Barriers

To all those friends down in SoCal, Texas, Australia, Virginia, Canada, France, Germany, and Maryland. Think about it. We may never see each other again, but I'm really glad I met you guys during TT9. You guys have really impacted my life and nothing will be able to change that. I really miss you guys and wish you guys were still here, so that we could hang out and just have fun. =/.

...Seperated by distance. Distance is the glass wall. Ignore the hand thing.

V-Crew 101!

Okay so today, I had troop meeting from 9:30 to 11:30. We conducted flag ceremony and then went to our own areas. One of the leaders, Truong Zing, called some of us out to create a Venture crew. The requirements were, you had to be in high school, at least Star, if not Life for ranking, and close to getting Eagle.



We went to meet with our new advisors and conducted a meeting to introduce what Venturing is.



After awhile, we had to make plans for fundraising because we needed money to buy our scout uniforms. No, not the ugly brown ones. Our uniforms are the sexy teal-ish green ones. Woot! We also had to choose positions. The positions consist of a president, 2 vice presidents, a treasurer, and a secretary. Sounds like school, no?



The votes came out to be like this:
President: Gilbert Tran
Vice Presidents: Toai-Nguyen Nguyen and Victoria Le
Secretary: Me
Treasurer: Jessica Ho

After we got that stuff taken care of, we discussed our uniforms. Our uniforms are going to consist of a Venturing scout shirt, gray pants, and white socks. After everything was decided upon, well sort of, we played some random games. The games didn't work quite well, but hey, we had a lot of fun. (=.

When troop meeting came to an end, we conducted the ending flag ceremony. Our new yell is "Thanh Sinh. Khai Pha." I'm not sure how to translate it in english, since I'm pretty bad at translations from Vietnamese. =/. Oh well. But yeah, it was pretty cool. I'm so happy now.



We finally have our own Venturing Crew in our troop. ♥.

TT9 - The best week of my life (:

I have not been on the internet for like, the previous week since I was camping down in King City with 2664 other Viets. The whole week was filled with lots of fun, meeting new people, a little bit of drama here and there, sad moments, and goodbyes, but in the end, it was all worth it just to be there.

Thursday, July 9, 2009
I stuffed my whole closet into the car. Tr. Liem from LD Ra Khoi came over and we drove down to Victoria's house to pick her up. The whole ride ended up totaling to about 2 hours, but we had lots of things to talk about and do, so it wasn't too bad. Once we arrived at camp, we set everything up. Our campsite was the closest to the entrance of the park.



From what I heard, a lot of people wanted it, but I don't see what's so good about it. We're freaking isolated from everyone else and nothing is close to us, besides probably the bathroom. I also found that I had to walk about 20 minutes just to go take a shower, and another 20 to be back at camp. Talk about far, much? Jessica and Gilbert camp at around 3 or 4. We took a few pictures together and hung out in the girl scouts' tent, since our boy scout ones were too small. Paul, Perry, and Amy came up at night. We all received our ID cards, wristbands, and camper handbooks for camp.

Friday, July 10, 2009
I had to wake up at 6 to take a shower. When I went there, it was already crowded, even though not a lot of people were at camp yet. Holy crap.



People began to come up from all over the place; Australia, Germany, France, Los Angeles, Irvine, san Diego, Boston, Houston, Dallas, Fairfax, etc. I received my TT9 t-shirt, water bottle, backpack, pen, hat, badge, and some other random stuff. Today was another mingle and free day, so I didn't really do much.

Saturday, July 11, 2009
Today was our performance day. I woke up and did the routine I did the previous day. At about 3 or 4, all the dancers finally came up so we had our last few practices before our actual stage show.



Holy shit, the stage was hecka big too. We ended up being all spread out during the dance, but that's okay because we needed the space. Flag ceremony finally began, and next thing I knew, I was changed into asian clothes and up there on stage. All the NorCal troops performed that day.



