My OperaJe t'aime aussi - You bring me on top of the world
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:02:00 PM
It was the most fantastic moment of my life. To tell the truth, I did not have the least hope for things to turn out that way. There has been a lot going recently, and today I truly came to discover the true story.
For the last 2 days she had been quite erratic, for I could not claim with the least certainty what had been preying on her mind and heart. She simply sat there, her face cold, focusing on the lessons with no sign of interest. She did not bother to throw even a glance at me. I was at an utter loss to figure out what was going on. Apparently, she cut me dead. But it did not count much. The way things went today kissed away all trouble and strain.
As everyone knows, today is the VN women's Day. On such occasion, I should always like to make a present for someone special. Since the actual date had slipped my mind, I did not have enough time to produce something impressive, like a toothpick-made house for example. So, I took the plunge and decided to do something... linguistic. Poetic and inspiring writing has been close to my for a long time. And for this one occasion, I would break new ground and take up a challenge never to have confronted before, to devise an acrostic.
***
I have been on friendly terms with her for more than a year now, but in actual fact I barely know her enough. So for recent weeks I have caught myself occasionally driving a hard thought as to how to get to know her better. And the solution sprung to mind one day when I was writing my blog. I have blog, why should she not have one of her own?
So, there I went. Typing xudunguyen onto the Google, certain curious information surfaced. I paid a visit to her blog, but in it there were but blanks. It was kind of disappointing, for the supposedly richest source of personal information slipped through the fingers.
I therefore lost part of my heart, and the search was put on ice. Recently I have signed up an account at opera.com to make up another blog dedicated to the English language. And after posting several pieces of writing up there, I did what I had done in the previous paragraph a second time, and much to my surprise, her name came up again. My collar strated to get hot, pushing me to click on the link immediately. But fortune did not seem to smile upon me. There was no blog section at her account. She posted a picture, possibly of hers, as it was not clear enough for me, as well as some background information. I really fell from the cloud. But as I was navigating away from the website, I noticed a sign reading JUNE Nat the right top corner of her page. June N, what is it? My mind rushed into thought, with the view to making out what the phrase meant.
After half an hour, I got the answer for myself. June: her month of birth; N: her surname initial. That was innovative. I really admired her witty choice. And that phrase lingered on my brain until yesterday morning, when it landed a chance to come into its own.
As I was sitting on a bench at the IT center of my university, a thought suddenly struck me: tomorrow (today) would be the Vietnam Women's Day. I had such a bad memories for national celebrations that more often than not it had flung me into much of a bind. The only thing which domiated my thinking at that moment was that I was dead stuck. There was no time left. I would not be able to do something nice for her. Roses were out of the question for they were thick on the ground out there. You pay the money, you get your roses. My philosophy has always been: peculiarity is the best policy. My presents are to be highly individual and must not be found else where. Normally I would make a nice little toothpick-made house, but since time had already run out, this was pie in the sky also.
And all of a sudden the life-saving idea flashed across my head: to create an acrostic of the phrase JUNE N.
Why not? Though not surely an old hand in this field, I forwarded to tip my toe in the water. I felt keyed up about this since I had never actually had even half the mind to doing anything like this. But I had to give it my best shot. I began to draw the plan, and things were sketched to go this way in the first place:
1. Forming a mind map of JUNE's charater traits.
2. Choosing the right to fit in the acrostic.
3. Establish a strong skeleton in order to put these notions effectively into writing.
4. Commence the actual wording process.
5. Decorate the finished work.
6. Print it out.
7. Approach JUNE and take her aback by this effort-consuming present.
It all sounded a piece of cake in the beginning. But when it came to the actual writing, the deceptive bed of roses revealed itself to be a minefield of big bugs. I was almost lost to know how to begin and how to stick things together. The intended piece of work had more or less 15 pages, with a meticulous analysis of the acrostic as well as some further reading to chew on. But after working until 9:00 this morning, I had to give up. The deadline was too close to be met. Hence, things experience a change of course.
Since the chance of a fairly huge item of work being successfully composed got out the window, my best bet to salvage the situation was to do something less 'impressive'. So, as I claimed somewhere above, poetic writing has always been close to my heart, and in this case it offered great help.
Putting aside the impossible, I beavered away at the new task, trying to condense everything into 2 pages only. After a process of left-right neuron chitchat, I came up with this idea: one page will present the acrostic, the other will describe it in the form of several separated comments on each letter. I was not quite sure what it was going to look like, but first and foremost, the content had to be there.
