Life has a sense of humor, and it prefers deadpan.

I've been 26 years old for 3.5 weeks now, and I think I'm just now starting to feel...something. There's something familiar about realizing and reflecting on the fact that you've passed the divide between your seminal 20th year and the looming 30th. What should I have accomplished by then? Where am I supposed to be? Am I even on the right track?

Wherever I end up, at least I'll have some cool stories to tell. I'll tell them that one summer, in my mid-twenties, I ran off to Japan to volunteer at a world scout camp, walked through the torii gates at the Fumini Inari shrine, scaled Mt. Fuji with my little brother, hunted for watches in Tokyo's Ginza district, attended the wedding of the first person in my generation to get hitched, prepared to welcome the newest member of the family, got PADI certified, found love by the San Luis Obispo creek, had my life threatened in Marrakech, walked along the walls Hollywood used to show a dragon burning people alive, followed a teenage boy through the alleys of Chefchaouen to find a couple bottles of cheap beer, and studied for the Graduate Record Examination as I worked to find my way back home.

And yet despite these adventures (and misadventures), at the moment of writing, I lie upon my friend's bed, typing out my story on a barely functioning phone. Still worried. Still anxious. Still unsatisfied.

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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 The game has cool historical references that have survived even today.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...

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.

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."

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