Skip to main content

Elementary, dear.

Some of the teachers, myself included, have asked our students, "If you could have superpowers, what would you want?" Of course I'd love to be able to teleport and control the very fabric of space and time, but there are other, more practical powers that I'd also like to have. One such power I'd love to have is the intellectual capacity to absorb and comprehend all that is around me. I'm talking about Sherlockian powers of deduction, where I could notice every little thing about a person and accurately guess everything about them. That would really come in handy right about now.


I can't believe that even after a year, I'm still experiencing jarring culture shocks. This one's got to be the most upsetting, too, mostly because it involves family. The ball's in my court now, though, and what happens next could really define my eventual departure from Vietnam. Walking on eggshells now...

Comments

  1. Carpe DiemJune 15, 2014 at 2:51 PM

    This quote seems to make a lot of sense right now...

    "Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it."
    – John Maxwelll

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chinese Chess - Cờ Tướng - 象棋

The latest interest I've taken in my quest to learn more about my Vietnamese heritage is the game of Chinese chess. It is a bit ironic to look for Vietnamese culture in a game that has the word "Chinese" in its name, but I found that it is only so for the sake of translation. I have taken to this game for a number of reasons. 1. The game has cool historical references that have survived even today. Let's start with the board itself. Unlike a chess board, which is played on the squares, Chinese chess is played on the intersections of lines.  What is most recognizably different from normal chess boards, however, is the large gap in the middle of the board as well as the lines that form an "x" on opposites sides of the board. The square that contains the "x" is known as the "fortress," or 宮(gōng )  in Chinese. The center divider is the river where s ome Chinese words are visible. The words on the left say,  楚河 (chǔ hé ) , mean...
Post a Comment
Read more

As a person who's done a fair amount of traveling, I couldn't agree more with this:

Paradise Falls wouldn't even hold a candle to this place.
Post a Comment
Read more

Waiting and Waiting

March 1st. Now every day for the next two weeks will be agonizing torture. Have I been accepted? Have I been rejected? Will my career advance? Will I be right back where I was this time last year? I've been told to be patient, keep my head up, to not worry about things that aren't in my control. That's tough going, but I'm trying. How apt, then, that I'd come across this quote again: “I wanted you to see what real courage is...It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.” I thought my chances were small in the beginning, but I did see it through. Now back to waiting to see if this time is my "sometime."
1 comment
Read more