Lesson that I learned today
Lesson that I learned today: Coping with lonelinessNot everything is following me, and I cannot keep up with everything, even friends. For friends, I love those who contact me, try to reach me, ask me how I feel after a period of time. Not frequently, but it leaves me the feeling of comfortable by myself. I prefer to be alone, even though I have to admit that everyone has to have a friend. Still, I appreciate you who read these lines here and understand how I feel, especially when I am in a new land with no one I can truly believe in.
So first, I learn how to do things, anything.
I learn how to “surf the Internet”. I learn how to… skip classes. And learn how to sleep so well, too (for 12 hours).
I learn how to get music.
I learn how to cook food in cheap price, starting from the bottom, like instant noodle, egg, rice, canned food. Now I have meat like beef and pork, some vegetable. My own meal has 2 dishes, and I’m happy about that.
I learn that subscribe for an Internet TV show service is truly amazing. I’m happy that I spend $50 a year for DramaFever, and now I can enjoy high-quality shows without waiting for downloading from some torrent trackers and spending a lot of time finding English subtitles for each episode. It saves me a lot of time, and also effort. Basically, I spend money to get my time back to do other things. Also, since the amount of TV shows I watch is now increasing, the loneliness and depression is going down. I also learn a lot of lessons and quotes from those TV shows I like. So, I am happy.
Coping with loneliness is an expensive lesson that I’m glad I can learn it well. I also find out that doing what I like is more meaningful than anything that I can imagine, at least right now. Let’s see what I will do in my future.
Spend more time on project.
– VMware Workstation: Install Windows XP into the virtual machine and start to install old games like Need for Speed 2 SE.
– CEOGlobal: Try to integrate 2 emails into 1 so that officers can spend less time to check and answer emails.
– Swimming in HPER
… and many things that I will update in the near future.
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Update 6/30/2015:
So far I can keep up with 2/3 projects that I have mentioned above. I start to swin at HPER, and I have done the CEOGlobal project. Those are good things to mention about. However, the VMware project has to have more time on it, because my HDD has a little bit of space left right now (~20 GB) so I have to either cut a part of my content to my backup HDD or expand and “eat” some of the “Primary Partition” in my HDD which occupy 50 GB in my small 250 GB laptop HDD. Anyway, I will talk about it later. But first, let me take a selfie :)))
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Update 7/4/2015:
Lesson that I learned today: What you do and eat today will affect you directly tomorrow.
I have to separate the “do” and “eat” because of the phrase: “Living to eat or eating to live”. Seems like it doesn’t relate to what I say, but think about it. If you decide to go with ramen (or instant noodle) day by day, you will feel tired, lose motivation simply because getting off the bed is a challenge for you (lose nutrition -> less activities -> sleep more – > tired of everything -> feeling hopeless about life and future). Therefore, the “eat” makes the “do”. As I mentioned above, eating healthy doesn’t have to cost you a lot of money, or sacrificing your taste. You don’t have to find fancy food everywhere, just stick with basic food: a little pork, beef, fish, tomato, broccoli, water spinach (I’m Asian), cauliflower, carrots, spinach, lettuce, etc… You have many other choices rather than eggs and ramens everyday. Milk is also a good food that comes with a lot of protein and calcium, and it’s cheap in the U.S. There you go, you are not waiting for food, you have to make them wait for you to get them and make them good meals everyday.
Eat, then do. Do exercise to make your body absorbs the nutrition well, so that every morning is wonderful than ever. Then, come to class. At that time, you must be ready to open your mind and learn new things. Learning new things for grades, for the sake of your career -> for your future. Also, you have to have energy to learn not only in class. Talking to people, learning to sell things, watching movies, … I assume that you have a lot of things to learn, then. Moreover, you have to work. Working part-time and studying is a time-consuming, but working makes you money and teach you how to use money properly. I always remember that lesson since I got my first job as a food server in Chef Jet (Chartwells Dining Hall in the University of Arkansas), now changed to Olympus Grill. At first, money comes to me and go because of my motto:”I worked hard then I deserved to spend my money”. Good, then I always “deserved” to spend more money than I made. I worked there from October, 2014, but until April, 2015 I just realized how to save my money by several talks with my co-workers. One of them talks about how he survived in college by working at Papa Johns and selling stuff on eBay, which is very impressed for me. Another one talked about stock, and I was like:”Stock what??? Is it edible?”. Of course that was a joke, but I don’t understand how to make money by investing in stock at all. I realize that there are so many things I have to learn in life, and I have to get ready for it. They (my co-workers) and I are living in a small town in the U.S., but why do they know many things while I do not? This makes me feel concerned, and I feel like I skipped so many opportunities in the past.
