Good Memories Yesterday, I rode my motorbike on a road, where I went back and forth every day when I studied medicine. There is a sidewalk cafeteria where serves pork noodles, and is front of the hospital, on this road. The cafe has been there regardless of how many generations of the medical students have graduated from the University of Medicine. During my school-years, that cafe was considered my close friend when I had night shifts at the hospital. Because of being a medical student, I didn’t have much money for luxurious dinners. I needed to be full and have lots of energy for long night shifts without sleeping. However, I had good memories during that period of time. The other year, on the occasion of my birthday, one of my friends suggested that she and I returned to that cafe for a meal. This time, although we could spend more money on my birthday, going back to that old place when we both were poor students allowed us to respect what we have had later on. Such good memories will be the nicest feeling that everyone wants to have. Life will be boring if we become materialistic, and don’t have had any good things to remember. I don’t want to let those memories slip through my fingers.

My Patient She has been my patient since 2007. I succeeded in treating her peptic ulcer disease. However, lately, we haven’t seen each other. Last Sunday, she came to my house. My sister did allow her to see me, because according to my sister, last Sunday was my day off and I needed some downtime. She made another appointment with me for her on Monday. That would be fine. The day after, when the patient saw me at home, she showed me some lab test results from another doctor. She appeared to be anxious about the results. I slowly and calmly explained each value in the result papers to her. In the end, she felt relieved. She said that when she received the test results from the lab, then she gave them to her doctor, the physician didn’t tell her anything except for one issue. That was she was still alright. She has suffered from chest pain for a few months. That’s why she sought medical assistance, but the general practitioner's answer was useless. For some healthcare providers, don’t they know what their duties are or are they indifferent toward their patients? Poor her, my patient!

Strawberries My nephew's son is now 27 months old. Living with us in the same house, he makes us laugh at his cute actions all the time. One of his favorite drinks is blended strawberries. Yesterday, we intended to have strawberry juice for dessert, notably for him. We went around some markets to buy strawberries, but no one sold them yesterday. I tried to look for it from some fruit supermarkets in the afternoon, but my attempts didn't help at all. Today, I didn't give up buying it for him. I went to work at the clinic today. Besides the clinic, there is a luxurious supermarket where some foreign food and ingredients are sold. I called my sister to ask whether or not she found it this morning. She replied that she purchased it already. In my life, perhaps I try to be frugal with myself, but for the ones I love, I willingly sacrifice myself to them. I don't mean that I am so generous, but I want to give my real love to others because there is more happiness than there is in receiving.

A New Plan Last night, I sat down and made a revolution for May. This year, there have been some things new happening to me, such as getting new and plum jobs, and finishing some medical courses. I am proud of myself regarding what I achieved. My decision to make in May is to keep working there, making money and trying to be a good money saving person. In addition, I am going to learn more about medicine by taking some complimentary online courses. There is a saying: “success is a journey, not a destination.” I say to myself that I should satisfy about my accomplishments, live in the present, and try my best. Living this way may allow me to have more happiness.

A Night Owl I was a night owl last night again. I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. listening to my favorite songs. As a result, I felt sleepy all day long. So bad! For the past few months, I have kept my bedtime regularly and early. However, I don’t know why I broke the habit of hitting the hay early last night. The reason for this might be that I found those songs so nice, and they speak the figurative and romantic words that I want to hear. I translated into English an excerpt of the song I listened to last night: “In my eyes, you are everything, Is my joyfulness, my happiness. But I wish that We had met each other when we were still single. I will try to forget our love full of happiness…..” (The tittle of the song: Nhu Da Dau Yeu – Author: Duc Huy. The link of the song will include in the end of this notebook). Today, I decided to go to bed earlier than last night. Getting enough sleep will boost my immunity, and help me get ready for the start of the new working week. However, the melodies of those songs still remain in my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbyZKG0h50g

Durian Yesterday, during our dinner, my family talked about the gratitude of my patients toward me when I was inexperienced doctor. At that time, I worked for a government hospital. Thanks to my proper and compassionate patient care, I’ve earned my patients’ trust. One day, I worked in the hospital in the daytime, and I did my night shift on the same day. One of my patients went to see me for his follow-up visit. He gave me a durian. I remember that time, this type of durian cost very high, due to the fact that it has been available on sale for a short while. Moreover, my family really liked it. So, I put this durian in my private drawer in my internal medicine department. In the following morning, I still worked in the hospital. Early that morning, my colleagues came into that room to be ready to work. All were surprised by the smell of this fruit. Then, some of them tried to figure out where and whose it was. Finally, they guessed that the owner of this fruit was me, because I was the one who had stayed in the room since the previous day. Today, my nurse promised me that she will bring one durian to the clinic. I strongly stopped her from doing that since I know the smell is very strong and our foreign colleagues might not tolerate its smell.

Melanophobia A couple of weeks ago, I took the lunch time at work to go shopping. In that mall, there were a lot of items. I slowly went around a stall where some of electronic appliances were shown. Because of being very curious, I stopped at a big fridge to figure out its new functions. Beside this one, there was a black fridge. Looking at the black one, some chills were sent into my spine. As a result, I quickly ran away the store. That day, while being at home, I had thought about this terrible moment some times. I realize that I really fear the black color, and the fear often scares me. As of today, I consulted a variety of websites to learn about this condition. It’s a shame that I didn’t recognize that it is a specific phobia, even worse requires treatment. The etiology of this phobia is unknown now. It is believed that heredity, genetics, and brain chemistry combine with life-experiences play a major role in the development of phobias.

When a Kid Studies English My nephew’s son is 25 months old. He has been sent to the preschool six months ago. It was early for a child but we made that decision because at home, in my neighborhood, there are few babies for him to play with. A few days ago, I’ve just thought that I would introduce some basis English to him; and yesterday was the first day of his study. I intended to use 15 minutes per day for my teaching, but he didn’t want to leave my room because of how excited he was about the materials. Now that he is interested in learning the language, I feel that I have more responsibilities. Today, whenever I had free time at work, I consulted websites to look for some videos, which help my teaching easy and bring a lot of fun to him.

Going to the Preschool My nephew's son is a two year-old kid. The baby began to go to the day care center a few months ago. I thought that at this age, he was too young to go to school, but I had no choice. As of today, he gets used to the nursery school. All the more so, every morning, he wakes up earlier than his parents and it is him who awakes them. Looking at him very happy going to the center, so am I. Yesterday, he surprised us because as usual, he goes with his mother and with her on the motorbike to be ready to commute to school, but this time he held his mother's hand and took her to where the motorbike was parked. He changes my mind in terms of how old a child should go to the kindergarten. Being a worrier and not putting faith in others from me could worsen matters.