Chúc em một ngày sinh nhật thật vui và hạnh phúc bên mẹ, anh chị, con cái, và chồng. Chúng ta không xem trọng ngày sinh nhật vì tuổi tác chỉ là con số. Vẫn còn trẻ hay đã già đi chỉ là cảm nhận của chính mình. Em rất thực tế trong cuộc sống của mình. Em đối diện với chuyện gì đến. Chuyện xa vời vợi em không quan tâm. Anh kính nể bản chất đó của em.

Mười mấy năm cùng nhau xây dựng mái ấm gia đình, anh được chứng kiến sự trưởng thành của em. Trong gia đình em trở thành một người mẹ đảm đang chăm lo cho đàn con. Ngày nào cũng xem xét sự học hành của con, nhất là thằng Đạo. Phận làm con, em lo lắng chu đáo cho mẹ già. Mẹ vui vì có em và các cháu bên cạnh. Em giờ đây đã vững vàng trong công việc. Tương lai của anh thì không biết nhưng em thì đã ổn định.

Còn chuyện vợ chồng mình thì nói sau cho hết. Cám ơn sự nhẫn nại của em. Cám ơn sự dung hòa của em. Cám ơn những tình cảm em vẫn còn cho anh. Cám ơn em vẫn luôn sát cánh bên anh. I love you!

Whenever we rode in the car, like heading to a skatepark, Đạo, Đán, Xuân, and I liked to jam to Kanye’s music. His beats drew them in even though his lyrics were inappropriate for their age. One of the albums we often tuned into was My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

They enjoyed the orchestration for the interlude of “All of the Lights.” The keyboard-playing and the cello-bowing relaxed us. The production for the song was pretty dope and ​​Rihanna’s vocal on the hook was just soulful until Kanye kicked off his first verse with these bars: “I slapped my girl, she called the feds / I did that time and spent that bread.” Like the title of the next song, “Monster” was such a monster of a track. Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj dropped their signature verse on it. I was shocked when Đán asked me, “What is a sarcophagus?” I didn’t know what it was then he told me what it was. They also like the opening of “Runaway,” in which a single piano key was pounded for 40 seconds.

The productions on Yeezus were solid from the beginning to end and the lyrics were filthy from the start to finish. Đạo’s favorite track was “Black Skinhead.” Although I warned him about the lyrics, he assured me that he had heard all the cuss words in school from high school students. I took his words for it. Đán’s favorite track is “New Slaves,” which had a killer production from Swizz Beatz. He asked me the meaning behind “New Slaves” and I explained to him based on what I observed from Kanye’s lyrics. He opened the track with:

My mama was raised in the era when
Clean water was only served to the fairer skin
Doin’ clothes, you woulda thought I had help
But they wasn’t satisfied unless I picked the cotton myself

Old slaves were the ones that picked the cottons to make clothes, whereas new slaves were “spending everything on Alexander Wang.” When he asked me about the refrain, “But I’d rather be a dick than a swallower,” I didn’t know how to explain to him the word “swallower.” He also reassured me that he blocked out the lyrics and only focused on the beats. I doubted it.

The only Kanye album that we could enjoy together without having to worry about explicit content was his 808s & Heartbreak, which was his breakthrough-singing album. When the album was released in 2008, I thought Kanye was just riding the Auto-Tune train, but I am surprised it still holds up today. Đạo’s favorite track was “Heartless” and Đán’s favorite was “Amazing” simply for the “uh” sound at the end of each bar. Xuân’s and my favorite track was none other than “Coldest Winter,” which was a touching tribute to Kanye’s mother. When Xuân sang along with Kanye, “On lonely nights, I start to fade / Her love’s a thousand miles away,” he made me miss my mom so much. Next month will be her first death anniversary. Time had flown by so fast and not a single moment I hadn’t thought about her.

Trưa nay trời nắng ấm, tôi tranh thủ ăn miếng gà nướng Peruvian rồi lái xe đến skatepark cách chỗ làm năm phút. Trưa nay công viên vắng vẻ nên tha hồ tập luyện rollerblade. Rơi vào cái tô (bowl) thì dễ. Ra khỏi miệng tô cần phải nhún như bay nên tôi vẫn chưa tập được. Nhún lên rồi nhún xuống chỉ nửa tiếng mà mồ hôi tuôn nhễ nhại còn đôi chân rã rời. Thế mới biết mình đã già.

