Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Bye bye!

Im sitting here, having Macaroni and cheese which my sister just made for me! I dont often like it but now i find it really good because I know I'd not have a chance to have it at least 2 months.
Time goes really fast. I dont even realize that It's been in June already. 10 months in America has been an amazing time for me getting to know a lot of good friends and having the second family in my entire life. I'm not saying that I was always having a good time while I was staying here because life's never easy for us.But pretty much what my family and friends have done for me made me feel home and warm.
For the first night I got here, It was totally horrible. I was taken home by 2 strangers at that time ( aka Mom and Dad now) at 1 in the morning. And i had a feeling that they were going to kidnap me because we lived in the middle of nowhere. I found it really weird when I walked in the house, went to the hall way to get to my room. Everything was just totally odd. Imagine within a day, you were at 2 places, one was with your friends and family, noisy and busy, one was with strangers, quiet and dark, you would know what I felt at that time.
I was crying a lot that night when I was talking to my Mom in Vietnam and I couldnt sleep until 5 in the morning, partly because of jetlag. I woke up on the day before in the middle of the afternoon assuming that was 8am. I completely didnt know what to do, what to say, my mouth was numb and I just kept it shut.
Time goes by, I got to know more people and friends and no longer felt homesick as much as I'd been before. I started talking a bit more because basically Im a really loud person and I can never keep me silent for a long time. I have to talk. Probably, my friends and family can tell if that is true now. My mom said I was really quiet for the couple weeks that I first got here but after that, no more.
Gradually, I'm the part of my family which I never knew when. I began spending time watching TV, movies, partying, traveling with my family a lot and obviously, I had wonderful times with them. Oh chores, I was told by my Vietnamese mom that I should help my host family with chores and stuff. Honestly, I never did chores in Vietnam, NEVER EVER. I just started doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, doing my laundry, cleaning up my room, bathroom when I got here. My parents used to have a maid in Vietnam to help with chores and taking care of the house so I pretty much didnt do anything, what I did at home was just going home, sitting in front of the computer(typical), talking to my friends, studying and hanging out. And when i came here, I had to get acquainted to those chores. I already saw my mom do those kinds of stuff so I just followed whatever I remembered lol. For the first couple months I got here, I did chores as a guest who lived there, had food and afterwards, I did chores as a son who wanted to help their parents. By the way, I hate gardening. I'll never forget what I had to do when I woke up late and missed school on that terrible day. I was really pissed because Mom kept sending me chores to do but now, I have to be thankful to you for having made me not miss the bus any longer.
Attachments are easy to make. I've made and had a ton of things and memories in my mind with you guys. Im an emotional person. I can feel the love easily and stick with it forever. I will never forget those moments that we spent together. I'll always remember the GOOD LUCK CHUCK, What happens in Vegas, French dips, tater tot casterol, hamburger and tuna helpers, Macaroni and cheese, the Shovel, American Idol, Big Brother, slug bug game, Hannah Montana, snow, practice in the morning, swim, graphic class, prom, graduation, Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving,Easters... a lot and a lot. Every single thing sticks on my heart like a note tagged by a pin on the board. I love all of them even some made me embarrassed( you know what I'm talking about). Every single thing reminds me of you guys so much. I will miss them like crazy when I get back to Vietnam.
On that first night I walked into the house, I never knew that one day, I would miss and love this place like this. Everytime I cleaned up and packed my stuff today, I felt sad and start bursting into tears. I couldnt help when I looked my room and everything just popped out in my mind. I know the hardest thing is saying goodbye, especially to the people that you love. It's the toughest thing ever. I just want to say THANK YOU, a lot a lot for having me this whole year, giving me a lot of experiences, considering me a part of your family and making me miss you today! Just want you to know that I'm always YOURS!
I love you all!
Ken!



Bye Bye - Mariah Carey

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Happy !