So for each letter I wrote 2 funny comments with rhyme so as to nail them onto the mind more tightly. Merely 1 hour afterward I got everything ready for the decoration. Believe it or not, 'drawing' is what I cannot do to save my life. I don't seem to be born with aesthetic eyes; so the concluding process happened to be the toughest one. But anyway, I simply did the way I thought would look nice. That was that, my present was there waiting for its time to go.
It was 11:00 am. In less than 2 hours, I would be meeting JUNE.
***
After taking a brief nap I took to school to make sure I could meet her before the class began. I parked my bike and got upstairs. Butterflies abound in my stomach. Taking a deep breath, I sent an SMS message to June, querying whether I could see her. And 5 minutes later the familiar figure appeared. I was so much on edge that I could not articulate as finely as usual. In actual fact, I expected this encounter to be a heart-breaking because of the situation I depicted at the beginning of this article. But God blessed me. It turned out that, she was over the moon to see the present.
I could tell she truly loved it from the smile upon her lips. We did not say much for nearly 5 minutes, just to indulge in the joy of the moment. I never nurtured the wishful thinking that she should be in seventh heaven. I was basically struck dumb. I cannot recall what actually came out of my mouth at that instant, but there was one thing I would never forget - one thing I had yearned for for so long a time that had really come true like a light out of the blue.
"Je t'aime". That was the first French sentence she taught. Yes, it was "Je t'aime". I was not aware of the meaning after repeating the phrase the 1st time. I said "Je t'aime" to her, and she replied "Je t'aime aussi". Can you guess what that means?
"I love you" - "I love you too".
Very truly I tell you, I could not believe my ears. The very hearing receptors seemed to be kidding with me. It was just surprising, unexpected. A strange feeling started to run down my veins, keeping a smile upon my face for nearly 2 hours, steering me away from my seat the whole class-time. I bet I looked like a mad guy, chuckling to myself uncontrollably. I was really on top of the world. It was the first time I had had such an experience. It had never felt so strong. It had never been the same.
That was it - a scarlet-letter day. I don't know what the future may bring, but for the time being I will follow my heart. However, I should tread carefully this time, not to fall flat on my face again. Study still receives top priority. Take it easy; it will be easy.
For the last 2 days she had been quite erratic, for I could not claim with the least certainty what had been preying on her mind and heart. She simply sat there, her face cold, focusing on the lessons with no sign of interest. She did not bother to throw even a glance at me. I was at an utter loss to figure out what was going on. Apparently, she cut me dead. But it did not count much. The way things went today kissed away all trouble and strain.
As everyone knows, today is the VN women's Day. On such occasion, I should always like to make a present for someone special. Since the actual date had slipped my mind, I did not have enough time to produce something impressive, like a toothpick-made house for example. So, I took the plunge and decided to do something... linguistic. Poetic and inspiring writing has been close to my for a long time. And for this one occasion, I would break new ground and take up a challenge never to have confronted before, to devise an acrostic.
***
I have been on friendly terms with her for more than a year now, but in actual fact I barely know her enough. So for recent weeks I have caught myself occasionally driving a hard thought as to how to get to know her better. And the solution sprung to mind one day when I was writing my blog. I have blog, why should she not have one of her own?
So, there I went. Typing xudunguyen onto the Google, certain curious information surfaced. I paid a visit to her blog, but in it there were but blanks. It was kind of disappointing, for the supposedly richest source of personal information slipped through the fingers.
I therefore lost part of my heart, and the search was put on ice. Recently I have signed up an account at opera.com to make up another blog dedicated to the English language. And after posting several pieces of writing up there, I did what I had done in the previous paragraph a second time, and much to my surprise, her name came up again. My collar strated to get hot, pushing me to click on the link immediately. But fortune did not seem to smile upon me. There was no blog section at her account. She posted a picture, possibly of hers, as it was not clear enough for me, as well as some background information. I really fell from the cloud. But as I was navigating away from the website, I noticed a sign reading JUNE Nat the right top corner of her page. June N, what is it? My mind rushed into thought, with the view to making out what the phrase meant.
After half an hour, I got the answer for myself. June: her month of birth; N: her surname initial. That was innovative. I really admired her witty choice. And that phrase lingered on my brain until yesterday morning, when it landed a chance to come into its own.
