Saw the MJ movie last night and I must say it was quite…rejuvenating. Like many others, I grew up as a huge MJ fan and hearing/seeing the songs being performed totally brought me back to my childhood. My interest peaked right around the time he released HIStory, when I was about 10 and I could actually be conscious of what being a music fan was about. When that album was released, both MTV and VH1 would run syndication’s of his music videos all day long, which gave me a quite effective history (no pun intended) on the legacy he led prior. Sadly enough, his success was never quite the same after that album like it was during those golden years. That might explain why watching the performances from this supposed-concert was a lot like watching his previous tours; they contained pretty much no songs from the latter decade of his career. It was like watching the Dangerous tour, but revamped for 2009 with newly produced videos and state-of-the-art technology.
Watching this documentary really shows how talented this man was, and that he wasn’t totally crazy. The only thing crazy about him was what he had to deal with due to all the fame. However, it is another example on one of my theories: The greatest musicians in the world all have a little crazy in them. I figure if you weren’t losing your mind at some point you’d run out of substantial material to write about. On top of that, I don’t think you can truly show your greatest passion within the arts without being a little left of the middle. I saw that in myself back during my VSA days when I coordinated the culture show. I think all of my actors, dancers, musicians thought I was nuts for what I was doing/saying/making them do for rehearsals and whatnot. But the end product was one of my most proud moments and if I hadn’t spazzed out during those times, it would have never been that way. So kids, the moral of the story is: Entertainers can’t be normal. So unless you want to entertain yourself, give ‘em a break.
“Success” can be defined in many ways. And for the most part, it is a pretty subjective definition. I never really thought about what the word means to me until it was challenged in my recent facebook status update.
The third year of pharmacy school at USC is definitely known to be the toughest. The material isn’t crazy-difficult, but it becomes crazy-difficult to manage given the bulk of information and exam schedule. I’ve had an exam almost every single week since the first week of school back in August. It’s even worse when you’re not sure what part of that bulk is testable, not to mention that you must learn most of it yourself due to incompetent lecturers.
So at one of my low points during studying, I was listening to Drake and posted a lyric from his song on my wall: “I just want to be successful.”
Not the most original line, and song’s nature is completely unrelated to my life. However, the principal still remains. All I want is to be successful, and you would think that being at USC School of Pharmacy would surely put me on that path. But I have never questioned my success probability so often until I got here. In my class, I’m the one who has to try *extra* hard to barely make the grades. Sure, all of my classmates stress out about exams and whatnot, but do they really know what it’s like to be on the forefront of being dismissed from the program due to inadequate performance? That’s me, ladies and gentlemen. Adjusting during the first year totally screwed me up and due to policies I had to fight the university to let me stay and prove my worth in the program. Thank God for them giving me a chance and as a result, I redeemed myself the following year. I can proudly say I did pretty well to sit comfortably in the “safe” zone.
But this zone is not as safe as I thought. I have to maintain this upward trend or else I may be put in jeopardy again. It just so happens that this pressure of doing well occurs during the death schedule of a third-year student. While everyone else hating life in this crazy schedule is so burnt out and slowly caring less, I need to stay motivated and pass with high remarks so I can keep moving forward.
It’s times like this I wonder if all this stress is even worth it. The financial payoff will be, which continues to be one of the motivational factors I use. But I’ve always had interests in other areas that’s not pharmacy-related, or even health care-related, for that matter. Perhaps that may be why my performance in school is so low; my mind is on something other than pharmacy half of the time. In fact, I am waiting for the day I become that licensed pharmacist so that I can immediately pursue my hobbies. Whether it be music, graphic design, or just finding a way to be creative…as long as I can do what I love and still make enough money to enjoy friends, family, and God, I will be happy. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my definition of success.
So a long time back in one of those viral facebook “25 things” thread, I mentioned that 2006 was one of the happiest years of my life. I had been meaning to elaborate on this fact, but got caught up with life and never managed to write it. After reading this post by Jon, I decided that this was a perfect time to be nostalgic.
