Track the daily ride to school

Random#1

Innovation

Brought a friend to my place to look at the rooms and see if he wanna be my roommate. Conversation at the kitchen:

- Ya know, one thing ya should know if ya wanna move here. The landlord, he has washer and dryer but doesnt let anybody use so… ya dont have laundry here.

- Its ok. we can use these.

- Huh? use what?

- Ya know, we can put our clothes in the dish washer and then put them in the oven.

- …bursting out laughing…

Only possible in America

Okay, ya know what? people in America do cheese shot… NO? Im not kidding… Okay, at least I know one guy did that. Here is the proof…

Believe it or not. He did it for real! A real shot!

Sexy sound in class

One of the guys in my GIS class always says “oh-yeah” 45 times in every class. This is exactly how he makes the sound… “ooooohhhhhh-ooooouuuuuu-yeahhhhh”.

A typical conversation between him and someone else in class used to be:

- ‘oh-yeah’ guy: “how…do…youuu…cre..ate…a…geodata..base?”

- “you could right-click here…”

- “oooohhhhh-ooooouuuuuu-yeah………ooohh-ooouuu-yeah…….oh-ou-yeahhhhh”

- ” choose New…”

- “oh-oh….oh-oooouuuu-yeahh”

- “and then Personal Geodatabase…”

- “ooohhh-ooouuu-yeahhhh……oh-yeahhh”

I completely thought he was Chinese but then figured out he IS Vietnamese and his first name and last name are EXACTLY the same as mine. …INSANE…!!!!

… Professor got so confused about our homeworks when somehow he got 2 assignments submitted with the same names.

Nhà

Giới thiệu với mọi người chút về nhà mình đang ở. Tình hình là hợp đồng đến cuối tháng 4 sang năm, không biết có tiếp tục không nhưng cho tời giờ thì sống ở cái nhà này cũng thoải mái. Diện tích nhà và đất rộng thênh thang, nhà hàng xóm cách nhau cả trăm mét, tuyệt đối yên tĩnh (trừ khi tổ chức nhậu nhẹt ở nhà thôi), xung quanh nhà toàn cây xồi, chim, sóc, thỏ múa hát ngày nào cũng thấy, trăng thanh gió mát… Nói chung rất đạt yêu cầu, trừ cái ông chủ khó tính. Nhưng ma bữa ni cách ly bớt rồi nên cũng ok.

Nhà nằm trên một vùng đồi nên khi đánh mercedes từ trường về nhà thì hơi mệt. Nhà 2 tầng, anh chủ độc thân có cô bồ hay tới thăm sống ở tầng 1, còn nguyên tầng 2 cho thuê, 3 gara trong và sân trước đậu được 6 ôtô. Rộng thênh thang + chẳng có ma mô đậu xe, rứa mà mấy đứa bạn tới chơi, đậu xe ngay chỗ chiếc xe truck cà tàng của anh chủ, anh về, thấy rứa, kêu ra nói mày nên đậu xe ở hàng ở giữa vì mày thuê… phòng ở giữa, hahah. Đúng là bệnh nặng hết thuốc chữa.

Phòng mình phải đi lên bằng cầu thang ngoài. Trời mưa thì hơi bất tiện chút nhưng may là bên ni năm khi mười họa mới mưa 1 lần. Ảnh dưới chụp đường đi lên cầu thang…

Tiếp tục lên cầu thang là 1 cái sảnh cũng khá rộng. Lúc nào tiệc tùng chiều tối mát mẻ, kéo bàn kéo ghế ra đây ngồi cũng thích. Mùa này chim kéo về 1 đống. Cứ chiều tối là cây nào cây nấy dày đặc chim, kêu rầm rầm. Tiếc cái là không biết làm cách chi để có chim quay nhậu…

Giờ xin mời vào nhà. Phòng khách…

Bếp; khá đầy đủ tiện nghi. Chỉ có cái chén bát hợi thiếu thốn chút. Lúc nào ăn uống nhiều người thì xài chén dĩa tiện lợi, ăn xong dụt luôn…

Cận cảnh lương thực, thực phẩm. Hết tuần rồi nên trong tủ lạnh hơi vơi chút…

Còn đây là cái hành lang đi từ phòng khách vào phòng ngủ và tolet. Trên ảnh có chú thích phòng nào là phòng lào… 2 cái phòng kia chưa có ma mô thuê cả nên mình làm chủ vương quốc luôn. Khỏe!

