American Family (Journal #14)

Actually, I don’t have much communication or interaction with children in the United States. So, I will just discuss what I have seen and read from books or something like that. I think the children in the United States have a lot of rights and protections form their family and government. Most of them have good educational conditions. They soon become very independence and have their own decisions in daily life. The ways which they express the love to their grandfather, grandmother or parents are different from my country. As you know, in my country as well as other Asian countries, the children have to obey their grandfather, grandmother, or parents to stop doing something, although they really want to do that. But here the children sometime don’t obey and they can decide what they can do. They have less pressure from studying like children in my country. They have a lot of communications at school and extracurricular activities, so they are improved social knowledge than the children in my country

My Favorite Holiday Place (Journal #13)

BaNa is one of the most beautiful places where everyone in my country likes. It is in middle of my country, and it is located between DaNang city and Hue city. It is really nicely situated at the highest mountain. It is special thing when it has a beautiful lake and a lot of waterfalls in there. In addition, there are some beautiful resorts and entertainment places. This place is covered by some small mountains. So we can see the fog which flies in front of our face, and sometime we can feel that it like under our feet. However, from here we can see some beautiful landscapes of other mountains and Danang view which has a lot of light at night. These things can make me want to go there every holiday and so do visitors.

Journal #12... A Tiring Day

Today is Sunday. Everyone has a vacation or a plan to relax, but me. I got up so late at 9:00 AM. After I took a shower, brushed teeth and had a light breakfast with rice and sesame I had to work for my company. I have to finish our project before October 1st, 2007. So I tried to work hard as much as I could. I started to work at 10:00AM. After reviewed some sections which I finished before I started coding on the rest. I spent six hours to finish Desktop sections, and then I went home. I thought that I can relax after work. However, when I went home, I had to clean my room. I exchanged the bed with other people. It took me about one hour to finish this work. I was tired, but I still have some things to do such as homework of composition and vocabulary classes. I still have had a journal which I have to finish before 7:00PM today. So I need to continue my rest works. I thought that I could not enough time to go out for dinner with my girlfriend today. I usually go to the restaurant on Saturday or Sunday, so today is not exception.I tried to do homework as fast as I can. Finally, I finished my journal at 6:00PM as I hoped. I took a shower and put on my favorite clothes. I went to vegetarian restaurant where I have met my girlfriend. After we had a delicious dinner, I came back home and continue my homework. It was a long day for me.

Journal #11...My Favorite Season

The weather in my country does not like the weather in California. Here we have four seasons. They are spring, summer, fall, winter. In my country, there are only two seasons which are called sunny season and rainy season. In rainy season, it rains everyday. Sometimes it’s really cold and humid when it rains day after day, so I don’t want to go out to work or do anything. For me, I love sunshine, and I love to see sunrise and sunset. I like red and yellow flowers, and green grasses, so I love sunny season. In this season, I can go to the beach everyday. I can play football and swim on beautiful seas every afternoon when I finish my works. In addition, I can hear whistle of birds every morning when I wake up. I love going hand in hand with my girl friend on green grasses, on road side with flowers. We can play some funny games together and go to everywhere we like under the sunshine. I also think my girl friend like me. We both love sunny season. It‘s really wonderful.

Journal # 10 ....A person who has influenced me

In my short life, I usually have had different goals in periods of different time, so I have had some people who have influenced me. Among them, my uncle has influenced me the most in ten years recently. He is a successful man. He got MBA degree when he twenty six years old. And after that he has had his own business. When I was high school, I have tried to do everything that I hope I can become a person like him. I also concentrated to study hard when I was in university. Therefore, after I got bachelor degree, I was a teacher in college. However, I wanted to be came a person like my uncle. So I worked for a foreign company, and I hoped I can have a lot of experience before I have my own business like him. At him, I have found a lot of characters which I like them. He is a gentle handsome man. He is really tall and strong because he usually does exercise every morning. He also advised me to do that, therefore I have tried to do exercises as much as I can. He really has influenced me a lot.

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.