I finally got a chance to see Persepolis yesterday and it was so worth it. I’m going to move this up to my third favorite movies of all times. It was beautiful in its simplicity, and yet it resonated across cultures and societies. It was a reminder of me to be true to myself, to be courageous, to believe.

College is a time for truths, enlightenment, and discovery. For everything sacred about going to college it’s a highly rigid institution denying creativity by offering structure and the promise of a middle of the road future. College is comforting, consensual, contextual, and culpable. I lost myself in college from all the new things that I have learned. I learned to questions, to analysis, to prove, to reason, all the education have not increased clarity only confusion and more questions.

When I went to college I was focused, single minded, concentrated, determined, I know what I wanted from life, and I wasn’t going to stop at anything until I got what I wanted. Everything worked like it was meant for me, it was enchanting. Minh Tran full of hopes and dreams: future CEO of tomorrow, future leader of the world. 2 weeks from now, I will graduate with my MBA. Having a Masters of any degree is an accomplishment that a minority has achieved. It’s something that I have always wanted, and can now check off my list of things to do. Check Check and Check. Next!

For all my short life of 22 years, I have lived a life of integrity and have nothing done anything intentional to hurt another. There is basic goodness in me by the grace from God. No, I will not do anything; I will not sacrifice at all cost to achieve the unachievable. I only have myself to sacrifice; I am the greatest gift that is. I’m special because none are like me. I’m a product of one out of the million of sperms that faithful night, and it chooses me. Already the odds are in my favor; I’m the chosen one.

If my life were a 2D animation, it wouldn’t be like Persepolis. I didn’t have the resources or choices that she had. The struggles that I went though were on par with her on an emotional and mental level. I am not a deviant; I have chosen the righteous path for the past 22 years. I’m a lost child with no life script. I will be writing my own script very soon, and rest assured it will be of epic proportion, it has begun.

The road to hell is paved with good intension; the road of heaven is paved with suffering and pain. If there is bitterness, sweetness only taste better. There is value in destruction because if gives opportunities for construction, hope, dreams, faith. If there is only life, and no death, the value of the life is diminished. Only because of death is life celebrated.

Persepolis you know who you are, Who Am I?

Tags: pain, zen, difficult decisions

A couple of days ago I had a dream that I left the country and was in Paris. I didn’t know what I was doing Paris, but that I just had a small luggage and not much money. What was in my luggage? Surprisingly tons of underwear, jeans, and just a light all weather purpose jacket. No laptop and no camera, no cell phone and no contact sheet. Well I did have one persons contact in case I was desperately dying or something. This wasn’t a vacation trip, it was a life adventure, a test of life. Can I really survive on my own, in a foreign country, what would I do, how can I live, where do I live? My dreamed told me.

So I walked about for hours, not really knowing where to go or what to do. I didn’t know French but I didn’t really need help either. First order of need, food and shelter, and yet I just walked to nowhere. At first it felt liberating so free of worries, and yet so many worries. And yet the first place that I stopped in my dream was a bridge. Do I jump, do I end it right there? I was hungry, miserable, lost, and alone. I would have jumped, but instead I passed out in my dream.

When I awoke, I was in a hospice of some type and someone was talking to me, I didn’t really understand was going on, they just asked me more questions, assuming that I was just a student backpacking through Europe or something. They did know I wanted to live and stay there. However, they feed me, and sent me on my way. At this point, I’m dirty, and well worn out. It couldn’t have been more than a few days, and I’m defeated. I continued walking.

Somewhere along this line, I’m working in a bistro. I’m just serving food, and making minimal conversation. They don’t know who I am, what I am. It was a busy restaurant, with many international business people. One of the guy asked me how globalization has impact me, this fragile server. I didn’t know if I wanted to give me a blaaa answer, and went on my way, but I responded with an intelligent macro impact, and an micro impact, in English of course. He was taken a back, that 1) I spoke English, and 2) a well put together response.

He cornered me after I got out of work, and that scared the heck out of me, in my dream. He wanted me to work for him, to be his assistant. Give presentations and stuff, I gladly accepted, even though I didn’t even know who this stranger was. Life happens, and we can choose to take the opportunity or to run away. Then the dream faded. Time is not a factor, it’s just jumpy.

I’m still in France, although no longer in Paris. I don’t even know what Paris looks like, I’ve never been, I just know I wasn’t in Paris anymore. I was living in this huge house, secluded. I was with someone, he was older, well off, I was his object of desire. It was an awkward relationship, I didn’t like it. I still don’t know French, so I’m guessing it couldn’t have been more than 6 months since I arrived there. And already, selling my self for basic needs. Or is that the case, would I sell myself anyhow, because it’s my nature. I don’t know. The dream ended, I was uncomfortable.

Was it a dream? Was it a life plan wanting to happen? I don’t know, I just know that a life changing even will happen that would drive me to do something crazy. I already know what this event is, and when it happens, the domino will fall, and the sequence will began. I’m 22, I don’t know what life is about, I don’t even know me. I may not be able to help humanity, advance knowledge.

