Nhớ Nguồn

There is something to be said of Hieroglyphics. A single image has the power to convey words, reveal emotions, evoke cultural understanding,  They can say so much. And sometimes just enough.

"Lots of jobs are hard, but with teachers, it's like, 'Wow, I'm hurting kids because I'm as bad as I am.' You have these exaggerated thoughts like, 'Well, what if I break my leg? I'd get three weeks off.' " Elden's worst day of her first fall in the classroom happened in late October. Her students were acting up, so she assigned them a long list of math problems even though she knew homework shouldn't be given as a punishment. Later she realized it was Halloween and that she had most likely only ruined the night for the kids who would do the homework — the ones who had been behaving anyway. It was the last straw: She broke down crying in her car.

...but outward, in the same direction. 

“We don't feel like, in adulthood, we can demand very much of our friends. It's unfair, they've got other stuff going on. So we stop expecting as much, which to me is kind of a sad thing, that we walk away from that.”

....and what better way to start again than with a quote and fuzzy feelings. “To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed; Thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half of humankind." -Henry R. Luce, in collaboration with Archibald MacLeish

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, fol...

Yesterday, my time here in Vietnam officially became one year longer than I originally intended. Friends, family, work, my students, a sense of duty...all played their part in this. In between the time since my last arrival anniversary, much and more has happened. I took a trip to Da Nang, the Philippines, Hawaii, home, Phu Quoc, and Nha Trang. I survived another full year of teaching at the government schools. I got promoted to Senior Teacher. I ran a marathon and even signed up for another. I made new friends, and said goodbye to others.  And now, there's still more to come. I've been promoted again, this time to work as a part of the academic development team at the head office. I'll also concurrently test the new program I help develop in the classroom through a special pilot course. In a way, doing all this feels like what I could've done had I followed my peers' footsteps more closely in college.  The promotion is as scary as it is exciting, though. C...