December, 2010

I've been so tired these days. Working, studying and travelling back and forth in the cold without knowing when the train will come in heavy snow days.

As usual, I think I'm a happier person than the crowd in the stations, rushing toward trains after announcements from somewhere. They even served coffee and tea for free to compensate for customers. I also took one, something tasted sour but just to keep my hands warm. There were lots of people with luggages heading to the airport. I heard a man talking on the phone saying he's on the way; or else the next flight would be tomorrow morning. In this very ordered country (the Netherlands), when there's a fault in the system, everything becomes a mess. Perhaps people in developing country should think of their advantage, there won't be lots of things bothering since they already have mess every day. This is not Icelandic volcano, but somehow, it reminded me of people, who cannot get on planes, to be at home with their family. Or just whatever reason, they have to stay in a foreign country, in the cold, with their plan destroyed.

Sometimes, I wonder where should I be to welcome 2012. Perhaps the best thing is to be with family, in my warm country. I missed a lot the 'coolness' of the winter in my hometown, when my mom had to take out the winter clothes from the big closet. We don't have heater in Vietnam so you have to wear sweater or anything, at least two layers of clothes every where, every time. I remembered the happy days when I stayed on my parent's bed, with the blanket that made you cold when you touch just it, reading books. I remember the days when there was water all over the city, when my father had to take me to my high school. It was warm getting back home, having food in the kitchen with the amber color.

It's funny that sometimes I cry because I'm tired, mostly mentally tired. It's normal to cry when you miss your family. Or just that sometimes, I'm tired because I don't see me with a free soul, that I have to be attached to work, study or sometimes just be attached to this world. Yet, to me it was beautiful to cry for others. I don't know if I will ever forget the days in the forest, somewhere in Arnhem, I had the urge of making my best providing the opportunity for the children. If it is to live for others, to me it's always worth it, and so to live meaningfully, joyfully and beautifully.

somewhere in 2010

It's end of October, soon to be winter. It feels cold and chill getting out of the office.
Sometimes I still recall the first day when i was back in Vietnam in August. I no longer hung around dowtown (district 1) to live in the richness. I slept in a fourth-floors house, a decent one, near 'kenh Nhieu Loc'. My boyfriend grew up in the area where he made friends to all kind of people, someone even living in prison now. Somehow it is just me that I refuse to see the other angles of life. To me, life had been pink, had been everything that positive. I still can't write much about some rare moments.

It's funny; the more I get older (not mature, I dare not say), the more I don't have any opinion of things around. Since things will change, or my opinion will change. I still have no experience to make conclusion out of existing things and the existence.

Four years ago, at this time around, I used to write a lot, out of love, out of sadness, out of my own observation and feeling. It was a luxurious time for me.
Jazz makes you swing, jazz makes you do not think about other things, if you only listen to it.

Delft, September 2010

I was in Delft yesterday, one of the rare days which is not in the weekend. It was nice that I walked alone, not taken on a bike by my boyfriend as usual. It was a bit chill, not very cold indeed. It was like in Hanoi when the city is going to the winter, but not really. Hanoi gives me a better impressions of the coldness, without wind but something go slowly but deeply into my body. The coldness here is much more, of course, if it's winter. But something that we can live with, something that only lingers on the skin. The wind can hardly go deep inside, unless it's a storm.

There were not so many people from the station on the way to the bridge. It's right in the city. There's been a lot of people in this country, unless it's Amsterdam. I remembered the day when we were back here, from Vietnam and Singapore. We were happy indeed since it's peacefulness, it's the place where we don't need other people look at to feel superior, to dress up but something that we can feel deeply inside, what we are and how we can be happy, on our own.

Delft was bright yesterday with the amber light. It was enough to see the city. It was much more than enough to see the big Old Church. It's always there even though it's not straight. At that time, when I saw the church, felt the air, it was like I was in 'the girl with the pearl earrings'. People were passing by. They are on a bike, or on foot. There was a car helping me to realize that I was not in the seventeenth century with Vermeer anymore. I had felt happy, thinking I was in a book. It's been quite some time ago when I'm not busy to feel happy with myself.

I feel lucky that happened once in a while.

old friends

And then, suddenly one day I realize how far I have been away from my friends. Just one day I heard that she's been engaged and is going to get married soon, the one who appears to me to have no change, and all her life is like a lake, with no big waves. How far I had been aware myself that some of my friends are no longer friends, after high school years till now, 7 years. Sooner or later, it would be 10 years, with no difference. But in 3 years, people may have changed very much, and love and marriage sometimes only needs a few months to make it happen. Didn't I realize that I have been away from my friends, sharing nothing, hearing nothing from them while managing and living my own life? When I was younger, a few years ago, I was glad to be in the open world, to make more friends and to know more people. Now, suddenly what matters is the closed friends that I had. The ones whose houses I dropped by almost every day to go to school together, whose I ate breakfast at her home, whose house I had to stay over because of the floods, whose I know their families, parents, grandparents, cousins,...

