American dream. No more?

I remember when Kumar made his inspirational speech about the American Dream in "Harod&Kumar go to the White Castle", it was like this:

"Our parents came to this country, escaped from prosecution, poverty and hunger. Hunger, Harold. They were very very hungry. They wanted to live in a land that treats them equal, a land filled with hamburger stands. And not just one type of hamburger, okay? Hundreds of types of different sizes, toppings and condiments. That land was America! America, Harold! America! Now this is about achieving what our parents set out for. This is about the pursuit of happiness. This night . . . is about the American Dream!"

...And then they jumped off a cliff on a para-glider to a hamburger shop.

That was one of the most inspirational definition of American Dream I have heard in my life. Now, I am here, inside the country with the largest economy in the world, a country that was built on blood and sweat of millions of people from every corners of the world. People came here with different ideas, perspectives and motivations. They had, somehow, worked together and build a society of wealth, healthy and peace that many other nations would hope to achieve. They did that because that what they wanted to, what they hoped for, and what they could not do where they came from. That was the reason why we have this United State of America today. That is also the reason why millions of Mexican tries to risk their life crossing the border every year, as well as Asians, Europeans, Africans and many others and me. Although I did that legally.

Back home, Internet and Medias told us that America is a heaven compare to our country. They have freedom, food, healthcare, low criminal rate, education and everything else is better than what we had. We were the people who did not want to end up spending our entire life in a place that is not the best. We aimed for better. I studied hard, others worked hard, and now we are here. I am quite happy about it though.

Then one of my friend, who spent 6 years here studying, told me that she is moving to Australia. "Why Australia? Why not American Dream?", I said. "Because there is no American Dream. It was a lie." She told me.

 Turned out, she is now well fed, has "escaped from poverty and prosecution" for a long time, lived in an idea society in the eyes of her countrymen for a while, and now she wants more than just that. She wants challenges, opportunities, self-awareness. Here in America, most people are treated equally, have a safe life and share the same wealth of the nation. Everything are settled, normalized, standardized. You grow up, get education like everyone else, work hard for 40 years like everyone else, retire and die in some nursing home like everyone else. That is certainly an upgrade compare to our home country, where you grow up, get education like everyone else, work hard for 40 years like everyone else, retire and die, but all in a lower standard.

Nothing changed. We are just moved from a lower standard to a higher standard, and when we are getting used to it, we demand something more. Like in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we are now well fed, we will need to find our self-awareness, achievements. The American Dream is not a dream anymore when you got here, it became a burden when all your countrymen look at you in awe. They think they can find their true happiness if they get to America while in fact, it is just another place to live, not a dream.

True happiness is the road you walk toward your dream, not the dream itself.

Cerberus

<continues>

Just right after Lenny dropped the question, he hears a bark behind him. He turns around, to the front door, and see Old Fart standing there, with something in his mouth. The dog's fur looks like a mess, half of his body is covered in blood and mud. But it does not seem to be his blood, because he is still standing there, healthily, somewhat happily with his tail waving energetically behind. Grandma Mely immediately stands up and walk toward her dog, and pat his head. 

"You let him escaped again? oh my poor boy."

Old Fart

Old Fart seems to be excited when his owner pats his head and he expressed his excitement by shaking wildly. Mud and blood splash all over the house and on the granny's face. She laughs loudly and hugs him, despite of the mess he is making. 

"Oh boy, looks like someone should have a shower here. hahaha". To be honest, Lenny feels a little bit uneasy about seeing an elder hugs her pet in such a situation.

Right then, she starts to notice something is in his mouth, "What do you have here, Old Fart? let me see it. No, no, let it goes, you are clamping too tightly, boy."

She then process to pulls the thing out of her dog's mouth with quite an effort. The dog looks like it does not want to let that interesting thing goes easily. Finally, after struggling a bit, she finally pull that thing out. Lenny walks over them to see what is in her hand, only to find out that it is a reptile scale, a bloody scale. It looks like it was just ripped of from some animal, and the smell is really unbearable. He can not understand why the granny can hug her dog with all of that smell on his fur and mouth.  

"Hmmm, so did not just let that snake go easily, didn't you good boy? This will teach him a lesion for going too near our house. Haha" She laughs again.

"Um, do you think it is necessary to check if your dog is wounded or something?" Lenny asks hesitantly. 

"No worry young man, Old Fart is used to be one of the gate keepers of Hell, such weak hell spawn like AAPEP can't harm him. " She says, proudly of her dog. 

"So you are telling me this 4 foot tall dog can handle such a huge monster? I remember the Apet thing to be twenty times bigger than your dog." Lenny does not bother to hide his skeptical thought.

