The last UCHANU week's entry

"How can I integrate the experiences of the semester into my life, and in what concrete ways can I remain connected to UCHANU and Vietnam?"
In stead of writing this entry, I spend almost the whole night reading other UCHANUers' blogs. There were more thoughts shared from UCers than HANUers about the integration, and I think this is more about the UCers' part since the fact that they're back to the U.S is more like a change in the mindset, behavior, daily routine,... that they have to deal with if they still wanna get along with life in America. For me as a HANUer, I think it's not about the routine or classes, but the emotional changes I've been through was pretty much the thing that happened. I've gone through feelings of being excited to welcome new friends, then being shyly welcoming for the first moments (breaking the ice is quite hard for me, normally i kinda get difficulties at first moments, but after that it's quite okay, I keep getting more and more open), being playful with UCHANU buddies, being soaked up in interview and fundraising and voluntary work, being sad about the fact that we can't be together forever playing partying doing meaningful things and stuffs. I sometimes try to hide what i really think what my emotion is, I can't handle the moments of farewell quite well, but that's a part of the EAP program too so I guess if there's something i'm gonna learn from it, it might be to appreciate long-distance friendship and being true to myself's emotions. Besides, there are a few more things that I think I've learnt:


- Getting prouder of my Vietnamese identity (I remember Son's "Nói tiếng Việt như một đứa bé" line, how Nancy struggled to write a letter to her parents in English, how in Nancy's family, whenever her parents speak Vietnamese to her, she speaks English back, I hope now it's different :), they all developed their own part that is Vietnamese and their own love for Vietnam, so the Vietnamese community in California may have more and more Vietnam in it :D)
- Being a welcoming person: as far as I can remember, I always tried my best to help the UC kids with their Vietnamese or anything I know of (directions, computer stuffs, transportation,...) with a little xenophilia i mustsay :">. Hope that someday when I come to the US I can see them as welcoming people too :D (Sharon's couch might be a good idea)
- Getting as casual as possible: In Vietnam, when talking to people that are older than me, normally I have to show certain respect in words. In UCHANU, I can even call Gerard "Gerard" or "thầy" and hang out with the guys with out the need of using "dạ, thưa,..."
- Learn to realize the bad things about Hanoi, and Vietnam: As we're constantly reminded of the reality of Vietnam, I had the chance to know more about Hanoi in the uncomfortable experiences of the UC kids on their blogs. I'm still a big fan of Hanoi but now I try to look at it in a more realistic way.
- Socialize and make new friends: Sure I made a lot of friends and we had our crazy moments. Even thầy Gerard can be considered a friend haha


About how to remain connected to UCHANU and Vietnam, I guess I will support UCHANU's projects like One Heartland for as long as I can, and keep in touch with UCHANU friends via Facebook or Skype and emails sometimes, whenever they feel glad to (It's about them, not about me haha, I can be a real stalker reading their blogs all night long). I may try to go to America to see some of them (if not all) and experience the feeling of being away from the homeland.


So far I have put many smileys in this entry. Maybe it's the moment that I feel good about the time left. Hope that's okay when we all have to cry. 

Group work

"What have I learned about working in groups over the course of the semester, and about how I work with groups?"
It's been a semester of groupwork in UCHANU as I got to work in team "Vãi Chưởng" and One heartland VN. I think we did a good job as an interview team and a fundraising group. I've always been a collective person who likes to work in group so that was kinda what I wanted to do :)
With team Vãi chưởng, we did 4 interviews together, as for the rest we did in small group of 2 or individually. That was just conducting the interview, the transcribing and translating and posting of a single interview are always done by two out of four people in the group. We change the pair as one interview completes, Nancy and I, Mindy and Ngan, later on Nancy and Ngan, Mindy and I. We generally had no problems while carrying out the interviews, as everything was kinda organized and discussed thoroughly before we got to work. Ever since the very first mapping tasks, we have come up with the joyful way to do it. yeah, all the credit goes to Nancy and Mindy I think, cuz they were so curious about everything, especially the food (they're so cute when hungry), so we had to think of different kinds of food we'd have whenever we went together interviewing people. The routine was like, we went somewhere fun or somewhere that has good food, enjoy the food, then do the interview. I don't know if the most important part was to get good material or to get good food LOL. So what i learned from it was group work with some one with a different perspective can bring you a new interesting experience, and it's best to work with someone nice and cute and has the same interests as you do LOL.
As for One Heartland VN, it was so amazing an experience to me. We ALL poured out our efforts, got our skills into work and raised a lot of money for the kids. But at the beginning I don't think the first meetings worked, only when we figured out a way to overcome the challenge of place to have the High Roller Night, everything fell into places. 
I'm a fan of group work so as a group member, I find it very reassuring and comfortable cuz I know someone's got my back whenever I got difficulties and I am willing to support them as well. 
(Darn it, I'm so distracted by the entries of UCHANU friends that I enjoy so much. I think I suck at keeping track of my thoughts as I'm always leaping from one idea to another, from one inspiring entry to another)

"Cánh đồng bất tận", or "On the endless fields"

This one used to be a long post on the movie "Cánh đồng bất tận" which i've seen earlier until Yến used my computer and it messed up. That's it. I'm to depressed to type again from scratch.