Lessons of my life till the age of 19

The story life of my mom

My Mom, the greatest teacher of my life, was lastly born in a family with 7 siblings and my grandparents did not focus on giving good upbringing to their kids due to poverty. It was still lucky to my Mom that she could attend school until after graduating from high school with excellent results. But then she was supposed to get married, like other girls in the area at that time. However, my Mom had huge passion for studying, she strived to persuade her father to allow her to continue her learning career. Then she got into a sports college and became a teacher of physical education in high school where I studied 2 years ago. Time has proved that choosing proper learning career is always an important turning point of every individual. She used to achieve amazing performance in such subjects as Biology, English and Math... but until grade 12, most of the good teachers suddenly moved to other schools leading to a serious lack of teaching staff and her being deprived of getting further knowledge. Additionally, there was no one who gave her necessary career guidance, thus she chose to learn at that sports school. I could see that it was the first time that my Mom’s potential was should-not-be wasted, currently, this situation could be called ”opportunity inequality”.

Riding bikes through hundreds of km to her college, she never gave up but kept pushing herself harder. She then got married at the age of 26, much later compared to other same-age girls. With really low salary and no supporting money from her parents, she still strongly lived independently. It has been a period of 25 years at her workplace, she has always harbored a dream of acquiring further steps in her career by studying further education: master and doctor of educational management. The fact is my mom has worked as a vice-president of the school for ten years and she should have been appointed the president that long time ago for her strenuous efforts and worthwhile achievement on her studying path. The fact that the subject she teaches is physical education, not an academic subject, is a leading factor to the rejection of my Mom’s dream position. The fact that the basic standard to become a head manager of education in Vietnam is they must teach academic subjects or gained appropriate qualifications is obviously unfair in terms of human rights.

My Mom has to live alone without the presence of my Dad the majority of her life because my Dad’s occupation is to undertake numerous electrical constructions, a flexible job covering most of the provinces in my country. At the present, she is abjectly living alone while my sister is attending a gifted high school 25km far away, and my school is roughly 100 km from home. One time, I came home and my mom was busy all day, I had never found it difficult to stay at home on my own since young, but that time I felt extremely sad because I missed my mom so much. Late at night, I told her, then she said “You may try to think about my everyday living alone like that, without two of you and your dad. I go home, cook alone and eat on my own. I often think of our house filled with your voice just a short time ago, but that’s fine to me and I am so proud of you.”

I know her hidden desperate feelings through her eyes, she often tells me that we are the only reason for her to be strong and restlessly try in her life. That we could get access to a good education and lead a better life than hers is enough to my mom. I cried. Her story life is always the biggest motivation for me to make greater efforts every single day. I got to know about 17 sustainable development goals when participating in several social activities at university, and was better-aware of how hard my Mom has been through!

Tuesday with Morie

It is the only English book that I restlessly read to the very last page. The story of a dying man gives lessons about how to live. Morie, with years of experience as a college professor and several well-respected book. He loves dancing any kinds of music, loves talking to his students and always asks them to be his friends. He suddenly had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal disease, as his description:”ALS is like a lit candle. It melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax. By the end, if you are still alive, you are breathing through a tube in a hole in your throat, while your soul, perfectly awake, is imprisoned inside a limp husk...”

The writer of this book is his student called Mitch who promised to keep in touch with the old professor until one day he saw Morie on Nightline, he called Morie after the lapse of 16 years. Then they met up every Tuesday to discuss about essential issues around our life. The student asked for his permission to make records of all their conversations, like the way I often do with certain occasions that I revel in and want to save every moment in my mind. Who knows that could ever happen again in our life?

Morie still considered himself lucky because he still has time to live, many others not. Every single day of his short living time is filled with meaningful activities, while Mitch has spent years to pursue things that are not his true passion. He chooses to appear on broadcast with the aim of spreading his story to millions of people. Morie even holds a living funeral for himself with the attendance of a number of his students, friends and colleagues. I am not sure that I have ever seen a university professor who could be that wholehearted for his career, his life and others’ life. Morie says that if people realize the imminence of death, they will realize what is essential in their own life and they may see their life in an entirely different way. He tells Mitch, if he welcomes death, he may not as ambitious as he has been now, he will spend time on what is meaningful to his live.