"He is AAPEP, and yes, you will find out soon. Also, Old Fart is covered in mud now, why don't you help this poor old woman to wash him clean while I go back to my room to change my clothes and then prepare for both of you boys a good dinner?" She smile gently.

Lenny knows there are many things he still does not know yet, and keeping asking questions now is pointless. He agrees and the old granny tells him to take her dog to a spring in the back of the house, down the hill. She does not forget to tell him that he does not have to worry about the hell spawns in the fog, because since Old Fart is going with him, no hell spawn dares to lurk near them, then she walks back into her room, closes the door.

Lenny looks at the messy dog, who, in turn, is looking at him, happily waving his tail. 

"Well, look like we are going to go out now, Old Fart." He says to the dog.

Old Fart seems like to understand the earlier conversation between his owner and this man. He runs around Lenny, sniffs his boots. He then barks proudly, and proceed to clamp Lenny's trouser's end and pulls, signal him to follow.

"What's a weird doggy, okay then." 

He walks behind the dog and then walk around to the back of the house. There is a small trail lead to the downhill, into the fog. The dog runs along the trail, but stops and barks at Lenny every few seconds to make sure that he is still following. They walks into the fog. 

Lenny can barely see the trail under his feet. He still hear Old Fart's barks but can not see him. It seems like they are walking into a forest, but he can not sure about it. It could be just some trees along the way. After about fifteen minutes walking, Lenny hears the water gurgling  sound. At first, the sound is faint, but as he walking follow the trail, it becomes clearer. Not only the sound, his vision also become clearer because the fog is fading somehow. 

Now, a spring is appeared in front of him, more than that, he now can confirm his theory of being deep inside the wood. The water is coming out of a huge rock, and its stream makes a line of water that seems to runs forever. The strange thing is, along the path of the stream, there is no fog. He can see the wood in both side of it, and the fog rest a bit further from the spring, making two giant white walls along the banks. From here, he can see the blue, peaceful sky up there. The water is strangely clean, with some weird looking mossy rocks at the middle of the stream that makes the gurgling sound louder.  This place gives him a feeling that there is no human ever set their step here yet. 

Suddenly, he remember something. Where is Old Fart? He stopped barking for a while now. Lenny starts to worry about him. 

"OLD FART!! Where are you??" He shout to the wood.

Nothing happened. There is no respond. He then call the dog again, "OLD FART!Where ar.." 

The sudden sound of wood crunching behind him disrupt his call. Lenny can feel the earth-shaking steps of a creature coming closer behind him. He turns around slowly, since these steps could belong to a giant hell spawn and he would not want to startle it with a sudden move.

When he finishes turning around, what is in front of him is unbelievable, and scary at the same time: A giant three headed muscular red monster, with scars every where on its body. It is about twice the size of Grandma Mely's house. All of its heads are staring at him with its cold and sharp eyes. Hot smoke come out of its nose's holes every time it exhale. It is moving closer to him with its ruby red claws puncturing the rocks under them, melt them into lava. It walks toward him from the other side of the spring, but somehow the water surrounding the claws is not evaporated, despite of the temperature that could melt rock. 

Lenny retrogrades slowly without leaving his eyes from the creature, until he find himself trapped with a tree blocking his back. The creature comes closer and stops just a foot in front of him. Its three heads start to sniff him. He can feel the smoke coming out of its noses as they blow into his face. However, he cannot feel any heat despite of that. "It is supposed to be very hot", Lenny thinks.

The creature started to open its mouths, all of them, reveal its huge, sharp fangs. If it bites some one with those fangs, that person would be split into several parts instantly. For Lenny, this is the end. He did not die in the battle field, but here he will. He closes his eyes, waiting for the moment of those fangs ripping his flesh from bones, or they could even crush his bones while doing that too.

<To be continued>

Too friendly?

I had been in Japan for a while, and trust me, the people there are excessively friendly. They were taught to be friendly to every customers or foreigners they have chance to talk to. In their language, customers are mentioned not without the post-fix "sama", which means a person of higher class than the speaker. It is beyond polite, it is a gesture of showing total respect and admiration. Generally, it is a good thing because if we talk to them, we will feel good about ourselves, and we would buy more or give them more generous benefits. However, as said, Japanese people practice this method of communication excessively. They even use it with their friends, co-workers and sometime, their life partners. What do you feel when someone, who is supposed to share feeling with you, to be honest with you as a friend, or as a special somebody, is just keep smiling with you all day and do you a lot of favor without asking for something back? A friendship or romantic relationship needs both parties to share what they really think to the other. It is two ways, I share my needs, my feeling, you must do it too. Japanese people seem to not open their heart to even their friends, not just strangers. We never know what they really think about us. It could be they hate us so much inside but still try to comfort us that it is not so. That is why I have a trust-issue with Japanese people.