MUSIC: If you read Jon’s post, you’ll understand that music played a huge role in my undergrad. But never before have I ever performed for so many functions as I have in 2006. It was this year that I met Charlton, also a pre-pharmacy student who within a few short weeks would eventually become the drummer during my Vietnamese Culture Night performance. Yes…not only did I perform here, but D.Tran and I also coordinated this entire evening that we had envisioned for almost a year. It was, to this day, the one and only time I performed as a solo artist with a full band behind me:
Words cannot explain that feeling: standing before an audience of 400+ individuals on a theatre stage, with semi-pro lighting, and rocking out with three other talented musicians. Granted, it was a Vietnamese song that I performed (my attempts to make fob music sound cool…I called it V-mo–Vietnamese Emo)…but it was still an amazing experience. I also performed with Jon, Won, and Mike that night for the pre-show. JWM did our classic Yellowcard medley (probably our best performance yet)…
…then added Mike for our saucy Boy Band medley and our Boyz II Men-style Star-Spangled Banner…
All of us would go on to perform for school functions following this night, like the ICA Culture Show, and Future PILLS Banquet. I definitely made the most of my final months at UCR. Which brings me to…
GRADUATION: Not much to describe, but it was an accomplishment receiving my Bachelor of Arts in Biology this year. Yes, UC Riverside offered a Bachelor of ARTS in Biology. I remember struggling through the Bio, Ochem, and Physics series thinking, “If I ever make it out of these classes without repeating it, I’ll be damn happy.” Not only did I finish it without failing (something that was quite common at my school), they were some of my best grades (so unlike today). Graduating confirmed that the health care direction was probably a good move for me and kept me going while applying to pharmacy school the next year. Though those 4 years were probably some of the best years of my life, I was quite happy to have been liberated from the city of Riverside.
Strangely enough, I don't talk to many of these people anymore...
FAMILY: The summer of ‘06 was met with lots of family events. Why? Because my cousin Binh, the first of us boys, was about to get hitched! This monumental event allowed:
1) An amazingly peaceful weekend in Seattle where Binh, Viet, and I flew up to stay at Phong’s place at the VA during one of his rotations. This weekend consisted of rafting on the lake, visiting Bruce Lee’s grave, and of course, laying down tracks for Binh’s wedding song to Diem!
Phong was doing a rotation at the VA in Tacoma, Washington next to a lake. Sweet deal!
Boards...don't hit back.
Finished product at www.myspace.com/binhmusic
2) The first bachelor party…in Vegas! Details omitted.
3) And of course, the wedding itself. Took place in sunny San Diego, a few days before my birthday. Most people hate weddings, and being in them can be pretty stressful…but Vu-Tang weddings are always fun. Why? Well, thank Mr. Remy Martin. We performed the song we wrote and recorded in Seattle at the reception. It was here where the nickname “Matthew Dinh on the Violinnnn!” was coined. Haha.
Dressed appropriately with Corona-in-hand.
INTRO TO OC LIFE: Being that this was the intended “year off before grad school”, I decided to reap the benefits of free rent and most-of-the-time free food by moving in with my brother earlier that summer. This year was intended to take some extra classes, apply to pharmacy school, and relax a bit before my life got crazy as it is now. What came with that was my first pharmacy job, that I might not have gotten had Mr. Kevin (my pharmacy “sensei”) not been working the day that application came through his fax. As I got to know the crew at CVS better, I was introduced to the OC nightlife…well, at least the Bolsa OC nightlife. One too many nights at Shark and V2O. Oh and let’s not forget about all those coffee’s I would get every once in awhile.
Yeah...I was a club rat...
CHANG’S FAREWELL: Aaron Chang, one of my closest buddies graduated Fall ‘06 from UCR and was about to move to China for this internship thing (or, more like, working-for-his-uncle thing). So what better way to send him off? BACK TO VEGAS, BABY. This trip was absolutely ridiculous. It took place the weekend before Christmas, shortly after Chang’s last final and a few days before mine at GWC. 10 or 15 of us crammed up in a Mirage suite where we would discover the wonders of Dom Perignon, the probable inspiration for T-pain’s “Bartender”, and learning how to swim in a Caesar’s Fountain. Yeah, Vegas trips are typically full of inside jokes, so there is nothing more I can say. What a better way to send the man off?