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they are busy doing things they think are important. This is because they are chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” Said Morie.

The Core Element Project (TCEP)

TCEP came to my life like a miracle. By accident, I became a founder of a small social project which is part of my daily life now, indeed, positively changing my living principles. Actually, it had been a real challenge for me to go through the recruiting and training process. But the appreciation for this milestone is that every member weirdly get insights into each other. More miraculously, we are all dissatisfied with our own schools involving extremely dry curriculum. We have a gap year student, a student who has just stopped attending a top university to bravely pursue his passionate aspects (philosophy and IT), and the rest of the team, as a whole, chose all inappropriate schools for personal reasons, but seeming unreasonable.

They are all my teachers.

One of many meaningful attitudes that they teach me: “Just follow your passion, chances will come to you.” This immediately turns into my major principle in life, as a human being. After the first 3 month-running, we fell into a dark hole without any specific targets and strategy but no one gave up. We believe in our commitment that we will be together as long as possible and spread the values of our project. In terms of writing marketing posts, figuring the target of the project‘s activities, I should find ways to visualize outstanding things that they could immediately learn or bring to themselves. Or, benefits should create benefits. That is how life is going on.

There is a riveting failure that we have just faced lately. Our third workshop was expected to be held to raise fund for the upcoming activities and make some impacts too! However, things did not come up to our expectation, though we were aware quite clearly about result-orientation. So the failure obviously turned into a valuable lesson for our short-time inefficient public communication.

We have spent a great number of meeting hours when struggling at finding ideas, many hours have also been wasted for ineffective solutions. Yet this teaches me how to truly live for the thing I love. Simultaneously inspired by my teammates, my conscientious and warm-hearted teachers, who are unwaveringly devoted to build the whole community and better themselves, I am exploring myself and taking further steps if still strong enough.

I got to know about 17 Sustainable development goals of United Nations when participating in several social activities at university, and certainly through the influence of my teammates. They have helped me to be better-aware about global citizenship and the personal responsibility for human race. And I got to know more about the world we are living where there are serious matters of inequality, poverty, climate change... and life must be maintained through the interconnectedness of human beings worldwide. I got to realize things that we are in love and chasing seem to have certain intimate relationships, familiar to the consecutive chains of things around my life. That is definitely worth moving forward.

Luck is when your preparation meets opportunity

Somehow I found “Summer Apprentice Program” on Facebook 3 months ago. At the moment I saw the news I knew that it was high time to build my passion. The program promises to bring in a totally distinguished summer for university students in 2 biggest cities in Vietnam, in which potential young people would be trained into coaches and have the chance to enhance their career prospects. I was on the path to get involved in organizing team and training facilitation in different self-development courses for the younger learners. I was imagining the time when I could act as an official passionate coach to accompany with those talented people, to be the best of myself: listen and share each other’s story life!

Back to the preparation period for this program including 4 rounds, honest to say that none of them are disappointing! I had never seen such a long Vietnamese application form! But the feature is all questions focus on my concern, my interest and my dream, I had no hesitation to wholeheartedly fill in the form. Out of the blue, I was on the top-20 excellent applications of the North of Vietnam.

I was firstly captivated by the names of 4 recruiting rounds so I immediately applied for the program. Let Words Tell- Let Actions Prove- Let Hearts Feel, Let Spirits Speak Up. Then each round passed by as a gripping game to me. I met different candidates who I did not consider as my opponents, they are my special teachers, for just some short time of life. For me, whenever I get the chance to hear someone’s journey, I get the chance to understand different worldviews and learn various mindsets. So say “no” to the hesitation of participating in these valuable experiences when young.

In the finale, I was assigned one case study to deal with: A children who is diagnosed mentally retarded is sent to the course to improve his self-development. While he only loves drawing and computing, at the same time is unconfident about his learning capacity, his parents force him to learn such subjects as math and literature. Being a coach, how should I react to this case?

Words and actions naturally poured out of my mind, I tried to put myself into his situation to let him feel as if I was his reliable friend. Sudden questions were raised but I responded to them in a logic and sympathetic way. For instance, the course last just 3 days, how could I change him for the better? – “Honestly, even one day is still able to change someone else’s life. If I have no chance to accompany with him further, I would try to interact with his close friends who truly want to help him for long.” I said.

