piece the prototype together.

I want to do engineering because I want to put things together. I want to see things work, rather than just learning on paper. I can be patient doing the prototypes over and over again. But I'm a bit impatient seeing my youth passing by. I want to learn engineering because I want to put what I learn, what I know in to making things, building things as soon as possible. I want to have a project-based study.

Ultimately, that's what I want and can do best to help my country. ... childhood dream ...

streak of insanity ... do what is hardest. How my parents and other people told me how difficult it will be to set up what I want. Vietnam has 2 international patterns out of the total 14 in the whole history. Emphasize that it is not a chauvinistic sentiment.

Especially civil engineering. Planning the dams, roads. Since the planning in Vietnam nowadays seems to exacerbate the damages caused by floods, drought ...

how I like architecture but I want, for undergraduate, the technicalities of the structure ...

From the experience with CREATE: I want to know about stress analysis, amount of wind entering the ventilation holes, the size of drainages needed to prevent flooding, how much water will be blocked by the road. how to make the geodesic dome spring up like a foldable structure. how to reduce the number of different shades needed to make the dome. how much vegetations can be put on a roof.

I left Vietnam at an early age. At that point of time, I never thought about the prospect that I will live overseas for at least another 10 years. Or I never know how I will feel when I have to live overseas for another 10 years. And suddenly the experience swarmed me like a gush of wind, overwhelmed me so much that sometimes I just want to let myself drift. It's so easy not to think and just let things flow its way.

I likes thinking about the reasons. I always want to find the underlying reasons for things that happened. I read books about war, I watched war movies. I tried to take a gleam at what make the people sacrifice, to throw themselves into dire situations for a reason. Sometimes the reason seems so distant, so foreign. Like to save the man next to one.

They are ordinary things that sometimes I take for granted. But they have somehow been imprinted deeply in my mind and my heart. I have never thought much about the weather ....

It's the joy, the pain, sometimes the hunchy scare that make home so dearly to me. At least, it's the most certain place that I have, the very place that I always head to.

Sometimes it's just a sudden rain, a change in weather, a morning reek with the smell of burnt leaves in Singapore or during a training camp in Malaysia that remind me of the little home I have

The night before the rain, the stars can't be seen clearly in the sky and the moon would be blocked now and then by of cloud. Before a rain, the air seem to become heavier and smell differently. When I can feel sudden gusts of cold wind blowing in the air, I know the rain would come within minutes. Sometimes the dark clouds in the sky can be an indicator of a rain, but they are the strong winds that actually the harbinger of the rain. When the first few drops of water fall on the ground, they seem to be the heaviest. There would be a sizzling sound when the drops hit and are quickly absorbed into the hot ground, just like the sound of a vegetable oil poured on a half-dry . Water expurgates the air trapped in tiny captivities in the ground. My mom used to say that don't inhale the air at the beginning of a downpour because toxic gases kept for a long time in the ground may be released into the space. I don't know whether she's right, but the air indeed smells different, a bit like the smell of crunched grass.

I like the rain. The surrounding suddenly make me feel like I'm at home.

The rain season ...

My father fetched me to school until I entered secondary school. During the rainy season, he would drive his motorbike all the way to the hall way of my primary school so I did not even have to walk out of the sheltered areas. He was the only parent who did that. I would hide under his big "bat raincoat" (a large rain coat that has an extruded tail with which the person sitting at the back seat on the motorbike can hide under). The tail of the raincoat is so big that I could not see much of the surrounding. But I had remembered the way home so well that I could tell where we were along the road from the limited view of the road and pavement along the way. It was like a game to me - hid under the rain coat, held on to my father's back with my eyes closed, and just felt the slight tilting of the motorbike to count the number of turns we had taken. The best part was when we rode up the slope leading to our home. I felt the motorbike slowed down the motorbike to change the gear, the hump when the motorbike hit the foot of the slope and the slight vibration of the engine when it climbed up the slope. And we're home.

