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!
12.13.2008
11.18.2008
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.
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!!
11.10.2008
Pictures from wedding
Left to right: Nguyet, Trang, Me, Trang and Diep
Us posing again after the party!
With the groom!
11.02.2008
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!
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!
10.31.2008
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! :)
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! :)
10.16.2008
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.
10.09.2008
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.
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.
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