---

One nice Saturday afternoon, while rehearsing for Valentine Day concert, we saw Ken dropping in to give us advice and say that we need a bass player. And then came David, ready to improvise! =)

The song is The Reason by Hoobastank. Filmed by camera... although the bass guitar and bass drum are not really audible in the video... they were very loud if listened directly.

Edgardo, Ksusha, David, Tanya and me.

If you want to hear Abed drunk and laughing, Tanya swearing, Ksusha singing, check out take 1 (audio)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTahNX24xfI

---

These few days passed with little internet access and almost no instant messages. I’d have to admit that life without them has been quite constructive; now I see the reason why my little boy refuses to IM and am thinking whether I can also quit it completely. Busy as I should be, I have had plenty of blank time and space to reflect on myself – and no, not the kind of reflection we had had in random Tuesday afternoons last semester <inside joke for my schoolmates.>

I have figured out what I would like to do.

It just suddenly became clear to me after I read an article (link) about some Vietnamese fishermen lost (and maybe dead) in the sea and how their families were those days, as Lunar New Year is approaching. Before that, I spent six continuous hours rehearsing, three with Los Escarabajos and three with Edgardo, Tanya, Bilsana, and Ksusha. Overall, I realized a couple of things:

Thing 1: Knowledge is useless unless we can do something useful with it. So to me, it no longer makes sense to watch The pianist or Grave of the fireflies just to shiver at the cruelty or to weep at the grief. It makes no sense for me to browse VNN everyday and read successive news about my countrymen’s listlessness, immorality, or pragmatism, just for the sake of entertainment and gossiping. What’s the point of continuing reading or knowing if I’m not doing anything about it? I’d rather be one of the “ignorant happy people” and live my ignorant life happily, or I’d rather forget about the shortness of life and do what I’ve learned says I should do. I don’t want to be anything in between – it’ hard to be. It hurts.

Thing 2: But sadly, ignorance can never be regained.

Thing 3: Music, mathematics, and physics may not help for this purpose, but are what I personally like. Considering my limited time, during the last whole year I had constantly searched for a compromise between this and my ideology of what should be done - and this had also been the reason for my answer "I don't know" to the question of what I want to study in college.

Thing 4: <Someone>'s saying: The only way to "help the world" is to do it one person at a time. There, with my harmonica and my backpack, I want to travel. It doesn't actually matter where I'm traveling too. It doesn't really make a difference. Wherever between the sky and the ground, wherever there are people, I want to be there.

Thing 5: I love the small town where I had grown up. No matter where I go, once in a while, and eventually, I will come back to it.

---

Looking at her on the white sheet bed, I contemplate about how most of us don't know how lucky and short-lasting we are.

The smell of sterilizer reminds me of the old days back in the late nineties in my seaside town, when I came to the local hospital every late morning after elementary school. I strolled around the buildings, looking for my mother; and after finding her in the Internist Department's faculty room, I would ask for 2,000 VND (20 US cents back then). The money would be used to buy some coke, contained in a plastic bag - afterward thrown into a trash bin, on top of potato skins and terribly rotten tomatoes.

Or sometimes, I would come to my father in the Pediatric Department, asking for the same thing.

Waiting for them to finish their work and take me home, I walked between corridors with large crowded rooms on both sides. Sounds of babies crying, grandmothers singing, nurses talking; smells of sterilizers and ammonia; both familiar and remote senses of indigenous and abject poverty - they all used to be a part of me. Everyday, I had the fear that both my mother and father would thought I would come home with the other, and leave me alone in the hospital, amid all those things.

Later on, after entering high school, I no longer came regularly. But the smell of sterilizers kept clinging to my daily life behind my father's clinic entrance door. I never found it unpleasing. It had never succeeded in drawing my attention.

That's why when stepping into this hospital in a far away land and realizing I had somehow noticed that familiar smell and its harshness, I felt my identity had been shifted.

"But, funny," I thought. This is the first time I visit a hospital for a sick person.

She pants hardly, covering herself with the blanket. The heat from her forehead startles me as I touch it; and her words I don't really comprehend. On the table, the juice box and the soup remain untouched. The wheelchair catches my eyes - I'm not sure why it didn't earlier, and I turn to look at her legs, which has now turned blue and stiff. She can still move them, though.

