24..

It's my last hour of being 23. Honestly, I haven't paid too much attention to my birthday. It's not so much the "getting older" and "stop counting" phase. I suppose, I've just been having so much fun and enjoying my very fortunate and wonderful life that, my birthday is just as much of a gift from my parents as every other day I was given and still have ahead. I'm watching Shrek the 4th and the moral of this story, is to want the things that you have. Although honestly, I really want one of donkey's flying mutant babies right now. ^^ But the moral holds up; wanting what you already have and I gotta say, I have a lot.

More than I thought I did before. I know that sounds cheesy and cliche. I don't care. Things have been amazing and they keep getting better and better. I don't want this energy to ever stop. And if there's anything that I owe to myself through all these awkward years of "growing up", it's owning up the fact that, I can do things. In fact, there's a lot that I am capable of and I have such an awesome brain. It just...needed a little time to get to its full potential. I sincerely hope I'm not at that point yet. I can't wait to see what being 24 has in store.

Ba noi, ca mung ba..for everything. Thank you for a safe, good childhood full of lemonade and strange play with Cathy. Thank you for taking care of us. I will miss your tiger balm scent and cooking the most. Thuong Ba lam.

Here's to an awesome 23 years of living.

Clakkity-clak-clak

People have their own strange personal likes and dislikes, and most of the time, the reason behind their liking has nothing to do with logic. It something that stirs the senses and bring comfort.

For me, it's the clacking of the keyboard on the computer. As classic as the typewriter is, I'm straight out of the 90's generation, so it's gotta be the key board. I could never use the sleek new Mac notebooks because they're just too quiet and well, the futuristic projected keyboards would have no give to the fingers. There's a satisfying soreness to the tips after you've finger punched your way through 100 pages of pure thought and analysis that you can't find in any other exercise.

It's been a while since I've taken up the chance to pound out my thoughts. My excuse is as generic as any other full time working adult: I had no time.

That's a flat excuse now that I think about it. Everyone has the same amount of hours in one day. Of course I had time; I always have time. Truth of the matter is, I didn't want to sit down and write. I felt overworked, stressed and wanted to escape from my troubles by falling head first into the black and white pages of my books. Maybe it's not coincidence literature is still printed in black and white instead of multicolor. In between those bindings, everything is still black and white. There's an beginning, a trajectory, a climax, a denouement and an ending. Maybe each part is not always predicable and in the best cases, they completely shatter our imagination's boundaries. But they'll always be black and white: clearly obvious in their tone contrast.

For that same reason, we can't live in those worlds. Real life is always changing in prismatic patterns from soft morning hues to clashes of techno blots. So when people ask me: "What's up?" or "What's it like on the other side of the world?", I still feel too blindsided and overwhelmed to give a creditable answer. At the end of it all, I guess I just feel a bit gray.

Work isn't perfect. No one's work is. And honestly, it has become even more frustrating in the last few weeks than before. For reasons that logic can explain in full detail, but emotions and immaturity still reject as incredulous. It makes me think back to when I was talking to Dao about "the real work world". Her reply was that: "It's the politics that make it different when what you're use to." Without fail, it's the politics. It's the "who-said-what" overlapped with "he/you should have done this". Top that off with threats to dock more pay and you have a very gray phuongy.

I do work quite hard. Perhaps, harder than I have worked before and the credit is slow and often ignored. But I know it...then forget it...and then I hate myself when I don't remember. My ideal of myself is impossible to attain. I have so many powerful images of people I want to be, but never achieved any of them. Reason being is probably because I was never really cut to be any of those people and I kept looking for approval from others to ensure myself that, that was the person I should be.

I guess I should put to pen my thoughts on myself. Maybe seeing it in black and white will bring some clarity to my haphazard life.

1. I'm really insecure. Especially around my friends but even more so around my family.

2. I think being marked "wrong" is a sign of my stupidity.

3. I wish I was cool. (Ever since grade skill to now).