Almost Famous (2001)

Let's say all the things we never said.
Give me your address.
I'm coming to you...
this time.



...
Got a pen?

Melody of life

Một lần nữa, tôi lại ở đây. Không phải là ở một nơi cụ thể. Mà là ở đây, trong một căn phòng thuê. Trong một căn phòng xa lạ. Một mình. Đời là những lần dịch chuyển, là những chuyến đi, là những con người mới, va chạm mới, văn hóa mới, vất vả bon chen mới, cả những thói xấu mới.

Cậu bạn vừa hỏi: có gì vui không mày. Nghĩ 1 lúc rồi trả lời: vui, nhiều lắm.

Thì đúng thật. Mỗi con người, mỗi cuộc nói chuyện, mỗi nơi tôi đi qua đều có những điều mới lạ. Chỉ muốn có cái máy nào có thể ghi lại hết những cảm giác, những khung cảnh ấy. Cái máy của tôi chỉ ghi được một phần hạn chế mà thôi. Âu cũng chỉ là để biết mình đã been there, done that.

Hai ngày trước tôi vừa đi tới thành phố Birmingham. Ngồi trên tàu hơn hai tiếng đồng hồ, lướt qua bao nhiều cảnh vật miền thôn quên của nước Anh. Một lúc có con sông nhỏ chạy song song với đoàn tàu. Phía bên kia là lác đác những ngôi nhà. Nếu bạn còn nhớ nhà của bẩy chú lùn thế nào thì từ trên tàu nhìn sang trông mấy ngôi nhà cũng gần như vậy. Tôi không nói đùa chút nào. Những ngôi nhà cách nhau bởi mấy trăm mét toàn cây xanh và đường đi. Những con đường đi bộ nhỏ nhỏ thôi. Không phải rừng cây nhưng cây vẫn rất râm rạp và xanh. Đặc biệt là vào mùa xuân này, màu xanh phủ khắp hai bên bờ sông. Con sông khá sạch và chạy chậm chạp nên nhìn xuống sông cũng chỉ thấy bóng cây xanh ngắt. Thời tiết mùa xuân ở đây thay đổi rất thất thường và tính theo giờ chứ không tới mức theo tháng hay theo mùa. Sáng tinh mơ là những cơn mưa nhỏ và dai. Trưa tới thì nắng chói chang. Thình thoảng chỉ cần vài đám mây đen che ánh nắng đi vài phút thôi là đã cảm thấy nhiệt độ giảm đi hẳn rồi. Những ngôi nhà mái ngói chéo hai tầng nho nhỏ nằm trên bờ sông thoai thoải. Xung quanh là cây, là thảm cỏ, là hoa. Một con đường nhỏ chạy từ phía cửa trước nhà, vòng sát tường mà đoạn cuối là những bậc thang chạy thẳng xuống dòng sông. Phía bên này bờ, thấp hơn và cách xa đường tàu một chút là dãy những bãi cỏ xanh tươi nối tiếp nhau. Thỉnh thoảng lại có một đàn bò hay cừu lom khom gặm cỏ. Nếu có cơ hội thì chỉ cần đứng nhìn thêm giây lát thôi thì cũng đủ thấy mãn nguyện lắm rồi.

Ngày mai lại là một chuyến đi nữa tới Birmingham. Cuối tuần có khi lại lang thang qua vùng quê ấy tiếp. Hay là dừng lại chụp vài phát nhỉ? Ước gì ngày mai khi mở mắt ra con máy ảnh của tôi sẽ là một con DSLR xịn...

Believe in Yahoo!

Yesterday, I received an email to my Yahoo account. It was not placed at the top of the list as usual. It was in the middle, because the date of send was 2 weeks ago. So, I must say thanks to Yahoo. Their sever kept my email for many days without deleting it. Sooner or later, you will receive it, no mater how long you can wait, and must wait.

Anyway, try Google mail, dude. You will have:

++ 1 GB storage
++ Search email --> very useful as I experienced some days before.
++ Group of replied emails

Link: http://gmail.com
But you will need someone to invite you to sign up. That's easy, I'm here to help.

End of tournament - Upset me

Last thursday was our final match in the basketball tournament. I must note that it is our last game, not the last game of the tournament. Only top team of each group can go to deeper round.

Our last game was like a happy end for what we hoped. The opponent team lost some important players because of injury. We also lost our most valuable palyer, some others are not in good status., including me. I am just kind of person who always try to go against the crowd. That was not a difficult game. We led the game from the start and kept high speed. We still had many easy lost of score because of easy defence. However, we did good offence with some fast break. It is not what the coach want. Ahh, if he was there, he would not let us make any fast break. It was fun, interesting. We played quite friendly and as the result, more beautiful scores.

