just had the worst lunchmare...

or somehow I would like to call it nightmare during lunch nap, which I just woke up from 5 minutes ago. I decide to write about it because this could be a total potential idea for future scary movie film makers, lol (trying to be funny to feel less scared, u know)

Anywho... my "lunchmare" setting was in an office which looks very much like a library (maybe because I have been working too much in the library lately). Me and a couple of "friends" (supposedly I just know they were my friends in the dream, I actually knew one of them in real life, lets called her A). I was just chatting with them while they were doing the "evil" works of hightlighting people's name on the black book. Why I called is evil is because if someone's name on the book get highlighted, they will be killed within 24 hours by being cut like a letter X on their necks. A so-called friend was sitting next to me, doing the works, then calmly showed me my name has been highlighted. I was shocked. I was like "no f*cking way, while she was just shrugging her shoulders like it was not a big deal.

I sat there, devastated. Apparently, another friend, who I addressed as friend A before, was in the conversation. I told her I do not want to die and there must be some way to let me out of this, since we are all working for this black book thing, but we never know who was behind it.Friend A smiled at me, reassuring me that "Don't worry, I actually know a way to get out of it. I will tell you later."Upon hearing that, I felt a little more secure. I waited for this friend A to be done with work so that she can show me the technique to get out of this killing circle. She motioned me to wait while she picked up a newspaper or some short of magazine, which I suppose will has something to do with me not being dead today. I notice we made a lot of assumptions when we dream, which I havent quite figure out why, or is it just still me being an econ major in my dream.

Anyway, after then she led me to a private room, again it looks like a private room in the library where I used to have interview for the library job like a month ago.
There...Right there.... was the moment.
She smiled at me. Evilly.
She pulled out a knife.
And by then I knew right away I was going to die. Shit.
She drew the knife on my neck, making it like a letter "X" shape.
Blood was spattering everywhere.
As I was slowly becoming suffocating, there was a tiny second of moment that made me recognize this was a dream and the only way to escape this "ring" of nonesense murder was to WAKE UP. Somehow I managed to woke up.

Yet, it didnt seem to end. My phone started ringing. (after I woke up, not that the phone woke me up!)Thank god, it was a friend of mine on the phone asking me to go out tonight.

Anyway, that is my story for today. The coincidental thing is I have always been a good friend with this friend A, and I always made fun of her evil laugh like a joke. I did it so much that she even dressed up like a litte devil during last year Halloween. Weird!!!!

P.S.: I was googling a pic for my nightmare blog entry. Sh*t, it freaked me out too, so I decided to leave this the way it is.

Copyrighted by Hang Pham.

how do you know...

if you're really over someone,...

god damn it, I cant believe I'm writing another entry about this again.

So how do you know?
- do you have to be in a new relationship?
- do you just have to completely have nothing related to that person?
- do you have to just cut off the relationship with your mutual friends?
- or is it when you feel attracted to someone else?
- or is it by putting on a new and sexy outfit?

I don't know... the only thing I know is that for all this time I thought I was over it... and then I saw this stupid status note on facebook, and it hit me. Maybe it's just a contemporary emotional feeling.

Spring Break 08 update

Spring Break is finally over. It was pretty boring for me for the first couple of days. But I ended the break by going winter camping with Tsering and Matie, which turned out to be a lot of fun, although there wasnt that much to see in Duluth.

