...

So glad to talk to mom today on the phone. She made it to Vietnam okay and she sounded sane on the phone. Not too much devastating. She was so closed with my grandpa.
On the other hand, I'm glad that my dad decided to go with her, because I know how much my mom pretended to be strong from the outside, deep down inside she is so much weaker that she could imagine (sounds like mother like daughter).
I'm currently in the place where I cant get online that often.
Everything got taken care at home (sound like after a lot of fighting, they actually came to mutual agreement on putting my grandpa to his final resting place). When it comes to family, it's always complicated.
Due to my obligations, I'm still in Australia and will present my talk this afternoon, at the same time with the funeral for my grandpa. I will do best on this presentation for him. I know he would forgive me for being so far away on this day.
It has been a saddest week for me... 

Rest in peace, grandpa...

<3

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

(this is not a moment for me to fall apart)

Australia (day 3): Port Douglas

The room was cold so I turned on the heater. I woke up because of the jetlag, I was so hungry because I didn’t have any dinner and mostly because I can’t breathe anymore. Cant fall back to sleep so I decided to make some coffee and stayed up.

We went to breakfast at sometimes around 7am, met some big shot ppl like the guy at Boulder, Colorado who is working with Obama (:-S), met the organizer of the conference.

We decided that we took a walk to 4 miles beach to Port Douglas village. Boyz, I’m telling you. I’ve been to Florida beach, California beach, Nha Trang beach, Da Nang beach, but this place is amazing, you would fall in love with it the first time you see it (like I did). The walk to town was absolutely perfect; I took my feet off just to put my feet in the water. It didn’t even smell like sea at all.

We went to town to get some grocery, I bought a hat and a short and a beach hat for me because I didn’t pack any (since I thought it’s going to be winter in Australia, but the place is warm enough and the water temperature is 22*C.

It’s Sunday in Australia so they have a little market at the town village. We took the rail road back to the resort and it was hot outside.

After taking a litter rest, we went down to the pool where I wore my 2 pieces (my shirt and my short) deep my feet in the water. Listen to some music and read “Chuyen tinh paris”.

After finished resister for the conference, Tim and I realized that my Hot topic presentation would be with some big shot ppl. Wow the pressure is on me to give the best talk. I don’t want to embarrass Tim in front of those ppl right?

It’s good until tomorrow, I still have to figure out what I want to do tmr afternoon yet. We will see what happen. 

(I will update the pic later)

Australia (day 1 and 2): The travel has begun.

After a good practice on my presentation, we left the lab sometimes in the afternoon to go home and get ready for the trip. We were supposed to meet at the gate at the airport to fly to LA. Our flight didn’t leave until 6h50 and unlike other trip which I always plan myself at the airport right before the plane leave, this time I got to the airport early. The flight to LA is short and sweet as always.

The flight traffic in LA is crazy, we didn’t fly out of terminal 5 like usually, we flew out of terminal 3 with V Australia, somehow the seat assignment got so screwed up so I ended up sitting in row 38 (still an aisle which my favorites). I felt to sleep right before the plane departed, and woke up 8 hours later, finished watching a movie I started before falling to sleep and felt to sleep again while watching a second. I had good 12 hours of sleep.

We got into Sydney airport 6h30am in the morning. Sydney airport was crazy crowded since the plane from LA to Melbourne deferred landing to Sydney because some fogging situation. Custom was easy but baggage claims was very confusing. We transferred our bags to Virgin Australia and then on the bus to go to Domestic terminal.

We didn’t plan the trip so well and we thought the customs could take longer than that so the next plane didn’t leave until 2pm. We spent half of the day in the airport, where we got some currency exchange for Tim and Teresa, got some SIM Card for me to call my best friend in Melbourne.

1^st impression of Australia that everything is more expensive than in America, I eat some noodles for breakfast and some tempura udon for lunch (which I paid about 15.50 and 12 Aud respectively). I like to eat some noodles soup when I’m a long journey because It helps me recovery fast.

We finally boarded around 2h15pm and for the whole time Tim blamed himself for not planning the trip so well. We got to Cairns around 6pm. The whole area is like Mexico, Florida, and California combination. 1^st impression would be ppl here drove on the right side so the bus driver has to correct us that we should get on the van from the left but not on the right. Since we got to Cairns a little bit later during the day, so we missed out the beautiful drive from Cairns to Port Douglas, but I can tell that the place is beautiful. The bus driver was from New Zealand who retired at his 40. Now, he set up the bus driving business from Cairns to Port Douglas and only work for the peak season which is like now. My impression of him is he talks too much (seriously, if I complain that he talks too much, he definitely is talking too much)

We got to our resort a little bit after 8pm. After getting our room, we deadly tired after 2 days of traveling from the States to Port Douglas. Our eyes can’t be opened so we took a little shower and went straight to bed. They give us a really nice apartment (suite) with Tim and Teresa on the big room and I’m on a shared bed room with some other. The suite has burner, stove, and microwave and dish washer. That was a pretty good deal for just 60$/day. The suite is at the back of the resort where I can sit at the balcony and look to the forest.

...

 Có những ngày bỗng gió

21/7- 29/4

Nghe mãi bài "Cơn bão nghiêng đêm" có một câu mà cứ nghe đến lại thấy chống chếnh... 

"Ta đã yêu nhau, để mãi bên nhau cơ mà" 

Lời câu hát như vừa trách cứ, vừa giận hờn, vừa níu kéo...

Mình chả còn giận, chả còn trách cứ, chả còn hờn, chả còn níu kéo....Chỉ là đôi khi thấy chênh vênh, đôi khi thấy chống chếnh vì những chuyện đã qua.

Đã từng có một lúc nào đấy mình đã từng nhiều lần nói ước gì... Quyển sổ hồng đã từng đẫm nước mắt... nhưng nước mắt nào rồi cũng khô chỉ còn lại là ánh mắt thôi đã hết trong veo như mùa cũ... Mọi việc cứ đến và cứ đi như tất lẽ dĩ ngẫu nó phải thế... Vạn sự như khách, tự đến tự đi....

Hội ngộ rồi sẽ chia xa... cuộc đời là thế... 

Chỉ là thấy chống chếnh... nhất là ngày như ngày hôm nay...