I flew in from Sydney Sunday night, and on Monday I played with the idea of starting grad school early, and in a spontaneous decision left for lunch and drove over to Stanford University to discuss my academic plans, take care of my paperwork and register for class. Before I even realize, I am now taking a class on cryptography and was excited yesterday as I took my first online lecture about an aspect of computer science that has always been a passion for me (yaddi, yaddi, spare your nerdy side comments). So that there is no misunderstanding, let me make it clear that I am not accepted to grad school yet. My admission is still pending and I won't hear from them until May, but I am taking a risk and hope that I'll get in so that I can simply transfer the units over and have a good head start for my master's degree that is going to take me four years (yikes!).
Life is going to be busy, working full-time, going to grad school part-time, and trying to stay involved in the Vietnamese community, while continuing my private piano lessons. On top of this, I am playing with the idea of taking guitar lessons or joining the Vietnamese book club my friend has invited me to. What am I doing? Life's busy enough, but why do I continue to seek out new thrills and things to do? I am playing with the idea of snapping out of this stressful life and do something drastically new, like leaving everything I have here behind and move to Vietnam and work full-time there. How cool would that be to work for Microsoft in Hanoi and really get to know Vietnam and its people?
Other random things and thoughts in my life:
- I went to go donate blood today, and they freaking denied me, just because I spent childhood in Europe. Damn that mad cow.
- VASCON and VIA-1 as well as NAVSA retreat are around the corner, but I've opted to stay sane and not spread myself even thinner. I even pulled out of VANG earlier this week, even though that's going to happen right here in San Francisco.
- Playing with the idea of flying to Indonesia to attend one of my best friend's wedding, but after Sydney I am only going to have a few days of vacation. Hm.. is it worth it to fly there, attend the wedding and fly back immediately?
- Discussed world politics with a couple of friends lately, and I am starting a list of what's wrong with the Vietnamese community and what needs to be seriously changed. Oh, that is going to be an interesting post. Stay tuned and start collecting stones you can throw at me.
- I interviewed Ham Tran yesterday for my yearly article in Non Song. That was a looooong interview with great insights and behind-the-scenes stories, but I am afraid that I have to cut 70% to meet my 2-page limit.
- Anyone know of a free Vietnamese-language class in San Jose that I can attend? I seriously need to improve my Vietnamese.