When it came to us, we had some technical difficulties, but in the end, it all worked out. We performed the dance and all that hard work was finally paid off. (: Thanks to all those who were chanting "Go Jamie!" because you guys are the best. From what I heard, we did really well (=, so yay :D.

Sunday, July 12, 2009
Today was another laid back day. I hung with the troop for awhile, then broke off and went to LD Lac Viet and LD Ra Khoi. I found Michelle, Andie, Kristina, and Christine at their tents, so we hung there for awhile. It was filled with whats, hahahs, and lots of perverted nothingness. LOL.



At 3, we were supposed to meet up for the games and stuff, to get to know each other. I was part of staff, so I didn't really have to do anything or go anywhere until the next day. (:. Yay for staff.

Monday, July 13, 2009
Let the games begin! The day started off with brekafast and I hung with the LD Dien Hong girls for awhile. Everyone began to head off to their assigned teams and I blew this bugle horn thing for the games to start.



Every 40 minutes, I kept doign that until lunch. Then there was a period of rest, and then everyone had to go back to the games and start at another sector. I went to take a shower. I ended up forgetting my shampoo bottle in the shower area, but oh well, I had another one in my bag. I went back, and continued my assignment at the sector I was at, which was Sector 2. YAY SECTOR 2, (: LOL. After the games, we changed into class A and went to get dinner.



I ended up staying and talking to Texas people for awhile from LD La Vang of Houston. Campfire finally started, and I cheered for LD Ra Khoi, my old beloved troop, who I thought performed really well. (=.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The second day of the games. I did the same thing I did yesterday, only this time, I showered and then I got wet again due to water games.



Screw you Maurice ):. You owe me something for letting you dump water all over me, mmkay? Haha. Other than that, everything was basically the same. Houston people are hella awesome (=.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009
I think this was probably the best day of my whole week.



I was up at 12 midnight and we sang Happy Birthday to Victoria. I gave her the card I made her and took lots of pictures. We ended up staying up until 3 ish and I went to the tent and fell asleep. 3 hours later, I woke up and went to eat breakfast. We sat with people from troop 1003. YAY. My birthday! LOL. Anyway, I met this one guy named Kevin Tran from LD Huong Viet of Irvine, California while hanging with the LD Dien Hong girls. o_o. He's hella hilarious and cool and I swear, he laughs at nearly everything. Oo. It's weird how you just meet someone, but it feels like you've known them for a long time. That's what it was like with him. Pretty crazy much. I met more people from Houston and Virginia, but I also met this one guy from Australia. He taught me and my friends how to do the Melbourne shuffle and stuff like that. LOL. Lunch and dinner came like nothing and I found myself sitting with the La Vang people.



The closing ceremony began and campfire started. Finally, it was time to go to sleep, so I went back to the site and hung around at camp with the Lac Hong people. ZZZ...

Thursday, July 16, 2009
It was finally time to say goodbye. I woke up, cleaned up our tent, and threw everything in the car. I then went to eat breakfast and it was time for farewells.



I said goodbye to hella people, and I traded my neckerchief with my friend from Houston, Texas. Then, I went to look for a friend of mine, who made my week really special.



I gave my friend something special that noone else had in the camp and said goodbye. I got so many hugs from everyone I met, I didn't want to leave camp. =/. I won't see most of them for another 5 years, and most likely, I think they'll forget me. =/.



Post camp sadness is getting to me, I swear.

For a friend who made my week very special: I'll always remember you and I won't forget you. We'll see each other at TT10. I promise. Thanks for the small gift ^^. You're hella awesome, you know that?

=/. I'm not ready to start my daily routine again. I feel like something's been torn away from me, just by the barrier of distance.

Thanks to: Andy Ngo, Katrina Huynh, Tammy Nguyen, Khanh Pham, Kim Nguyen, Veronica Dang, Annie Tran, Kim Tran, Tina Doan, Stacy Le, Janelle Duong, Kevin Tran, Khanh Pham, Julie Nguyen, Brendan Tran, Allison Mac, Trucquan Nguyen, LD Lac Hong scouts, and everyone that I met for making this the best week of my freaking life. I love you guys (=.