Despite having two doctors as parents, my medical knowledge is just merely average. As far as I can understand, she lacks vitamins - as she has done in the past, a chronic thing I guess. She was supposed to carry on her medical treatment; however, being an Afghanistan growing up in the time of political turmoil, she moved to India, and her illness was given into the hand of God. Recently she never had breakfast, she didn't eat enough, didn't rest enough, but stressed enough. That might be the reason, they said.

Why, I never knew that the IB is this tiresome and stressful.

How did I pass my first UWC year? I don't think I put much emphasis on the academic aspect of it, although I know my former roommates and many others would say otherwise. On the other hand, I never saw this girl without her books and notes. Yet I had the physical strength to survive - not really satisfying, but surviving. She's still struggling, and is having much more difficulties than I did. Me, I had been granted a free pass through all of that. That's something I should have been thankful for.

Today is a long, eventful day.

Atalya decided to come back, and arrived here, after two months. So did Carl. And so did Yukiko, who used to have the thought of not coming back. They didn't really change - but, in fact, it has been only two months. Nothing should significant changes.

It surprised me that even someone like Atalya was afraid that she wouldn't get into any college.

"I'll go to the army." Answered Atalya when I asked her what she would do next year, considering that her coming back is now too late for US applications, which she used to study a lot for. "Is it compulsory, or is it your choice?"

"Compulsory. For 2 years. No exception."

Israel is the only country in which girls have to serve the army. "We are afraid, we have a reason. We are surrounded by enemies that want to attack us anytime."

So I imagined what the Israel army would be. Teenagers and some 20s. But being in the army could be a worthy experience, I told her. But she didn't really think so. Would I still think so if I were in her shoes? Probably yes. I believe that life is not what given to you, but what you make out of it. "Then?" I asked.

"I'll apply to colleges."

A two year break could be nice.

Carl also intended to take a gap year, for the same reason. I asked about his family and his future plans, and he, although never lied, was always optimistic. Unlike Atalya, he knew what he wanted to study. And with that, he believed he would find his way anywhere. His answer to my "who are you?" question was something I would never forget:

Who am I? Well, who am I... I will give you three options. First, I can give you an account of who I am in the common sense of the question, such as name, nationality, jobs. Or, I can give you the philosophical answer of what I think I am. Or third, I can give you the foundation through which I define who I am. Which one do you want?

And there was Peter, who got into U of Chicago through early action, and still applying to other schools. "My mom wants me to go a public school," he said, "because public schools cost less, and she said she would give me only this amount of money."

"Can't you ask for aid?"

"Well it's difficult, because it's not that I'm poor, my mom just doesn't want to give me more money for college. So when I told her that I got into U of Chicago, she was just like : oh that's nice! But work on your other apps!"

"I find it very strange that your mom wants you to go to a public school instead of private, though."

"My mom doesn't know the difference. College is just college."

And later in the day arrived Yukiko, who then gave me an envelop with documents and new year card from my family, which she got when visiting Vietnam just a few days ago. Her brother somehow decided to quit school in Malaysia and move to study in my country instead. Why, I'm not sure. But I always feel that for her family, every decision is easily adopted.

Not so long ago, she used to consider the option of not coming back.

These are all people whom, after this June, I won't know when I'll see again.

And did I say anything about what an eventful day it has been? The musical meeting. Yearbook meeting. Band rehearsal. First draft international trade economic commentary due at midnight. Spanish presentation outline.

Just like last year, my meetings keep overlapping each other. I feel guilty to people in the yearbook, because this year due to the musical rehearsal schedule, I haven't done anything or attended any of the meetings.

We had the first Los Escarabajos band rehearsal of this semester - again after four weeks of winter break and me playing music alone. It was amazing how we all played Let it be together - what we did over and over to the point of boredom before break started - and again excited by it. Something about dynamics and the musical sense without the vocal part, I think Ken said. He also told me that we would have a real Beatles event close to our graduation, with all the repertoires we played last year and about ten more songs. How I love it here, and how I love the Beatles. At the end, I skimmed the day - people, places, music, talks, what I've done - and the answer "I am me" just suddenly made sense to me. Who am I? I am me. It's not a kind of knowledge, it's a sense of identity.

