Summer starts

It's 1 am in Vietnam now. The night is very quiet and tranquil. The only sound I can hear is voice of some frogs calling their mates. Unlike at daytime, at night the weather is very cool and comfortable. Adding with the tranquility, it is an excellent environment to work. And think. I am a little lost in thought now. I have come back home for two days, though I feel it is much longer than that. My life here so far is totally different from the life at NUS. In NUS I can easily stick with my computer and code or talk with friends all the time; however, since I come back, I could merely spend time as I wanted. So far many of my relatives and neighbors have visit me, so I have to greet and talk to them. People will then ask me about Singapore, the life, the weather, the food here, etc. etc. It becomes bored after awhile if you have to repeat the same things over and over again. However, I agree that it is important to do so, and not only do it, I have to show my involvement in the conversation, in other words, showing that I do want to have the conversation. It is important to show them that I respect them and to keep the good relationship. Come to think of it, I think showing involvement and passion in conversation is a real skill in communication. I'm getting better at it.

Talking more about conversation, how to maintain and make a conversation interesting? Just now I told my friends it requires a lot of creativity and thought. Sometimes I find my conversation with others just die out very quickly. We have nothing special or interesting to sustain the conversation. It becomes a real problem when you really want to keep the conversation. Some of the issues I can think of: I was too shy, timid (in front of girls, so or prominent people), or did not want to appear stupid (not happen frequently but did happen sometimes). Talking casual, trivial, vague, general sentences or repeating others' ideas can kill the conversation quickly too. I am not really good at this so I have no effective solutions. However, I think we can talk about mutual interests, ask for specific help or advices (that we need right now), offering new (not necessary important or novel) content in every sentence. Talking about philosophical stuff (meaning of life, etc.) helps too ha ha. Oh, 1 thing, don't talk until you have nothing to talk, keep something to reserve and stop the conversation (any lame reason you can think of) when it is still high, so both parties will want to continue it next time. Time to hear some suggestion from friends: do you have any suggestion to deal with this problem? (I'm serious)

Sorry for going off topic, as I said, I'm just lost in thought. Let's continue about what I had done in the last two days. When I came back home, my uncle pleasantly surprised me by returning my guitar. I didn't plan to learn guitar this summer, but looking at it really made me want to do something. Priory, I took a 3 month basic course of guitar last .. 2 years, and knew some fundamental things about it. However, I didn't really learned how to play. Before I returned home, I stumbled up on my friends guitar and called back some rhythm I learned. It enticed me to learn guitar once more. So when I saw it, I really tempted to check the guitar out. It was out of tune though. So what? I learned to tune a guitar the first time! Haha, with help of Google, I managed to do that. Phew~~ I thought that it was very difficult and couldn't do it before, but now it felt so simple. A small achievement indeed. Still, I do not want to spend a lot of time on learning guitar this summer; my schedule is pretty crowded. I will try to practice a little though. Hopefully I can play a song or two after the summer. = )

Apart from that, I also start helping my grandma and mother preparing meals. So you can say I'm learning cooking seriously. No, I do not learn cooking for any serious purpose; I just think it can help reducing the stress of learning or working. It can be helpful sometimes too! Another reason is that I want to keep my senses sharp all the times as well as and keep the learning attitude all the time. Once you define yourself as a learner, everything is much simpler: you're more humble, more welcome to failure and mistakes, and more open in the mind. Well, sounds like some overstatement, boasting sentences. But I really mean it. I'd like to keep this paragraph as a note to myself.

Still, what occupied my mind most of the times were the projects I wanted to do in the summer. I am gradually starting them. It feels like pain when you have so many things running in your mind but you can't do them immediately. However, there must be some transition cost, because stuff like people visiting cannot be avoided when I just come back. Besides, my hometown keeps getting electricity cut off everyday. I am not blaming that but take that opportunity to read books. It is still better and easier to read book when your laptop is off. Most importantly, it's not burning out quickly that is important, but keeping the fire all the time. I am learning to do that. (To be honest, I lost a little fire today though).

Anyway, everything will be on its course soon. I will update more about the progress of these projects on following posts.

Nite!