So we all really sat down and planned this whole thing like a night before we left, therefore, you can kinda guess how it should turn out. We got to Duluth at around noon on Thursday, shocked to find out that the camp site we intended to stay over was closed. Luckily, there was another camp site, namely "Jay Cooke State Park Camp Ground" near by, so we camped there instead. Later on, we didnt realize they were charging us $16 per night for each camp site. "how ridiculous! this is STATE park, shouldnt it be free" we thought; therefore, we only ended up staying there once.
For two days, we visited downtown Duluth, went to Jitter, a local cafe, got rejected to enter YMCA (haha we thought we could get a visitor pass to enjoy saunna there, but we were wrong), Ve Bene, a local Italian restaurant overlooking canal park, Duluth lift bridge and Lake Superior, and got to enjoy the whole Minnesoooota winter camping experiences including:
- sh*ting and p**ing in the park, or we like to call it "emerging in mother nature"
- sleeping in a tent on a snow, freezing our a$$ off
- cooking (or burning) our food in aluminium foil wrap
- putting up fire for heat (we kinda abused the lighter fluid, what a great invention)
- dancing around the fire like tribal or nomadic people
- not being able to open our eyes because of too much smoke
- almost hitting a deer on the road
- no showering for 2 days (LOL)
- using Subway's restroom for cleaning and changing
- overeating all kind of junk food in the car
- boldly asking for free ketch up and mayo at McDonalds because they didnt put them out at the dining area
- and so on

It was such a great time and Im looking forward to do it again in the summer, since we'll have a lot more activities to do, such as canoeing, hiking and so on.
Cant wait for this winter to be over! :)

okay, so its Spring Break

I finally decided to stay here in Minnesota during my last spring break of my college life. Not so lame. I also want to apologize to "em Nga iu" for ditching her and staying here. Hope you will have fun in New York and forgive me.

So I have not been doing much except for lazying around and coming to work. I just got the job at the library in addition to my job at CGE, so I'm basically working for about 16 hours a week now. My paycheck on April is gonna be sweet, hehe.

For a long break like this, I, and some of my friends, decided that we all are going to keep a dietary journal, meaning we are going to keep track of what we eat and drink. It's kinda like a weightwatcher program, except that it is free and its only between us. I have been noticing that I gain a lot of calories during the day due to snacking (e.g. chocolates, cheetos and so on). I tend to eat small meals which is good at some point if I can keep like 4 small meals a day; but instead I eat like 5 to 6 small meals, and that added up to my "muffin tops" and "love handles" hanging around my hip and waist now. My jeans are not fitting me, and my shirt size has risen to M, instead of S. I guess those are signs telling me I need to get in shape.

Speaking of getting in shape, I really like my basketball class, although I'm like the worst in the class for the fact that I never had any back ground in basketball before. However, I get to play in team and that helps my skill progress gradually. I'm not afraid to make a fool of myself in this class any more just cuz this is my last semester, what else have I got to lose, right?

Anyway, I'm gonna get back to "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".

Spring Break.... arggg

So Spring Break is like 3 more days away and I havent got no plan for it yet.

DC? well, not so psyched about it, for the facts that I have been there like 3 times already (2 on spring break and 1 on xmas), I really just had enough of DC. But 1 week staying here can be very depressing... except that... um.. I'm tempted to join these girls who are very good friends of mine to go to Duluth camping. It will be great chance to just chill in Minnesota for the last time, chill with these friends and get some nice photos of the nature ( btw, I am falling head-over-heel for my d40, its like a new and ultimate boyfriend, LOL)!
On top of all frustrations of planning, I am very broke. I cant afford a 400$ airfares, or even if I can, the paychecks from 2 months I have been working my ass off will blow off like a snapping fingers. I have not used my mom's credit card and living more independent than other semesters, so I don't want to break that habits just for spring break.

So we'll see.

I have not got a chance to finish "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", and thats making me a bit mad. Too much work and litte errands for the day just tired me out and by the end of the day, I just want to throw myself on the bed right away... Come on, I need some more free time :)

busy week

Don't you hate it so much when you need to print something out, the printer decides to go strike on you. It happens every freaking time whenever I am in a hurry, like 5 minutes before class starts. So annoying!!!

So I have been pretty busy since the beginning of the week. Tests after tests and events after events... there are just a lot of little things you need to make sure that you get done and I am very forgetful... so I leave them once in a while then I have to come back to it, and then realize oops, its the end of the day already.