Apparently, now I am having some trust-issues with American people too. It is normal for Americans to smile and say hello to strangers. That is an act of politeness, and I have no objection to that. However, when you get to know each other more, and become friends, you are supposed to share your thoughts, your feeling, our mutual interests, not doing or saying in favor of the listener. I have some friends here, and I wish to know them more. At first, when we met, we both says nice things that do not really matter like hobbies, cooking, music, sport, weather, politic. That is fine, since you don't know each other yet and you need to impress them nicely so they can become your friends. However, if you keep doing it again and again, your conversations become really empty and awkward. People become friends because they have common interests. Nice things is nice, but they become less nice if they are not what you really think, or really care about. So I think we should share more about ourselves, and stop being afraid to open our heart. Everyone can easy recognize whenever we really care and are honest with them, as easy as we are just doing or talking emptily. Believe me, it hurts your friends more than you think when you choose not to share what you really think of them.
The question is, how to do that? Just stop doing them a favor just because you think that will make them feel better. If you really want to help, work with your friends to solve their problem together, and then share your problem so they can help you back. Also, if you really want to be their friend, stop suggesting them how to have fun themselves, but ask them to join you when you have fun. That way, you will show them more affection and make them feel like you really want to be their friend, not just because of politeness.

I am talking too much, but I really feel distance with some of my so-called American friends. In Vietnam, our culture is really different, and most of the time we do not have any problem with "friends" being distant and empty.

Chapter I. The small house on a highland (part 6)

<continues>
Hearing that, she laughs out loud, so loud that the house seems to be shaken.
"Ha ha ha, oh boy, you have such an extraordinary imagination. Ha ha ha, no I am not a hell spawn. Ha ha, do I look like one? ha ha"

"I don't know. I haven't seen any hell spawn anyway..."

"No, I am not, boy. I am an old woman, and I used to be a servant of the lord council. That's why I know some stories. ha ha"

"Then why are you here? I still don't get it."

She stops laughing instantly, and looks straight into Lenny's eyes creepily.

"Because I stuck in here. Me and Oldfart are too old now, we can not travel too far. More than that, the hell spawns won't let us go too far anyway."

The answer does not seem to satisfy Lenny, as he continue asking her,
"That Epet or something, it was cast away by you yelling at it. It looks like you can handle those monsters pretty well, doesn't it?" Pauses a second, he says,
"I almost forgot this, but where is that big dog of you?"

"He will comeback soon. AAPEP is my neighbor, he is not the strongest hell spawn out there so I can handle him with my magic. Old Fart isn't a regular dog either, he is also a Hell Spawn so he is pretty much in pair with AAPEP. My mom found him a long time ago, after my dad went to heaven."

"He looks, well, friendly. And you told me the Hell Spawns are not very friendly in your story, didn't you?" Lenny is confused, again.

"Yes, I did. But Old Fart is the sweetest doggy ever. He was wild when he was a puppy, but my mom raised him up so he is now my family. He is all I have left in this world.." The grandma looks down to the ground.

"I am sorry for your family..."

"No, please don't. Both of my parents went away peacefully. I really hope that one day I can go after them, but I still have some businesses need to be done here."

The book

"Like?"

"Like waiting for someone like you to come, and give you the tools to change this world." She smiles mysteriously.

"Some one like me? What are you talking about?"

"By someone like you, I meant YOU. Yes, you. Young boy, I have waited for you all these time."

Lenny stands up, looks at the old granny disturbingly.
"You sound creepy, do you know that?"

"Ha ha, sorry for creeping you out. I didn't mean that."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"Sit down first, boy. I wont eat you, dont worry. Haha. I took you here and saved you twice, remember?"

Lenny sits down. He certainly cannot find any reason to object her words. She then continues,
"One day, you will know the reason why you are here, in this place, at this moment. That day will come soon. But first, I have a feeling that you should read this book and maybe you will find something useful out of it."