Well, I don't know who I am, but even when I don't know, I am still me. Here is the place where I have lived for one and a half year; and now it feels like it again.

Actually, I came late. As I stepped inside the room, Quique grinned and Ken smiled, saying his usual "you're rehired". I realized that Ken, Quique, and Paula too, I would hardly see them again after June. Would it make a difference for them, when next year comes with rehearsals without me and Juani? That's if next year all three of them will still be here. It always those who stay that feels the difference more deeply. Those who leave usually don't - they are two occupied with numerous differences to feel one single one.

I rediscovered two things:

My time is valuable

And

My time is limited

When I am writing this long post, I could have done my 700 word economic commentary first draft. Yes it's tedious, it's agonizing, but it's short, it takes about two hours only each draft. I could have been writing my extra economic commentary too, and maybe I can get three more points to replace and perfect my already existing 17/20 point commentary.

Or I can be writing this, which I am actually doing. Or I can be here, looking after the girl. Or I can hang out with Yuki to the Japanese restaurant. Or I can stay longer at rehearsals. These are all what I'm already doing - I just have the option to do more of them.

These are the opportunity costs.

Let's talk about the long run. Japanese food doesn't matter, uncatchable hours of playing music doesn't matter, thousands words for myself doesn't matter, some nights away doesn't matter. My economics grade does matter.

But. Relationships matter. Memories matter. The experience matters. Being able to look back at myself matter. A sense of people and place matter. Or, simply put, as Ken used to say: imagine you're having dinner with the Queen. What will you talk about, your math portfolio, or the Beatles concert that you performed in?

No, some more points for a commentary - graded collectively with three others for 25% of one of my 6 IB subjects' grades - don't worth it. Some hours for a first draft of the same thing probably won't worth it either - considering that I always revise when writing and too lazy to carry out to the end a proper revision.

Talking about which, I already missed the deadline for emailing that first draft.

---

This morning, I woke up and left my room in a rush. After three days suffering from insomnia, my mind started to work like the distortion function on an electric guitar amplification: I couldn't think really clearly, everything seemed to be somehow convoluted. When having just come back to my room at 3, I realized both of my hands' wrists had been aching. Well, "aching" is not really a precise word. It's the feeling of being numb and the strangeness of carrying mobile, inflexible joints. And I realized my body was sending me signals that I was under some kinds of mental stress, even though I myself didn't feel it mentally.

But why was that?

These recent days, my identity had been continuously questioned. First of all, I had to think of it indirectly through the process of writing personal statements. Now when looking back, everything seemed to be carried out naturally. I sat down, I thought, I chose something that I considered would represent me well, and I wrote. However, although now I don't remember it so well, the mental selection of appropriate topics taking place in my mind at that time was somewhat intense. It was so tiresome that now my memory of it is just a total black out.

I went through that somehow.

And then school rolls back in with TOK presentations coming first; and I soon found myself looking for a TOK topic. After tries and retries, I finally came up with something called perception of self. As abstract as the concept might sound, the main idea of the whole presentation is to look at how people answer the question "Who are you?" As a result, I have spent lots of time strolling around campus, nicely asking people out of the blue: Who are you? And soon enough, one of my interviewee interviewed me back: so who are you?

Who am I? Although I had been asking that question to everyone, I wasn't ready to answer it. "I don't know who I am."

It kept haunting me until now.

Then my state of unsureness about my own identity came back to me during an English class, when we were reading the most famous 12 lines of Macbeth. At the moment, remembering the exact wording appears to be an impossible task for me, but I do remember two things:

Life is a shadow

And

Life is just a tale on the stage, told by an idiot

The idea scared me - it really did. It was the ephemeral feeling when realizing that I would never be seen after my death. No one would again see me as a person, all they would remember, if any, would be just my shadow - my life. My life becomes how I'm defined and reflected. It is a shadow that follows me every single day I'm alive.

And in that shadow, every day, like an idiot, I write my life down - like a play on a stage, seen as entertainment for a large audience who tap their feet and whistle when what must come finally comes.

