im so swamped at work...

but Im loving it. Its kinda addictive hahaha

just started a Reuters training 3 days ago, its going quite alright so far. The thing I enjoyed most about this course so far is the fact that I get to listen to the English accent. Indeed, I think I have learned to speak a few words like the British. The course will last until last Friday, which means for about 2 weeks, we have to still maintaince producing 3 news programs plus 4 of the people on my team need to attend the course everyday from 9:00am to 5:00pm.... 

its just too muchh... im so swamped...

Btw, happy belated valentine! This year again wasnt anything special! I cant remember what I did last year on this day. Anyway, I did have some fun with my co-workers. We all went back to my house afterwards, played DDR, had noodles and finally watched Basic Instinct ...LOL

Need to be a vegetarian

need to stay cool!!!!!!!

arg... sorry the date has been changed again to Feb 1st, or maybe even March 1st....
dude I dont wanna feel like an unfaithful employee, but dont you think waiting 5 months for a channel to be on air is already crossing the line of "being patient"?

Anyway, Im not totally disappointed at the company because there are still something here thats worth to stay with... but sometimes the unstable me can't help having those thoughts.

Btw, seriously friends coming back home this months ---> eating and drinking too much ---> chubbier.... haiz Wait, but I've just discovered, I like everything chubby, especially this cat:

Another Saturday Night Update....

So the date is set. 01.01.09, it is! We're going to be on-air (still keeping my fingers crossed though). Hoping it to be a LIVE program as well.

As much as I've never thought I would end up working in financial broadcasting field, this job is becoming more and more fascinating. Especially these last couples of months has been so historical in terms of economic that I feel honored and thankful to follow and knows about pretty much all the latest news that are out. Working in a television company plus editing and reporting a lot of global stock market news made me feel how fast, significant information should be reached, understood and analyzed accordingly.

4 months here only but it seems like a whole lot of changes that have happened. Many new applicants have been accepted, worked, stayed or either left. Surprisingly I am still sticking with job while in fact, I was the first to thought after 2 week working that "i am so leaving".
Anyway, but I think I am working with a great team. I realize you don't have to be so smart, you can just be alright with a positive working attitude but as long as you have a wonderful team, everything can run a lot more smoothly and effectively rather than doing something on your own. Kinda like a cliche which a Monster.com article can give you, right, but hey, now it is a piece of advice copyrighted to me.

Anyway, thats about me for a week!

Again, promising to post more interesting stuff soon!

saturday night

I've been quite neglected with updating this blog... for some reasons, I dont feel like writing anymore. Although I come to work everyday and write a lot about world news, I feel so hard to sit down and write something about myself lately.

Work is getting more interesting and ... bearable, I guess. It has come to the point that we all know everyone working here, so things are moving a lot more smoothly. Plus, we also get used to the constant non-sense commenting/yelling/criticizing of mr.boss that it no longer bothers us... haha

Good weekend everyone!

feeling sufficient?

Pic: Me on the way to "Carrying Tray" for a wedding. I'll explain more about this custom later. 
Pics not so much related to post.

As Xmas is getting near and my friends are coming home (1 already did), usually this is the time when I try to buy a lot of stuff to come home with. And not to mention, the thought of "shit I can never go shopping in the US" almost killed me a bit when I decided to come home. Kinda shallow, but it was true up until...

Yesterday when I was trying to create a list of things I want my friend to bring home to me. I realized... it was NONE! I cant think of a single thing, but before I was always worried whether to get my body shop face wash, my Frutis Hair Wax, my colonge, my cosmetics... now all those materialistic things seem to matter no more.... Hah! Somehow I feel relieved. like something so heavy just blown off from my shoulders.

In Hanoi, I can feel sufficient. No more "materialistic" feeling about being here and not in the US anymore.

Side notes: Yey, Im so excited, Tea is already here. Ngoc Be'o, Nga, My and Nhung Vi.t are coming home!!! I miss them so much!!

Pictures from wedding

Left to right: Nguyet, Trang, Me, Trang and Diep

Us posing again after the party!