I'm pretty much happy right now! I think I got a really great excitement from my Mom about Feb. I can tell how excited she is right away and that makes me feel excited too. 3 more weeks, yeaaa!
There's nothing been special in these weeks. I've been back to school 2 weeks ago and got back to my daily routine. It was not really hard though but kinda busy because I've been wrapping up my stuff for my 1st semester. I actually was really lazy during the break. I pretty much did nothing but sleeping, eating, hanging around. And now, that was the time I had to go back, I obviously didn't get used to. But I'm OK right now! I did my big History project, which my teacher had given me in October to prepare, two days before it was due and I got 150/100! Bravooo! How professional I was huh? lol . Actually, I already looked at it over the break and I knew that I could do it in time so I didn't really worry bout it. But I cannot deny that I'm a lazy person. What I have to do right now is trying to get all the grades moved up to A or at least A- by making up all my missing work and some last assignments. That's my deal for this week. I'm sorta content with myself now! :D
My Mom's got a freaking bad cold and sickness which made her cough and sick a lot. I felt bad and sorry for Mom when seeing her do the treatment for her chest, cough too much and go on a lot of medication. I just hope that she can get over it as soon as possible so she can go on the cruise in the perfectly happy mood! No worries mom! You can do itttt! Love ya!
I don't know if my family has noticed but I think we mostly had rice in last week. We had curry chicken one day, beef loaf one day[w/o rice], Hawaiian BBQ and some chicken with rice again last week. That told me that my Dad was a really(x n times) cook. And I was eventually happy about having every day. I know that Jordan wasn't, sorry dude lol. I cooked rice for dinner and my Dad did the chicken because he thought that I could make a good rice by the way that I'd learned from my Mom in Vietnam.
Weekends are always lazy in my family. We all rested and being sooooo lazy. My Mom's still sick so we just stayed home for the whole weekend. I neither didn't have too much stuff to do. My friends, Alex and Will, told me to go snowboarding with them but I didn't. It's way too expensive for the whole package for me to snowboard. I have to rent mostly all the stuff so the amount can be 100 bucks. I was kinda broke and I didn't waste money on it so I'd rather stay home. Will was pretty nice to offer that he'd teach me how to play and lend me some stuff but It was not persuasive enough for me to go. Thanks him anyway!
By the way, my Mom iin Vietnam sent my something. That was a T-shirt, a pair of shoes, 2 CDs of my favorite artists, some Vietnamese candies and stuff for Melanie and her mom. She also sent Michelle a pretty purse. David teased me that she sent it to me. Whatever dadddd! I could tell how much Michelle liked it. She switched her stuff quickly from her old purse to the new one. That cracked me up, a little bit surprised! haha. I'm glad that people like my stuff I give them and that was not an exception. I also know how jealous Jordan was when she saw a new purse!lol No worries Jordy, u'll get new one soon! My Mom also sent Sammy a birthday present which I think she will like it a lot when i give her.
Ohhh swim, yea! I almost forgot about it. I was over for the regular season with a lot of meets. I'm still in JV though but I could tell that I've had a lot of fun and health since I joined the team. I 've got lots of friends and I've felt way stronger than I used to. I had my individual and team pictures taken last Friday. I'll upload them when I get em ! Wait for them everyone!
That was for those weeks. I hope imy blog was not too dusty for me to update. I'll try to blog as regularly as possible!
Love ya all!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Just come back from a loooooong break =]

