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[nahtundleh]

A newly found pleasure

Remember that day I woke up at 5 trying to catch the sunrise? You asked if it were successul, and I said very. Not only that I got a pleasant walk on the beach and scratched legs from climbing the inflatable house, I also had the best swim that morning. Not at the beach though but at the hotel's swimming pool. An infinity pool merges with the horizon of Ha Long Bay, and when your eyes are just above the surface, you would see a roller coaster vroof through the peak.

Drawing not on scale.

Do you know there are 2 things I love dearly? One is the blue color of the sky, and another is the dappled golden sun light casted on things. And that swimming pool offers me both of those. First time I swim outdoor in the morning, and also first swim since eye operation - now I can see everything underwater ultraclear.

There's an unmatched serenity in swimming through the pristine, blue pool, where the water sparkles like a gem beneath the sun's warm brace. As I glide through the water, the gentle ripples created by the movements catch the sunlight, sending the shimmering patterns of light dancing across the surface and the pool floor. When I hold my breath for a bit then everything goes quiet, I feel completely submerged in the cool water and bewitched by the rhymthic play of sunbeams refracting through the crystal-clear depth, creating a mesmerizing ballet of light and shadow. No one else's there; the world slips away, leaving only a sanctuary of tranquil blue and sunlight waves.

First time I could swim 20 minutes straight, or even more as I dont have a watch to time. Normally only 10 minutes I would already max out my breath and bored to deathhhh in the dark blurry water.

All was so nice, and I don't want to forget this.

Image courtesy of the internet, even though the underwater I saw was 1000% much better and the feeling was surreal, but because I'm a visual learner I think its best to have an image to describe something.

[nahtundleh]

A happy breakfast

Let me jot this down quickly before I start delaying like every other single idea (Side note: still could not finish this draft within that day, end up delaying till 3 months later :embarrassed monkey icon:).

This morning I woke up early, washed face brushed teeth got dressed, all nice and cozy then quickly got out of the hotel and jotted down the street. Bangkok's morning air still crystal clear, the city center not yet filled with traffic and tourists, full of street-side vendors selling all sorts of warm breakfasts stacked neatly in small carts. Their customers were office workers in white shirts and navy trousers or pencil skirts, making a quick stop before rushing their way to MRT or the glassed offices.

I could feel joy in my heart when I smilingly passed by these strangers, knowing that I'm coming for my most favorite coffee shop in the entire world.

Around this time last year, I also got to attend a meeting in Bangkok. My first time officially in Bangkok (if you don't count a handful of too-short 2-hour visit during flight transits before). The nature of my job got me to go abroad frequently, but I dont get to travel a lot. I mean the real travel-travel, where you can inhale fully the daily life of the place and the people.

Surrounded by skyscappers and skywalks and sky trains, I can hardly picture Bangkok clearly in my head. That's why I keep telling people that I know nothing about Bangkok and Thailand despite my one-week stay in 2023. Except for this one good memory.

And today i get to re-enjoy that memory. Of going into this nice cozy cafe shop. Ordered a long black, some toasted sourdough, paired with tomato butter. ROASTED TOMATO BUTTER! The reason I need to come back to this cafe so bad and the amazing thing I will tell everyone about (hence I'm telling you now). Almost cry with this chunky but so so creamy melt-in-the-mouth tomato-y sour-y butter.

2023 vs 2024 - at almost exact table. Price for egg went up 20%.

And yet, also this morning during my walk from this unforgettable breakfast back to reality aka my lengthy tedious meetings, somehow I sensed that, other than the tomato butter, something else excited me. Normally my work trips involve at least group of 3, sometimes can go up to 15-16 people. I realise that this positive energy is never there when I'm with other people. So what is this excitement? Can it be freedom of choices, of released pressure from meeting other people's need, of breaking free from having to think of what to eat with people whom I hardly converse with, of personal me time that I can do whatever I want? By the time I arrived to the meeting venue, I reached to the conclusion I'm more and more comfortable being on my own, and now I'm unsure if that idea is assuring or worrisome.