With the groom!

Vietnamese wedding

I went to the first Vietnamese wedding in my life today as one who used to work with and know the groom. I need to stress out the fact that I know the groom because in Vietnam, people sometimes just go to a wedding without knowing much about the couple getting married. Like I went to one with my mom before and it kinda sucked.

Basically there are a lot of processes to go through to get married. Let just say this couple want to spend the rest of their lives together. The guy's parents after agreeing on his choice will go to the bride's house to ask for her parents permission to have a wedding. They have to bring in trays with lots of different items on them such as betel leaves, nuts, wine and so on. If the bride's parent agree, then they went on and talk about good date. But thats in the old time, I think now the abovementioned process is just only a superficial custom, both sides already know they have permission to get married and they actually decide the date before that process.
Then after that comes a wedding day. On this day, the groom's parents and relatives will go to the bride's house to literally "take her out of the house" as that symbolize the fact that the bride is now with her husband and they have taken the vows to live with each other to the rest of their lives. Then it comes celebration dinner which I joined today with my colleagues to toast to the couple's happiness.

Usually celebration dinner is the most superficial thing but inevitable on a wedding day. Guests from both sides of the couples and the couples'PARENTs are invited. So basically its a huge sitting-style dinner, and not a lot of people know each other. Imagine we as co-workers with the groom sitting and eating in the same table with guests of the groom or the bride's parents. God knows what we can share and talk about. Also at the wedding celebration, the bride, groom and their parents will be standing at the gate to greet the guests. The guests are supposed to come in, and greet and of course put a little "evelop" into a heart-shaped box located at the entrance. I really prefer the western ideas of guests bring in some well-wrapped gifts for the couple rather than money. This is something that kinda bugs me. Afterwards, guests are directed to their tables and when pretty much all the guests are present, the party begins. There was an MC at the wedding today so he introduced briefly about the couple and the parents. The coupl then cut their wedding cake then poured out some champane. As much as they needed to sit down and enjoy since it was their wedding (not others), they had to stand up and went give toasts to .. um im guessing they are only familiar with 25-30% of the guests their. Keep smiling, they moved from table to table. The funny thing is as soon as they were done with the last toast, the table which got the first toast finished eating and started to leave. Needless to say, the groom and the bride went to the gate again to say goodbye and thanks to the guests.

We were lucky to get some pictures with the groom, but he seemed so busy. Poor guy.

Of course we all couldnt avoid feeling "we want to get married, too"... but this whole process kinda frustrated me. Vietnam really needs a professional wedding planner service!

Being a vegetarian...

So I have been a vegetarian for about 4days and a half now. I decided to stop and reflect on what I actually achieved by doing so.
I feel a lot healthier. Sometimes it drove me nuts seeing people eating meat or just smelling it around, but somehow I could restrain myself from biting into one.
There are a couple of good things about being a vegetarian. First it makes you feel and eat healthier, but I guess that also depends on how you choose and diversify your menu. For example, I can be a vegetarian by just eating bread and still feel sick and overweight. On the other hand, I can be a healthy vegetarian by choosing to eat more veggies, salad, fruit, tofu, rice and watever that is non-meat. My 4days and a half focuses on diversifying my eating items. It was quite difficult, but not impossible. I used to even say I would die if I can't have meat in a day... now that statement seems pathetic :)
2nd thing, people says being a vegetarian can help you become less bad-tempered, which is a character I possess. The nutritions and vitamin in fruits and veggies plays an important part in balancing your mineral intakes and increase your blood flow. (excuse my non-scientific language). Other theory which I just heard today was that, meat are produced by slaughtering animals during which time they were under so much pain and distress. Therefore, the meat output from there pertains that pain and distress of the animal while being killed... As a result, if you eat meat, you take in yourself that pain and distress, and you will have a bad-tempered. It is not scientifically, but it makes sense to me. Sometimes I take those explanations pretty seriously.
3rd thing, I can contribute more for a cleaner enviroment by eating no meat. Cattles have been raised just to get killed and be served as food for us. That process exhausts the land, the cycle of biological world and the environment.
I actually became more environmental conscious after watching "An Inconvenient Truth", a documentary film on Global Warming by Al Gore. I highly recommend this!!!!!

