Tag: Reflections of My Life

Reflections of my life

” I am changing everything” …Like Holden Caulfield, catcher in the Rye.

“Oh I don’t want to die..”. The future that I once fret is my current present.

“All my sorrows”….were for nothing. They said 90% of our worries didn’t materialize.  Yet we keep worrying. Like a plague. Dec 21st or 23rd (Mayan Calendar).

Just shop til we drop ( even right after 9/11).

The world is, a bad place, a terrible place to live (lyrics).

The hardest part is to face and live with one’s self.

Tend not to those urges ( self-sabotage and self-destruction.)

Who planted them there? Those seeds? So the Earth would be less populated?

Take me back, to my own home (Lyrics).

Those GI‘s who listened to this song from a transistor radio, deep in the thick jungle of Vietnam. Have they often reflected on that experience? The Amerasian children they left behind? The bodies and chemical agents?

Who won that war? Or any war for that matter!

Perhaps both sides have lost.

Lives destroyed, and environment contaminated .

Bombs and napalms have fallen here when “Reflections of My Life” was at the top of the chart.

A generation of young people were forced to grow up really fast, to reflect on death and dying, to ask hard questions.

All my crying (lyrics)

It hurts to face separation, from neighbors and friends. The comfort zone.

Gone forever. Like a movie reel that got torn at one of the splices.

Tran Hung Dao, the Sea General, was back to sea (his imprint was on the then currency). Dust comes to dust.

In Vietnam, it’s considered “luck” to run into a funeral, not a wedding.

Yet, with Christmas season in tow, I saw 2 weddings this morning.

It’s peace-time Vietnam. The Wedding Hall is named “FOREVER“.

More optimistic in outlook now.

Fewer funerals, more weddings.

Less “reflections  of my life”, and more “accumulation of stuff”.

One thing is missing here: Black Friday shopping. That was because, American landed here back in 1965, Pleiku and not Plymouth. Hence  there was no Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. No turkey dinner. Just another weekend of laundry, coffee and a rare treat from the band. You can guess what they played here.

Yes, Reflections of My Life.  Take me to my own home (lyrics). Holden Caulfield got expelled from school. Not wanting to go back home just yet. Just ride the rail, the taxi, and anything that moves, with no particular stop in mind. The journey is the reward.

Twice, it’s alright

I did everything twice. It’s become a pattern. It’s become a pattern,

6th grade found me fumble from a French-system to then Vietnamese system, so I ended up repeating my 6th grade at two different Middle Schools.

Then, my freshman year got interrupted (by the White Christmas song that was played on US Arms Force radio, the same one that gave us Robin William’s impression “Goooood Morning,Vietnam”) so I floated on barge, navy ship, C-10 cargo plane, then 747 to Pennsylvania to start college again. This time, from the Vietnamese system to its American counterpart (with the help of Red Cross translation services which provided notary public among other relief packages such as toothbrush and underwear). Twice a freshman.

Plug-in: let’s give via Red Cross to the victims of Japanese earthquake.

Back to twice, it’s alright.

Every person’s history is a miniaturized version of his/her larger historical context. In my case, it was a transition from the French-colonial education system, to a more modernized approach (I even took a SAT, the nation’s first, using number 2 pencil for computerized grading). Ironically, when people discuss the efficacy of NATO’s involvement in Libya, Vietnam’s quagmire was once again mentioned. To put some meat into the analogy, we are referring to 3+ million deaths in that conflict, and an aftermath of Agent Orange, PTDS etc…Talking about “Reflections of My Life” (view the Youtube version which features the kids running toward a returning vet).

Others might have it easy (playing tennis on Guam Island in transit). But for me, I had to do things twice at school and in life.

Years later, I met one of my sales agents who had stayed behind in the camp until he got kicked out.

He certainly took the easy way out. To him, it’s always once, the last option that is (like the default choice that software engineer often recommends).

Although my life-changing event happened a life time ago, but to me, it still resonates (still raw, like “the first time, I ever saw your face”.)

I want to silently thank those who lost their lives and limbs, while reflecting on my lost years.

In comparison, my lost college year was a very low a price to pay. BTW, I had to search twice for my SAT IBM-spit out scores (turned out that some of the exams had to be graded manually due to a computer break-down. My grades came in on the second batch, a few days later). So much for the angst of pencil number 2  for the machine to read. Later, to satisfy my penchant for “twice in everything”, I went overseas twice to volunteer for Relief Work (reciprocity and pay it forward), two graduate schools and won two cars at MCI to pay off my school loan.

Twice, it’s alright.