She pushes the book toward him. Lenny does not know what to say so he decided to stay silence and starts to look at the cover of the book. This time, he looks at it more carefully into the details. The book is covered by leather, with a thick layer of dust on the surface. He gently blows away the dust to read the title. As the dust was blown away bit by bit, a strange iron symbol becomes clearer at the center. It looks like a crossbow, with a green stone on top. He use his hand to wipe the dust covering its sides, and an eye appeared. The eye was painted on the upper right corner of the cover, and it looks so real it makes Lenny feeling uncomfortable thinking it was a real eye looking at him.  There is no title, except some strange symbols at the bottom half of the crossbow. There is no way for Lenny to understand those symbols at the moment, but he feels that they are very familiar to him. Naturally, after wiping out the dust, he tries to open the first page.

But it stays shut, no matter how hard Lenny tries to open it.

"It won't open. It is glued or something. Is this a sick joke??"

"It will, but not without the right person and the right moment."

"So I am not the right person? That makes sense. After everything you told me." Lenny feels a little bit angry.

"Ha ha, calm down boy. You need to become the right person for it first."

"How?"

"This is a magic book. It questions the right of a magic user. Every magic user has an unique trait that must be asserted by the book before he can open it and learn its secret. There are many magic books in this world, each of them has their own choice of readers, but I believe this book will choose you."

"So the book is judging me now?" He says, sarcastically.

"In a way, yes." She smiles again.

"Then what do I do now?"

<To be continued>

26th August or 26 August, which is right?

Dear Katia, please help me to correct any grammatical mistake in this post so I can show it to my fellow countryman. They are confused and are going on a wrong road of learning English. I feel obligated for leading them into a brighter future. I need to shove the Hammer of Grammar down their miserable throats!

Recently, on Vietnamese newspapers, I have read so many news about how some Vietnamese Universities have written incorrect grammar on the diplomas given to students. The above picture shows an example of what I just wrote. These news received many angry comments from the people who care about our nation education system. Many of them could easily spot the incorrectness in the word "verry", but failed miserably to see the unacceptable mistakes on the dates. Some even argued that they are not wrong, because this style of writing date has been seen by them many times before. They even used it in e-mails with their English customers and no one ever complaint. They said that it is the British-English style. To be more specific, we are talking about the postfix "th" after "26".

I had to face-palmed so hard that I almost broke my neck.

First of all, which part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain (the UK) are you talking about? According to the recent history of mankind, the UK has four different smaller states/regions: Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland. Also, you may not know this yet but each of those four parts speaks English in their own style. They accept different version of English, including the date and time style. So which part of the UK are you talking about? I am so confused.

However, I can tell you that in London, and in some certain English proficiency exams, people usually have no objection to your style of cutting of the postfix "th" after the day number in your date writing. Of course, it does not make your writing right in anyway. Here I even stressed on the word right (by writing it in Bold style) because it is my most important argument, and to make it clear from the term acceptable.

As said, writing day without the post-fix "th" is acceptable in many region and in many situation. After all, despite of any language rule, people are still the objective of acceptance to the way people write. I have no objection to that, but when some young and (probably) clueless people started to say it is also right, then I think I have to give my opinion out there.

Lets trace back to one of our first English lessons, in which we learned about the number and the numerical order. We know that 26 is a number, spelled twenty-six. We also know that 26th is a numerical order, spelled twenty-sixth. According to our lesson, if we say 26 Augusts then it means that we are talking about twenty six specific months (or twenty six years, in literature).However, if we say 26th August, then we are talking about one day only, just one day.  Do you know why? Because we count every day in a month, and named them after their numerical order. Moreover, if any of us learned Discrete Math in university, we know that Language is basically a set of finite symbols that makes up the Vocabulary and a finite set of productions/rules that makes up the Grammar. What we learned in our first English lessons was the Grammar of English. No matter which country you are living in, there is one and only one Grammar of English. If you stray from it in anyway, you are either wrong or in the process of producing a new language, mathematically saying.

That would wrap up the basic grammar of English, now I will continue discussing about acceptability and rightness. We already are very aware of how many English speaking regions accept some certain ways people write English in some certain situations. For example, when you send you e-mail to your customer, the thing that your customer cares about is not how you write the sentences, but the goods/services you are providing them. That is why they may accept your minor mistakes. You may not know this but it will also make their life easier and happier because they do not have to argue with you on how your sentences are grammatically incorrect. However, if the documents you are sending to them are some government official documents, or law-related documents that may be of important to them, then they will shove the Hammer Of Grammar down your throat for your incompetent grammar. In many cases, documents must be written in a formal and official tone that including absolute rightness of grammar even if your whole company employees and employer accept your grammatical incorrect writing everyday. That is what I want to say about acceptability, which depends so much about the situation and the community. You can find more about it on Google, or any official or unofficial Oxford English guideline or documentation.