This would be the night 3 became 4...
Enter Dj Fongie, ladies and gentlemen...
And that brings me to the end of ‘06. Following this Vegas trip was another great Christmas with the family, followed by a memorable New Year’s Eve at Jon’s place. That party in itself probably deserves a photo post, but since that technically falls into 2007, I will refrain from that.
Sadly enough, although the following years up until now were all special in their own way, nothing has quite been the same since. I shared it with my greatest friends who I probably see only 4-5x a year now. Not to mention the fact that my music-playing has never been even remotely comparable. The worst part of it all? I’m not even sure if what I’m doing now is going to be worth the past 2 years of sacrifice…
Wow…I cannot believe it’s been almost 2 months since I’ve posted anything.
Ok, I can believe it. Life gets busy and sometimes you don’t always have time to write in these things. However, I found it remarkable that my last posting occurred while I was still in Europe. You would think I would have said something once I got back to the states. But literally, as soon as I got back my life just started trucking as it usually did and I found other things to keep me busy.
So since I am very lazy, here is a link to my facebook photo album regarding the backpacking portion of my Eurotrip. It was definitely good times with my Norwegian cousins. We managed not to kill each other after 10 grueling days of hostel-ing, train-ing, and uh, drink-ing. All in all it was a good time. See pics for more highlights.
I suppose I should have returned to this blog to write something profound…but it escapes me now. So it will have to wait until another time. Be patient (because I know you check this thing every single day…)
So I got real lazy at posting since I arrived here in Norway…but I figure I better now, seeing as how I will really have no online access for the next 10 days. My cousins and I are about to go on our backpacking trip in a few hours and I can’t be more excited about that. Here are some pics of what I’ve done so far.
Oslo's new Opera house
Walking on the ramp that goes all the way to the top of the roof
In front of the castle where the King of Norway lives. Raised flag means he is home.
Parliament building
A park with naked statues all over the place...body art
The infamous angry baby...supposedly this statue gets stolen every year or so
They start so young these days...
Cousin let me take his gixxer out for a test ride!
Dinner with extended/distant relatives of some sort
My cousins here have been great. They keep telling me Oslo is the most boring place in the world and you can see everything in a matter of hours. I believe them, but the purpose of me visiting here is not to go site-seeing, but simply just to see family. The family dinners and just hanging around talking is more than enough for me. But that has now come to an end and 3 of us are going to start our journey.
Denmark -> Netherlands -> Brussels -> Paris -> London in 10 days.
Here we go! Talk to you all when I get back to the states!
I can’t believe that this time last month I was blogging about leaving the US to work abroad in Hungary. My, has time flown. Although it was only one month, I am finally able to say that I spent a good amount of time living somewhere that wasn’t “home.” I played with the idea of it many times before, but I am very happy to say that I have done it. I have truly learned a lot about myself and the rest of the world since being here. There are a few specifics I can touch up on, but perhaps now is not the time, as I would rather reflect on my final 24-48 hours here:
World Market for souvenir shopping...it was like a Hungarian Phuoc Loc Tho
Back for communist pizza at Marxim's
Pizza with an egg!!!!
Back to Morrison's for free entrance and dollar beers
I'll miss all of you
One of my first non-roommate friends
New arrival from London! Too bad I'm leaving...
Quite the Turkish delight to end the evening.
So all good things come to an end. But what does that mean? New beginnings! Tomorrow morning I will embark on Round 2 of my Eurotrip, and that’s Oslo, Norway to visit my cousins. Following, my cousins and I will be embarking on a 5 country backpacking trip. I can’t wait! Til then, everybody!
The last few days have been dry of posts because I went for a mini vacation during this vacation. A group of us decided to take a weekend get-away to Vienna, Austria and Prague, Czech Republic. All I can say is that it was AMAZING. Let’s do one at a time.