Just a play. Just a quick spark in the universe. Doesn't matter.

And then, I was told by a total stranger that he was just an outcome of my imagination. I didn't know what she (assuming that the stranger was a "she") meant, I didn't know where she got that thought from. But I realized that it struck me by a deeper level than she might have imagined it would.

Who am I?

I like nicknames, and I have different ones for different major parts of my life - and later on the nickname someone calls me will characterize our relationship and how we influence each other. But I can't pick a name, not any of them, to answer the question. I am not my name.

Who am I? A student. A Vietnamese. A girl. Daughter of my parents. Friend of my friends. Are these what I mean to me? Are these what I mean to the rest of the world?

And he, who is he? A Canadian. An MIT boy. Son of his parents. So? Are these what he means to me, and to the world?

And most important of all, does he really exist? How can he exist when I don't even know who he is?

As a result of the distance, my images of him are mostly due to imagination. Reality, whenever it chooses to come, instantly crashes it. Isn't it surreal? Sometimes. But how do I know if, eventually, he is a tangible concept and not just a shadow that I've happened to catch?

How do I know if my dear roommate, who says "good morning" to me every day, is real? How do I know if she's not another shadow in my head, another product of my vivid imagination?

How do I know if anything else, but me, exists? How do I even know if I myself exist? Maybe I don't. Maybe I'm just a nightmare in the middle of a sleep, and one day I will wake up realizing that none of this, including myself, is real. Maybe I'm just a tool, a fool, or a toy, or a model. Maybe I'm just a concept. Maybe I'm even none of them. I'm nothing at all.

Maybe everything's characteristic is imaginary. How can I justify that?

---------------

I'm supposed to stay productive on campus.

But this is too overwhelming for me. I need time and space to evaluate my existence.

I'm going to sleep, and hopefully after this weekend - with no studying, no internet - I'll get something.

---

I accidentally found these two entries, which I wrote more than one year ago, when having just come to CR for 2 months. Now when re-reading them and looking back, I have a hard time imagining what exactly happened. Time changes so many things; and true, our perceptions of the past are always influenced by what happened to us afterward.

So these used to be a part of me, which I of the present don't fully understand.(The dearest friend that I always referred to was Natchan, who passed away just some weeks before that).

Fool
Saturday, September 30, 2006

- " I don't want to come back.
Why would you want to come back to a country that discriminates you?
Why would you want to come back to a country that outcasts you, and now they are proposing you to die for the country?"

- "I wish a miracle would happen, and brought me out of here. I'm disappointed. I want to come back to my country, where I am again the most active girl of ever, where there is no one looking down on me and thinking that I'm stupid."

To you,

I still remember you telling me : I'm a genuine silent peacemaker. A connoisseur of listening. An unruffed portrayer. A quiet follower. But I never speak out my mind. I have no one to listen to me. I ask for nothing. And you, you wanted to be, at least, a shoulder where I can cry on. But how long has it been since the last time I cried?

No, I'm not that great. I didn't even close to knowing what this girl, who considers me her best friend, feels. Why didn't I notice her trembling when she talked to him? Why couldn't I ever know how stupid she feels people think she is. I wanted to say something to make she feel better. But I only know how to listen. I don't know how to encourage.

Was it my fault that she likes him? Was it my fault that I recalled her past? She's young. And she seems to have experienced every shade of life. Hatred. Hope. Happiness. Sore. Fear. Confidence. Humiliation. Admiration. And again, she's brought back to the days when she had to raise her hand, with her palm up, for the teacher to hit it with the big ruler - because she hadn't given in the school fees.

My dearest friend. Did you see two different conversations above, which was confided in me by two persons who are very alike in background and culture? People like to be where they are accepted.

- " I don't want to come back.
Why would you want to come back to a country that discriminates you?
Why would you want to come back to a country that outcasts you, and now they are proposing you to die for the country?"

To improve it.

-"It will never improves."

--------------

- "I wish a miracle would happen, and brought me out of here. I'm disappointed. I want to come back to my country, where I am again the most active girl of ever, where there is no one looking down on me and thinking that I'm stupid."

That's why we are here to change it.