Khi trở lại bãi đậu xe thay giày thì có một chiếc Mercedes ngừng lại. Cô lái xe kéo cửa kính vẫy tay chào. Tôi đáp lại chữ “hi” và chờ cô ta nói tiếp. Tôi nghĩ chắc cô ta có điều gì muốn hỏi nhưng cô chỉ buông lời, “I just want to say hi” rồi tiếp tục lái xe đi. Tôi chỉ kịp thời đáp lời, “Oh OK, nice car.”

Còn tưởng đâu hôm nay là ngày may mắn của mình. Nhưng dù sao đi nữa cũng thấy vui vui. Thời buổi này mà vẫn còn có người chào hỏi qua lại. Hay chắc tôi không bày tỏ sự thân thiện của mình đến với người khác nên ít ai muốn trò chuyện với tôi. Tôi chỉ nghĩ đơn giản là sợ làm phiền đến người khác nên ít khi mở miệng. Vấn đề không phải người khác mà là ở chính mình. Tôi không biết cách giao thiệp vì không biết phải nói về đề tài gì.

In his previous Netflix Special, which was filmed five years ago, Che was all over the place. This time, Che is sharped and focused. His materials are on point. As a Black comedian, he goes to dark places and offers his views as a Black American. On race, he compares the national anthem to an R. Kelly song. On gender, he uses the pronounce “This Nigger” or “That Nigger.” On vaccination, he punched down the unvaccinated. Che is provocative but brilliant. Definitely a must-watch special.

Thảo Võ, writing for Salon:

The Vietnamese language is written with marks — diacritics — that represent different tones. To me, the diacritics represent childhood. They represent confusion. They represent something I cannot reach. It’s a change in the pitch of my voice that I have not perfected. It’s my entire family history. And so the saying of my name and the writing of it becomes complicated. I’m not here to teach my colleagues Vietnamese. I can’t. I can barely pronounce the language correctly myself. It’s a gift to be given or earned. My heart warms when I hear Vietnamese spoken with a southern accent. It’s something for me to work toward.

It’s a beautiful personal essay that reassures me that it’s OK to give my kids Vietnamese names. Xuân and Vương are difficult for Americans to pronounce, but I love to see them try.

Today I deleted all the files and databases for both Visualgui.com and iLoveNgocLan.com accounts on HostPapa. I migrated Visualgui.com to DigitalOcean in August and migrated iLoveNgocLan.com to SiteGround in September.

HostPapa is one of the greediest hosting providers on the internet. It tried to hit me twice with CPU limits for my WordPress sites. If you’re hosting your WordPress site with HostPapa, I recommend that you move somewhere else. If you have technical background, move your site to DigitalOcean. If you don’t, move your site to SiteGround. The SiteGround Migrator plugin worked like a charm. It took me less than 30 minutes to move iLoveNgocLan.com.

I never wanted to host with HostPapa to begin with. I didn’t have a choice after it acquired Lunarpages. After the takeover, HostPapa increased my monthly price already, but it was not enough so they tried upgrade my plan again and again. I put in requests to cancel everything on HostPapa and will never come back to them again.

In celebrating poetry, a class project for Đán, the goal was for students to respond to poetry through movement, speech, or art to further their understanding. Students had to share the poem they had written in a creative way such as drawing a poster, acting it out, or singing it.

Sounded like a fun project, but Đán kept procrastinating. He came up with the concept, but he didn’t ask for help to execute it. Even though the project was due today, he had nothing over the weekend. I had to email his teacher to ask for the project requirements.

On Friday night, my wife made him sit at the table and write down everything before he could go to bed. She had to sit next to him to help him generate ideas. He protested, but wrote down the lines. Saturday morning, I helped him put together his lines into a poem even though I have no clue about poetry. He came up with the title: “If There Were No Internet.” Here’s the final poem by Đán Trương:

If there were no internet,
I would be bored to death.
I would fall down in bed.

If there were no internet,
I would stare at my Windows.
All I would see is my own shadows.

Because there was no internet
for me to play video games,
my brain burst into flames.

Because there was no internet,
I went to the skate park
and dropped into the bowl
like drowning in my soul.
And I didn’t stop skating until the sky turned dark.

