2015 had been eventful. Between the kids, full-time job, school, and teaching, I am not even sure how I did it, but I am proud of some of the accomplishments:

• Completed my master in graphic design. This is a big deal for me since I never thought that I would ever go back to school—let alone getting a graduate degree. The best part is that I didn’t spend a dime on tuition. In contrast, I made some money from teaching.
• Wrote, designed, and published Vietnamese Typography. I am glad to contribute something to both the type design and Vietnamese community. I hope it will be a helpful resource for many years to come.
• Wrote, designed, and published Professional Web Typography. I am glad to contribute something to the web design community. I am also happy that it helps designers around the world understand web typography better.
• Repositioned the Mason Law website. Giving the short timeline (less than a month) and the number of people involved, I am satisfied with the new changes for the website. The iterations were small, but they made a big impact. Everyone on the committee, including the new dean, is pleased with the repositioning.
• Launched ON Designs. I decided to separate my professional work from my personal journal. Visualgui remains my blog and ON Designs is my new portfolio . Making the distinction allows me to focus more on both sides. I can be more personal on my blog and more professional on my work.
• Made another boy. This is a very special accomplishment and I can’t wait to meet him in February 2016. Love you, boy.
• Taught two classes: Introduction to Web Design and Web Design & Usability. It was rewarding and challenging. I hope that students have learned the foundation of web design.

What’s Next

2015 had been way too hectic. Juggling between work, school, teaching, and the boys had been challenging, stressful, but rewarding. In 2016, I reduced my activities as much as I can. I am now done with school. As much as I would like to teach, I took a leave. I had no client work and won’t in the future. I spent less time on social media. I uninstalled Twitter off my phone. I deactivated Facebook yesterday. In a way, 2016 will be a new beginning for me. I don’t have any plan other than focusing on what matters most to me. My goal is to become a better father, husband, son, and individual.

I feel horrible that my niece’s and nephew’s holiday break with us turned into a terror. I was planning on taking them around DC this week to visit the museums after the crazy holiday weekend, but they decided to leave early. They were terribly irritated and annoyed by their cousins who are my kids.

What hurts me the most is that these two little kids really love their older cousins. They always excited to see them and wanted to play with them. Đán was thrilled to come with me to pick up their cousins when he heard they were coming.

I did not expect my niece and nephew to babysit my kids. My wife and I did our best to feed them and take them out, but none of that mattered. I understand that my kids are not in their best behavior, but they are kids. I know that Đán makes up some of the craziest things at times, but he is just four years old.

I am disappointed with what they had done, but I am glad that my nephew expresses his frustration. Now I know how he feels about the kids that look up to him and want to spend time with him. I was thinking of visiting them this weekend for New Year, but I don’t want to be a pain in the ass.

There’s a scene in Mad Men where Don Draper talked on the phone with his ex-wife Betty about their daughter Sally who got into some trouble. Betty said to Don, “She’s from a broken home.”

As a parent, this is something that I am concern the most about divorce. It has a huge impact on the kids. It is so much easier to move on when no kids are involved. Then again, is it worth sacrificing your own happiness if you are miserable in your relationship for the sake of the kids?

I like to think so, but what the hell do I know?

There’s a scene in Mad Men where Don Draper and his ex-wife Betty reconnected at their son’s camp. After they made love, Betty said to Don about his current wife: “She doesn’t know that loving you is the worst way to get to you.”

What a great line. It does feel like the more you love someone the further you are from that person. When you are not so madly in love, you are more likely to be closer to that person. Loving someone else is hard when you don’t—or you think you don’t—get the same love back.

Love is such a fragile thing. One moment you could be madly in love, but the next moment you could just fall completely out of it. When love dies, it just disappears. We just keep moving on to the next things risking everything we have built together. It’s sad.

After writing about the fiasco yesterday, I went to bed. I thought about it today and realized that I was overreacting. I apologized for my behavior.

I am not going to delete that post because I don’t want to sensor myself. What makes blogging so great is that there’s no gatekeeper. I blog whatever I feel at that particular moment, but it doesn’t mean that I always hold on that view. I am always changing and the thoughts on this blog should reflect that. I want to express the vulnerable side of me and how I am continuing to grow.