My Nikon D40 is finally here today!!! I am so excited to go shoot some nice photos with it! However, the memory card hasnt arrived yet, so I am currently using the temporary memory system which only allows you to shoot like 1 picture then it automatically deletes it after a few second. um... anyhows!!!

Regarding the last post, I actually posted that one on Yahoo 360 since I have more "acquaintances" of expertise over there. They're been giving me some feed back on my reflections from the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". To be frank, I was very sensitive about some criticism, but now I think of it more like a challenge, in which I could develop more about my self on how to talk big on such big issues. I just realize how much I have become a fan of reading and writing. Thanks to that book, it was very inspirational!!!!

There's no such thing as a free lunch

"There's no such thing as a free lunch"

That is probably the first thing I have ever learnt in my first economics class in college, and probably the most important thing I should always remember when I get out of college. Why is that? The answer is simple. No one wants to give out something free for you. If they are giving you a "free lunch", they are expecting you to pay back at some points. Just think about whenever you bump into some ads online that said "congratulations, you have been selected to win a free iPhone!", sorry but life aint that simple. You, very excited, clicked on the link to fill in some info so that they can send you an iPhone. In contrary, what appears were list of non-stop and non-related questions or surveys that you are required to answer. The next thing you know, you're too tired and gave up, "Fck this, I dont want an iPhone anymore!". See, nothing is ever free for you.

Anyway, such a long introduction brough to this main point I want to say. I have been having a lot of questions regarding the World Bank, the IMF or similar international organizations which are very willing to give out loans for developing or under-developed countries in order to help those countries alleviate poverty, boost the economic condition, build up necessary infrastructure and so forth. I have always wondered "why are they doing that?", "what's in it for them".... until recently I got a chance to pore over "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". The book was an autobiography of a man who claimed himself an economic hit man, aka EHM. They are actually groups of people who cheat on small, less developed countries making them believing in great prosperity if those countries were to take the US loans and invest in their countries; however, those countries will never be able to develop as much and foster as predicted, so they ended up being shackled with debts with the U.S. and then become dependant on the U.S. These EHMs are very cunning in their works. They dressed up and talked about how concerned they are with your economies (LDCs), but they in fact were luring your countries into deals which you will never ever be able to get out. The closer the people who worked with them to fool the public, the more those people with benefits greater money, leaving others people in poverty and even in deeper poverty.

For example, the U.S. spotted the economic potential of Indonesia in productin oil. Of course, Indonesia was still one of the very under-developed countries in the world. The U.S. wanted the oil (obviously). However, invading Indonesia to occupy those oil pipe lines will just make them look bad and of course that takes a lot of resources such as troops, building camps and military base and so forth. There came the job of EHMs. They were ones who worked for big government and international organization. So eloquent and charismatic that the Indonesian officials can thought that they were trick into this no-turning-back kind of deal. An EHM would propose the U.S. building an electrification infrastructure in Indonesia, helping to bring electricity to Indonesia. So the question is how would they cheat, you may ask. What this EHM did was that he made wrong forecast about this eletricity plantation plan. Based on the current conditions, Indonesia would take about 10 years or more to build a good infrastructure; however, the crafty EHM will ignore the current country's condition, making forecast that the country can build and have electricity served in 5 years. Of course the Indonesia would say yes to such plan. However, such a perfect plan could NEVER turn out that way. Therefore, after 5 years, Indonesia still had not finished building the plant, and even ending up in more debt. The only way they can pay back to the US was to dig and sell oil to the US for the rest of their lives. Do you see how this thing work?

I was floored. I was disturbed. How could I've never thought about it before? This is such a brutal truth that I found out, very shocking but I'm glad I had known about this. There are just a lot more to read from this book, and I strongly recommend it. I will post some more comments and reflections as I finish. Here is some info on the book: "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" - John Perkins (2004)