Coming to the discussion of rightness, there is no way I could prove the rightness of English grammar without using mathematics. But no worry, knowing the mathematical knowledge level of my potential readers, I would prefer to keep math at minimum so no one would question the validity of my method. So lets starts!

In Discrete Math, we have learned the way of Logical Conjunction, which basically to tell us that if we want to prove a statement, we must prove that our statement is true everywhere. Even if there is only one place in which our statement is not true, then the whole statement is false. In this case, we consider writing day in dates without post-fix "th" is true, and it is our statement. However, as said above, in some cases, that style of writing is not acceptable, like in law-related documents for example. Moreover, it also does not represent the meaning of numerical order. Therefore, it is false by definition, or we can say it is not right. Then what? How about day with post-fix "th" like 26th August? It is quite simple, if you can find any place that does not accept that way of writing, then it is not right. The real question is, can you find any counter example? Of course you can not, and never will. That is because it is a written rule in English Grammar. No matter where you live, no matter which community you are in, no matter which situation, it is always right. It is absolute right! Therefore, mathematically proven, 26th August is right and 26 August is wrong.

 Finally, after explaining how that way of writing dates is wrong, I would want to give an advise to my fellow countrymen and countrywomen: if you learn anything, you should learn it by heart, and learn the right, original way of doing it. If you obtain your knowledge that way, you will be able to understand all the variations of that knowledge and figure out how they are different from the original one and how should you apply them into your study or your life. (I separate "study" and "life" into two different terms because, apparently, for people who like to spend time in studying like me, we have no life at all!)

Sincerely,
A Grammar Nazi

Chapter I. The small house on a highland (part 5)

<continue>

Hope

She stares to the front door, where the weak source of light comes in. Lenny does not sure how these rays of light could make it through the thick fog down to here, but he appreciates their gentle warmness.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" The old woman lowers her voice.

"What is beautiful?"

"The light. They've made it down to here. It is like they are giving people hope. They are so beautiful."

"Yes, they are..." Those rays of light remind him of the dream he had earlier, the one where he was on a wheat field with a girl. He still can remember her voice, her eyes, her smile. All of those make him feel warm inside, like none of these sad events was happened.

Grandma notices his dreamy eyes, as she speaks. "Seem likes you had something you haven't told me yet, young boy. Another dream?"

"Yes.. There is someone who is waiting for me back home, or at least I feel like so."

She smiles, "hah, I knew it. After all, it is love that keep people hoping for good things to come. Like those rays of light, they never give up on you, and will continue light up your way even if you are deep inside a heavy fog."

Lenny nods, "Yep, even I have so many questions for this world, I still have her as my ray of light, my hope. If all my dreams are real memories, as you said, then she must be waiting for me somewhere, and I will come back for her, I promised her that."

"You will, young boy. I can see it in your eyes."

"Thank you, lets continue to your story, what happened to Stata? You told me something changed." Lenny changes the topic back.

"Oh well, those rays of light almost distracted me from her story, sorry hahaha." She laughs, then continues, "Stata found her ray of light too. As I told you, she was the only lord left to stop herself from harming the world." She continues speaking while staring to the door.

"On the third days after the opening of the gate, she went to the shore where Leviathan died to moan for him. Even if the hell spawns are everywhere, none of them can touch her, for she is the daughter of Death - god of Hell himself. She walked into the shore, looking for his remains. However, Leviathan body was nowhere to be found, despite the fact that he were the biggest serpent king of the sea when he is not in his human form. Instead, she found a small glowing flower grew up and blossomed on where he was. Although the surrounding is ravaged by monsters, ashes, fire, human and beast bodies and blood, that tiny and seemingly frail flower still stand there, all pure with gentle light glowing out of it. No dirt, nor ashes ever touched its petals."

Grandma Mely pauses her story as her voice starts to tremble. She still stares to the light coming from the door, and tears start to come out of her eyes. Then she continues.

"The flower brought tears to her eyes. She remember Leviathan words when he was still alive many years ago. It reminded her the moment of fifty years ago, when their son was born, and how happy she was. The baby had a pair of dreamy blue eyes, just like the sea where his father rules and the ruby red color on his hair, which resembles much of his mother. On the day he was born, Leviathan suddenly disappeared. She was quite angry with him for how he could disappear on such important day, but the cute, bouncing baby calmed her down. A week later, he showed up to his angry lover, with a big smile on his face. He gave her and the baby a glowing and slightly purple blossom, and told them that he was so happy he couldn't think of any gift that he can give to his newborn son beside of this flower. It has no name, and is the only of its kind left. The only place where people can find it is inside one of the deep sea volcanoes. It can grow strongly in any harsh environment despite of having a frail body. Legend said that these flowers are the essence of the gods when they decided to leave the world behind them and continues their many incarnation trips through the time. Those blossoms are told to last forever, reminds people of the beauty of the gods when they were around. Leviathan told Stata that flower were the only thing left from his father, and he wants his son to have it. Nothing can describe how happy she was on that day." The grandma smiles while still staring to the light.