Vienna: Rated one of the most desirable and beautiful cities to live in the world. And it shows, because it is damn expensive! We only stayed one night there and cut back on going into every museum and building possible because it was so costly. It was also very touristy, as every other person was American or other English speaker. Nevertheless, it was beautiful:
7am Bus Ride to Vienna
Heldenplatz ("Heroes Square")
Natural History Museum
Volkstheater
City Hall
Burgtheater - one of the best guided tours I've ever been on...so much art and history
Beer break.
The Film Festival was held outside in front of the City Hall during this month...huge screen with stadium seating...
Inside Votiv Church...they are all starting to look the same now...
St. Stephan's Cathedral
Opera House
Battle of the Weekend Trips
Parliament by night
Schonbrunn Palace -- Probably the best tourist attraction ever, we spent 4 hours here
Opposite view with the garden, Gloriette Structure, and uh, international lady friends =)
Fun with Mirrors in the garden Labryrinth
Goodbye for now...next stop, Praha
Prague: This is by far, my favorite city ever. By the time we arrived we were so tired and I myself was a little sick of the traditional site-seeing. I just wanted to enjoy the city as it was, and enjoy I did. The quarters of where our hostel was located was perfect: close to the Old Town where you witness the most amazing street/building combination ever. Pictures speak louder than words:
Linkin Park's "From The Inside" was filmed in Prague...it was my theme song as I walked these streets
Astronomical Clock Tower
In front of the Ferrari Cafe
Oh yes...this place had...
Only 4 bucks!
No hallucinations...it tasted like green vanilla ice cream.. -_-
Church outside Prague Castle
Charles Bridge from afar
Later that night we decided to go for a night on the town, since we refrained from doing so in Vienna. And let me tell you this: Prague is probably one of the best party cities ever. The drinks are dirt cheap (beers like 3 bucks and cocktails 4 or 5) and there are tons and tons of bars/pubs/discos (oh man I’m saying ‘disco’ instead of ‘club’ now) all within not only walking-distance, but stumbling-distance. There were so many we didn’t know what to choose, so what did we do? A Pub Crawl.
For those of you don’t know what this word means, it’s pretty much an official way of saying “Bar hopping.” We paid this promotion company about $20 USD for the admission fee which entitle us to: unlimited beers at the first bar, free shots at each location (4 total), and VIP access at each stop. Not half bad if you ask me…it was more so for the experience instead of the perks. It was awesome meeting with people from all over the world and going to each place with them. Here are some pics:
The first stop, the official Pub Crawl bar: Free Absinth shot and unlimited beer!
New friends from South Africa.
Last disco stop...a club with 5 different levels, 5 different types of music. AMAZING.
Last pic...dance floor reminded me of Area hahah
Those are pretty much the highlights of my weekend. I have lots more pictures that will all be posted eventually on facebook. I just realized I need to start uploading them because once I get back I will surely get preoccupied by school business. I have exactly 1.5 days left here in Budapest! On Wednesday I will be leaving to visit my aunts and uncles in Oslo, Norway, and the following week my cousins and I will embark on our backpacking trip across 5 more countries. Eurotrip Round 2 is about to begin!
It appears that this month in Budapest is slowly coming to an end. Some students have already left for home, and others just came by to bid farewell since a group of us will be missing their official goodbye while we’re traveling this weekend.
Last night we had an unofficial farewell party for my dear buddy Jonathan Clayton. He is probably the closest friend I’ll take away from this place, being from Canada and all. The cultural and language comfort allowed us to become good friends and figure out how to get by in this town by acting like a dumb tourist, or by a wannabe smart alec local. We served as the rebels who left group outings early because everyone was too indecisive or simply too impractical. We were regulars at McDonald’s for a 50cent ice cream, but more importantly, for the Wi-Fi. I know it’s sad, but we had important business to conduct with our overseas loved ones.
Jonathan doesn’t drink and doesn’t really come to party much at all, so he is definitely the one to chill with when you feel like being grounded or entertained by Ronald Reagan speeches. Me, him, and Shekhar were talking about random things one night and he mentioned that one thing he will do is smoke a cigar for very special occasions. So what better way to send him off?