Anyway, I think I will do this on a regular basis, maybe a week per month! :)

turbulent time for Wall str, turbulent time for us

as our team leader left for not just for a better opportunity out there but also because it is way beyond his limit to stand all the company craps including unskilledfull manager, mean colleagues, and quite a stubborn-but-always-think-he-knows-stuff CEO/boss. 

Anyway, enough of that. It caused me thinking if what I'm doing is right or I am wasting my time on a career I don't see much future with. Actually it got some potential, but I never thought I would turn my steering wheel to the media industry. I'm too much of a Democrat to be able to work in this oppressed and undemocratic enviroment. I'm good at being blunt, and thats what I want to be. I'm gonna see how things are turning out in a fe month. One good news though, we might be on air sometimes in December. I would love to see that happens.

Frustrations over people...

I really need to put this message out:

2 Nga: GROW UP! I'm sick of you acting stubborn and irresponsible. You told me to tell to your face that you made a mistake. Yeah, I can do that, but I won't. Have some respect for yourself and start taking things seriously, okay!
Thats harsh, but I really need to tell you since I'm still your friend.

And another frustrating thing at work happened. I'm sick of people not taking responsibility, sick of people who can't care enough about our team's work, but always try to get in the way and make things harder for us, sick of people who think they have a lot of experience in this broadcasting industry but never intend to teach us anything, sick of some people of other teams never doing works and the only thing they're good at is to distract us with all their noises and laughing.... Argg.. Maybe I'm a bit exargerating, I'm just really mad.

It also troubles me that how much people believe in the news without double checking the source or ask questions about it. If you don't know about the scandal and you read it just from a blog or a personal site, how much of that scandal is relevant, why don't you try asking more questions and make some objective judgement about it. Think it once, think it twice. Infomation is everywhere, it can't question, but you can. Be critical!

----
oh yeah, 1 side note: I think I got food poison last night. I work up in the middle of the night with a terrible stomachache. I tried to puke but nothing came out. I was squirming and sweating for like 15 minutes. Finally some bad stuff went out of my system, and I was feeling a bit better. Man, I almost thought I had to be hospitalized. It was so painful.

Another week has begun...

Time flies by so fast when you work (... not when you enjoy it)

I can feel my team growing and bonding, now that all the misunderstandings have resolved and I learned how to control myself. I can't ask for better team members. For the first time, I really feel the excitement and the effective collaboration to come to a finished and well-done project/product, however you want to call it. 

You can call me a nerd but lately I think I've become a CNBC addict. I even "sacrificed" FRIENDS for CNBC's Squawk Box today. Maybe its because I've been listening to CNBC news in the morning too much that I developed a skill of processing all the info/discussions being broadcast. It gets exciting to hear the question and then anticipate an answer from an expert on CNBC. I've learnt a lot more about the US Economy (esp. the stock market) over the last 1 and a half month more than what I did in college (or maybe I didnt study hard and seriously enough back in college). 

----

Marissa, Augsburg's Int'l Admission Counselor, is coming here in about 3 days. I'm so excited to see her. I'm going to take her to my high school and have her talk to some of the kids here about Augsburg College. It made me feel the Auggie Spirit again.

Missing Augsburg so much!

Friday night and...

normally I would be asleep by now since I have to wake up at 4:45am every Mon to Fri. But tomorrow I only need to be at the office by 8:00 (yeah, still have to be at the office on weekend!! arg..) so I'm indulging my staying-up-late habits, just to feel less like some one in the working class. hehe

anywho... last weekend, I got my first official salary (not a paycheck, we're not that advanced yet). Mom asked me as I was holding the money in my hands pondering "what're you gonna do with it?" Somehow the first thought that came right across my mind was "investing in the stock market" (although VNIndex is going downgrade like dropping the ball on NYEve), and the second thought was "putting it in the banks and enjoy some gains from interest rates (most VNese banks' interest rates now are almost close to 20% per year *faint*). That being said because I have no idea with that much of salary I receive every month, when am I gonna be able to afford 1 house, or even just an apartment.