Funny how I can nâng cao quan điểm from just a simple happy breakfast like this, but this is what I've been doing more recently - introspecting every little details of my life (due to increasing amount of alone time??). This above thought strikes me with surprise, and I still need to think more of why. Anyway, main point still is, I enjoy that breakfast so much and I always feel like sharing what I enjoy most with someone who, hopefully, can understand just a tiny bit of that excitement.

[nahtundleh]

Today I listened to beabadoobee's Beatopia, not only because I heard about her from your shared story but also I remembered I got a recommendation from awhile ago. And it was so booooriinng. I mean it was good music and fits for a background sound of many activities, but listen to a whole thing is not for me picking a random song and running with the autoplay playlist. I've been listening to more music lately and often I don't know what I want to listen to. The recommendation from youtube music is honestly not bad, but sometimes I also don't want to discover new music and would enjoy more of what I liked already.

So I was thinking about what I can listen to no matter the situation is. And the answer for that lately has been Muse and Regina Spektor.

Aaaaand like a month later, I finally got to finish this: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnlDIUPxIzpsp7ZprUrRttIMJhKA1Q9Q1

I don't know exactly how to feel as this is both familiar and powering to my run today. And it was short, because I am weak and can't go for too far. But the hope is that things will get better and I will go further. Unlike the last song from that album from Vampire Weekend you sent me earlier. Somehow that song got stuck in my head for quite awhile (maybe because it was a bit less different than the rest, if that makes sense?).

[nahtundleh]

(26/30) Outside

Photo date: around October of 2022.

I don't remember why I stopped. The draft is still here. Maybe I was saving this one for the other prompt, which is "28. Autumn colors". Still, this is a nice photo of autumn outside. I was riding around on that bicycle with my roommate. I don't remember how I felt, but right now looking at this makes me looking at the old posts. Some of them were so spontaneous and carefree. Maybe then I just worried myself too much to put up something cool, or maybe I just wanted to not think about you anymore. Just stop. Change myself. Forget. Let it drift away. I don't know if I did any of those things. I really don't remember what happened first half of last year 2023. And again, maybe it was so not important to me that I don't bother to miss. But when I sit here and think about this I am imagining that this was a turning point for me: When I lost belief in myself. I think I burnt too much energy and focus right then that afterwards all I thought about was how I failed myself (even in that challenge I made up) and how I kept doubting my goals and my movements forward. It was so strange back then, and I'm also feeling so strange right now: I just want to put up some words. I'm worrying that my words would be nonsensical for you, but the release of just putting something up once again outweight the anxiety.

If you ever take a look at the drafts, there was a short time where I kept a note of my thoughts at the end of last year, right before I message you again. I deleted the draft but still know where I kept the text. I haven't taken a look at that text because I think it was such a toxic mindset at that time to myself that it was best kept in a distant memory like this. But I think keeping up a positive facade is just as damaging to the mind. And so I want to open myself here once again.

I am going to write once a week. It would be just 50 posts a year - a hopeful side of me says it wouldn't be that hard. But I know there will be time when I'm down and busy and angry and hateful and apathetic and scared and running away and then I will just stop. I don't know what to do but hope that you would help me overcome those days. I need to be reeinforced that my openess bring about some positivity to you. This is our safe space after all, I hope. Please let me be selfish and greedy enough that I wouldn't overthink if you'll be better off without me or not. Please let me have this blog just for own self to remind me of my good times and not of the self-hurting thoughts from your non-signals. Again, it's not you, it's just me hurting myself ever overthinking about ourselves. Let me have the strength to ask for your feelings and your attention. And be confident on the day when you decide to leave me behind.

And please, just post anything, tiếng việt cũng đc mà :). Any length, any photos, any music, any thoughts, any books... And ask for a prompt if you need one. For me it's the same cycle over again. And I always begin by being infatuated. And what about you? Will you ever let me in or will you let it go down the same path as before?

[nahtundleh]

Let's make 2024 a less stagnant year for ourselves, shall we?