However, the problem is me, myself. I start the game by siting outside, cheer and laugh. I even do not think of get in and play. I didn't know why but it seemed I felt no enthusiasm for this game. "Such an easy friendly game" was my thought, may be. And it is such a very bad habit I have. I did not feel like I was playing. I was good at enjoy whatching it. That's why I played like shit in the game. 3 times I couldn't the ball in fast break. Even when I was stading waiting for my friend's pass. for once, it was quite dark but if i paid more attention then the case could be better. You might not know that, in a 40 minutes game, chance for you to play is small (if you are not the only star in the team), chance for you to have the ball in your hand is smaller and chance for you to make a shoot or lay up is much smaller (normally you pass to your teammate). So losing the ball 3 times is unacceptable. If my old friend knew this, he could laugh at me. Damn. My defence is dtill ok. I am always better at defending. I was not useless since I have some assists. Alright, that is, we won by 2 points.

The last minute was so exiting when we were leading by 2 points and the opponent team having the ball. We made a foul and they had 2 free throws. Wao, thanks to our supporters. They shouted, used any materials to make sound to disturb the opponent players. We did not have lot of supporters but they were so great. Funniest thing was the opponent player failed both shoots. then immediately we made another foul and they had another 2 free throws. A small game of 2 losers became so exiting. Like a triller movie. when we think it is over, it is not. happily we lstly won the match.

Last friday was the ending ceremony of the tournament. We, amazingly, got a Best Performance Award, a small prize for one of the losers. We now have something to tell to the university, who lately have help us, that we have done somthing.

End of a story is begin of another story, I met an old friend, who is playing for BachKhoa team. On November, we are invited to join BachKhoa tournament. Although it may not be a good tournament as some guys said, it is good for new team like us. The future is in my hand, not my foot, damn, my foot can never be fine. I must come to doctor once more time to know what can I do with it.

Bad start is a good start

If everything is good at the beginning, you can't go far.
That was the second game in the basketball tournament and that was the second time we lost. I was very exiting before this event. This is the first time I join a league outside my small campus.

The first match was a hard beginning. We have a good start with only 5 points less than the oponent team after the first quarter. Things changes when they put more defense on us. They defense right when we have the ball in our half court. It's quite disapointed when we made some 8 seconds fault (when you cant bring the ball to the opponent's half court after 8 seconds). I have watched many Vietnamese matches and rarely saw any team commit this. Without coach (ahh, he is busy on this hardest day), we did not have good communication. I mean, everyone wants best improvement for the team. However, noone has the best effective voice as the coach. I listened to some advices and ideas to defense, passing. Then I realised that we agreed with so many conflict ideas. Then when we were back to playing, things happened the same as start. Gun (a Korean) was always the best player in our team. He flied in and out, left to right and took almost all offensive rebounds. But one could not make the team. We gradually lost strength.
However, truely say, that was not very bad for a new team if you know that we only had around 1 month to practice together, esspecially 1 week to practice playing with full court. I was not confident in the game but I am happy with my team's performance.

The second match was a big supprising experience for me. This time we had our coach. However, we lost Gun. I could only said "#$%#" to this guy even he was painful with his broken leg. How can a grown man decided to play 2 damn friendly matches continuosly in the day before the important match. Then when his teamates were crazy fighting in the game, he sat outside enjoy watching. I was played at the beginning. The opponents were not as good as the previous team. But amazingly we were shocked because they played so agressive. They ran like crazy and defensed full court. I counld not even make one clear pass. We were turned over most of the chances. We had to cal for time out and make many substitutions. I was out. I must say that this is good for me, but it is good for team. I will talk more on this later. Still, we lost the ball many times and hardly make a shoot. When they did many basic shooting. I was very angry because we set two players outside when they have 3 players, which means 2 must move much to defense those 3 guys. Often, one of them could make a shoot. They scored about 12 points until end of second quarter. That was 31 for them and 7 for us. Tuan asked me how did I feel and my answer was no, we could not make it. Coach called me to play in the middle of third quarter. I realised that I was waiting for too long. I played with all my strength, ran up and down the court. The coach was right when putting me outside waiting, because now I was willing to play. We could do some offense now since they did not put much defense on the our half court. So we had time to bring the ball to their rim. However, we are not good at defense. Even we could score some, we let them do many successful and clear shoot. Esspecially forwards, they did not defense at all. We surely need many practices on defense and team cooperation.

Now I know that a good palyer need not beautiful dribbling skill, he need strength, basic but arcurate shooting skill. What does the team need? I may find out through this tournament. We still have one more game. Every game is a big challenge. And I believe that "If you know the way you go, you can't go far"

My first note

Hello Universe!

These are my first words in this blog site. It is quite late for a computer lover like me to know about a kind of service like this after 5 years it appeared on the net. "Late is better than never". My instructor (in Public Speaking course) adviced me to use this site. As I know this is for writing anything comes to my mind, any memos, addresses, ideas... This is quite strange for me and I really want to see how it will affect my life. Anyway, hope it is helpful :)

Is this good for writing? I am wondering. I am studying English. This blog could force me to write and, more important, to think in English.

I think that is all for introduction. Good luck to me and you, friends.