I blamed them for not keeping me posted with their lives. They probably don't know my life either, and the ones whom I have concern about. Now, I seem like the person who doesn't have that much growth and change, watching my friends and their lives going by, disconnected.

Am I no longer the person they can share their lives with. Standing in Herengracht, I wonder if we are still the same, because they no longer share or know my life. Distance, with its unawareness divides people apart, or just they themselves go further away from each other. I questioned my life being here; yet now and here, it is my life, the life that I am aware of my happiness when I'm alone, or when I have someone to hang around with. Here and there, it is perhaps my life and different lives that are different. Somes are destined to be there, some are born to go, detached or connected, life keeps going.

There is no time for unoptimized thought.

Why think? It's better reading Winnie the Pooh and go!


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periods

My mom was waiving her hands looking at us from the custom.

If only there's no habit formed...
If only there's no change ever happened...

Today, it occurs to me how precious the 'ordinary' moments are. I only need those, to have no sadness, inside...
20, 25 years are long periods, for a baby to grow up, and for a 20s something to get matured. But they can be short, when you just live, need nothing, except a lake without waves.

If only it could be rational. Yes, life is with target, to be happy.

in the middle of somewhere

I've been sometimes thinking about chi Lan (Khoai's mother) or chi Linh, who is two years older than me and was happily married two years ago, and my girlfriends who have got married, and those who are single. A few among the latter are successful, to people's perception. To me, I'd prefer those who have a happy family. Of course, it's told that as a modern and independent girls/ women, your happiness shouldn't depend on a guy. It's true. But when it comes to family, it's you who decide the happiness of the family, or at least, it's you to choose the right one to marry. Words are easier than actions, though. To a lot of girls, I just can find the reason of them being lucky not to have the wrong one(s). It seems to me, when I am getting older, that you cannot choose your fate. Like, before you were born, there were fates on the sky and God just plugged you in that life. I have turned Asian-minded after years of living on my own abroad. Isn't it strange?

I'm a difficult person, and stubborn even though sometimes I'm nice and adaptive. I am so when I'm aware of myself. Once in a while, I tell myself that I am lucky, to have my boyfriend with me. Because, he is a happy person, and he doesn't think much, like me. My life seems to turn to what I had imagined: a normal life. I thought it would be happy. In fact, I still see it so. A 'normal' life of a girl, to my perception is not having too much in a career, that you don't work for a bank or any financial institutions all days that make you forget about what you can do except work. A normal life contains love and attachment to other person(s). I have a job in a nice company, in the centre of Amsterdam, a start-up company that you find things to do yourself in an industry that has been changing so much and it will still be, in more than 5 years. I, myself like people and I like my colleague. I just don't know where the feeling of belonging doesn't exist in me. I don't belong to the industry, or don't I belong to the young society in the Netherlands? I don't think the latter, but the former. Yet, I have never been working for a bank in the Netherlands although I was going to. If I had worked there, probably, some day I would find out I need to be outside. I am not really a type of an office worker. Yet again, to be really something or nothing is better than in the middle, where I am now, in a casual environment but still, it's office, numbers which don't require a lot of creativity or sympathy and love for people.

I want to go home, sometimes, very much. My home is where my mother and my younger brother live, and where I used to go to the beach with my family two or three times per week in the summer. My home is where I can have food coming from the sea, where I can breath the sea into my chest. Yet, when I've turned more grown-up, it's difficult to do so. I cannot just leave what I have here (in the Netherlands) and what I have some responsibility on (my work and to some extent, my boyfriend). There's one thing I know, my boyfriend is more than a 'boyfriend'. That our lives are to be met, not for short-term. I have a girlfriend. She's purely girl and she enjoys writing, mostly about girls and love. I don't, even though I used to. Relationship can be tiring, especially when you're in love, and distant. Yet, being in love and to love a person is different. You won't leave a person unless that person turns different to you. I don't say 'unless that person changes' since everyone changes and that is necessary.

What I meant with 'my life seems to turn normal' is that I will travel, have a family, and to go to work still, taken into account that the world will still be fine in years to come, without so many natural disasters or crimes. On an on, I still have to learn to content with myself while still keep some space for my own development, the reason why I don't come back to my hometown or to Vietnam at the moment. (Where time is mostly spent on social networking and other things that you can't control, like traffic trams). I will, probably be an ordinary woman and if that's true, I will work with people and for people after some efforts.

off

This entry is especially for me. It's not for anyone else, or about living experience and so on and so forth. It's just about me, being happy.