"Their happiness didn't last long though. Five days later, Stata and Leviathan heard an emergency call from the council of the lords, summoned them right away to the council. They had to leave their boy at home with his nanny and leave. Unknown to them, that summoning call turned out to be a test if the lords can immediately respond to the council when it needs them. It was a waste of time, and also started a tragedy, a reason why Stata can never forgive the council, and this world. When they came back to their house on the beach, their house was raided by the pirates and the nanny was killed. They tried to look everywhere desperately, but they couldn't find their baby. Stata was so heart broken and angry she went on a rampage to the sea, destroyed any pirate ship she found, killed many people, including pirates and innocent people who were captured on ships. She knew that her son was still alive, because a baby of two lords could be sold to a very high price on the black market to rich people. Many people think that if they eat the flesh of an off-spring of the lords, they can be immortal and become a lord themselves..."

Lenny stands up, and hits the table with his hand. "That is insane. Even if those things are true, he was just a baby."

The grandma looks at him, "It was just a myth, no one can ever prove it. We do not know the origin of all lords but most lords we know were getting their power directly from their godly parents. But the greedy nature of people often leads them to some blind beliefs. Stata was a hot-tempered lord, she couldn't forgive anyone who might stole her son, and she went to the sea for months, killing every people she saw with a pirate flag, mourning for her son. Quickly, she became the fear of all sailors, not just the pirates. Leviathan decided to stop her. He confronted her, and told her that his information leaded him to a conclusion that their baby was still alive and was taken to the Light Half. He promised her that he will find their son, bring him back and she needs to stop her madness. He then brought her the glowing blossom, showed her that his men found this blossom floating near the great border. The pirates didn't know its value and must threw it out of their baby's bassinet when they got there. He told her that he would go pass the great border to look for their son, even if his power would be neutralized when he is in the Light Half. Leviathan didn't forget to tell her that he will give her the flower back when he found their son.."

"Was that the same flower Stata found on the shore?"

"Yes, it was. Fifty years passed, even after countless trips to the Light Half, Leviathan couldn't find a single sign of his son. Stata slowly lost her hope, the darkness inside her slowly grew with time. She blamed the council for that emergency call on that day. That, and the death of Leviathan, were her motivation to destroy the world, and the lords with it."

"Her life is a tragic one.." Lenny sighs.

"Yes it is. Not until she released Hell on earth, she realized that Leviathan finally found their son. The glowing blossom was her ray of light, was her last hope. Their son must be on one of those metal ships..."

"Or he could be killed during the opening of the gate, or sank with some ships, couldn't he?" Lenny asks out of curiosity.

"He couldn't be. He is her and Leviathan's son, Hell fire or the sea cannot harm him. She knew that her son was still alive, but if she doesn't stop the madness of hell on her world, her son will never have a world to live in anymore."

"I see, so she managed to somehow stop all of that?"

"Yes she did. Being a daughter of Death, she can close or open the gate to hell anytime she wants, effortlessly. However, clearing the Hell Spawns on the surface is much harder. After three days of opening, the gate released hundreds of thousand beasts into this world, and they were scattered everywhere in those cities near the north sea. Within days, they could march into the main land and destroy the rest of the Dark Half and its people. I don't know if they can fly to the Light Half or not, because the halves are separated by large oceans, and most of them can't survive in water. Of course Stata knew that, so out of a desperate effort to save the world, she decided to use a forbidden spell to clear the monsters from existence. But that spell also costs the caster dearly..."

She pauses a bit, then continues, "It will consume all the life energy of the caster, and convert it into a circle of magical barrier that cast always all the evils inside it. Stata really didn't have any other choice, she hoped that her sacrifice can redeem her sins and save a future for her son. Most of the Hell Spawns were dissolved into the fog you can see around this house. That fog is not normal fog, it is their souls that were trapped here, in this world."

"Then what was the long figured that I saw inside the fog? Appet or so, I think."

"It's AAPEP. As I said, most of the hell spawns were killed, but they are the weak ones. The stronger one survived her spell, but couldn't leave the circle. AAPEP and others are still crawling out there, in this battle field. Even they will never be able to get into our main land, their presence is the reason why no human want to live in this place anymore."

