Prayer

Dear God,

Please give me your blessing and let me win the lottery. By the lottery I mean the H1-B visa lottery, not the real lottery. This H1-B is more important to me than anything money can buy.

I promise I will be good. I promise I will listen to my parents and email them more often.

I will go out less, I will study harder, I will sleep less, I will exercise, learn to cook, daydream less. I promise I will be less selfish.

I promise to be nice to my friends (please forgive me for bullying my friends when I was small).

I promise to be stricter with my sister.

I promise I will follow my dream of helping the poor. I promise I won't waste food. I promise to give more money to beggars in the subway.

I promise I will shop less.

I promise to love my enemies (although I don't have any enemies). I promise to love my neighbors (although I don't know any of their names). I promise to gossip less (I didn't say stop gossiping).

I know I have been a bad girl and refused to believe in you. But throughout the years, I have realized that everytime I need you (heartbreaks, disappointments, loneliness, failure) and prayed to you, you have always looked after me and forgiven me. I promise to obey you and put my trust in you.

Please let me stay in New York for another few years. Thank you God! God bless you, God. Amen.

Yours truly.

Suong Mai

Disclaimer: My blog is for entertainment purposes only, please do not take it seriously or personally. Thank you!

Engagements and weddings

In the past few months, I have been to 1 wedding, been invited to another one, heard of 3 engagements and saw my ex-bf get married. Also listened to dozens of my friends talk about their plan to "get engaged".

This is making me really depressed! It made me realized that my peers and I have entered into a different stage of life. Long are the beautiful days when all of us live freely, enjoying our youth, having fun and only have to think about our studies. Marriage is a scary thing. It means you can't live selfishly anymore. You have another person and a family to look after. You are less likely to take risks, to follow your passions and will likely have to go the "safe way". Marriage isn't like shopping. You can't return what you don't like. You're stuck with that person for the rest of your life (or face a painful divorce). What's worse, married people only hang out together. All they talk about is babies, buying a house, sending kids to school etc. If only we could be young and free forever!

I have been semi-proposed by guys multiple times before, but have never thought I could say yes. Just the thought of saying those wedding pledge scares me. If I get married, I need to be damn sure that I really mean it when I say those vows.

"Will you listen to his inmost thoughts, be considerate and tender in your care of him, and stand by him faithfully in sickness and in health, and, preferring him above all others, accept full responsibility for him every necessity for as long as you both shall live? do you vow that you will do everything in your power to make your love for him a growing part of your life? Will you continue to strengthen it from day to day and week to week with your best resources? Will you love him as a person, respect him as an equal, sharing joy as well as sorrow, triumph as well as defeat?"

I sometimes feel like an outcast. Like Carrie in "Sex and the City", being the only single girl and getting invited to all these couples/family events and getting that pity look.

If this goes on, I'm going to start hating weddings! It got me thinking, if I ever get married (or if someone ever wants to marry me :P), I'll probably just get hitch in Las Vegas to get it over and done with. Won't have to waste time and money on the "perfect wedding" that lasts 3 hours. Ha ha...

But you'll see when "my wedding" comes...

P.S. I also think prenuptial agreements should be the default, not the exception.

Disclaimer: My blog is for entertainment purposes only, please do not take it seriously or personally. Thank you!

Entry for April 14, 2008

Long time no see. A lot has happened over the last few weeks. However, being lazy as I am, I’ll just give you a very short version of my updates.

Well, to implement my “New Year’s resolution”, I have been more active these days. I started volunteering for the Vietnamese School in New York to help teach small children Vietnamese. I will tell you guys more about it soon! Besides volunteering, I have been trying out a few highly-rated French restaurants in NYC but wasn’t impressed. Nothing beats home-cooked Pho’? or Spring rolls after all!

As for my social life, I have had the chance to see a Vietnamese play called “Missing woman” written and directed by Minh Ngoc starring Thanh Loc. Never a fan of Cai Luong or Vietnamese theatre, I must say I was impressed this time. I also got to see a Vietnamese film “Trai Tim is bong” and met with actress Hong Anh. The film was moving and meaningful but not too impressive. I will write a review on these two events soon!

In my spare time in the evenings, I have been watching lots of DVDs. I really love “Ratatouille” and “The Prestige”! I am still stuck reading the book “A thousand barrels a second”. It is very educational and interesting but so dry and full of information that it’s taking me forever to finish. However, recently I had the chance to attend a lecture at the Brandeis house in New York on the topic “How are Arab Oil-Exporting Countries Investing their Petrodollars?” which is very much related to what I am reading.

Oh by the way, I recently discovered the wonderful world of Podcasts and got addicted to it. Now I can download shows like Anderson Cooper, Mad Money with Jim Cramer, BBC World News, and French Lessons into my iPhone to listen on my way to and from work. That is an extra 1 hour of information I can absorb instead of daydreaming on the subway everyday! That leaves me more time in the evening to read newspapers, magazines, and books and watch movies at home.

If you haven’t been following, my mom went to two different fortune tellers beginning of this year and both said I was getting married this year. But it’s already mid-April and no sign of a fiancé yet! What am I supposed to do now? My search for “Mr. Right” is still on going and I’m running out of time. The Vietnamese circle in the US is so limited, there’s not much to choose from L What’s worse, guys my age nowadays are looking at girls born in 1988 or later. That makes me one of those “ba chi gia”. And somehow, I only managed to attract younger or older guys ("cac em trai tre" va "cac anh lon"). Oh dear, will I end up being a spinster? I also realized that maybe guys find me intimidating. Maybe I should try to speak with a sweeter and softer voice (“Annnhhhh oooooiiii….”) or learn to use "make up"? Hmm…

I am quite happy these days because I have had the chance to meet up for lunch/dinner with many friends I haven’t seen for so long. Went drinking a couple of times with friends too. Bad news is that my famous high tolerance is going down. Twice I got tipsy for having just a few drinks. Maybe I’m getting older and can’t act like a teenager anymore L

Work is still the same. Just waiting for the H1-B result. CFA studying is still very slow. I am so behind and only less than 2 months until the exam!

Oh by the way, I recently got into a car accident. Well, yes, I am a bad driver. But NO, I wasn’t driving. My friends and I were driving on the FDR in New York when we got hit from behind by this expensive Bentley car. I was sitting behind and hit my head on the backseat. Luckily I had my seatbelt on. However, I have been having slight headaches since. Just went to the doctor today and was told I’m okay but need to sleep as much as I can, work as little as I can and exercise more. The first two (sleep more, work less) is as easy as pie for me. But the exercise thing, I’m going to have to work on. Haven’t been to a gym in 2 months L

That’s it for all my boring ranting. I promise to update my blog with more interesting writing soon!

Disclaimer: My blog is for entertainment purposes only, please do not take it seriously or personally. Thank you!