I came to the office for a while, after finishing everything and returning the key to the housing company. There was no feeling for the place I have lived since November 2005. I had been sad, when I came back there to pick up some stuff, when there were a few things left. I sat on a couch, an old couch bought in a second hand shop that Zillah and me went to. I like watching the TV, which I bought for 25 euros, built in DVD player. The woman's husband helped me and my brother bring it to Central Station. But we had a hard time managing to bring it from the tram station in Zuiderzeeweg into the house. Now I leave the TV there. I like mornings when I watched CNBC, reading Financial Times. My breakfast were mostly with brown bread, a special one which really matched with English orange marmalade. There were nights when I came back from work, watching movies or Sex and the City, lying on the blue coach which I don't remember how it was brought to the place. And when I had a boyfriend, an office job, I came back home watching TV for a while, not so much though, but still I like to watch Quest means Business on CNN. That seemed to be the memories, the memories I had for myself. I'm not sure if my boyfriend remember anything about that place. He doesn't have good memory of his old childhood which makes him not as nostalgic as I am. He said the old place had value because of me. Yet, to me, that place was home and I know I need a place to feel home wherever I live.

Today the weather was humid. It looks like it's going to rain from the morning, but it has not. I'm off from work since this is my moving day. In Holland, you got a day off when you move, or have a funeral, or a wedding. I don't even know the rule in Vietnam. But there's no rule there. I remember my mom came home during her working days since she had to do grocery. There were no supermarket at that time. I like going to the supermarket with her when I was home from abroad. The supermarket, the Metro, in my city was big. There are a lot of fresh vegies, fish, and the smell of the bread just out of the oven. There were people standing in line to buy hot, roasted poultries. My mom spent a lot of money there. I liked it and missed it coz I couldn't afford to buy that much in a supermarket in the Netherlands. And I had to carry them home all by myself. There we have a scooter, or we take a cab, which was not expensive compared with my parents' salary, although we are just above mid-income.

This morning I was on tram 1 heading from Meer en Vaart to Central Station. It's a very ordinary ride. But there were not so many people as there are during rush hour and I didn't spend time with my iPhone. I was thinking my mother would love the city. I hope she will, when she comes to visit me. Houses here are small, and in the centre, they are not standing straight. But they are typical Amsterdam. Yesterday night, it was windy. I crossed the road from AH, the one near Magna Plaza. I heard a woman voice saying: "This place is nowhere compared to NY." I turned defensive inside. I love this place, I don't know the reason why. Now that I'm working and I have to spend some unpleasant time on trams 1 hour per day. I've changed and I have been busy that sometimes I'm not happy when I see myself not motivated, the girl who loves lives and people, who goes and is happy with every breath inhaled.

Facebook keeps me updated with people and help me share a lot of things. But I don't like going there sometimes. I see friends in Vietnam getting married. I see them hanging out, spending their lives for immaterial purpose. It's good, but it's not practical. I've turned further from them. A few have more than a thousand friends. One of them I had dinner with. I wondered if she spent more than one thousand dinners with all of them... Or sometimes I see the pictures of them gathering, with their kids. A few with their new home, as they've just got married. They are at 24, at my age. It's happiness for them. If I lived there, it would be a wonderful life for me, to be married, having a home and hanging out with friends. However, since I'm here, my conception is different. I can't dedicate my time to one person, to a home at my age. I'm not a party type of person. I like spending time with my boyfriend but I know there's time needed for both of us, for personal growth and personal space. And that I'm not mature. And that I want to travel, to meet people, to take pictures, to write. I can't be committed myself. I need time and the memories that we have had and will have to stay with a person.
With my colleagues here, the ones I like don't like to share everything on the Internet. I like that. I like not showing off. So, I don't communicate a lot with them there. I don't have pictures taken with them, even though with a few of them, I feel there are personal relationship. I would still like to keep in touch with them when I don't live in the Netherlands. Yet, I know part of the reason I don't have a lot of communication with them is that I'm not really integrated into the society. I won't, probably, if I live in Vietnam either. I could have a lot of social networking, knowing thousand people. It was me, when I was aware of myself. I listened to people, being diplomatic, hypocrite,... I attended parties, meetings and conferences. I liked it, sometimes. But it was only for half a year. I was not sure and still not sure now if I can live that life for all my life.
Somehow, I have the idea of people are different in different groups. Their communication style can be different, as a 'red', 'blue', or 'yellow' person, depending on the people and the society they interact with. This, however, should be taken into account in social relationship level, not personal level. I hope I will have a chance to explain it in the future.