Let me put some sense to this title. *Small surprise if you ever scroll down again*

I wonder what your first thought was when you read that question? ‘what is stagnant? Stagnant in what?’ For me, I guess I meant 2 completely different things. Today I will deal with the first thought, and the other major thought will be explained in another time.

I love this place. Love the idea of somewhere only two people know. Sometimes when a day got difficult, I would type in this short address and just a quick glance at the words could already wrap a blanket of comfort around my shoulder. And that was enough for me. Scrolled through the posts, then closed the tab. No further thought or action. Perhaps just the thought that out there exists a person who still thinks of me now and then already gave me the sense of security I need. Another perhaps is that, surprisingly, that person also shares some common dismal moods and struggles the same struggles, and what can be a better feeling than the feeling that you’re not alone on the road. 

And I’m sorry that you didn’t have the luxury of that security in the past year. I’m sorry I took your writings for granted. I know I haven’t written anything in such a long, long, long time. I always feel like I need to write back, and I have fragments of what I planned to say, sentences here and there, on notes of my phones, in text messages sent to myself and on post-it notes in my laptop. But I never got past of my sức ì, and then in a blink of an eye, a whole life has passed.

And now, come to think carefully, I know that even if I wrote anything back it would not be anything you looked for. Because I didn’t fully understand what you meant until we met again this time.

I guess I could not really register the idea that you, out of anyone, you, would develop a strong feeling for me.

To me you have always been the image of a boy in the white uniform shirt with a green bag across the shoulder, the classmate with whom I would change from bus to bus to be appeared as coincidentally on the same one. The guy who made my favorite color purple, who started my obsession with rooftop and starred sky, who I would sometimes sneakily glance at and catch a glance back. The blurred image of this boy always in the back of my head whenever we briefly crossed path in highschool, then uni, then life moved on. My brain was wiped out, so sorry if I can’t recall any real memories during those years... So my leftover impression of you throughout this whole time is only that we always have the weirdest interactions ever and somehow I let it be like that and never try to make any sense out of the untold.

As our lives have drifted so far apart, I thought that, to each other we were someone who we could suddenly think of, then smile a bright smile, for no reason (or the reason is that all the good past memories, even though long forgotten, have built up many little happy brain cells, which will be triggered immediately just on the mere thought of that person’s name), wonder how they do with life, if they would also like that silly thing we just saw, and then move on with our own life. That’s it. That’s my assumption.

And maybe that’s all I need. I prefer to stay in the unknown, let the mind freely fill in all the gaps.

The best thing I learned last year from the internet is the word ‘projection’. When I first saw that term, it’s like an awakening, an ahhhh ha moment. Just a simple word but explains so much of all human behavior, mine included. To see people as a perfect version, rose-colored glasses. To put our needs and desires onto them. To imagine them possessing the fulfillment or happiness we seek.

Admit it, we don’t know each other.

I to you and you to me, two acquaintances**. We're no longer two little daydreaming kids but now two adults adulting. We hide behind these words. Maybe what we’re yearning for is not the person in particular, but a feeling. An emotion. The high of a fantasy. The mystery of something promising. That’s what the unknown does to us.

I'm a person full of obsessions, and I think after years of obsessing, I kinda understand how it works now. To me, obsession only happens when someone or something is unavailable to me. 'If someone is truly with you physically, emotionally, and intellectually, then there is no room for obsession to come in' (quote from internet). So if I'm obsessed, maybe it is because I'm obsessed with the version I created in my mind as I don't get to know them in reality. And perhaps I don't even really want them, I simply want to them to want me. And the obsession will fade away when I get the thing. Biggest lesson here, is I've learned to manage my expectation.

So don’t put me on a pedestal. People are equally broken and imperfect. Let me share some real part of me to you. And you can say any silly things to me, I'd love to hear/read them. Yes this is a safe space, no matter what the future holds against us.

(**Disclaimer: This draft had been somewhat outlined in my head the day I typed the title. So it’s been a month. More things have happened. We talked more, conversing like 2 normal people. Now I have a clearer picture of you in my head. We are fulfilling the title. I think both of us still don’t really know exactly what the heck is going on, what to do, what else to say and what there to feel. But I guess that doesn’t really matter. What matters more is trying to make a good grilled cheese and omelet. Life is just a video game, and now it’s getting to difficult level. If you need some motivation, I will try to give you a little push, like the way seaweed seasoning sprinkled to steamed rice. Make the meal taste extra good.)