I don’t know what I don’t know; I only know what I have experienced. I want to experience more, life is too short. I hope not to die young, but if I do, please let it be an epic death.

Tags: Love, emotion

Do you ever feel like there’s just too many choices available? How do you know what is best to choose, are you afraid to choose? What if you made the wrong choice, and picked something sub-par out of all the choices available? Maybe it’s best to not pick at all. That’s the mentality in today’s consumer centric world. It’s paralyzing, the configuration, color, price point, technology jargons. Here’s everything I have, and my first born child. Please, just pick something for me.

Tags: Desire, freedom, Choices, Equality, slave

We are creatures of habits and we do things that can affect us both positivity and negatively as well. Despite what most people say, good habits are hard to come by and hard habits are hard to break. What is required is a major event that have seismic impact to encourage and deter a habit at the same time for the behavior to change. This is why New Years resolutions often fail, why dieting and exercising regiments are only effective for a few weeks, why there are people who are perpetually late, why things we want to do daily, becomes weekly, then monthly, then well, whenever.

Three examples from my personal life including behaviors that I want to encourage, and behaviors that I wished didn’t ever grow on me to begin with.

I try to wake up in the morning, even when I have things to do, still I fail at life, so I miss out on opportunities.

Lateness is totally a factor of habit. 3-5 minutes late everywhere, and anywhere. It doesn’t matter, it’s quite amazing, that I can be late to anywhere. It’s pretty much expected why? Because there is no consequences when I’m late. There’s no big stick, people don’t make a big deal out of it. Really being late is a big deal, because it causes people to waste their time. It’s always more stressful for the person who has to wait for the person who is late, because the party begins when the guess arrive. I haven’t come up with a system to make me be on time more often. I’m just going to leave earlier and add in a few minutes just to make sure I an be on time. Wouldn’t it be better yet? If I arrived early? Wow, what a radicle concept, being early!

I worked really hard in the beginning to blog consistently. Yet if you notice, it has been 10 days since the last post? Why? because I fell out of rhythm, the consistency has been broken, therefor it’s exponentially more difficult to jump start again. The simple event to sitting in-front of this laptop for 5 hours pushed me over the edge to blog again. Actually no, it’s the pain of knowing that I have a 20 page research paper due in 48 hours, and not really wanting to work on that. Blogging seems so much easier, and the immediate result will be that everyone reading this blog will know that I have a 20 page paper due in 48 hours, and they will sympathize with me. So they can wipe me into shape and tell me to start cracking!

Tags: Blog, Exercise

It’s been so cold here lately in Rochester, NY. All I can think of is sun, sun, and sunshine. There might be some sunshine later on this week, but we can count the heat factor out. So how are we going to turn the heat on? Well I was thinking about swimwear and underwear. Yes, I do have a slight infatuation with men’s underwear fashion. When CKs were hot, I got like 15 black pairs, and they have surprisingly been holding up very well despite a few years of wear and abuse.

Interestingly there have been quite a few specially shops that have prop up lately and some have even garner international attention. I do not know what’s “hot” any more, but in the Gay world of fashion, these are considers most desirable and pretty much everyone and their hags wants one.

1. Ginchgonch: I would have to say that these are the top tier, got to have them hotness. Pretty much all the models are porn stars, and or have had a history of taking off their clothes. They pretty much have the gay market cornered. I very much desire to have them, but not at those ridiculous prices. So I guess this gay boy isn’t really their target market. Just from their website I gathered their underwear’s are meant to been seen and touched. Omg, pretty much a huge “rape me” sign if you are wearing it at any club. Interestingly though, they have a huge selection of female underwear as well, completely cute/hot. I’d buy one for my sisters. 0-o? Check out their videos that you can download and desktop pictures. Hot hot.
2. aussiebum: Was the reigning tsar of the gay love, pretty much fell of the face. I guess us gay boys are fickle and our needs have to be pampered too 23/7. I still think that assiebum is hot, and I would love to have a few more pairs. They just have this fun energy sexy cute lovely weird crazy love to them. Plus their models are high quality porn stars as wel, and their assielife youtube vids are a must see.

3. justusboyz: These guys, I just have heard of recently. Just from going to the website, it’s not as LOUD as ginchgonch or assiebum. They have respectable models and images. I’m not feeling the wowz factor yet, bit I have a feeling they will be just as big if their marketing campaign starts to hit the club scenes.

4. If screaming sexiness isn’t your thing, red gap underwear, and target men’s have some decent and lovely design as well. From personal experience, my rEd gap underwear is currently my favorite pair to bear in.

So hopefully this will be short winter, so that we may all go skinny dipping soon in the beautiful shore of the Ontario lake and eat some yummy ice cream as well.

Underwear Collection and Fashion Trend 2008:

Tags: underwear, Culture, Beauty, Models