Rants and Rambles

 Originally published in The Ubyssey Homemade bánh mì (noun): The embodiment of heaven The rusty motorcycle took a sharp swerve, slightly tossing my damp backpack. Sitting in the backseat under the poncho flap extending from my father’s back, I tried to guess our location through the thick curtain of monsoon rain. It wasn’t long before I could smell the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked baguette, signalling my arrival at the bánh mì stall near my elementary school in Saigon, Vietnam. “A sausage bánh mì with all veggies, please,” said my father to the middle-aged woman behind the stall. Her calloused hands started to perform magic — a ritual I never failed to watch with fascination. She split a golden baguette in half, spread pâté all over the fluffy white insides of the loaf, then added sausage slices and cilantro, green onion and daikon pickles, finally topping the marvellous creation with a dash of chili sauce. At 7 a.m. sharp, I got off the motorcycle in front of the school gat...

Once upon a sleepy afternoon in Cu Chi "- 5 kg of cherries - 5 kg of oranges - 3 bags of chips..." Wearily, I jotted down the endless list of items to be packed for my trip to Saigon at the beginning of July. What was supposed to be a 1-hour trip to Walmart to buy all the items requested by my family turned out to last for 3 hours, with hopping on and off the 405 to get to the countless grocery stores and farmers' markets around the city. Sitting under the shade of a sweetgum tree, with a cup of bubble tea, I waited for the bus to get to the next farmers' market. It was a dazzlingly sunny day, with no sight of clouds in the deep blue sky overlooking the glistening skyscrapers. As I arrived at the market, the fragrant scent of the apple piles at the entrance calmed me down after hours of navigating the crazed crowds of shoppers at Walmart diving for summer discounts. Still, I was more than glad to arrive home, hands aching from carrying too many packs of strawberries. ...

  The Rose Garden in June with all of its glory, taken when the author was pretending that she had finished her 23 pages of problem sets The long-awaited ending of the 3-week break between the last day of first year and my summer classes ended, meaning that the cycle repeated: waking up 3 hours before the first lecture, consuming too much Dalgona coffee, and feeling my brain fried after finishing problem sets at the end of each day. Thankfully, I only took one summer term, so I could manage to sit for 3 hours a day in the chasm of IKB, getting lost in the Golgi apparatus with the dimming lights, the professor's soothing voice, and the blasting AC with an occasional creak of a chair nearby. After struggling to stay awake in BIOL 200, I was more than grateful to take a walk around campus, starting from the grassy hill outside the Nest. Under the balmy June air, every building was brimming with life, with the Chemistry building covered with a dazzling rainbow carpet of azalea bushes a...

  Originally published on The Ubyssey My mom is packing a suitcase before her 23-hour flight to Vietnam. The smooth rolling of its wheels intertwining with the staccato rhythm of duct tape echo through the quiet house. Her veinous hands organize the items like an engineer assembling the ins and outs of a teleporting machine carrying capsules from this portal: five packs of musky-scented Eagle oil (for senior relatives constantly battling with arthritis) two bulky boxes of chocolate (for the innumerable nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews and beyond) and plastic-wrapped bottles of lotion and shampoos (for their mothers, sisters and aunties). The destination label lying neatly on the sleek surface The stretches of words, diphthongs and diacritics — enigmatic codes carrying the traveller to a bustling street in Saigon, with motorcycles trickling down the narrow lanes alongside which warps the smoky grilled meat from vendors, all within the humid city, pulsating day and night. I...

The Math building - where dread intertwined with excitement.  Also s hout out to my Math TA for giving us candies after the last class ( muito obrigada!) On these dazzling days, the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom with cumulous fuschia clouds. Instead of wandering around, enjoying the rare weather Vancouver has to offer like I would've loved to, I had to lock in. With three hours of rocking on the SkyTrain and the 49 daily, then waiting for the bus while the chilly winds and downpours slapped, my wits were always on the edge during the first term. If you told me a mere eight months ago that I'd survive first year, I'd have shaken my head in disbelief. Thankfully, the misery of wrestling with five final exams ended last week. As soon as the gigantic digital clock ticked 6:00 PM, a big sigh of relief from over two hundred-something students writing the Physics 131 exam echoed across the vast SRC gym. And first year was done! The first few weeks of the second term came...

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! No more snow days, at last!

Happy New Year! Hope 2024 treats all of us well.