We climbed up to the roof of the dorm with 3 cigars and a bottle of fine Merlot to have, what we expected, a guys’ bonding night. But as we found out that people had no plans for the evening, we invited more people up little by little, and at one point the entire dorm was up there hanging out with us. It ended up being a good time socializing in pitch black with nothing but the city lights and the flame from our cigars illuminating the party. I would post pictures, but images of cigars in our mouth is probably not the most flattering thing to show to the world. Therefore, I bid my friend farewell with this text-only blog post.
Take care, buddy. You and Amanda need to come to California soon. We’ll show you what all the fuss is “aboat.”
I don’t know why I write so much. Every time I have a story to tell, I feel like it takes an entire chapter’s worth before I get to the point. It’s no wonder I had such bad grades paraphrasing during high school English. But to me, details are very important–especially personal details that lead up to something. So if you enjoy reading my stuff, continue on. Other wise, you can just skip to the last paragraph for the main point.
Dreams are quite random. Things jump from one thing to the next and not much sense can ever be made from it. We often don’t know the meaning to most of our dreams, either. They probably have multiple meanings for all we know. I just had a dream that seemed to give me a few hints here and there, but each hint somehow led me to a single (and almost unrelated) conclusion.
I was at church, a fairly big church, sitting near the front row next to a group of people who all used to be friends. Each person was sitting with either their significant other or another friend/family member. It almost felt like we were attending a wedding and all got seated together awkwardly. I’m not sure why these people were here in my dream. We are not really friends anymore, due to fallouts among each other or mutual friends which causes Friend A to talk to B and B to C, but never C to A. From what I can remember, we were silent during this time. We never acknowledged each other and never looked each other in the eye. This all could have been the fact that we were in church and it was not the best time for socializing, but I felt like it gave further meaning that we weren’t ever going to be close again, even in this circumstance.
I excused myself to use the restroom. When I came back, I took a detour and came back to my seat a different way. On this detour, a familiar looking family came into view. They were my cousins (well, actually, my cousin’s children who I’m supposed to refer to as my nieces and nephews–we have many strange generation gaps). These nieces and nephews were more or less my age but many of them a few years younger. The first person I recognized of these cousins was “Jeff.” Beside and behind him, his sisters and other cousins whom I remember as 9-year olds who have now grown up to be young adults. Directly beside Jeff, I expected to see his parents, but instead saw my aunt and uncle (his grandparents), praying and singing. As I greeted them, they were very happy and delighted to see me. Afterward, I returned to greet Jeff one last time before returning to my seat.
Jeff always seemed lost when I saw him. We only see each other maybe 2 or 3 times a year and the last time I really saw him was a year ago. He made it to most large family events and bachelor parties my cousins threw for each other, but during that time it’s usually all play and no catch-up. From what I remember, he’s been with his girlfriend for quite a few years. They even moved in together and have dogs. Although that sounds cute and pretty ideal, he admitted that he felt like he’s aged quite a bit. He used to be fairly outgoing when we were younger, but was now so soft-spoken and seemed very unmotivated. He’s been in undergrad longer than I have and is one year older than me.
During this greet, we sort of had this mental conversation where we caught ourselves up from the last year all within a 5 second period. He still hasn’t finished school and he and his girlfriend are no longer together. However, despite all that, he was extremely happy and almost relieved to see me–to the point where he almost teared up. He told me he decided to go back to church and obey the work and study habits his parents and grandparents (my aunt and uncle seated next to him) have tried to instill in him for so long. I saw so much hope in him.
The cousin sitting next to him, “Jake”, is also a lost soul at the moment. I don’t talk to him so much mainly because he is much younger than I am; he falls into the next generation of family cousins who hang out together. But I remember reading a blog post about his older brother praying for him and wanting him to stray away from the doomed path he was heading down. When I saw Jake, I saw the little innocent toddler I remember playing with. Recent pictures have shown that he looks kind of like a rebel, but in this dream he was all cleaned up and also full of hope.
