Dr. Monica Williams-Murphy speaks on death and its reality:
When a doctor does not speak the truth and does not say the words, “Yes, you are dying,” then you are robbed of the opportunity to live fully in the present, savoring each song, each touch of a child’s hand, and the heft of your favorite book.
Live everyday as its your last or as Trinh Cong Son said, “Each day I choose one happiness.”
Being a father of two kids, I get excited about the winter weather forecast. If we were to get hit with heavy snow or ice, I would like to clean up the house to play with the kids. I want the floor to be spotless clean so we could roll around if we wanted to. After picking Dao up from daycare, we went straight home and got to work. As I was vacuuming the room my parents-in-law used to stayed in, Dao jumped up and down the bed. Then he went over to the table to pick up a framed photo of his grandparents. He pointed out to me, “Daddy, look. Ông ngoại and bà ngoại. They wear new clothes.” Every time he mentioned ông ngoại, I feel a bit of sadness. I wish they could have more time together.
Yesterday also marked two months since bố passed away. Six months before that I was with him in the hospital when the doctor came in to talk about his situation. The doctor asked bố if he wanted to hear the truth about his condition. Bố misunderstood the question so I translated to him, but then the doctor stopped me. He called a third-party translator instead. Somehow I predicted that whatever the doctor was going to say, it wouldn’t be good and he didn’t want me to manipulate the translation.
Once he had a Vietnamese translator on the line, he asked bố once again if he wanted to hear about his condition and bố agreed. At this point, bố had already lost his voice. He could barely speak up, but he tried all he could. The doctor went straight to the point. He told bố that he had three to six months left. When I heard that the chill ran through my spines. I couldn’t even imagine what had gone through bố’s mind. When the doctor left, bố said to me in Vietnamese, “Bring me some food. I have to eat even if I am going to die.” Before that he refused to eat anything. The doctor’s statement still haunts me till this day. I was upset that he was so frank about it to a patient, but the truth is the truth. Bố passed away around the time he predicted.
Death is a very sensitive subject and I thought of it so often over the years. Death is inevitable. I will have to face it when it is my time to go. It’s easy for me to say, but how would I face it when it is my turn to go? After bố went back home, I wanted to understand how his feeling at the time when he knew how much time he had left, but I couldn’t ask. The situation was way too devastating.
There was no way I could put myself inside his shoes, but I kept wondering how would I feel if I knew I am going to die. What made the situation so excruciating was that bố’s mind was still strong, but his body was failing him. The day before he drew his final breath he was still in the hospital and my mother-in-law said to him, “Let’s go home.” He responded, “This is it?”
With courage, bố faced his death and left us without saying much. He contented with his life. As a father, he had done a great job of raising his children. He succeeded in guiding them according to the Vietnamese standard: college degree, decent job and happy life. As a husband, he loved and being loved for over forty years. Those two things alone made him the man I look up to. The only thing that he didn’t seem to be satisfied was that he didn’t get a chance to travel the world with his wife after they retired. He was the type of man that get the hard job done first than enjoy later. I shared the same view with him, but I learned through him that you can not plan your life. Live now while you still can.
Love this piece on The Onion:
Users said they yearned to return to a time when they could simply visit a site and experience its content without being asked “What do you think?”, “What’s on your mind?” or, more directly, “Respond to this video.”
Furthermore:
In addition to demanding less interactivity, Internet users requested fewer links and clickable icons connected to social media outlets through which they could email, share, tweet, pin, blog, or re-blog content.
This is the reason I removed all of the social media share buttons and closed the comment section. I just want you to come, scroll, read (if you find something interesting) and move on.
Truth be told, I didn’t read the first edition of Janice (Ginny) Redish’s Letting Go of the Words simply because I couldn’t get past the reprehensible cover design. After hearing a couple of recommendations from the folks in the web content industry, I decided to give the second edition a read and it turns out to be quite useful, especially tips on writing effective headings, clear sentences and meaningful links. Must-read for anyone who writes for the web.
I rarely listen to Vietnamese instrumental albums simply because most of them seem to be recorded for restaurant’s background music. Occasionally there’s an exception, like the most recent Tiếng Sáo Thiên Thai, which is an elegant interpretation of Phạm Duy’s timeless classics from a nameless quartet: pianist Vũ Hồng Khanh, violinist Nguyễn Tạ Thiện, violist Bùi Anh Sơn and cellist Võ Đing Kuân.
Even though the quartet places heavy emphasis on Phạm Duy’s gorgeous melodies and hardly deviates from the written notes, it has dynamic moments of interaction. Vũ Hồng Khanh opens “Kỷ Niệm” with a short, classy intro before diving into the lovely melody. His solo is slow but full of confidence. Nguyễn Tạ Thiện joins in for a brief piano-violin duo. Half way into the tune, Nguyễn Tạ Thiện and Bùi Anh Sơn play in unison while Võ Đing Kuân anchors the beat. Together they painted a nostalgic picture. In “Nghìn Trùng Xa Cách,” Bùi Anh Sơn starts off the low notes on the viola and Nguyễn Tạ Thiện takes over on the high notes creating a magnificent contrast that suggests ocean apart. In “Chiều Về Trên Sông,” Nguyễn Tạ Thiện’s violin soars like songbird flying on the river in a melancholy evening.