"Just..just how big is her circle?"

"Well, it covered almost the north sea, the battle fields, the ruined cities. I think it covered one third of this Dark Half."

"Do you mean that we are now in the middle of a HUGE graveyard and there is no human near here?"

"Yes, it is basically that. Congrat! young boy, finally you understand the situation. Hahahaha". The granny laugh uncontrollably.

"STOP that laughing. I made me feel sick! But, to think about it. How do you still live here? why do you know all of this story? You told me no human could stay here anymore, right?"

Lenny asks her a series of questions, but then he stops and his eyes are wide opened. He cannot hide his surprise, "...are..are you Stata?"

The old woman looks at his face and smiled "Haha, no, that's ridiculous. Stata was one of the most beautiful woman in this world. Her beauty can bring any man into his knee without him even knows it. I am just an old, fat and ugly granny. Remember that I told you the spell would cost her her life?"

With his face less stressed, Lenny feel relieved. Even if he feels sorry for Stata, he still can't bear the fact that an all powerful mass murderer maniac woman could be sitting right in front of him. Deep inside, he knows that even if Stata sacrificed her life, her sins could never be cleansed, and Joe died because of her.

"That is a good news. Even she is a very pitiful mother, I still cannot forgive her for what she has done to my friends. But, then, if you are not her, nor a human, what are you? You don't seem to be scared of a strong hell spawn anyway, do you? Don't tell me you are a hell spawn..."

<To be continued>

The Lord of Fire begins to cast the Forbidden Spell, sacrifices herself

Big holidays

Halloween has not came yet, however, Walmart has already started selling Christmas decorations. Isn't it weird?

Actually it is not. In many county, people prepare for months before some certain big holidays. Those kinds of holidays could be vary from country to country, but their true meaning is the same. They are there to provide human some sort of emotional support.

In Vietnam, we have Mid-Autumn holiday and Tet holiday. Mid-Autumn holiday is the most anticipated holiday for children. During the night of that day, every family member will gather under the full moon light and eat traditional cakes. Adults give children gifts like toys and costumes. It is the only night that a child can go out with his friends after midnight. Usually, they will go in groups, wearing masks, costumes, bringing traditional hand-made lanterns and are supposed to sing a lot. Basically, it can be compared with how the children have fun in Halloween night for many western countries. There is something to note here: the traditional cakes, lanterns and toys are being sold at least one month earlier.

Aside from Mid-Autumn, we also have Tet Holiday. It is a holiday to celebrate the end of a lunar year, and the beginning of a new year. For Vietnamese, and most Asians, this holiday is the most important holiday of a year. We meet our family members, have some time together, visit our relatives or friends that we may never have a chance to see their faces in the whole year. Children also get lucky money from adults and spend them on whatever they want. In Vietnam, every house must has at least a branch of a pink cherry tree and/or a kumquat tree. We prepare our home with many kinds of traditional food, in case our friends/relatives come to visit us. We decorate our home with flashy things, or holidays banners, etc. And guess what? All of these things are being sold at least two months before the actual holiday.

It is quite the same in the United State, or in many western countries. They do not have Mid-autumn holiday or Tet holiday, but they have Halloween, Thanks Giving and Christmas. The goodies that are supposed to be used during those holidays are often being sold at least a month earlier. Why?

According to Micro-economy theories, we see those goodies on the market because there are demands for them. When there are demands, there will be supplies. The demands reflect our inner emotional needs of breaking from our normal boring working life and get some fun with our family or friends. We are all looking toward those days, and want them so bad that we could not stop ourselves from buying all the stuff that are related to those days. During these periods, people are smiling, day-dreaming and mostly happy. The actual holidays maybe will be not what we expected, but the preparation for them alone make us happy for the whole month, or months. It does not matter if you are an Asian, or an American, you will always have some holidays to keep you feel good for a month. Looking that way, maybe our cultures are not so different from each other much, right?

Chapter I. The small house on a highland (part 4)

Gate of Chaos

<continue>

As a natural reflex, he turns around, just to see Grandma Mely standing there, and her dog jumped pass him. The dog runs into the fog, fearlessly. When Lenny looks back into where the figure was supposed to be, it is not there anymore. Both the dog and the figure has disappeared completely. It is like they just vanished into thin air, with only a small disturbance left on the fog where they were.

"Wha...what it that thing?". Lenny asks the grandma, clearly with a confused and scared voice.

"It is just AAPEP, don't worry, Old Fart will take care of him." She smiled.

"What is AAPEP? I don't understand, what is this place? What are you?" He can not hold all of his questions anymore. This place has became too confusing for him lately.

