Thank God for blogs.

Or else no one would ever hear me.

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I perused this article today. It talks about how people on this particular island live to see a century. I wonder if I will die young because of Los Angeles or because of the cities I choose to live in. Long Xuyen was so peaceful, it's something you won't really understand until you live in a place where time isn't really a nuisance. Wait until you experience what it means to ride on a motorbike past the lush green almost silk like aura of rice paddies. It will overwhelm you, not in a bad way - it will overwhelm you the way a kiss lingers. It will calm you because it reminds you that life ain't that bad when things seem so green.

I skyped with one of my favorite people in the world the other day, chi Thao from Vietnam. She was in Singapore as her spirit carries her, sitting in a room drawing pictures of lotuses for an art crafts project. What I would do to be there. I tell her about my stress over school, my love life, and laugh at the idea she is trapped in the room because she is allergic to the cat outside. She says "if you go back to school, that means we won't see you for a long time isn't it?" In my broken English I try to tell her the reason why I am going back to school is so that I can return to work in Vietnam - but I fail miserably. I somehow manage to tell her the school allows us to work in the country we want to work in and that I want to study health and human trafficking. I try. I'm surprised that I understand everything she is saying to me, seeing that I haven't spoken Vietnamese in a while. It comes out naturally just as the conversation does.