Tag: vietnamese

Throw Back Sunday

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While browsing facebook today, I pumped into a viral article about how Harvard students study as if it were the last day of their lives.

At first, I felt ashamed of myself for not being hard-working enough, since I was scrolling down the mobile screen instead of reading books.

But as soon as I realized the big fact that I was at Harvard, my brain amazingly drew me back to the most beautiful memories of my last summer in the U.S.

america-havard

Yes! I WAS AT THE LEGENDARY HARVARD UNIVERSITY!

Even until now, it still seems extremely surreal to me.

Way back before the trip, in my world, America, NYC, Boston or Harvard had only existed inside the TV frame, books and in my dream. Since I was small, I have always known that my family is nothing more than a middle-class family in a poor country, which means we are only able to live and save some within our “Vietnam Dong-zone“. Therefore, at that time, traveling abroad, especially the U.S was really a lux, not to mention we all know how difficult it is for a foreigner to get inside the U.S. borders.

Fortunately, I found out about a volunteer project that would cover everything including the living expenses, accommodation for the volunteers. I signed up for it. And after a couple of months, I was in America, all by myself. That’s how I got to the dream land.

I spent one month of summer in the country, met lots of cool people, learned various things and bought a lovely poncho. Above all, I set foot in the Harvard University, took a tour. My mind was completely blown away.

boston

Now that I’ve come back, back to the repeated tiresome days, I have never stopped reminiscing about the last summer. It has really triggered my love for traveling, my hunger for another genuine adventure. That’s why I’ve constantly started my plan of traveling around the world. Simply, I’m now bearing this thought to myself: “I’ve been to the hardest, furthest country so why I can’t go to nearer ones?!”

Anyways, my next destination is Thailand. I’m working my ass off for it, saving every penny I could to bring my plan into practice, which is to travel to at least one country every single year.

Simple as that, a poor student who still lives under the same roof with her parents, thinks she can travel around the world. How about you? Have you embarked on your own journey?

How I get depressed these days or any other day

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Yeah

Obviously, I’m gonna grumble about studying, grades and school stuff!

I mean, what else can I talk about when I’m still “sitting on the school’s chair” (ngồi trên ghế nhà trường), and being haunted by the idea that grade is the only measurement of how competent (incompetent) I am. So yes! I am ridiculously obsessed with achievements. I hate to admit this, honestly. Still, this is not what I should feel shameful about since what so-called “achievement obsession” is a common “disease” of most of the Vietnamese students in recent time. But again, this is also not what to feel proud of.

Anyways, get back to the story, this semester has been a disaster. I have been hit up with 2 Cs and there will be surely more. It was already painful to get a C itself. But then I started to compare myself to other fellows in the result list, the pain went doubled.

“I’m so stupid. I’m incompetent. I’m useless. I’m helpless. I can never be like my friends…”

Each time a C comes, I feel like a door has just slammed on my face. After that come disappointment, self-hatred, hopelessness, and depression. Things just get worse since the more Cs I get, the more doors keep slamming on my face until the whole world shut down and there are no more doors. I have no idea what I’ll turn out to be by that time.

Some people are prone to blame the exterior factors when the results don’t come out well. But I cannot do that. When it comes to failure, I look into myself first for the answer, simply because it makes perfect sense to me. The process always goes like this: I dig deep into my head, trying to remember what went wrong from the beginning, and when the memories return, they come along with negative thoughts. I’ll constantly blame myself for not hard-working enough, not capable enough.

Nevertheless, I luckily bear the thought of having a growth mindset, the term that says I should set my mind positive through failures. Thanks to this, I’m able to pick myself up and move on. I find it really struggling to remind myself of this while carrying too much of self-hate problem. However, it does work. My growth mindset and my self-hatred could get along together. This may seem paradoxical but in fact, not. The mindset says: “Every failure is a chance to learn and growth.” On the other hand, my dark side shouts: “You didn’t work hard enough! That’s why you fail!” So these two somehow push me forward and put me in the position in which I torture myself at the same time.

I guess I should feel thankful for that dark side of mine as it didn’t shout the word “helpless”. This word could set my mind into “fixed”, which would only exacerbate my self-hatred and my academic transcript. If I place my capability into words like “fixed”, “limited”, I’ll be totally a deadwood. Though I do feel helpless most of the time but when it comes to studying, I try my best to exclude that thought.

In short, at the moment, I’m quite down but I’ll find a way…

P/S: Really surprised about how this note came out to be. I thought at the end I would write something awful or put my situation in a stalemate. But no, I made a way for it!