Although the ten tracks on Tiếng Sáo Thiên Thai have been covered endless of times from countless singers, the wordless, instrumental versions, which have a wide range of tones, stand out on their own.
Colin McFarland’s Experiment! is a refreshing approach on usability. One of his conversion techniques is to “take things away.” He suggests, “Sometimes taking things away is just as good as adding new things. Before you add, experiment with taking things away to the cancel the noise.” I couldn’t agree more. If you’re looking for guiding principles to improve your web site’s user experience, this book will show you how to do so through experiments.
Dealing with two boys with two opposite personality is quite a challenge. Whereas Dao is very careful and meticulous, Dan is careless and incautious. Dan walked right into the wall simply because he turned his head sideway instead of looking straight ahead. He banged his head against the exercise bike yesterday for the same reason.
When they play together, Dao takes his time to coupling the trains together. He makes sure the wheels align perfectly on the rails. Even I have to ask him to help me with it. When coupling the trains, I did the most obvious: connected the hooks together. One time I watched Dao did it. He pushes the train together and the hooks connected automatically. No wonder he calls himself the “engineer.” Then comes Dan pushing the trains and wrecking the track. Dao gets furious every time that happens. I have to calm down Dao and restrict Dan from messing up the trains.
Once Dao is into something, he stayed really focused. Dan just roams free all over the place, specially now that he is capable of walking. If I don’t hear him in a minute around the house, I better check the stairs. He’s probably climbing upstairs. He used to go downstairs facing in. Now he just tries to walk straight down. This guy is fearless. I am hoping that he’ll learn to be more careful soon.
Right before Christmas break, I received a referral from Jennifer Karin, who is one of my favorite clients, to work on a project for her husband. Dr. Chris Sidford who owns Black Bag, a private emergency medical consultancy, needed a completely revamp of his web site. He would like the new site to be attractive, responsive, optimized for search engines and manageable through WordPress. (I have a feeling that Jen came up with the requirements herself.)
I was planning on taking my Christmas break and not doing any work because I was burnt out from grad school, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity. Dr. Sidford turns out to be a fantastic guy to work with just like his wife. I have the complete freedom to redesign the web site based on existing contents. The logo is the only visual element that I need to keep. Since the logo was set in Baskerville, I started with that typeface to set the tone for the body text. I found a nice, legible version of Libre Baskerville on Google web fonts to be used for the main copy and complemented with Open Sans Condensed for the headlines. They turned out to be a perfect match. For color, I used the red ribbon for links and standout elements.
As for the homepage, I put myself in the user’s perspective when I designed the layout. Since Black Bag is about emergency services, the first impression I would want to convey is trust. Can I trust this service? Nothing could get that message across better than the face of the people behind the agency. The nice, friendly photo of Dr. Sidford assures me that I can trust this guy when I am in an emergency situation; therefore, I used it as the main attraction.
Per the client’s request, WordPress is implemented for managing contents and the design is responsive to be displayed on various digital devices. For the first time I didn’t have to convinced my client that responsive is the approach to take. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy working with return and referral clients.
So go check out Black Bag. You might be interested in this unique, personal, immediate physician access, especially if you travel to foreign countries.
We were at the mall and I took Dao to the restroom. As we were having our dialogue in Vietnamese, two twenty-something white dudes in flannel shirts and tight jeans laughed their ass off.
At first I paid no mind because I was just taking care of my business. As I washed my hand, Dao walked out of the restroom. I called him in Vietnamese, “Dao, wait for daddy.” Then I quickly ran after him. The two dudes laughed harder and one of them yelled, “This is America.”
At that point, I realized that they were laughing at us the whole time. I was not upset. I had faced far worse in the past; therefore, I didn’t let it get to me. I was a bit disappointed because this is 2013—five years after we elected the first black president. Then I thought about it for a second and I concurred with the guys.
This is America and she embraces diversity, which makes her one of the greatest countries in the world. I can’t let those whippersnappers weakened that magnitude of hers.
If you’re a Web designer and haven’t jumped on the responsive bandwagon, Tim Kadlec’s Implementing Responsive Web Design will help you make the transition. As the author states it, this book is about “embracing the flexibility of the Web and practicing responsible responsive web design.” He’s done a thorough job of covering the key components (fluid layouts, media queries and responsive media), but the sections on planning, design workflow, responsive content and experiences are the gems of the book. I’ll recommend this book to my professor to be used in our Advanced Web Design class as well.