I passed every round confidently and be the best of myself, without any regret. I trust myself. And I followed what my spirit to become a coach. Being 100% of energy is the best lesson I learned from my project, thus I am going further with further 200% of my energy.

Ironically, I failed at that fourth round, after quite a long time longing for the program’s email, with the ready preparation and excitement. But I would love to write my experience down, proudly, for its special impacts in my sophomore year. Life is not easy, but easy enough for positive people to adapt to unexpectedly ups and downs.

And I still call this is the luck of my life.

Little pieces of stories of respected people

Mr Pham Xuan Truong, a Macroeconomics professor said “If you would like to earn a promising job in this competitive job market with the Economics major, you have to be excellent at least at some technique-related qualifications such as risk analysis, market research, or informatics. The way most of universities students are conducting several essay hesitantly is nothing but such spoiling plagiarism college essays, without any knowledge learnt.” He is one of a few lecturers that create intriguing lessons combining enthralling facts and comprehensive knowledge. He has modern attitudes towards life, and also leads an experienced life abroad. Thus his words will be unforgettable to me even though I could not take part in his lessons any more.

Mrs Tuong Anh has been the only professor who has an incredibly inspiring way of delivering the lectures, her permanent beautiful smile on an oval face. I have never seen any frowns or tiring gestures from my little but brilliant teacher. I am not a genius student, meaning that she has no impression on my studying and my life, and the fact is that I did not have the chance to be a student in her class, I often sneaked in her class and listened to her lessons secretly. It is university schooling! And who cares what I am doing? Sometimes I appreciate that amazing freedom, sometimes I have some a craving for a professor’s care, like my high school teachers. I missed them. Back to Mrs Tuong Anh, on the last lecture of the subject she taught that I could attend, I got up the nerve to write a letter to her, telling that though she did not know me, it was my great honour to be her student and to have her as a great professor. She absolutely transformed an arduous subject into a piece of cake to me. Also, it is the most positive teaching methods of a teacher that I have ever approached in my learning path.

Vietnamese Spirit

Is there any relation to mention this spirit here? I would say:” Definitely!” “Việt Nam vô địch” meaning “Vietnam is the champion”, the inspiringly slogan to cheer for our national football team in the last Asian Football Confederation U23 championship must have significantly reverberated across the nation. Although the whole journey officially ended 3 months ago, numerous heart- touching images of the historic moments has been truly lively in my mind.

Vietnamese spirit which evolved from the war-time back to our long history to represent certain moral identity of Vietnamese people including: determination, unity, and patriotism ... has not been considered a new concept in my beautiful country Vietnam. The special point is that I had never been through any of such real experiences raising a strong sense of national pride until the spectacular tournament at the beginning of this year.

The moment of being one of millions of diehard Vietnamese supporters flooded the roads in Hanoi that nights would always be vivid evidence of Vietnamese spirit. Furthermore, the event strongly generated great motivation from the bottom of my heart to take action for a united country, to deserve Vietnamese citizens. My journey abroad last summer did also raise deep national pride to me, urging me to thrive to be better for the whole country, instead of for individuals. But I must say this event suddenly emerged as a historical event ever, for decades, there has never any dramatic performance like that football championship. It is not only about the football field, it is also about national history.

The thing is some people argued that that storm was made from a trend, both negative and positive. How many people were deeply in love with football or in love with the fighting spirit of such talented players? How many people were there who just acted as if they had been wholehearted supporters and citizens? If the final results were a failure, would there anyone who still stood up and poured into that crowd streams on the road? At the same time, there were several outstanding football players in the national team presenting ingenious achievements which were eventually highly commended most of the public. Little attention was paid to the remaining teammates. Did they know that incredible story was created by the whole team, there should have not been that inequality that obviously hurt our heroes.

Everything has its both sides and I realized that those above-mentioned arguments should be seriously considered. Looking at success, there must be a long tough journey behind. Judgments, I believe, can be both positive and negative. Life could be profoundly seen if balanced judgments are made.