-"You weren't at the student council meeting that night. That guy picked up this topic of discrimination, and group forming according to people's background. But they just knocked it off. "

------------------

I was never a good advisor - not at all. Tell me, my dearest friend. Anything.

This is not how it should be. People, with their selfishness, care about nothing but expressing their own egoism. Look at the way they think that checking in at 9 :30pm or 10:30 pm still matters even when some one is hiding herself in the bathroom crying every night they go outside to a bar or discotheque. Or right now, he's been sitting here inside the cafeteria for 3 hours or so, and no one bothered to say "hi" to him. But he doesn't mind that. She does, however.

The new girl has just come. I was the first one of ever greeting her. I spent a whole day guiding her around, taking her to the town. I still remember how she was in her very first day, sitting in silence, waiting for me to finish my lunch and take her to our coordinator's office. Now it's different. She doesn't mind if we sit at the same table or not. She has all the friends around her, because of her adorable background and richness. I don't mind it either. I have done my part, silently as you used to called me. A whole-hearted guider. I'm glad that people are adapting well. And that's also what the girl from before said. But I think I know how she feels. I think I know how she's jealous. Isn't it so unfair? Yes, it is. Why didn't anyone greeted her on her first day at school? Why didn't anyone talk to her? Why didn't anyone help her out? Why didn't anyone just response to her salutation?

Dumb me, who said that we are discrimination free? Tell me, honestly, are we racist? Are we discriminating people because of their background and appearance? Are we even discriminating ourselves? Those people, walking side by side with each other, blindly praise themselves and their unity and multinationality. How can they ever wonder? Ever notice?

On a Friday Night
Friday, October 13, 2006

My dearest friend, again, I write to you,

What is the hardest thing to learn? Isn't it forgiving? I recall a sentence from the lyrics of the song "Always" by Bon Jovi : " Oh I made mistake, I'm just a man". Today I made a mistake. I did something bad to one of my good friends, and now I feel too embarrassed to talk to him. I remember how I felt when my other two friends did something similar to me, and now, I sure also know how they felt when I caught them...

Perhaps one of the best things for one to know is that one is forgiven, even when one doesn't deserve to be. I don't think I am, and I don't forgive myself either. But, I shouldn't have blamed them two that much. I should have said "Don't do that again" instead of "How can you do that, you don't respect me". My dearest friend, do you remember when we talked to that Korean girl's grandmother in the hospital? She told us to learn to forgive, knowing that we will feel better when forgiving, and so will the forgiven.

I'm trying to learn to forgive. And I always know that I'm a bad writer, my dearest friend.

How many people are there on campus today? Will there be on the next day? I had this feeling that I can't express. You know this is not the first time I'm away from home. But I never felt like this before. It is said that your home is the best place in the universe. Where you are heartilly loved. Where you are who you are. And it's true...

Depressed? I may be. But why? I don't know. I don't see any reason. Still, I am. There are those who are never loved. There are those who never have a home to return.

When I got bad marks on my math and english tests, I was happy and excited (strange but true). Happiness and excitement encourage me to try my best to improve. And now I am unhappy and depressed...

... there is still something inside me shouting : I have to struggle. It is said that no one can be alone; so when you need help, lean on people. If you want to cry, do cry. But that's just the fabulous theory said by those who are always loved. I've learned that, sometimes I can be really really down. But the world doesn't stop for my grief. If I don't stand up by myself, no one will ever lend a hand to help me... because they also need their hands to raise up their own bodies.

So that's why home is the best place in the whole universe. Where I can lock myself inside my room and weep for the whole night. Where I can stay for hours in my bathub thinking about my life. Where I can listen to my father scolding me.

I told you, I never felt this way before. Can't you see it, my dearest friend? I am alone. Totally alone. And life is kind to no one. Tell me, my dearest friend. Many think that I'm an aloof type. If only they knew I could also feel left alone, my dearest friend...

And I always said that, I'm a bad writer. My writing is even worse when I'm unhappy.

My dearest friend, I really want you to be here. Again, I want to hear your voice - so warm is it; I want to lean my head on your shoulder and fall asleep like I used to do. Do you know that I felt like home wherever you were? I was so silly, always trying to get away from you - my home. Tell me what to do, my friend. Please...