I’m probably rambling right now because actually I don’t really know what’s the main point I want to say to you lol.

Okay I will end this here.. no conclusion..  

Can wait for part 2, but fair warning totally unrelated to this post, cuz I already exhausted all what I have in mind.

[nahtundleh]

Just a quick one since I've just found out about this song at 4am and could not calm myself down to not share it with someone. The thing is I was always in awed with Ly's songs, but I found most of her original music to be pretty difficult to get into. I think one of her more popular song is "Đôi Bờ", but that was a cover song with original also a translation from an Italian song called "Che Sara". You know, this is how my mind keeps me up at night.

But it goes deeper than that. "Đôi Bờ" was introduced to me as an sampled track for a rap track from DSK, which was one of my favorites from an earlier time. I think the music from these two cannot be more different from one another, and I wondered if these two will ever meet and actually sing that track together. Then I kept telling myself these weird kind of stories and connections and I wanted to keep this just somewhere for the future me, so here we are. Time to sleep. Have a nice day.

[nahtundleh]

(25/30) Favorite childhood memory

I can't focus on writing anything since the last one. September ended a while ago, and into October i just kind of slipped. I want to finish the challenge, but I just accepted the fact the month ended and I can try finish whenever I would do. Combine with the fact that the topic is also giving me a hard time. And also that I've just sold my phone and the new one haven't come yet, and I have nothing to take photos with. Just reasons to forever procrastinate.

Whenever thinking of me as a child I just see my dumb self with all of the bad decisions. And my entire childhood is my favorite when I have no worries for the consequences. I can't think right away of any specific moment, except for those that include you, that I value so much as my favorite. You were a part of my childhood too, but I don't want to talk about you very much anymore. And what's left was some carefree stupid running-around boy who was interested in everything but never excelled at one. Maybe I'm still the same child, never grown up yet.

September has ended. This challenge should end soon, I want to try.

[nahtundleh]

(24/30) Around me

A corner near my apartment. My window is there. My colleague calls this neighborhood a failure of integration. Sound serious, but it's that the street near there is full of foreigners. I am not so sure where they came from, but I think mostly from the balkan region, the southeastern most of europe near turkey. They for sure don't speak German, and don't look western European. The colleague reasoned that they failed to integrate and formed there own community speaking their own languages. It's very different from other streets. There are many small places in which they play cards or some gambling game I cannot understand by just glancing in. These places are masked as cafes or hobby clubs but they are always closed tight. It's curious. And people just hang about in the walkway. The pavement is always full in the afternoon with people just standing there. I don't feel that uncomfortable walking around there, and they wouldn't also bother me. But I would also feel a bit foreign. A different kind of foreign than with the indigenous German.

Example: Look at that croquet shop under my apartment. It has all kinds of French decoration. But after talking to them a few times I'm like 90% sure they are not French, and don't even speak any French. I think they are Turkish, with their habits of smoking hookah out in the street corner late in the evening.

[nahtundleh]

(23/30) A place I like to live

I know dreamers who already have their place to strive for. I am not one of those kinds, never imagine how my ideal place would be. Now thinking about it, maybe I would like to live more on the outskirt of the city than inside one. Near some water, but not the sea. I still like living in an apartment, a small one is fine since it helps me not hoarding all the unnecessary things. I like a balcony, as large as it can be. The bedroom can be small also. I want a separate work room as well, with long tables but not too large. I just need one to put my PC, but maybe another as a workbench is cool. I'm not yet a creator but maybe I can try making stuff and messing up with tools if I have a place for them. I also like a kitchen that is not too large. I hate those cooking videos (especially the chinese) where they have a little machines for everything. The kitchen can be connected to a living room with sofas and stuffs for others to hang around. I also like hanging stuffs on the wall, all the things in my workplace and things in the kitchen as well. The bathroom can be whatever, I never like taking bath more than shower.