But I’m glad that I just complete my basic step: making cheap food. My “ladder to success” is like making cheap food, enjoying my life (knowing how to entertaining myself properly by understanding what I really like, for example Korean dramas and movies, and do it (subscribing DramaFever Premium)) then spending less money, exploring the tactic to study well, keep connection to friends and important people, learning new songs, knowing how to sell on eBay, knowing how to protect myself. Oh, I should not have said this is a “ladder” because it’s not, but at least I can list what I have to do to improve myself and live happily.
I wish I could type more but it’s already 1:25 AM. Sleeping early is also a key to success, as it helps you get ready for the morning. Those who said that sleeping late is a sign of intelligence, I found that’s bullshit. Haha
I will come back and update more. ZZZzzzZZZzzz
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Update 8/9/2015
A little bit late, haizz, 12:01 AM. I thought I would sleep early, but I can only do it sometimes. I feel lonely, again.
That’s fine. At least I learn to enjoy myself. I upgraded my baby laptop to Windows 10, which brings me so many new experience. Easy way to start, do, play. Start menu is unavoidable for me, and yay, it’s back in Windows 10! Its app store is great, now I can even play Asphalt 8: Airborne in my computer, too. I also learn how to make chicken and salmon sandwich from Viet and Thai, and I found this as a new way for me to make breakfast everyday, to make my life healthier everyday.
And more than that, I passed an interview for a job in my dream: working at Campus Card Office in the University of Arkansas!
My first day of work is quite…. interesting. A little bit unfamiliar at first, but surprisingly people over there are really nice, and it seems like they are ready to show off everything for me, my job is only doing what they say. I have been given access to many sites, from the database to ISIS (Oracle), and moreover, this is my first job as the person who works in an office. I’m really in love with it. Let’s see what happens next.
My VMWare project seems to be staying quiet. I started to lose interest in it, because I have more interesting things to do than that. First, I’m learning Winter Serenade, a song in my previous keyboard. I only had that keyboard for 29 days before I realize that I was in short of money and returned back to store to have full refund from it (shipping cost was deducted, by the way). That’s not important, since I’m happy with my $74 keyboard now, even though it’s way less feature than my $799 digital piano before :) Whatever, I really don’t care. I’m in love with this keyboard and the “blurry” tutorial video on Youtube that teach me the song Winter Serenade now instead of the fancy screen that’s full of notes from the previous keyboard that only gave me headache when I was trying to play that song. Well, to be honest, I still miss that “baby” keyboard, but that’s fine. I am living at the right level I want, and I’m quite satisfied. When I have more income, I’ll think about getting “my baby” back, but it’ll probably happen in the future, and that’s a good goal for me to improve, right?
- From those interests, there is one more noticeable thing that I want to mention. I’m back with the web design stuff! I quietly learn it from CodeCademy, and I completed my first lesson from it: HTML. Now I move on to CSS, the thing that makes any website become very beautiful :) I will head on to that now, and I think I can make it before the end of August.
I will take some pictures of my new sandwich soon, and my progress is going on, keep watching, ok?
ZZZZzzzzZZZZ
Update 8/15/2015
I am an adult. Despite that, I still can’t figure out how my day is, or would be. I mean, it’s filled with random things that I cannot predict. Of course that’s how life is, but I want it to be, at least, a little bit organized in my way. For example, I want to complete my project on that day, but the answer is mostly no. Well, I think I have to work on that, then, especially my discipline.
My new projects now are: building a small server to store and manage data, working out a bit to improve how I look, and setting up some access points for the wifi at my home in order to reduce the pressure of my modem which has to carry a tons of devices, from mobile phones to computers.
Alright, time to go to sleep. Better wake up at 6:20 AM tomorrow to have a good face to show up at 7:15 AM or the boss will kill me immediately. It’s already 1:10 AM now.
A short update doesn’t mean I start to lose interest in it. Stay updated, stay tuned, ok?
Gotcha! Have a nice day :)
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Update 10/22/2015
I have done a lot of things, and I’m proud of it. But that’s not enough.
