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We will hear a lot of these pre-announcements of upcoming sales etc…. The shopping spree season is well underway. Materials over morals, stuffs over senses. We need to fill up the empty space. Cosco knows this. It provides shoppers with huge shopping carts. Buying in bulk, buying at convenient stores, buying at drive-ins. Buying online,…
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America’s favorite pastime back in the early 60’s was a Sunday drive; mine in Vietnam was a Sunday stroll with my Dad. Sunday was his only time to spare for me. We would breakfast in District 1 (beef stew) or District 5 (Pho Tau Bay). To work off those heavy beef-base meals, we would stroll…
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I have just flown back from Vietnam. A short trip. Un-productive but not wasted. Then I am back to this bubble, with an elephant in the room: “do you hate him?”. Vietnam has its own elephant. But its winter of discontent is milder than the one I am about to experience here in the US.…
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Albert Schweitzer once said that the greatest tragedy in life was wasted talent. We do fade out before fully exploiting our brain power. I have tried not to fall into this trap hence tragedy; but so far kept failing. The brain itself consumes a lot of energy, and we all have to burn energy to…
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I passed by the old neighborhood where my mom taught for 30 years. The hospital for common folks was nearby. A flood of memories rushed back. Once, my small foot got caught in the scooter’s rear wheel (and the emergency staff there were extremely helpful and considerate). Or toward the end of my first month…
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I was forced into taking siestas when I grew up. It’s always hot at mid-day, and the whole country would “lay low” (even 9-5 folks ended up taking a nap at home, hours to be made up on Saturday morning). The song that started our 70’s soft-rock radio program was “Your Song”. I have just…
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I was reading Homo Deus, when I had to pack and leave for Vietnam. Luggage too full for the half-finished book. Last Sunday, I ended up buying another copy of the same. Hate half-read books, hate half-baked ideas, and for that matter, hate lukewarm lives. Harari was getting to Humanism (leaving behind the Middle Ages…
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My 70’s was conveniently sliced in half, right in the middle. First half was spent in my native country, the other, America. First half, city. Second half, on campus, in the middle of Pennsylvania. One cannot help becoming an expert in cross-cultures having lived through such a contrast. Nothing was “central” in Centre County. Just…
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You can be with thousands in the stadium, or billions on the Web, yet still feel lonely. Or sit next to strangers on Trans-Continental flights yet still feel lonely. You can be the King of Pop yet still feel lonely (except to laugh with Brooke Shields, fellow child actor). Chidlikeness is a seedbed of creativity,…
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Naturally, we prefer a living and working environment that is not toxic or suffocating. Yet somehow we find ourselves in exactly the opposite of what we were hoping for. Putting on soft music didn’t work. Firing a bunch of negative folks only leaves the place more hollow. Senior leadership came down to “fix” but only…
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Thang Nguyen 555 