Lazy fat boys ;-)

Flower carpet and puppet theatre in Brussels

Update

I think I am in a transforming time ;-), I have been thinking about many options of what I am gonna do with my life because I can't live like this anymore. It is as if I am floating through time ;-). I guess I can say that I am adventurous in the sense that I continue being curious about everything around me, sometimes the smallest thing can catch my attention and stay in my brain for a long time. When things go slow and mundane, I get bored, so even though many night outs, many continuous activities can create a lot of exhaustion but it is still excited.


Anyway, this week has been one of these exhausted week, I can hardly stop to have a breath. My friends said it was because I had been under stress for such a long time that because my body had been fighting against that, now when almost everything is solved, time to pay back ;-). One of my friends even said that he doesn't understand why I always "have to", "My god, Thao, take some time and rest, you don't really have to..." ;-).

What did I do? Went to puppet theater, took the train to go hiking outside of Brussels, invited to a Japanese dinner where I was stuffed with foods ;-)...etc. Having said that I have a super good time, hanging out with Japanese gang. Reminded me how much I really like these people and their country.

Looking forward to the next weeks, but here comes some images!

Parents and children

Waking up with the sun beams straight to your face is one of luxury that I have long forgotten. I remember when I was small, my grandfather used to wake me and my sister up very early, even in weekends when we had no school, he said that "girls should not sleep late because we can't harly finish anything if haft of the day is gone, and no husbands want to marry a girl who sleeps late", I don't know whether it is the first or the later reason that I have rarely been able to stay in bed until noon unless I am wasted and very lazy ;-). My grandfather doesn't know today we are allowed to sleep late for any reasons: go out late with friends, too many drinks, watched movies late, talking until late...but at least as an adult, we always have to manage dragging our lazy butts with our eyes haft closed haft opened, bumping our heads somewhere because it's still dark to prepare for work.

Not long ago I watched a movie with John Travolta (forget the name as usual), and it was about how babies think about the people they see, the surrounding when they are first born, and not able to talk. The open line was something like being in your mom's belly is the experience that we can't never undo, and your mom's belly is the only place you try to get out once but unable to get in for the rest of our lives. Recently when I visited one of my best friends in the hospital, I have been told about all the anecdotes about pregnancy (yeah, women like to talk about all things!), from how future father already decides to spend his life on hating his unknown and future 0 age's son in law ;-), from hearing the heart beats of unborn baby, very fast and constant, almost like a sound of a horse galloping through a field, to a terrible howling sound of other women in the delivering room (yeah, this last one makes me doubt whether I ever want to be pregnant).

Anyway, I won't continue talking about baby because it is still an unknown universe to me, big responsibilities and challenges ;-). A few months ago, when my mom talked about how much she was proud with me and my sister (okey, not like we have elected into big positions or won awards or else), it was more like how we have become as a human beings, I asked my mom if she ever had regrets of being pregnant with us at an age that she could have discovered other things instead of being stuck with us. She told me she had always been happy, and never regretted anything in her life. Wow, I guess that a mom's love, no love can compare to that. In VN, we have a saying, something like tears always drop downwards, just to explain that moms always give and sacrify everything to their children but children can't never give that much of a love back.

I guess I have been lucky to be born in an exceptional family. There are too much love, understanding and support from everybody, and the notion of what right and wrong is well-defined. If I was to be born again in the next life, I would really liked to be my mom's daughter.

A typical weekend..

After an unrested weekend, I now find myself sitting, looking at the clear, blue sky outside the windows, wondering what my future would be like, having in hands a book entitled "The meaning of the 21 century" James Martin, thinking of the possiblities of travelling in the next couple of years ;-).

I mingled in the crowd in a flea market ;-) in Flagey on Sat to see if I could find anything interesting. In Belgium, every now and then, usually in summer when the weather is nice and warm (although rarely happens), each townhall organises a sort of market, festival like that one, where you can buy and sell stuffs that you no longer use or that you want to find some things which are still in good shape at cheaper price. Sometimes, you would really find your happiness in other people's junks. This market in Flagey had been interrupted for the last 5 years since they started to renovate the Flagey square until recently work there finished. Anyway, I did find some nice stuffs, but I was not able to stay long because soon the rain came, people started to pick their stuffs up, the market was soon empty as if it had never been there. This kind of vintage market is something I am going to miss a lot if I move away from Belgium. It is like hearing music playing on the street whereever you go, like the smell of waffles invading the subway, like the sudden rain on the sunny day...little things like those characterize much the country where you are in. Somehow it is poetic and beautiful imaginary sceneries. Maybe I am just one of those character in a romance written by someone ;-).

I also went to see my first puppet theater. It was my first time ever to be in a theater atmosphere in Belgium (okey, of course, puppet theater is much different from the real national theater) but still I could feel and understand the litterature and history behind the scenes, I could see how much work that the artists put into their character (and that also works with woods, they do have souls). I enjoyed it so much. You learned so much from this sort of play. And certainly, it is nice to catch up with friends after going to a show, drinking good beers, talking about the character, the regions, the history...

Lately, it seems like I have been busy with cultural events. I feel like I don't have time to stop and breath (mind you, I don't complain, on the contrary). So, a one day hiking trip into the nature was what I needed. So, we set up, took the train, five of us to Rivage, small village from Liege, did a 20km walk ;-), wandering to the field, looking at the cows, listening to the birds, the whistling sound of the wind, and sometimes the barking sound of dogs from far away houses.

And it seems like activities just keep on coming...