Since my workload is piling up at a breakneck speed, I'm going to stop posting here for a while until I have more free time to ramble. Till we meet again!
Happy last day of class! I also happened to get one year older on the same day, for which I had a free matcha-yuzu ice cream. Life is good. I'm a moody person. Always have been. At one second, my heart feels like the sun is shining brightly outside and the magnolias are starting to peek outside of their ensconced velvety buds. A mere minutes after --- an email, a Canvas notification, an impossibly long line at my favorite campus coffee place, or even nothing --- my mood matches exactly with the eternally grey Vancouver sky. On top of that, there is always something looming at the horizon, such as an upcoming midterm or a group presentation to worry about. As soon as I finish a task, three others appear on my calendar app, keeping me tossing and turning at night. Then the next morning, one of my friends from high school or UBC taking transit with me could see me half-asleep walking across the street to reach the SkyTrain station, with a tiny Hong Kong milk tea on hand that would mak...
Santa Monica Pier, December 2025. The graceful palm trees of California never cease to amaze me, a torrential rain sufferer "And that's it, you can open your eyes!" the nurse cheered. I gingerly peeked at my left arm, where three doses of vaccinations were quickly covered with a tiny cotton bandage. After thanking the nurse, I dazzily stepped outside to the flowing stream of traffic crisscrossing one of the busiest intersections in District 3 of Saigon. The sun was ablaze, and the asphalt roads were too glaring for sleepy eyes to take in all the sights contained in one nanosecond of this city. The last few days of summer have been nothing but hectic, from a short trip to Vung Tau (where I had to climb the rocks as the waves crashed to get to my room when I forgot to bring the key) to a whirlwind of medical appointments for my immigration visa. In between trips here and there around Saigon for an unhealthy amount of iced coffee while catching up with relatives and old fri...
Once upon an afternoon, we reunite under the fried ube cart in Saigon It was a two-story house, facing the street facing District 11. Built too late for colonial romaticism, but too early for the age of glass frenzy. Pinwheel patterns on the brise-soleil catch the fierce tropical sun, leaving behind the shadow that long to be broken. The pinwheels see the resin trees rise and fall when the neighborhood was choked under the grip of the city's expansion. The pinwheels peep down the streets. A car adorned with plastic flowers, a wedding in procession heads to the house across the street. "Look, there's the bride!" the children in the alley echo. A VHS tape rewinds as it did thirty years ago, when the youngest daughter— the last child growing in this house— married her Vietnamese American husband carrying with her six people's dreams, across the ocean. And all is left within the walls, is the moss growing quietly on the cracked plaster. Even the sparrows don'...
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