Mathematically, I earned about 5 million Dong monthly (dont be misled by the "million", watch the foreign exchange US$1 = 16,500 Dong), and 1 middle-class apartment at the moment is about 3 to 4 billions each. Lets say I spent only about 2 millions monthly (which is quite a generous number, since VNinflation could reach 23%, I should be spending a lot more)... anyway, then I can save 3 millions a month. So a 3-billion apartment can be bought by me after 3,000,000,000 divided by 3,000,000 = 1,000 months = app. 83 years.
Wow, I need to work about 83 years more with this job to get an apartment.
Haha, of course I didnt take into account of rising inflations and the fact that I might get promoted and earn somemore, but those numbers I just calculated does make sense and help explaining why we are still so poor, and why some of us want to takes so many risks with the financial markets.

------------
Anyway, lets talk about something else.
I finally watched Mamma Mia the other day with my buddies after a week desperately trying to get some1 to go with. The trailer seemed so well-done and it prompted to watch it, and it certainly didnt disappointed. I used to listen to a lot of ABBA songs, I can still recall some of the lines, and it was so exciting watching Mamma Mia because its the movie in which you can sing a long even its the first time you see it. The music, the songs, they're all being put rightly to each scence. Love the cast too, Streep is awesome esp her voice, Pierce is still looking sharp, poor handsome Colin Firth, he turned out to be gay in the end, Amanda acted well too. Its a musical so most of the scenes appears quite dramatic, but I love it.
This is probably the best movie for this summer.
Looking forward to it when it comes out on DVD :)

Jobs updated...

So I guess I kinda have a job. Im not saying it officially yet because only the hiring decision was made but I havent signed any contract yet.

This job can be called translator/interpreter. It might sound easy and simple, but when I actually started doing it, it reveals a lot of interesting dynamics, thats y I decided to keep working here when the economy (everywhere) is still slumping.

What I do is that I basically have a team of 5 (up until now), we have to listen to CNBC news, which airs at 5:00am (In the FREAKING morning), and then translate that news right away, and then our company will rebroadcast CNBC news with Vietnamese voice-over-by-us for our local audiences. Theres very much pressure to it because we basically have to translate a 10 minutes news within 20-25 minutes to make sure we air ontime. However, our company, which is a media company, has not started to broadcast anything yet, so everything we do now is basically practice until NOVEMBER. And its gonna be worst in november, because by then I need to be at the office at 4:30AM .... Luckily the office is quite close to my home. Anyway, there're a couple of pros for this job that I really enjoy:

- Dress code: None (well, of course not too much revealing, but seriously though, I can dress in leggings, a baby doll tee and no one would complain. How sweet is that!!!!)
- Half-day work: I get paid as much as my friends do but I only work half-day. Well, now I work from 5:30 to 12, but once it airs, I can work from 4:30 to 10:00AM and then Im off... Not bad, huh
- Great team: My team consists of 3 girls and 1 guy. They're all young except for the guy (see the pictures for reference, although 1 of them does not belong to my team)... so we all get along so well and have so much in common, like the Japanese obsession, the Japanese style, manga, and a lot more to discover
- No traffic for me: yep, at 5:30AM, I basically have the whole road for my self. Rush-hour in Hanoi is getting crazier day by day... I am so glad I got that off my chest.
- English Practice: Since CNBC broadcasts economics news all around the world, I have actually been learning tremendously about the global economy, the stock market and also listening-to-english-news skill.... I feel a bit ashamed cuz sometimes the team members can hear a lot better than I do... hehe
- Pressure: Working under pressure is probably the best way to be productive for me. Once I stepped in the office, the work begins. I have no time for Yahoo Instant Messaging, Facebook, Forums whatsoevers... I really rather have a part-time job which I can be busy and efficent than a full-time job which I always have spair time to net-surf and not produce anything.