July 4 weekend ! (:

Hey you guys, Happy Belated Independence Day. I have been out camping since Friday and I just got home today. Let's just say I did some pretty crazy things, yeah?

Friday, July 3, '09.
I woke up at 7 and went down to shower. After I showered, I started bringing all of our clothes, bags, cooking pots, etc. out to the trunk of the car. Once I finished, we waited for Andy and his family to get to our house.



After they got here, we went off to meet everyone else at some Home Depot store along the way to New Brighton State Beach for camp. Everyone was there when we arrived, so, we headed off and about 45 minutes into the car ride, we reached our destination. I went outside for a little bit and boy it was pretty windy.



I decided to put on my sea green American Eagle jacket and walked down to the beach with Andy, Brian, my cousins David, Dan, and my brother. We played on the beach for awhile, with me being the responsible one, since I didn't really get wet that day. An hour or two later, the parents called us to come up to the campsites, which I are numbered 77, 78, and 81 respectively. We went up to each lunch and hung around the camp until it got dark.



We played poker with the chips my brother brought from home along with some really old playing cards that Andy had. After awhile, it got boring so we went to brush our teeth and headed to Zzzz....

Saturday, July 4, '09.
I woke up and took a shower. Yeah, showering in the morning at camp is very cold, but whatever, since my hair always looks really fugly if I don't shower ):. I went to eat breakfast, which ended up being hash browns, eggs, and sausages. Mmmmm ♥. (=.



I heard from my dad that David grabbed us a spot on the beach for tonight, where fireworks were going to be all over the place, since it's Independence Day. My friends and I walked down to the beach and sat there for awhile, waiting for it to get a little bit warmer, since it was pretty cold and the water is FREEZING. D:. I dislike freezing water.



Once the sun fully came up, I put on sunblock, headed down to the water with everyone, and started playing around. I hung with my little cousins for awhile, since they wanted me to play with them.



My cousin David then told my little cousins to let my hand go. He then proceeded to pick me up and head toward the water. I was like shittttt. LOL. A second later, water was rushing over my head and pull me off of shore. I stayed there for awhile and then starting laughing because my parents were like O_O. I then swam in, where I found myself, center of attention for awhile, since they all thought I was going to drown or something. LOL. Thank god for swim team a long time ago. I spent about an hour or so getting yelled at but at the same time, my friends were hiding and sending me these hilarious looks, which I returned back to them.



We went up to eat some asian style lunch thing and headed back down to play around some more. I met some really cute girls while swimming around and decided to just have fun with the group of 5. When I came back, I overheard my friend's parents talking in Viet saying, "Oh my god, Jamie is hanging out with pretty girls. Soon he'll come back to his parents introducing them as his girlfriend or something." I was like LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, and I headed back to the water. About an hour or two later, we headed up to eat steak and rice, along with fries and salad for dinner. (=. Super delish, yo! :D.



After dinner, we headed down and started a fire on the beach.



Fireworks soon came up and the sky was filled with prettyful colors. (=. Yay fireworks! I went up after it was done, and did the usual night thing that everyone does, and then fell to a coma of sleep. Zzzzzzzz....

Sunday, July 5, '09.
Woke up and did everything. I cleaned up and stacked everything in the car.



Hung out with the skillets for awhile, took pictures, and went home. Now, I'm at home and here. Yay. Tomorrow I have to do Calculus again. Boo ):. Oh and...sunburn hurts. ):. Double Boo. I also accidentally left my camera inside my jacket and threw the jacket in the washer. Now my camera won't work no more. My dad won't let me use cameras anymore unless asked now. Fuck my life. Triple Boo. ))):.

TT9 is in 5 days! I'm so freakin' nervous but also excited. Hopefully our dance is good enough. D:.



Our dress rehearsal is this Wednesday. Yay, more bonding time with the scout beezies :D. Tra la laa~

Byebye. (:. J.