One of the requirements was to use at least three forms of figurative language. He came up with three, “bored to death,” “stare at my Windows,” and “my brain burst into flames.” I helped him with the fourth one, “drowning in my soul.”

After helping him finish his poem, I went to Michael’s to pick up some posters for him to write and to draw. He drew an internet Wifi with a red strike, the Windows logo, his brain burst into flames, and a skatepark with him dropping into the bowl.

We practiced a few rounds of presentation. I kept reminding him to slow down, to speak clearly, and to engage with his audience. I hope he will do well. I am very proud of his work, which took the three of us to do.

In the past few weeks, Đán has stepped up his rollerblading game. He has good balance, some confidence, and a bit of fearlessness. He dropped into a halfpipe without using the coping. He jumped over a ramp with a huge gap in the center, which scared the heck out of me. If he missed the landing, I would have to call 911. He picked up new techniques fast. I showed him how to do the T-stop and the power stop from watching YouTube and he could do them in no time. He loved skateparks because of all the adventurous things he could do. Watching him making improvements day after day made me realize how he thrived. He learned everything on his own and he always kept himself challenged.

In contrast, he didn’t do too well in a structured environment. When he was taking ice skating lessons, he was bored out of his mind. He didn’t pay attention to his coach. He made snowballs with his skate and gave them to his classmate instead. His techniques weren’t too good because he didn’t follow the instructions. He just wanted to get them over with. Even though he plays hockey now, he would rather go to a skatepark than an ice rink. Whenever I made him go to the ice rink to practice with us, he would just skate around us to get on our nerves.

Seeing his behavior at the skatepark and the ice rink becomes clear to me why he struggles at school. He is a bright kid who doesn’t like the structure of a classroom. Instead of paying attention to his teachers, he zoned out most of the time. When I asked him about his projects, he had no clue what he was supposed to do. I kept telling him that I wouldn’t be able to help him if he didn’t know the requirements. I can tell he has been trying hard because I warned him that I would ban him from playing video games if he didn’t keep up his grades. Despite his efforts, he seemed to be boxed in.

I wonder if there’s an alternative way for him to learn. Instead of giving him instructions to follow like ice skating lessons, we could provide him a skatepark-like environment to give him the freedom to learn and to explore on his own. The current educational system doesn’t accommodate kids like him.

When I was growing up, I didn’t know any better. I just had to follow the system. There were days I felt like I was in an educational prison. I counted the days until I graduated from high school. Even in college, I looked at the calendar every single day. I didn’t thrive until I finished my undergraduate. I learned design on my own and on the job.

In retrospect, would I need my high school, undergraduate, and graduate degrees for my profession? Hell no, but they are the papers that got me through the doors. I understand their values even if they don’t mean anything to me. I hung my graduate diploma on my wall not because I wanted to show off, but because I worked too damn hard for it and it doesn’t do anything other than taking up space on my wall.

I feel bad seeing Đán being trapped in the system, but until I could find an alternative solution, he just had to go through what I had been through. I would try homeschooling him to give him the freedom he needed, but I have to put food on the table for all of us.

Tôi không rành về thơ nên khi đọc thơ tôi không nhận xét được những kỹ thuật hoặc những cách vần trong thơ. Do đó tôi chỉ dùng đến cảm nhận của mình khi đọc những bài thơ. Khi bắt đầu đọc tập thơ The Secret of Hoa Sen của chị Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, tôi đọc luôn bài dịch của Bruce Weigl. Tôi nhận ra rằng mình cần đọc tiếng Anh để hiểu tiếng Việt. Chẳng hạn như bài thơ đầu, “Gian bếp của mẹ” có câu:

Mẹ nhấc đũa lên, quấy nắng vào nồi cơm đang sôi
Vạt áo mẹ đẫm hương thơm của mùa gặt mới

Tôi nhận ra cách chơi chữ của chị sau khi đọc lời Anh nên tôi quyết định không đọc lời Anh nữa mà chỉ tập trung vào lời Việt. Tập thơ của chị Quế Mai gồm nhiều đề tài khác nhau. Dù viết về tình cha hay tình mẹ, miền Tây hay miền Bắc, Bangladesh hay Philippines, chiến tranh hay hòa bình, những bài thơ của chị đều đầy lòng trắc ẩn (compassion). Chẳng hạn như bài “Sự sợ hãi” đã nói lên bao nhiêu tâm trạng của cho cha mẹ trên thế giới luôn cả nước Mỹ:

Khi tôi ngắm con tôi trôi vào giấc ngủ
ở nước Mỹ
một bà mẹ lấp đầy trái tim mình bằng khuôn mặt đẫm máu của thiên thần lên hai đứa con trai
đã bị một kẻ điên nã súng ở trường học

Xin chia sẻ thêm một bài rất giản dị nhưng rất đẹp viết về “Cỏ”:

Những thân cỏ mềm bị phạt ngang
Mùi hương ứa đầy không khí
Không có gì thơm hơn vết thương loài cỏ

Hương cỏ ngả em xuống tình yêu
Mặt đất hằn đầy lồi lõm Cỏ mịn màng xanh lên phẳng lặng

Em tan trong màu anh
Màu không lời
của
cỏ

Tôi muốn giới thiệu tập thơ này đến những trái tim và tâm hồn Việt, nhất là những tuổi trẻ muốn học thêm tiếng Việt. Nếu như không hiểu thì có thể đọc lời Anh. Tôi chắc chắn sẽ đọc lại tập thơ này và sẽ đọc chậm hơn khi có dịp đi nghỉ mát.

Đạo took his Freestyle 1 test tonight. He did well on the pivot, backward edges, half flip, and waltz jump. He didn’t do too well on two-foot spin and arabesque. I was surprised that he pulled it off with not much practice. If he would spend more time practicing, he could be a great figure skater. I am not sure if he would like to continue to Freestyle 2 or he should just focus on ice hockey.

He started learning to play hockey two weeks ago and he really liked it. His figure skating lessons helped him tremendously in making the transition from figure to hockey. I am not sure if hockey is a bit too aggressive for him. He seems a bit reserved when they played the game, but he enjoyed it.

Đán is more of the hockey type. He has the speed and he is not afraid to attack. He still needs to work on his hockey skills, particularly on controlling the puck with his stick. Once he got that down, he would be a top player. I might sign him up for private lessons to work on his shooting and controlling skills.

Đán excels at rollerskating at the skate parks. His fearlessness is taking him far. He can jump and drop into the bowls with ease. He can also ride the sides of the bowl. He has definitely surpassed me. I ordered a pair of USD Transformer for him for his birthday. It’s an aggressive skate for kids. I can’t wait to see what he can do with it.

We had been hitting the skate park almost everyday now because of Xuân. He is stepping up his game with his scooter. He can drop the from the quarter pipe and higher curved ramp as well. He dropped into the bowl too. At school, he drew a picture of me and him at the skate park. I love that drawing even though I have a bald head, fat figure, and two stick arms. The rollerblade looked good though.

The more Xuân is interested in skate park, the less he is interested in the ice rink. He doesn’t want to practice and he doesn’t want to take lessons either. We won’t continue him on the next level.

As for me, I wanted to learn so much. My days have revolved around skating. At work I would eat lunch quickly and hit the skate park for forty five minutes. At home, I try to find time to get to the ice rink when the kids and I aren’t at the skate park. I am learning to pump to get myself out of the bowl or the half pipe. Technically, I should have learned how to pump first before I learned how to drop in, but I did it in reverse. Now I need to learn how to pump and how to ride the pipe.

For ice skating, I have learned all the techniques for Freestyle 2. I am still struggling with the one-foot spin because I get dizzy any more than three revolutions. I will required to do six for the test. Because how terrible my spins are, I don’t think I will advance to Freestyle 3 after this. I’ll learn on my own and focus more on the jumps.

As the winter coming, the kids are already geared up for skiing. We rented seasonal skis for Đạo and Xuân and snowboard for Đán because he wanted to try snowboarding. They ran out of rentals for adults; therefore, I am still trying to buy used ski or snowboard. I am leaning toward snowboarding as well.

Poor little Vương will be spending time with his mom instead. He doesn’t want to do anything yet. I am trying to get him try the scooter like Xuân. He seems to like it. He is still too young. He still has plenty of time to try later. I just feel bad that I don’t get to take him out much with the rest of his brothers.