Panel of Judges - Graduation Papers Presentation

I felt ashamed at my inability to be a better supervisor. The students have not received adequate instruction from me

Preparation for departure

Yesterday was a boiling and busy day, a day to spend money. I made an appointment with Tuan to go looking around at some camera models, particularly Canon S95 and G11. I need a good camera to keep some of the departing moments with my family and friends before leaving. That S95 seemed most possible, given it small size and my unwillingness to enslave myself to a more professional yet expensive and cumbersome design. It was way more costly in Vietnam than it is in the States, but I had no other choices.

Entertaining Tuan to a Thai lunch at Sawasdee, only to find the food, tasty as it was, seemed too expensive for the ordinary pocket. Only the shrimp vermicelli, a fried morning glory dish and two little bunch of sticky rice cost me almost 20 dollars. It was not that it was too much for me. I just felt it a little bit too much for such a meal.

Going to Tran Phu originally to look for a warm coat, yet I ended up buying a two pairs of trousers instead. Tuan insisted on paying, saying that he gave them to me as a present. "Good friends make you rich, good wife makes you smart" :D

After some electric outlets, I wanted to buy another pair of glasses. The one in Do Hanh Street that Tuan recommended seemed a bit suspicious, so I took a safe side and went back to Cau Giay to buy one at the more prestigious Viet Tin, though it cost me another 1,500,000 VND.

And that was not everything. I ended a day of shopping spree buying a portable hard disk drive at nearly 100 dollars. It was a Seagate HDD with a global warranty of over five years.

In the evening I went with mum to the hospital, stopping midway in Fivimart to buy a cushion and a bag of adult diaper. Grandpa looked pitiful, breathing with difficulty and could not communicate verbally no matter how little with his surrounding daughters and nephews.

Two pieces of good news came up, though. In the morning Huyen messaged telling me she had won that coveted Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. A feeling of joy was mixed with some envy. Huong and Huyen, whose company and care I have enjoyed all those years, received two most prestigious grants from Fulbright and Erasmus Mundus while I, the "big brother", could only go for the much less known ADS :-)

And I was able to get the The gioi Publishers to license the coming edition of Learning Maths through Verses. Much remains to be done though, before the final product came out.

ADS Pre-departure Briefing

I've passed the Australian Embassy a thousand times, and it's very near my house, yet somehow this morning, I ended up in front of the Japanese Embassy instead. Only when I called another ADS candidate - one of my former students - did I start to realize I was dead wrong reading my way! What an embarrassing experience! Could be because I did not get sufficient sleep last night in the hospital looking after my grandpa.

The Australian Embassy is well-positioned and spacious. The briefing started with a welcome speech by the ADS Team Leader, followed by the diplomatic and political officer.

Each of us was then awarded an official ADS Certificate and had a photograph taken, unfortunately only by courtesy of some well-prepared candidates in the audience. The organizers should have hired a professional photographer to do that picture-taking, which was not a frequently repeated occasion in our life.

The first session was rather useful, with some interesting presentations about Australia and things to keep in mind before starting a new life. The information exchanges from three ADS alumni gave us both fascinating information and a good laugh.

Lunch was a lackluster moment. The food was not fairly good, but I did not want to try anything heavy, so I had several bowls of lichee sweet soup, which tasted really nice, especially on such a blistering day like today.

I talked to Ninh, and got told off for lying to her about my availability some months ago when she had the goodwill of introducing me to a girl she thought could be the right one for me. I remember telling her at that time that I already had the apple of my eyes and had no intention of looking for another.

I felt really embarrassed calling a lady sitting in the front not by her name, but by yours, just because she had the same family and middle name with you. I don't know if Ninh or anyone who knew me there recognized how much I betrayed myself then. Anyway, that suddenly prompted me to think about you and suddenly felt sad.

The afternoon session was horrible. The presentations were way too out-of-topic. Also, with us having no siesta after lunch, I fell asleep halfway through the second presentation when that lady from UNWomen started to pontificate about gender issues beyond the interest of not only me but also others.

The final photo session was also a disappointment. I wondered why no professional photographer was called in for such an occasion. The positioning was poor, and I guess many would not find their faces in the upcoming photo.

We were told, at the end of the session, that flight might be due as early as 20 May. Felt sad. It's something that I am not very much looking forward to.