Anyway, thats so update about my job for now. Thanks anyone whos still stopping by :D

You will never know enough about a person!

Yes, thats what I've been learning a lot. About human and how imperfect they are. I can pretty much stand any ugly characteristics such as laziness, or impatience, or greed, or inefficiency, or similar things like that but for sure I can never live with dishonest.

Human have sins. All my friends have flaws. I need to learn how to deal with them. But this friend of mine whom I just met a year ago lied to me about her life, her exes that she dated and made it seem like they were all bastards, when in fact she was the one that cheated on them and lied to them about her past. There is this one thing, but I should not say it out loud, just cos its little private for her. But its unbelievable that she even lied about it, so everyone can look at her like an innocent girl.
I actually realized we did not get along and stopped hanging out with her. Now more of the truth is being revealed... I guess its time I ended things.
I sound kinda mean, but I really dont believe much in changing people...

Now I know why my sister was right. Eventually the friends back in those days of junior high or high school will be the one will understand, love and be honest to us no matter what happens, or whoever we have become.

A little bit about health care in Vietnam

The intention of this article is not generalization!

----
So, as I was preparing documents to apply for jobs in Vietnam, it is required that I had to go to see a doctor for a general health examination. There's a form of list of things that a doctor needs to check with me to make sure I'm fit enough to work for the company.
To make things faster, I decided to go to this private clinic which I always spotted on the way for my designing class. I went in to talk to the receptionist about my work situation and the form I need to be filled. They understood immediately and asked me for 50,000 VND (about US$3). I was stunt so I just gave them the money, then got directed to go upstair for a doctor.

There I was upstair, greeted by another receptionist. He took my form and told me to sit and wait outside. Exactly 5 minutes later, a nurse came out and gave me my form. It was nicely filled with the doctor's handwriting, saying I was normal. Wow, he did not even see me for 1 second and he could totally write about my physical conditions. Anyway, I couldn't be more bothered with a 3-buck examination. He made my business go easier, what more could I ask?

I walked out of the clinic, wondering if thats what service or treatment other patients are receiving.

My Bday - Aug 1, 08

It was the second time I was surprised at my Bday.
Luckily Waka came over to visit so I got to party with her until 4am, which never happens when Im home, LOL. It was so much fun!!!

Happy 22!!!!

Ernst & Young in Vietnam --- not so professional

Ok, so I guess I got turned down from E&Y VN.

I think I was a bit cocky and too confident to take the aptitude test... well I did alright for a couple of few pages on accounting, but then gradually I sucked at audit, tax, business knowledge, and most of all, I hated myself for failing so many questions on the logic tests, aka IQ. Damn it, my brain is becoming slower and dumber everyday. I wrote some stupid answers and when I asked my sis for confirmation, she proved me wrong... how nice! I really need to work harder on math and need to read more books to prevent my brain from retarding!

Anyway, my point is... it has been a month since I took a test, and I have heard from my friends that they called a few candidates for an interview. Since I applied for the tax position, they said I might get called later. So I waited, waited, and shit, I called them to double check and all they said was "yeah, we're kinda done with recruiting for this season", I was like "why havent you guys send out any emails for the unselected candidates?", you know, cuz thats all the other 3 of the big 4 in Vietnam did.. they simply returned "oh, well, because this time there are too many"... Jeez, too many my ass. this is so unprofessional. They should try to inform the candidates as much as they can. Its not that they're freaking FOREIGN company then it gives them a chance to make us wait... damn it... yeah well, i was kinda upset with the decision too, so I maybe overreacted.

I guess now I dont want to work for E&Y VN any more... :P I thought a foreign company in VN would be different, but I was wrong.

Friendship

Lately I've been thinking a lot about friendship.
When I was little, friendship was such a simple thing. We just kinda went to school, studied together, play some games when there was break time... It was sweet, fun and simple. No one really upset any one, cuz life was quite simple as well, every body pretty much had the same values and ways of living.