As I was sitting on a bench at the IT center of my university, a thought suddenly struck me: tomorrow (today) would be the Vietnam Women's Day. I had such a bad memories for national celebrations that more often than not it had flung me into much of a bind. The only thing which domiated my thinking at that moment was that I was dead stuck. There was no time left. I would not be able to do something nice for her. Roses were out of the question for they were thick on the ground out there. You pay the money, you get your roses. My philosophy has always been: peculiarity is the best policy. My presents are to be highly individual and must not be found else where. Normally I would make a nice little toothpick-made house, but since time had already run out, this was pie in the sky also.
And all of a sudden the life-saving idea flashed across my head: to create an acrostic of the phrase JUNE N.
Why not? Though not surely an old hand in this field, I forwarded to tip my toe in the water. I felt keyed up about this since I had never actually had even half the mind to doing anything like this. But I had to give it my best shot. I began to draw the plan, and things were sketched to go this way in the first place:
1. Forming a mind map of JUNE's charater traits.
2. Choosing the right to fit in the acrostic.
3. Establish a strong skeleton in order to put these notions effectively into writing.
4. Commence the actual wording process.
5. Decorate the finished work.
6. Print it out.
7. Approach JUNE and take her aback by this effort-consuming present.
It all sounded a piece of cake in the beginning. But when it came to the actual writing, the deceptive bed of roses revealed itself to be a minefield of big bugs. I was almost lost to know how to begin and how to stick things together. The intended piece of work had more or less 15 pages, with a meticulous analysis of the acrostic as well as some further reading to chew on. But after working until 9:00 this morning, I had to give up. The deadline was too close to be met. Hence, things experience a change of course.
Since the chance of a fairly huge item of work being successfully composed got out the window, my best bet to salvage the situation was to do something less 'impressive'. So, as I claimed somewhere above, poetic writing has always been close to my heart, and in this case it offered great help.
Putting aside the impossible, I beavered away at the new task, trying to condense everything into 2 pages only. After a process of left-right neuron chitchat, I came up with this idea: one page will present the acrostic, the other will describe it in the form of several separated comments on each letter. I was not quite sure what it was going to look like, but first and foremost, the content had to be there.
So for each letter I wrote 2 funny comments with rhyme so as to nail them onto the mind more tightly. Merely 1 hour afterward I got everything ready for the decoration. Believe it or not, 'drawing' is what I cannot do to save my life. I don't seem to be born with aesthetic eyes; so the concluding process happened to be the toughest one. But anyway, I simply did the way I thought would look nice. That was that, my present was there waiting for its time to go.
It was 11:00 am. In less than 2 hours, I would be meeting JUNE.
***
After taking a brief nap I took to school to make sure I could meet her before the class began. I parked my bike and got upstairs. Butterflies abound in my stomach. Taking a deep breath, I sent an SMS message to June, querying whether I could see her. And 5 minutes later the familiar figure appeared. I was so much on edge that I could not articulate as finely as usual. In actual fact, I expected this encounter to be a heart-breaking because of the situation I depicted at the beginning of this article. But God blessed me. It turned out that, she was over the moon to see the present.
I could tell she truly loved it from the smile upon her lips. We did not say much for nearly 5 minutes, just to indulge in the joy of the moment. I never nurtured the wishful thinking that she should be in seventh heaven. I was basically struck dumb. I cannot recall what actually came out of my mouth at that instant, but there was one thing I would never forget - one thing I had yearned for for so long a time that had really come true like a light out of the blue.
"Je t'aime". That was the first French sentence she taught. Yes, it was "Je t'aime". I was not aware of the meaning after repeating the phrase the 1st time. I said "Je t'aime" to her, and she replied "Je t'aime aussi". Can you guess what that means?
"I love you" - "I love you too".
Very truly I tell you, I could not believe my ears. The very hearing receptors seemed to be kidding with me. It was just surprising, unexpected. A strange feeling started to run down my veins, keeping a smile upon my face for nearly 2 hours, steering me away from my seat the whole class-time. I bet I looked like a mad guy, chuckling to myself uncontrollably. I was really on top of the world. It was the first time I had had such an experience. It had never felt so strong. It had never been the same.
That was it - a scarlet-letter day. I don't know what the future may bring, but for the time being I will follow my heart. However, I should tread carefully this time, not to fall flat on my face again. Study still receives top priority. Take it easy; it will be easy.