I moved to a new apartment by my own effort, with 2 other roommates, one of them was my old friend. I start to clean up my room so it looks so tidy. Also, I try to keep least things that I can see when I go to my room, so that I can feel the space. It helps keep the room less dusty —> less maintenance. I simply love it.
I gain my first small success for my cooking skill. In Conversation Club, an activity for international students to hang out with American students, I cooked a small dish with beef and bok choy, and people liked it. I marinated the beef with soy sauce, oyster sauce, honey, black pepper, garlic, and sesame oil, each with a little bit amount. It turned out to be surprisingly good, both smell and taste are good. I also learn from that dish that I can never marinate beef with fish sauce (I know it sounds really stupid to those who know to cook already), because it will extract the juice from the beef, make it dry and less tasty. That was my first successful “cooking” event, and that’s good for me to write in here, you know. Besides that, I have to acknowledge that my friends who also joined that event really made good and fancy food. Abdullah, a PhD student, made a dreamy olive salad that I can never forget, and that’s probably the best salad that I have every tried in my life. He also made 2 dishes of falafel, and in 15 minutes they are gone! Don’t forget the great soup that he made, and mini-spaghetti for appetizer. He stated that the falafel is the secret recipe that he learned from his mom. Laura, our leader, “master of communication”, made an unforgettable chocolate cake that’s sweet and so creamy. She had another dish with bread and special spice that she put in, and it was very tasty. Our Korean girl, Sohyun, made some kimbap (김밥) and a traditional and delicious spicy rice cake, topokki (떡볶이), left a little bit of pepper-like spicy and a taste of Asian food that I still remember until now. Claudia, another leader, kept her cooking skill in secret but helped us a lot with making food. She was absolutely ready to prepare for a wonderful dinner like in this picture below.
Time to get back to my story!
Getting back to study is definitely NOT an easy task. It seems like it requires a complicated process, with a bunch of fancy system to remind me that: “Hey f*cker, better get back to the desk or I will kill ya!!!”. I lost concentration and motivation to study because it requires a lot of catch-up to get me “out of the dark”. I always “chase the white rabbit”, lost concentration very easily. One random moment you will find me playing games, while another one you can see I sleep on the table, or wandering on Facebook, or listening to music bla bla bla …. But the truth is, I’m not happy to live like that at all, seriously. I don’t like to sleep late at night and have to run like a horse to school every morning. It demolishes my life, yeah, it does. I hate that. Did I mention that I hate to live like that?
I start to read books, but of course, reading book is also not an easy task. Man, I read couple lines and my body tells me to sleep as it’s the better choice :))) It forces me with the thought that books are NOT for me at all, why? And review stuff that I learned from school is also a pain in the a**. I remembered my childhood that when it came to the review session of every subject, I felt asleep. Either it’s too easy to review or it’s too hard to be touched again, no medium level :)) I was that type of person and I don’t want that to happen with me again and again.
I even have nightmare because of the bad attitude of studying. I even dreamed about my high school back then when I got continuously bad grades that the school had to suspend me for 2 weeks. Or I had a nightmare that I no longer have my scholarship anymore from my university which can lead to serious consequences such as financial problem in my family in Vietnam and a big disappointment in my mom’s face. Oh, and my future after that would be a humiliation for the whole big family, which has only-and-full of talented people. I know I’m smart, but that leads me to the easy-to-tiredness of all of the subjects that I have learned before.
Anyway, now is the time for me to work harder. Starting with these small projects below, I believe I will make it:
- Sleep no longer than 11:30 PM
- Go to school early ( at least 5 mins before class start, so I will have to get out of bed at least 40 mins before, go out of home at least 20 mins before).
- Try to make at least 2 office hours per week, for whatever reasons.
- Review leaning stuff at home
- Running, it’s good for my health
- Email everything I’m concerned to instructors in my classes.
- Read book, start with Finance Books
- Note the deadline of upcoming projects or exam
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Short update 10/24/2015
Finally the biggest math problem of my life is solved: I have to learn how to say NO
First, saying NO to Facebook addict. Of course I cannot 100% leave Facebook: I do have friends. The good thing is I will put a limit for the time I have to spend on Facebook everyday, or else I will not have time to do everything and I’m too tired or lazy to do that. The biggest problem happens after that is that I will have a large amount of available time which will be enough to make me feel tired and start to come back to Facebook to share every single funny thing I read. And here are my substitutes:
- Reading textbooks
- Running
- Going to school to find a room to study