My teaching experience

I used to be a stubborn and naughty child. I was even impatient to sit still and study at home, but my Mom calmly persevered in sitting next to me to accompany with my learning process almost the fresh year of my primary school time. This turned out to be an effective educational tool but requiring constant determination to shape a child habit. I did not realize this truth at that time, it must be a long way later when I got mature enough, I know it is definitely uneasy to become a teacher, my childhood dream, for a hot-tempered person.

Being in two minds about my future career, after the entrance exam into university, I was encouraged to follow the teaching path of my Mom by my Dad. It never crossed my mind that I could stand such a boring training environment in my country. Then I was orientated to attend an economics-related school by my Mom. It is a long story about my decision to study!

My first part-time job was being an English tutor of a grade-10 girl, then of several other students. I got to know the feeling of a kind-of-real teacher! Why I still carried on teaching them for 5 months? The reason is that I gradually got interested in teaching and interacting with my students psychologically and emotionally.

Last summer, I had a life-changing experience, volunteering as a primary school English teacher in Thailand. That was not only about the role of a teacher, but also about the meaning of a teacher. The children I taught are passionate about learning but was unable to access to proper educating conditions. I tried to put myself into teachers and students’ positions to deliver my lessons, all went smoothly. Adored by other teachers and looking at the innocent children with harbored dreams, I started to take teaching job more seriously. My childhood dream was lively again through the adorable kids who gave me the chance to live with their life and light my own life up.

When it comes to teaching my beloved people, the understanding and the interest even becomes clearer.

This is not the way I am trying to become a teacher but I am just really into teaching! I have made use of my precious free time by exploring the world around through travelling to a new place or reading different kinds of books like self-help and journal books. It is true the best way to grasp new things from books is to share the read stories with our friends or anyone. There used to be a period of time I kept all what I read for myself, then my memories slowly faded away until I saw stunning effects of reading and sharing. Whoever listens to my stories would be my teachers because they give me chance to manifest my understanding. Then I would apply what I learn into our project activities I have no idea about the deep foundation or any theory of the knowledge that I should bring to the people, but I just teach them to the best of my ability.

I used to be a completely selfish girl at the age of 14, in secondary school, everyday life struggling with school result competition with peers. Sometimes I tried to get away from my friends’ ask for my help. I paid little attention to their strong desire to grasp the insights on my hand. It must be the selfishness that build the fear that others could easily steal what I was having as if they were all the priceless legacy of my own.

And now? I hardly feel hesitant to devote myself and my time to anything that is truly meaningful to this life, even humdrum tasks are still worth doing.

Should I become a teacher?

Stuck moments

Before reaching this scaring silence, I was handling a demanding subject with full of worries, unceasing thoughts and questions. What should I do next?

Love has fell me into a hole, not a beautiful life, just now. It is of my paramount pride that my love is my great teacher, but he still hurts me at times. Suffering this sort of mood is, clearly, a good way to improve a person’s patience and composure. But when the situations turn worse day in, day out, they possibly easily hurt and uneasily heal our heart. Then the scars seem to stay inside the little soul like long-lasting feelings. Be silent may be a good choice to reflect what I need.

There are at times some cases that I have no idea about the right solutions to a matter, to the revision of exams, to several complicated relationships. I pushed my mind hard to figure out the light of the dark roads. It all came to a waste of valuable time. There are always certain problems that are out of my reach but I still make strenuous efforts to think until tired. At least, in the end, I had no regrettable feelings, but definitely disappointment with myself, my stupidity and my weakness. I am on that stuck life path at the moment... I am trying to get out of the learning circle at my school, things seem never to be fascinating to me. Tedious lessons related to economics, business, and finance. This mind-numbing schoolwork has absolutely driven me frustrated and depressed for long haul.

But at the moment I am at my dear home in a small countryside in Vietnam, feeling peaceful and enjoyable. Desperation and fear have just gone as I am staying in the best place in the world-my home where I could cook and prepare meals for my family. When mature enough, I know being stuck is the status that could be available whenever people fall into the trap of life. The way to get out of that is coming back to our home, the safest place ever, to reflect and see how our life is going on and what we need to do. Being unclear about our future path does not mean that we are in the middle of nowhere. I believe that I will keep seeking and pursuing my interests, chances will come to my life.