I'm in a cafe, the place where I often write. This is surrounded by faculties of University of Amsterdam. There are a lot of students coming here. I'm sitting near a man, with a laptop as well. I would go to Chinatown, to buy glutinous rice, Vietnamese sausage and a few things. I just know that walking there and buying some grocery in idly make me happy. I'm missing chi Lan, Khoai's mother. She wrote me a few lines during the lunar new year. I hope the family's stuff will come soon to Houston. She had a lot of things ready for Tet that she didn't have to cook over there. I would love to talk to her now. It will be about their life. Finally, I've got to the practical life, caring about how my friends settle down and live, rather than hanging out, travelling, feelings,...

I'm gonna stop soon. My thoughts are not in order. I'll spend time reorganize them, I hope, in the future. If they're not going to be so, I will be happy doing something else. :)

Being a Foreigner

I wish I have more time for writing. Yet the time and the situation dont allow me. I work 8h/day. I still have time back home but it's more interesting and meaningful to get to know and stay closed with ppl around me. And, the down to earth stories they talk about and those they watch on TV. I dont really have a timeline for my project. But, I hope these days will add up to my book of life, of being an insider and an outsider, to both my mother country and the foreign country. There are times I feel Im out of the world. I guess, there is a so called 'transition' year(s); like places between stairs, that you can rest can continue climbing.


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Resolutions

I forgot, or I'm not in the mood of writing. I was thinking of my uncle while he said I shouldn't return to the place where I can't change the situation. Yes, I still want to learn and develop myself. So I wont think of going backward. I was happy after being stressed, painful and cranky physically and mentally. I was happy to be on the street, seeing people. I was in the book store, reading cooking books. One was about Japanese healthy eating and the other one was in Srilanka. The opening of the book showed people, in the middle was a smile of a boy and his family. The book shows how to make curry and different kind of thing cooked with curry. I would love to do the same thing for Vietnamese food. I would go back to my father' hometown, Hue to learn making diiferent kind of salty cakes and spicy food. I always wish to travel around, to meet people and learn about their culinary. Will I be on my own to meet people? At least my boyfriend likes eating and photography so he can go with me. I like people and want to learn about people. But I'm not friendly as my bf. :-) I've been writing and it hadnt been saved before he called. But it's good. I was writing nice words and I talked to him badly, like I sometimes keep doing. I'm going to stop, I'm not going to go back. I will stay in the place where I feel free and I will stay because I know I will travel, eventually. I will come what may, for the moment, even though I believe fate is made by the individual, mostly. And I will never think negatively. To reduce negative thought sounds not so strong. I wont think negative, even though I do have problems. Being happy, friendly, and free of mind is the bliss, and a goal to reach, and maintain.


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February 2010

http://www.fridaycafe.com/2010/01/holgamoon/

(My best friends' honeymoon).

I'm not sure if having feeling is good, and sense, toward a few things that are like a sense for the future. It was so trivial that I moved when seeing the album photo for her, for him while they were happy and are happy. Sense and feeling are worthless, in the context, aren't they?

I'm happy that I like jazz and there's still Nina Simone. I'm excited to move and to share a new place with a nice, cool single-mom girl. And that my boyfriend is still holding me when I turn incomprehensible, even to myself.

There's nothing else matters.

Schiphol, Holland

I passed the land covered in grey and white. It was beautiful. I saw windmills, two or three small ones standing high on snow. "I don't belong here", I didn't know why I said so to myself. I was not sure if I belong to anywhere. I came back to A'dam from Paris, being happy to come back to a place like home. But do I really belong to Holland? No. I'm probably just a nomad, like my friends, like me.

I saw my friend off from Schiphol today. My manager after hearing me saying about her saying she's a refugee, the girl who lived 6 years in the US, now living in Finland and on that day, she went to Belgium from Holland but came back to A'dam to go to Paris on her holiday of visiting me. And other friends of mine who have stayed here for years now are going to America, for an indefinite time.

If I didn't have my boyfriend, if I didn't have the person to each other we belong to, I don't know if I can stay here. Sometimes, it questions me if a relationship got better because two people really need each other when they live abroad, in a place where they don't have a lot of friends to hang around, to talk and share things with.

Like yesterday, I was wondering if I am a happy person to find happiness in snowing but warm A'dam rather than in gorgeous Paris with my boyfriend and my best friend, but in a place I'm not used to, a place I don't prefer. I love people, but I love me. Both, so much sometimes that it feels like a sin.

I don't know, sometimes I write when I feel like I'm lost.