Vào phòng tắm trước. Có 2 bồn rửa mặt, 1 ở trong tolet và 1 ở ngoài; rất thuận tiện khi có anh nào làm thơ buổi sáng trong tolet thì ngoài này người khác vẫn có thể đánh răng rửa mặt ok.

Cuối cùng là phòng ngủ…

Có cái TV mà chưa có TV box nên chưa dùng được. Dàn nhạc mới tậu, hoành tráng luôn. Đã test công lực, volume max… rung chuyển cả nhà… (khi anh chủ đi vắng).

Giường ngủ và bàn làm việc + thêm cái “tủ” (to hơn tử ở nhà, mở cửa đi vào trong được) đựng áo quần. Do áo quần ít quá nên dùng để đựng luôn đồ quý hiếm…

Và cuối cùng là con mercedes cưỡi đi cưỡi về hàng ngày…

Chúc mọi người vui vẻ!

Settle in – Housing

Hahah, it took much longer than I thought to be back here with the very first stories in San Antonio…

Alright, so you might know I travelled to Ohio for about a week right after I arrived in the US. Several times in that week, I called and talked to my “potential” roommate who is studying in UTSA too. He is an Indian guy that I found on craigslist San Antonio and we made a deal long time before I left Vietnam. He offered me a room for rent in his appartment and we planned to meet at the appartment on Aug 1st. Things seemed to be fine and no problem during 3 phone calls I gave him when I was travelling.

August 1st, we drove to San Antonio in early morning from Houston and arrived at the appartment at lunch time as planned. When I walked in, shaked the Indian guy’s hand and said hello, another guy showed up. Uh oh, that seemed like not a good sign. After showing me his dark, messy and curry smell space, he said “the room is not available until September 15 because I rented the room for this guy. But you can stay in my room until he moves out then you will have your room; I will charge you only half of the rent”. “EXCUSE ME ?!?!?!” . Man, he broke the deal and didnt even tell me a word earlier; I confirmed on the phone when I was in Ohio that the room would be ready on August 1st and he still said YES loud enough that I had no more question in my mind.

I got pretty mad, said no way and stepping out of the apartment. He clinging “whats the problem of sharing the room with me?”

“I NEED MY PERSONAL SPACE !!!!”

“If you want, I can ask that guy to move out now so you can have the room to move in”

Oh gosh, I couldnt believe that. if he could kick that guy out of the room right now then he would do same thing to me anytime he wants to. Not a person to trust…

I ordered a big Mac for lunch. the burger seemed to be harder to eat then. We tried to contact our friends in San Antonio over lunch with the hope of getting some hint about housing here. We finally got an option from our friend Pam. We figured out way to get there and from there to the campus right after lunch and we went back to meet the landlord and see the house. Its a nice 2 floors house; the landlord lives alone downstair (well, actually he has a son and a girlfriend come over and stay pretty often) and he rents the whole upstair that is 3 bedrooms, share 1 big bathroom, 1 living room and 1 kitchen. The place is clean, neat and quiet; about 2 miles away from the campus. Seeing a place like this right after the “heart broken” deal with the Idian guy, I said “Im gonna get it!”. So, I signed a 9 months lease.

Until now, Im still happy with this place. But these are some small things about my not very nice landlord:

1. The day I came to see the place, he advertised his house, spreading his arms and said “here is the living room, with BIG screen TV…”. it sounds like I was gonna be able to enjoy the TV. Then, the day I moved in, he said “I put a big TV here but if you wanna watch TV, you better get one and put in your room. cause if you use this one, and somebody will use it too and when its broken, you say you didnt break it, another one broke it and its gonna mess things up”. What??? thats ridiculous, isnt it? so why he leaves the TV in people’s rented space and let them have responsibilities on it while they cant touch it ?!?!

2. The landlord has washer and dryer downstair but doesnt let anybody use it. So mean. A small thing like washer and dryer became my biggest concern later. But thanks God, I finally found laundry facilities near my place after 2 weeks living in San Antonio; its about 2 miles away, 5-7 minutes biking; not too bad.

