Ik spreek Nederlands ;-)

Finally, I started a Dutch course. I have thought of taking Dutch courses for a couple of years already but after graduating I had a job, and it was so far from the city, plus with long working hours, it was impossible for me to take lessons...

Anyway, I was pretty much happy that Conrad organised language courses (French, English, and Dutch) for employees. The lesson is organised during working hours, in small groups, although it is only two hours per week, I am sure it will help me a great deal to get the basic of Dutch. So, I had mine this morning. The beginner group has started since November last year, I did not know. Well, when I was warned about that, and the training department told me to just go to class, and if the teacher was ok with me, then I could stay. This morning when I came, of course, the teacher asked if I knew some Dutch, so, I just told her what I knew (most of the words were from Dutch TV channels, btw ;-)). The teacher told me to stay anyway, and if I think I can catch up with the others, I can continue. It is ok because I get the notes from the other colleagues, but the problem I have now is that I don't know how to pronounce many of the vocabularies ;-). The most difficult one so far is words with "r" and "ch" like "achternaam", otherwise the "ng" that many French people have a problem with, I am ok, and find it easy because many Vietnamese pronounce that way ;-). The grammar is not that complicated like it is in French with the verbs.

I found some old casettes to learn Dutch courses from the basement a couple of months ago (probably uncle tried to learn without success ;-)), but I have no casette player at home, so I think it is better that I buy a CD, and transfer it to my portable walkman, that way I can learn it on the way to work...etc. Anyway, I will just give a bit more efforts to catch up with others, I will survive.

Other than that, nothing special last week apart from hanging out with friends, playing bowling, drinking (not a lot, I try not to drink this year). I bought some good Cds, "Gorillaz", "Blur", a collection of the Beetle, some boardroom dance like Tango and Cha Cha Cha and "Gone with the Wind" movie ;-), so I spent my Sunday relaxing as it should be.

I also did some thinking because my Mika is sick again, which put me in a melancholy mood. I am very scared that he will not live very long, and that he do not have a happy life like he should do because I spoiled him...Yeah, I love him too much, but if he is fat, it is because I gave him foods every time he asked for it. As the result, even with the diet he has, it does not help. I feel so sorry and regret it very much. I hope he will survive, and does not hate me because I love my Mika a lot. I don't think I will ever find a cat like him, he is a special one. Moreover, Tet is coming, and it gives a bit of nostalgic feeling. Tet is never the same like it was in the past. In VN, with the so called "booming economy", most families do not cook anymore, they prefer to eat out (the most shocking news for me is probably, family members in VN only meet each other now on Sunday at the restaurant for brunch even they live in the same house because everybody works so hard, and a lot of people get fat). One of famous effect of globalization and WTO I suppose! Growing economy, my *ss! People can talk about how great it will be but I know how my relative and family live there, how my friends have to work hard, study hard to finally have a job with sh*t salary. Sorry, everybody begins to say that, they can f*ck off. Go there to live if you think it is good, there is a big difference between living and "holiday-ing". Well, to come back to Tet, normally in the past, the preparation of Tet was the most exciting period, and it started about 2 or three weeks before Tet, we started to shop, reserve good ingredients to make the special rice cake that represents the earth, the root of the Vnese, then stocking a lot of vegetables and fruits, and cooked a lot because during Tet, nobody did anything, shops closed (now all the shops open even on the first day of the year). I remembered, my house was full during the -making -rice- cake time because my mom, grandparents, uncle, uncle's wife, relatives from the north came, we made a lot of cakes (I was only surprised because there was not much left afterwards because they were to share with the neigbours, too ;-)). One cake was about 2kg or something, and it took more than 10 hours to cook. So, everyone (mostly men, btw, I always got upset that I had to go to bed ;-)) stayed around a big pan, playing cards, guitars, or watching a lot of kungfu movies ;-). Hmm, that reminds me of the time where we did not have a Dvd or casette player, my youngest uncle used to take me to those big warehouses where somebody had one cassette player, and took a couple of dongs for a movie ;-). That probably explains why I love kungfu movie because I spent most of my childhood watching them while the other kids here were probably watching Tom and Jerry...etc ;-). Also because my uncle used to date some girls (he was very handsome), they asked him to bring me (hehehehe, woman trick ;-)). I even remembered that after movie, it was usually dark in the middle of nite, he was riding a motorcylette, and we had to pass through a graveyard, and that always scared the sh*t out of me, especially when the wind blew above the bamboo trees, and made them made scary noises ;-).

I am glad that I can remember all that now, I really have to continue with my hardcopy diary otherwise one day I will forget everything.