And that would be some glance of a place to live by myself. A spacious (two?) bedroom apartment with balcony on the outskirt of the city. Maybe that wouldn't sound too hard to work for. But maybe I would never have the right time to find one. You know, with growing up and being responsible with working and starting a family. Now I don't know what to think anymore, so what about you?

[nahtundleh]

(22/30) Favorite recipe

I tried to make some Japanese curry today but somehow today everything became so tight I haven't got time to finish it. I want to keep a schedule too, and don't want to eat a huge curry dish so late, so it would be for tomorrow. Maybe I will also you that real favorite recipe of mine.

So I ended up making my usual breakfast for dinner, since earlier today for breakfast I've had fried rice and it was too much. I think I have some problem with portioning recently. After all I wasn't feeling that hungry tonight. I told you I've been trying to make some good omlette, and I can swear that the other day I made a pretty good one which is really smooth on the outside. But I haven't been brave enough to make it runny, and I think it's it better so with these eggs I bought. Anyway I usually topped it with some toasts and salads like some cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes go very well with omelette and toast! But I ran out of them just yesterday. So if you need something to try to cook maybe practice some omelette. Just an extra thing to wake up to in the morning.

[nahtundleh]

(21/30) Best Complement you have received

I think the list meant "compliment" as in nice things others say about me. But it made a common mistake of "i" and "e", and I don't like compliments that much. I felt like many of them are not that... validated, you know. And thus I don't want to think about compliment, so I will take the prompt as it was written down, "complement" as in an improvement I've made to myself.

I think the best thing I've learnt over the year is mathematics, albeit I'm never very good at it. But when thinking about it, math has helped a lot in shaping me. It's not just the mathematical rules and the results that matters, but the way to solve problems that can be applied in many other aspects, that I have carried with me until now. I mean, being somewhat decent at math helps me understand it a bit more, and as just an enthusiast, math can be interesting. It is like a game with rules and people trying to play by the rules and somehow things are connected by seemingly irrelevant rules. And it helps sparks my interest in science too, you know, the process of working things out and trying to get consistent results. Math was for me about correctness, consistency, and to some extend competitiveness. And I was not good at all of these, but somehow trying to excel at it a least helped increasing those stats of me. And it helps me know some of the most wonderful people too, who I think are in the core very similar. They are smart, and achieving, and can talk in ways that interests me a lot. Maybe it's just that we have the same problems, and that we never talk about our problems but our first instinct is to work out the solution. Or maybe it's that we are more connected with things and rules than with people. Correctness and consistency. And winning means someone else is losing. It's weird. I'm weird, and I think I'm okay with this weirdness of mine.

[nahtundleh]

(20/30) Vintage

The other day a friend told me about a teambuilding activity at her work. She was told to bring the most useless thing in her house. We both agreed that we are the hoarder kind and should not find anything not useful in the house. Even the broken things, I always think I can somehow fix them (but never actually do). It is a problem for me, keeping actual useless things in my room. It's less of a problem when I'm renting and still don't have yet a stable place. But sometimes I still have to encourage myself to spend some time sorting things out. Either try to sell it online or throw it away. Can't have too much everything everywhere.

So back to the topic. What is vintage anyway? In my mind it is supposed to be something old but still valuable? So I can't find anything valuable and cool enough, so I went for the most invaluable thing possible in the house. This radio belongs to my flatmate and it just took space there. It is quite useless. In Germany there are still many radio stations, since we as residents have to pay a fee to the government call 'radio and tv fee'. I and my flatmate keep the radio at the music station, which broadcasts music non-stop. I mean just songs after songs. There is like only a quick sentence inbetween three songs in a row. And they can be anything from old school rock to modern pop. I think there is a schedule but I never bother to find out. But after turning it on for like fifteen minutes, we both agree that sometimes random music would just be distracting and annoying and we would rather listen to our own music instead. The radio works perfectly as it supposedly does, but it just doesn't fit our needs and just doesn't got turned on very much. It now blends in with the microwave behind and would be left there till the next time we need a place for another thing.

