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Dear Gerard,

i was about to write you about my adventures here, recalling that had been the assignment you gave me before i left for the states.

but i forgot the specific thoughts i was having.

something about "i went through it": the amazement when i first landed and got encountered by the grandness and cosmopolitan abundance of new york - then sort of a felt of hollowness and shallowness - then this and that - all comes to the realization how i love vietnam.

and that despite all the craps we have in a country with such political and cultural backgrounds like Vietnam, despite the terrible traffic and intolerable honking there, despite Ms.Lan, Vietnam is still a place where i feel i live close to the "real" life, the "real" beauty...and you-know-what-i-mean.

I guess i did not come to america to seek fun and excitement. Though it makes more sense that New York has the best of those to offer and most people would come for it.
I guess I was coming to distract my mind from things back home.

but it's another story, professor. am going to stay perhaps till december. it took you two years after moving from vietnam to america to come back. how long will it take me you think?

somehow in this circumstance which i deliberately led myself into, i think you would be one among those few who would understand what i mean. that's pretty rare.
You know, there are things that people just won't be able to understand until they really experience it, seeing it, hearing it, living it. traveling is the best class i've taken. Apart from your class i took four years ago.