What I write today doesn’t mean that’s how I feel tomorrow. As a personal journal, I should not have to be restricted. So what you are reading on here is my raw opinion and opinion changes constantly.

In the past month, I had successfully uninstalled Twitter and Facebook apps on the iPhone. In the next few days (before the new year), I will deactivate Facebook as well. I will need to activate it occasionally for work, but other than that I will be off Facebook for a while or maybe for good.

I am not anti-Facebook. I don’t have a problem with the social media network. It gives me a chance to keep up with family members, friends, and colleagues. I just need to cut back on it to be more with the people around me, especially my kids. I haven’t checked Facebook much and haven’t written any update status. I thought of keeping it that way, but when people mentioned me or messaged me on Facebook, I have to response. Otherwise, it feels rule. So the best solution for now is just deactivate it.

As for Twitter, I use it mostly to keep up with the web industry; therefore, I don’t need to be engaged. I just weed through what I need to do when I get a few minutes at work or at lunchtime. I no longer have the app on my phone so it should not be a big deal.

I will keep this blog running. I will write everything on here and not on Medium or LinkedIn. I will write more about this in the future. For now, the best place to find out what I am up to is here.

My graduation ceremony will be on this Saturday. I hope that my mom will be able to make it. Because of her health issue, I understand if she couldn’t come to celebrate with me.

Graduation is not big of a deal, but the only person besides me who is excited about it is my niece. I am so glad to hear that she wants to come to share the special day with me.

Again it’s not a big deal, but a moment like this shows who is your real family, who supports you, and who is pretentious. Even if no one else cares, I am still proud of my achievements in the past two and a half years. It is something that I never thought I could accomplish.

Up until I enrolled into the master program, school was never exciting to me. I don’t know how I made it through high school and four-year college. After finishing my undergrad, I promised myself that I am done with school forever. Needless to say, that was not true.

All those years in school, I fluffed my way through. I hung in there and did everything I could just so I could get that piece of paper. I didn’t truly earn it. Grad school was the opposite. I put in my time and effort. I had done the work that I am proud of. I truly earn it; therefore, it is a big deal for me.

On Saturday I will close out this chapter of my life. My next step is refocusing on my expanding family. I will spend the the two-week holidays with the two boys and getting ready for the third boy coming early next year. Looking forward to exciting and exhausting time ahead.

Last Friday, I drove straight to Lancaster General Hospital after work to be with my mom. My sister took her to the hospital early Friday morning because she had her nose bled non-stop. I stayed by her side until Saturday evening when she was discharged. Thanks to the hospital’s staff and particularly Ms. Ariel Shaffer for taking great care of her during her stay. I was exhausted Saturday evening.

Early Sunday, I heard my mom talking to my dad while I was still trying to sleep. I got up when mom said she was bleeding again. She gave me the phone to talk to him while she tried to stop herself from bleeding. I was worrying about her and irritating by his words. I asked how he was doing and he wasted no time denouncing me for not visiting her often and not taking care of her. He went on and on. I just stayed silent until he told me to pass the phone back to my mom.

I didn’t want to argue with him because in my mind he has no credibility to criticizing me. I am there for my mom when she needed me. If he cares about her, he should have been there for her. When was the last time he saw her? A decade ago? He was nowhere to be reachable when she needed him the most. Please, papa don’t preach before taking a good look at what you have done. Until then, your words won’t affect me.

Thank you for taking great care of my mom during her stay in the Lancaster General Hospital. Your patience and kindness gave her comfort and helped her get past the difficult times in the past two days. Despite the long hours (3AM to 7PM), you went above and beyond for your patients. You have my deepest respect for the works that you do for people and for my mom in particular. Although you probably never get to read this, I still want show my appreciation and gratitude. Please continue to do what you do because you make this world a better place to live.

The opening reception for our final exhibition went well. The works from Paul, Marianne, and Melody are amazing. They had done an outstanding job of putting on the gallery. I am so glad to be part of the 4×4 gang.

Now that the final project is down, I am looking forward to wrapping up my teaching, walking at my graduation, and spending time with family over the holidays. After that I will clear out all of my schedule to focus on our third boy.

Life will be hectic with so many boys, but I can’t wait. They are my joy, stress, and life.