Hey everyone! I'M BACK as I promised with my Mom and Stephanie ! See, it's not really a big word, i can do it lol!
What I want to say at first is I'm sorry for not updating my blog for a long time and then you guys have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I had a great Christmas and New Year's Eve with my family! Let me tell something about my holiday. I scored a buncha presents and I loved them all because they're all meaningful to me! I loved everything from my "damn" hat [as my Mom often says >:P] to my 80gb Zune [ let me show up a little bit everyone ;)]. Thanks everyone in my family for giving the best Xmas and the first Xmas which I was far away from my home!
The other thing that I scored was that I recognized I had another family that I could stick with them forever! I couldn't believe how lucky I am to have another family which is full of fun, joy, laughter and... swearing lol jk. Having a nice family is kinda hard for somebody let alone that I have two of them! That must be so awesome!
Thanks Dad and Mom for warming me up in this winter! I really feel warm and home right now! I hadn't expected that Christmas would be happy and full of fun to me because I had missed all the stuffs that I used to do with my family and friends at Christmas in Vietnam. Whenever I listened to Christmas songs, I missed my Mom a lot because we used to listen to those songs together when Christmas was coming in Vietnam. I know that's not really cool when you don't really celebrate Xmas as traditional or big holiday but listen to Christmas songs! In spite of that fact, having somebody sharing these melodies is actually sweet and that was my Mom. I grew up and listened to them in 16 Christmas seasons! And now, not having that person to listen to it together was a big missing! When we went to the concert of The Coats, all the memories were revealed by those songs with their wonderful voices and that was the moment I wished if my Mom had been here, Christmas woulda been warmer!
But the fact was totally different! I had my little sister who jumped in to my bed on Christmas Day, I had my Dad and Mom who spent the whole warm Christmas's Eve together at Grandma Clara's and the church! I had everyone who remembered to give me present! And that meant a lot a lot to me!

Let's talk about New Year's Eve! We had a little party in our family together with grandpa Mike's family and his wife Karla's family! That was so nice! I invited 2 friends who named Wii [sounds like Nintendo Wii huh? lol] and Tin to come over and had dinner with us. The other guy named Nhan was little bit late when the party was over and all the girls came home lol. 3 of them were spending the night in my small and messy room though I had tried to clean it up before! My mom was so nice to lend us a laptop so we had 3 laptops to watch movies, play some games and listen to music! At 12am, we came to the living room to count down for New Year with a lot of poppers! That was soo fun! Dad took some pictures and I bet that I will upload them some day! Then we played pokers together til 2am and went to my room chilling out after my parents had headed into their bed! I think nobody knew that I wore my RED Tee shirt on New Year's Eve. That was because RED is for Good luck according to the Asian tradition. It's kinda superstitious lol.

Anyways, everyone has their own resolutions, I'm not an exception. I have some resolutions that I want to share with everybody

1. Getting admitted by one of these community colleges that I applied to : Whatcom, GreenRiver, Seattle Central community college! Whatcom is my top!
2. Coming back to USA for next school year!
3. Staying with my American family next year!
4. Trying to be more hard - working! I'm totally lazy right now and I feel that laziness is invading me more and more...
5. Trying to help my Vietnamese father come to visit me this summer
6. Speaking English very very very very very fluently
7. Learning how to drive :D
8. Doing more sport, making my body better
9. Trying to be stronger and more mature for not missing everybody in Vietnam! I still cannot do it right now!
10. Getting more good friends in USA
11. Gaining more weights lol. I did a little bet with my best friend in Czech Republic that If I gain to 130 pounds until this summer, I'll not come back to VN. lol. so be ready for my plannn,Mom and Dad lol

Ok, That's enough for tonight! I'll go to bed! I just get over my bad bug and cold these days after Christmas! I'll go back for swim practice tomorrow! Grandpa's gonna take me there in stead of Alex's parents! I don't like the fact that I have to depend on him every single day because he thinks that he can do whatever he wants even keeps teasing me when I rely on him. and I think I feel better when having grandpa take me there but It's kinda tight for me because I don't want to bother him everyday! Thanks Grandpa! I didnt have the feeling of having a grandpa until I met you because my grandpa who was my Mom's father passed away in last March and my other grandpa who is my Dad's father got stroke a month after that which made him lose ability of speaking and moving.
This week is the last week of holiday. David asked me if I was ready for going back to school and i said no. I'm too lazy right now! One of my blood element is laziness! Let's try to think bout school now!!!!
Everyone! Have a good day!
Thanks for reading my long entry!
Love u alll!