I also used to have a best friend. Used to be very sure that we could have been best friends forever, like other best friends we saw on TV. Then comes high school we parted. Then comes studying abroad and college we parted again. And each time I came home for a visit, I realized a gap has already been built between us. The gap was named "awkwardness", "misunderstanding", "not-so-sharing", .... so we became casual friends, or acquaintances or ex-bestfriends.

I moved on and found a couple of new friends. It was so hard at this age to have a best friend, really, because now every one is one grow up individual with complex needs and wants. Therefore, each one will have different friends to meet their own needs and wants. Like I would have my tennis/sport friends, but then I dont go out drinking partying with them, instead I would have party buddies,... or sometimes, I would have studying partners. In the end, i guess I am myself's best friend.

Anyway, since friendship is just like one kind of relationships, and relationship is quite drama and hard to break up... How would you break up with a friend?
You met this really cool girl (well, first impression), then you started hanging out a lot. After a while you realize you can't really be friend with her, especially for the long term... Although she is totally nice, she makes you feel so uncomfortable sometimes and it hurts your self-esteem to be around her... what would you do? How would you "break up" with her?

I am a person of principles. Only just a little thing that upset me, I usually would think that that little thing was a thin-slice of a big picture (not generalizing). Therefore, maybe thats why I don't really have a lot of friends, because I take a long time to get to know them, I dont want to call them friends right away to establish the casual friendship. Instead I go slowly in getting to know their true self, so that if something happens, and if they violates my "principles", I can "break up" with them and say... yeah I dont hang out with her/him anymore without being too awkward...

Anyway, this is a pretty shitty entry... Im just having a lot in my mind that I need somewhere to throw it out. So sorry I have not been updating. More productive posts will be coming soon.

Vietnam North-South Travel :D (updated in Hoi An)

Finally my dream of travelling along the coast of Vietnam from North to South is becoming true.
I've found a perfect partner, and we have been having so much fun on the way.

So far we have stopped by Hue City, Da Nang City and now Hoi An City. I'm in Hoi An City right now, which is a very old town with a lot of ancient houses from about a hundred year ago. I enjoy it very much.

The street is so peaceful with children biking around, sometimes a couple of motorbikes rambling by, but overall the atmosphere in the town seems so quite, which is exactly what I'm looking for. Walking down these street brough me back to history of old times when we still used the Chinese characters for communication, houses were built entirely by wood, roofs were red and very steepy like the old chinese roofing style. Our hotel is located near by the river, so everytime we walk by the hallway, a very cool breeze would run through us, again, its just so incredibly peaceful :) How I love this place.

Tomorrow, we're heading to the suburbs of Hoi An, which is My Son, where remaines some of the Champa Group's heritage. In the afternoon, we will be heading to Nha Trang and visit VinPearl, the very big resort on a island which has the longest cable car in the world running from the main land to the island.

Half way through... but still a little bit sick and have a sore throat, but that wont stop me from enjoying traveling!!!

disappointed...

My plan for traveling from North via South Vietnam has postponed again!

I was so excited about this trip. I've got a great partner. We've made an awesome plan. Time is just about right for travel season. And bang, she backed out. I dont blame her, because we're not in the US now, it's not like we can decide whatever we do at the moment.
That's the thing I hate about family and being home. I feel restrained, restricted, limited on things I can and can not do. When I'm away, I make my own decisions and hold responsible for what happens. Here I always need to ask permission from my mom if I want to travel somewhere. Yes, Im still dependent on her about $, but if its the case that we do not have $,then I wouldnt ask. We do have some, so why cant I spend on traveling... again, back to the argument about $ and jobs. People who work do not know or have time to spend their money. People who spend money doesnt work. I think it's kinda true. Dont ya?

Anyway, lets not bring this F thing up again (F= family, not that )

I guess I need to look for a new partner again. Who?
It must be someone I know, must be a girl, who is willing to be a back-pack traveler, who enjoys bus-hopping, who .... oh well, sure I do have a lot of friends, but I guess when it comes to travel buddies, I'm screwed...

Currently feeling very disappointed!