Journal #9 ... Vegetarian Foods

My whole family members are budist. My parents have been vegetarians for over thirty years.So, I grew up with vegetarian food. After coming to the US., I found that continuing this diet is quite difficult to me. I do not have enough time to cook and also, I have a terrible cooking skill. Fornately, my girlfriend is a very good cook, specializing invegetarian disks. Nowadays, everyone in the U.S. tend to eat more healthily. My girlfriend offers me vegetarian food at least once a week. Cooking vegetarian food in Budism has more restrictions than in other religions. Beside no meat, no seafood, onion and garlic are not allowed in ingredients. Also, Vegetarian food does not have much spices. That is why it is hard to make the food tasty. Some main ingredients are vegetables, tofu, mushroom, and dried food sold in many Asian grocery stores. With some other special ingredients, my girlfriend can make chicken soup, fish soup, fried tofu, and even fried fish with fish sauce.Of course, they are all vegetarian disks. Sometimes, she is too busy with her homework, she only gives me steamed rice and soya sauce for dinner. Still, I am happy because at least she does not let me be hungry to dead.

Journal #8 ...An Un-Ordinary Day - Sept. 11, 2001

An Un-Ordinary Day - Sept. 11, 2001. Nobody want to talk about that, it was so crazy. I was really sad when I saw what happened on TV those days. I was last year in university. Exactly, that was a second day I went to school after I had two months to break up with my family. I went to school and expected that I could meet friends in my class and some professors who I liked to meet them. But when this event happened everyone wanted to watch TV and listen to radio. The atmosphere of my university was eventful and noisy. We cannot concentrate on studying. I just wanted to come home to watch TV at that time. Finally, my class finished earlier than plan. I rode too fast and came home to watch TV. I didn’t remember how many people died on that day, but it was too much then I thought. Why it happened? Why innocent people had to die? They died while a lot of things which needed to do in future such as their children, father, mother, wife… Their families really needed them. After one week, I still heard a lot articles about that day. Everyone talked to each other about destroy of American economy and the world economy and so on…I didn’t know what would be happen in future, I thought our life was too light and short. We can meet our relatives today, but we don’t know what happen tomorrow. So we need to love everyone who is still alive today.

Journal #7 ...My grandfather

My Grandfather

In my life, my grandfather is really important with me. When he died, I really still didn’t know what happened. I didn’t know why he had to go far away. I still remember what was happening one day before he died. He asked me: “Do you want to eat something” when I just came home from my office. I said: “I’m full right now” then he smiled and went to bed. I didn’t know that is the last time I saw him. I took a shower, watched TV about 15 or 20 minutes, and then I went to the bed, too. And a bad day came with me, my grandfather went far away and he wouldn’t come back again. I was so sad and didn’t want to do anything. I really remembered him every time. I believe he too.




Andy.

Journal #5 ...My Life In The US

My life has changed a lot since I came to the United States. In fact, when I lived in my country, I was a teacher. I went to class as I had class to teach, but now I’m a student in the US. I have to go to the class every day, and I have gone there to study not to teach like in Vietnam. Actually, I still taught Math and Computer Science in my country one year ago, but now I have to study English every day in a new country.

Moreover, in my country I go to work and everywhere by my own motorbike, but I have driven my car to school when I live in here. So I have to take driver license and bought a car to go school and go somewhere. In addition, I used to have a lot of free time after I finished class. I could go some places where I want to go there to meet friends such as coffee shop, restaurant, and the sea. However, I rarely have free time to do some thing like that in the US, and I spend a lot of time in studying. I was really stressful at first time came here but now everything is OK with me. I will live with my best and try to overcome challenges which I have to face at this time. Although my life has had a lot of changes, but I believe that I will overcome everything and have what I need in the future.

Journal # 6...My opinion about age to get maried...

In my opinion, everybody should have a partner. We need to have a person to share something which has happened in our life. But what is the age to get married? That’s a big question. For me, it’s good when you are 27 to 30 years olds depend on you are men or women. First, in this age you can have good conditions about finance which are really necessary for family life. In fact, what will be happen if we don’t have enough money to take care of children and daily needs of family. This time you can graduate in Bachelor or Master and have good job which will help you live stably. Moreover, when you have a job, you will have a lot of chooses, and experiences. So you can choose one which is good for you. Second, this time you can have enough experience about what is the love. With this age you can have a lot of friends and my may have one or more love before. So you will know what is important thing of love and of family life? In addition, this age you can have a good partner after a long time to understand or live together. We can know what is good or not features of our partner, and then we help together to overcome challenges in life. In short, in 27 to 30 we can have everything about finance and love experience which helps our family live safely.

Journal # 4... My Grandfather.

Everyone has grandfather, and so do I. My grandfather was a funny man. It was a long time ago. I didn't remenber exactly but when I was seven years olds, he took me to school. That was first time I went to class. Everyone was new and strange to me. I cried a lot, I didn't want to leave my grandfather at that time. I was scared of being alone, so he could not leave me a minute. After my teacher talked about something with him, he tried to everything that make me smile, and then he left me in classroom. However, I knew he was still outside and look at me when class started. He was listening and looking at everything which was happening to me. When class finished with the sequence of rings. I saw my grandfather at the door with a warming smile. I ran to him and hug his neck. He kissed on forehead and took me home. On the way we went home, he always made me smile with alot of farces. I really happy when I had a grandfather like him. Later on, when I became a young guy he was always behind everytime. I didn't know how many times he made me smile in my life. Althouth he died, I still remembered in mine good times which I will never happen again. In short, I really love my grandfather who was so funny and very important with me.

Long Weekend (Journal #3)

It was great! I have been in Havasu Lake. First, I'm sorry Russel. I didn't do this journal as a plan because I have no time to write it before I took a long, long...long trip. I took four days trip to Havasu Lake after class. It's too long and hot. I can't believe that I can stay there 4 day, but it happened. We had about 18 people with foods, water, candy. We also had one boat and 3 jetskies and everything which need for the trip. We had five cars, actually one truck, three vans, and one Toyota camry.

We started on Friday Everning at 10:00 pm because we didn't want to meet rush hours. And it took about 5 hours to go there. When I was in near Havasu Lake, the weather was too hot. It was 106 oF. I didn't know what can I do there in that time? but now I changed in my mine. It's really fun. After a night slept well in a house for renting, we had a fun day which playing foot ball, swimming, driving jetskies very, very fast on the face of water. We also ate too much on those days. We had Vietnamese foods, Chine foods, American food and so on...

I finished a long weekend trip on Monday everning at 5:00 pm and went home at 11:00 pm. I'm so tired but I had a good time and I relax too much, so I have to do homework now at 3:00 am on Tuesday. Tomorrow, No... actually today, a busy day will be continue what happened before. But I think I will have a good spirit to study.