It felt great seeing this family. Ever since I moved to SoCal 7 years ago, I am almost completely out of the loop with most of the family members I left behind. Once my greeting with these folks finished, I proceeded to walk back to my seat. When I got back to my pew, I noticed it was empty. All of those “friends” seated next to me had left. Was the service over? There were still plenty of people around, and they all looked at me as if I were some loser who got ditched. I tried to make sense of everything. How could I feel so fulfilled one moment only to find myself all alone the next?
I tried to put pieces of the equation together and quantify the results. I questioned why God was doing this to me. It was then I realized that God is a person, and a person cannot be quantified like an equation. A person is someone you learn to accept and love. A person is complex and you may or may not understand the motives behind their actions. But if the person is important enough to you, you must trust that their actions are for their own well-being and possibly yours. It was at that moment that I knew I needed to know and trust God as a person and not try to understand Him as an equation. God is irrational, just like love and emotions. Regardless of all the sins I’ve committed and sins I am still guilty of committing, I need to continue believing that He will stray me in a righteous direction. No person is perfect, and no Christian is perfect. But that’s why I need to be a Christian. Even though I know I can never be as great as God, I can at least make efforts to be and hope I end up with Him in heaven.
The last few days have been quite eventful. Thursday evening we had our International Dinner and Drink party where all the different countries prepared a popular and/or favorite dish from their home country. Everyone kept asking us if we were going to make hamburgers or bring McDonalds/Burger King to the dinner since that is apparently the only American thing that comes to mind. However, one of the girls here from Pittsburgh suggested Apple Crisp. Once I heard this I felt like an international student myself, because I’ve never had this dish before in my life, let alone cooked/baked it. But apparently it’s just sticking sliced apples in a baking pan, pouring layers of oats/sugar/flour/egg yolk, and baking it for like 30 mins. It was actually the first time any of us made it, and it turned out pretty good!
Before sticking it in the oven (don't have a close-up of the finished product)
USA
Is it sad that I don't own an American flag?
Here are some pics of students from other countries, not previously mentioned:
España
Greece
Hungary and Egypt (looking at different cameras, as always)
Masedonia
It’s pretty sad that I don’t have very many pictures of food, because as soon as they were brought out everyone starting devouring everything in sight. But here’s a pic of what the aftermath looked like:
Imagine about 30 tables of this
Once Friday hit, the group embarked on our weekend trip to Lake Balaton. This is more or less like a Hungarian version of Lake Tahoe located about 2-3 hours away where there is swimming, rafting, boating, etc. I’d have to say that this was a pretty horrible trip. Why?
- 2-3 hours train ride there with no AC in about 90-degree weather.
- walking about 1.5 miles with luggage under the sweltering sun from the station to our dorm
- having a storm come in the very next day that included 4-5 hours of rain/hail as well as a 20 degree drop in the temperature, confining us in our bedrooms
- having only two eating options within our vicinity, unless we chose to walk back the 1.5 miles in the rain to the train station where the downtown area/night life was, as well as debating/arguing on whether or not we should rent a bus to take us to a big and probably expensive restaurant
Sounds bad huh? But after looking back on it, it ended up being fun and memorable because we all dealt with the same crap together. And because a group of us decided to take matters into our own hands and decided to ditch the majority, the weekend/night was saved. Rain stopped, we walked back to the downtown area, had a delicious meal, and eventually met everyone else up for a night out. Here are some pics throughout the entire weekend:
Maryam trying to cool off on the train ride
Shekhar, my new roommate from India -- one of the funniest guys imaginable (even more than Mehul, haha)
This used to be me...
On Friday night after we went bar hopping downtown for what seemed like 2-3 hours, most of the group left with only about 5 of us remaining. I was determined to stay out until the sun came up, since that’s what all these Euro kids do when they party. It was tough (I’m getting old…), but it happened. We partied at the “Palm Beach” and I got some awesome shots of daylight approaching:
Listening to house music lake/beach-side as the sun rises in Europe...one more thing I can cross off my list