When ...

I started looking at the weather more carefully and tried to predict the rain some time when I first started secondary school in Vietnam. She always has a headache prior to a change of the weather - a severe headache a few days before a storm comes, and mild headache every now and then before a small rain comes. At first we thought it's just because she's a bit too sensitive since a lot of people experience the same. But when I first started secondary school, sometimes my mother would have a black out and faint. The doctors don't know what happens to her. But since the first day when she suddenly fainted while swirling a cup of milk for me for breakfast, I started looking at the sky more carefully. I try to predict whether my mom has a headache because of a coming rain. I would tell her when I massage her head "Mom, I think it's going to rain" - I intend to reassure her, but indeed, it's more about reassuring myself.

I always want to travel home for holiday, but sometimes fearful thoughts would creep into my mind. I'm afraid to know if someone is no longer there when I come home. In fact, it happens a few times during my four years in Singapore. And the worst thought is whether my mom had ever fainted again; my parents always seem to hide such occasions from me whenever I ask.

To live in a different country, I started to learn to love things that I used to take for granted.

Sometimes that love does not always comprise of happy feelings. There might be loss at first, but eventually, that teaches me to appreciate many things which I used to take for granted.

Everyone has to grow up. It's just that some of us are forced to grow up earlier than others.

Eventually everyone will have to move on, over the shell that might have kept us safe. It's just that some of us are forced to leave the shell earlier.

My father left my grandmother's hands when he was sixteen to the university in the capital. He told me stories of how he has wandered on his own. He jumped on a train without a ticket, traveled half the length of the country to see my mother at the middle of their 2-years separated when he was doing his graduate study. Before I left for Singapore at the age of 15, he told me that he never expected to let me leave his protection so early. I have never been the adventurous type like my father. I have never seen the difficulties of my parents, who had to raise pigs, planted tomatoes in our own house to add in more into the ration received from the government during the central planning time. My father would have stayed in the capital to teach in the university, but he chose to return to my mother to teach in high school. Because for him, his home is the most important. Everything I have received today is mostly from what my parents have done for our little home.

Some changes to HOME

May consider putitng in either the first paragraph or the paragraph about the room.
If it is the paragraph about the room, emphasize the tranquility of the atmosphere.

Changes:

Sometimes when I come across the name "Vietnam" in books, I wonder how people are looking at me, a Vietnamese person nowadays. What have I done for the country? The country's triumphs in the past seem more like old, rusted trophies that remind me more of the long gone triumphs in the past.

Some friends call me lucky for all the unexpected events that have happened to my life: early achievements, a scholarship to the best school in Singapore. Sometimes I think they say that because they never know what I have gone through. But slowly, I do realize how lucky I am for all the unexpected turns I accidentally walk into, people that I have met and get acquainted with, and possibly the random events that somehow, somewhere shape my life the way it has been. But above all, I feel lucky because I have always been able to think that I'm lucky. And probably that the things that matters the most. I have fumbled times and again. I have let great opportunities slip through my hands. I have hesitated and doubted. I have given up many things that might have important to me. But I have also, fortunately, realized that many failures are not as important as what I have had. I have turned my head away from things that I deemed important, and sometimes, I find a new way. I'm fortunate because my life has been made by such moments when I randomly take a step into a different path, when I fumble and decide to change my way, when I fumble and decide to push ahead. I'm fortunate because of the homes that I have, the friends that I make. I'm fortunate because no matter what I do, I have a dream at the horizon.

A lot of people call me lucky for all the unexpected events that have happened to my life: early achievements, a scholarship to the best school in Singapore. I used to think that they never know what I have gone through. But now I do realize how lucky I am. I'm fortunate because my life has been made by such moments when I randomly take a step into a different path, when I fumble and decide to change my way, when I fumble and decide to push ahead. I'm fortunate because I have learnt to love my homes. Because that loves give me a reason, a dream to keep going.

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