3. He advertised there is internet the day I came to see to house. Couple days after I moved in, still no internet. I figured out he has internet cable downstair and doesnt use wifi so he needs to contact AT&T to get the wifi password cause he forgot. On the 3rd day, he stepped up my room and asked ME to call AT&T. I said “you better talk to them cause I have no idea about your account information”. Then he asked “do you have your cell phone here?”. I said “uhmm, its on the table”. He picked my phone up, called AT&T and warmed the phone up for more than half an hour; finally got the password. Having internet and getting back with the whole world made me forget that he had used so many minutes on my phone.

4. The landlord usually shows up upstair. Obviously he has key to get upstair and I wonder he also has keys of the bedrooms. I saw him got upstair several times when I got back home from school. Well, he is not expected to be in people’s rented space and to me, he has nothing to do upstair.

I feel like the landlord is kinda taking advantage on people. Some of my friends might be right: “You dont want to be gentle in America”.

How the US is?

Recently, since I got here, in the US, friends have asked me “How is the US?”, “How are you liking the US?”, “What are the first impression on the US?”,… I haven’t had chance to fully answer friends but I appreciate everyone’s interest. And these are some first stories…

I remember the day I arrived in Houston, it was few degrees over 100oF (which is about 40oC). That’s called “hot” and as most of you guys know, its desert heat here so its very dry (to me, some people here still think that’s… humid). I only stayed in Houston for couple days but that’s long enough to recognize Houston is not a typical place for living. Things are pretty messy, tons of traffic and getting stuck in the jam for hours happens almost daily to people even though there are 4-5 layers overpass roads there. Houston has an area where lots Vietnamese people living and doing business. I heard about the big Viet community in Houston before I came here but still surprised when I was actually visiting it. All the Vietnamese signs, everyone speaks Vietnamese mostly in the South accent makes the feeling like “I was in Saigon”; Vietnamese food, Vietnamese music even running around and yelling to each other in very Vietnamese market style. Then, I realize some people were right when saying about Vietnamese people that “no need to know English when going to live in Houston”.

Life here is pretty indoor life. In the first days, I couldn’t recognize “what is what” from outside. My sensitivity of reading signs and recognizing buildings here from inside the car is still low but at least I could recognize some popular chain brand name now, after 2 weeks traveling around. Buildings in places that I ever been are spread out in big area cause America has so much land. This time of the year, air condition (AC) is everywhere, at home, in any building, in the cars, even in public restrooms; that might be why most of people here don’t really care about the over 100oF heat. They don’t really feel it or if they do, it would be just few seconds moving from buildings to cars and vice versa. I generally say “Global warming? Not in this AC country.” (some of you guys who are Hueans and Danang might find this sounds familiar . Im so amazed about how American society consumes energy and kinda sorry to see a wasteful America…

Leaving on the 3^rd day in the US for Ohio on a trip with beloved friends, I got a chance to pass Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. Its a looong drive and I was kinda… “are we there yet?”. I visited the Amish country in Ohio that is very interesting and full respect for the Amish philosophy. Some of you guys might already know the Amish life-style, stay as close to the nature as possible, refuse things from the modern life. Their life mostly base on farming, they use no electricity, just candle and oil lamp for light at night, no cell phones, no cars,… their transport are still carriage (horses). There is a small funny story when we were visiting a place calls Amish Heritage Centre; we had conversation about Amish people’s life style with 2 Amish men working there and in the middle of the conversation, one of them said “… but you know, I use GPS. My son bought a GPS for his car and he gave it to me when he left home”… Oh well… (by the way, GPS stands for Global Positioning System), that sounds super cool! cell phones are just losers.

I took lots of photos during the trip and you guys could check them out at my flickr account (there is the link on the right side bar of this page).

Got back Houston and had an awesome supper with great Vietnamese food, I had never been happier with rice and Vietnamese food like I was that day. Imagine one whole week eating sandwiches, burgers, French fried, cheese, fried food,… that’s really the first tough interesting challenge and experience to me in America. Somebody captured my freaking happy moment at the Vietnamese restaurant that night.

Alright, I don’t want to make this very long so you guys are not gonna come back and check my blog again. Im saving the apartment rent and settle in San Antonio stories for the next post.

Throw me your hugs!