[nahtundleh]

(19/30) Outfit of the day

That was me on the left two years ago, in the middle of the pandemic at my city. My friend in the middle sent me this yesterday. I've kept the same outfit for the last few seasons also. I'm not comfortable with fashion and never know what to put on. When I'm at the store I just want to buy everything, but always think that nothing is worth it. And I'm still not sure how much to spend on clothing. I want a new coat, some new pants, a new sweatshirt maybe? Yeah you see the topic is very draining for me so let leave it at that.

[nahtundleh]

(18/30) Your to-do list

My todo list consists of calling the bank, sending the school some documents, and looking around for a new contract for my cellular. But they are all boring, and of course they are still to-dos since I haven't done any of them. I felt so uninspired. I want to make some little more money but don't really know how to. A stuck feeling sometimes.

But to forget about my worries I chose to go outside instead. And today I notice some marking on the tracks in the park. These yellow arrows are everywhere. I'm not sure what they meant, maybe they are just there for some park races. I walked along some of them today but didn't figure out the whole course. If there is one, the whole course is huge too, at least for a 10k run. So next time I would need to bring my bike, just need to pay attention not to miss any of these.

[nahtundleh]

(17/30) Weather

Oh, the good old conversation topic of weather. Everyone can talk about the weather. So first of all, how is the weather today at your place? Today is looking pretty good at mine. It was sunny in the morning but got cloudy now in the afternoon. I think it's going to rain tomorrow as well. So I'm trying to get out some more today, maybe run a little bit.

It rains a lot in my city. One thing I hate about it. It rains all year from summer to winter, and sometimes it drizzles the whole day like in Vietnam. One more inconvenient is that the forecast in Hamburg is terrible. I can remember the forcast in my old city as decently accurate, at least I could trust if it said it was going to rain, for example. Here often the forecast is like fifteen minutes behind the actual weather, as if someone looks at the sky and said "um, it starts to rain now so let's put it's raining outside on the app". And also more often it never rains when the forecast said it would, as an other example.

Some people say that Hamburg is one of the better city in Germany. This city is huge so yeah that can be true, since some corner of this city can be special. And some other cities I've visited can have terrible weather too, especially in the north. But I can say after living here for quite a while that the weather can definitely be better some other places.

[nahtundleh]

(16/30) Black and white

I don't have much to say today since I've been incredibly lazy. I was sleeping all day and also struggled to maintain myself. I don't know. Maybe I just needed a rest day. Recently I have also tried to start some games but for some reason I couldn't get in the mood. I just wanted to relax by myself. Movies and TV shows I found too passive. But I have just started The Long Dark and it looked promising. So I guess let's just end this uninspiring day.

And one again I haven't look ahead on the challenges list. I think the last photo fits this prompt more, and because of today I couldn't find something 'cool' with the theme black and white. But look, someone forgot to turn off the lights of the staircase in the building across the street. Do you know that the electricity is getting more expensive at my place? All because of these government workers and their wastefulness (not like I've never forgotten to turn off things anywhere).

[nahtundleh]

(15/30) Home, definition

One perk of living alone is sometimes I can walk around naked without any clothes. I have not been doing that for quite a while since moving from the other city where I lived by myself after she had left. Now that my flatmate is in Hanoi, well...

I don't know how to define 'home', and is also not good at defining things. Maybe it's the place where I feel most comfortable by myself without having to interact with others. It's where I'm laziest. It's my space which is so messy with everything at everywhere. And until recently, I think my home is where I feel responsible for hosting other friends and making them comfortable visiting me.

The photo is me with the guy that got covid a day after. It was taken my a mutual friend of me and my flatmate visiting over the weekend and sleeping in my flatmate's room. It was a weird weekend, but anyhow when in the city she just bought that old-timer camera on the online flea market and took this photo in my kitchen. I looked weird, too, but I think it was nice. Felt like how our parents used to record thing. And when thinking about this topic, I was thinking about this photo because I just think to myself "yeah, I could definitely call this corner a part of my home".