The old woman looks at him, smile again.

"Young man, I see you have so many questions in your mind. Why don't you just go inside and I will give you a cup of hot cacao?"

The great invasion

Then she turns her back to him, walks into the door slowly. Lenny decides to follow her, he does not know what else to do anyway.

The grandma asks him to take a sit, just before telling him do not forget to wipe the chair first because of its two inches thick layer of dust. Lenny does as she said then sits down, while his eyes still follow her every movements. For now, the old woman is busily boiling water in her old small pot on the fireplace. She takes out some cacao nuts in her sack and pour them into the pot, then stirs them swiftly. All of those things happened in a mere five minutes, as fast as Lenny can wipe his chair and be comfortably sitting on it. Before he can ask her any question, two cups full of hot cacao are already placed on the table in front of him.

"Wait, this doesn't make sense, none of these things make any sense. How can you cook that fast? And since when the fireplace is fired?"

"Ha ha young man, I am going to tell you all of it, just be patient." Again, she smiled mysteriously. For some moments, Lenny thought his old granny is trying to make him feel like an idiot, but her smile, her calm eyes looking at him were so gentle and nice. That makes him even more confused.

She puts a hand gesture indicates asking him to wait for her for a minute. She then walks into the corner of the room, where an old, dusty big chest is located. She opens the chest, and starts to pulling everything inside out, searching for something.

"Hmm, where is it? ...oh, here it is!" She mumbles.

Shortly after that, she return to the table with a very old book on her hands. The book is huge, it is so big that the has to hold it with her two hand, firmly on her chest. Then she throws it on the table, shaken it to the point that the cacao cups almost fall off.

"Lets get started, ha ha", she smiles, then throw herself on the chair and continues with a calmly voice.

"I found this book at the same place where I found you, but six months earlier. That was one day after the great invasion of your people started."

"My people?"

"Yes, your people. They are the human of the other half of Terra. In case you may not know, which I think you don't, Terra is the name of this land we are living in, or dying in. Some people lives, and some people dies, you know. Terra is a rounded land. Your people also call it a planet, as there are so many other planets on the sky. A rounded land means that, if you walk straightly to a direction, after a while, you will end up coming back to where you started. And we are now in the Dark Half of it, as your people always say."

"Dark Half? do you mean that there is a Light Half of Terra?"

"Yes, there is. The Light Half is where you came from. I don't know how it looks like, because I have never been there in my life. Maybe you will have to try recall your memory yourself, and tell me about it some day."

"Then how do you know that I came from that place?"

"Because you were one of the people who came from there, and started a war with this land's people and lords. The lords are powerful people and being that are believed to have the blood of the ancient gods in their vain. They either rule this land, or live among the normal people. The Great Invasion is a name we call that war and it happened six months ago. Until now, still, none of us know the true reason behind that invasion."

"Six months ago? I have no memory of that event.."

"Yes, six months ago. That war was devastating, many people died on the border line, both from your army and this land's residents..."

"wait, you didn't say we have an army." Lenny cuts her flow.

"Be patient young man, there will be more surprising things coming next for you, I believe." She smiles.

"Okay, I am really sorry for disrupting you, please continue." He says, politely.

"Don't worry sweetheart. Yes, you people came to this land with an army, a big one. One day, suddenly from the sea of the north, the border between our two worlds, your huge ships appeared. They are all made of metal, and each of them was as large as a small island. Even our greatest wizards couldn't understand how your people can make metal floats on water. That must be a very powerful spell." She pauses for a second, then sighs.

"And from those ships, your metal birds were coming out and in. They spitted fire every place they went to, bombarding our towns and cities with a destruction force we could never imagined.. Many people lost their life, and their families on those days..." She stops again to wipe a tear rolling on her wrinkled  cheek.

"I am really sorry for that.." Lenny expresses his feeling of sympathy for her people.

"No, please don't. The past is already the past. What I am about to tell you are even more horrified than that, and I think we own you our own sorry." She continues.

"The lords decided to fight back to stop all of that nonsense killing. They released seven deadly sea monsters of legend. They are a giant octopus, a giant serpent, a white whale, a Tiamat and three other creatures no one has heard of before. They were imprisoned in a secret crack under the deepest ocean by the ancient gods because of their potential power to wreck havoc and chaos on the surface. We only have one lord that is capable of fighting on the sea, Leviathan the great sea serpent, and he was chosen to sink your people ships. We were naive. Our initial plan was to release the monsters to help us fighting against your army, so they would kill each other. However, the plan backfired us. Only one monster attacked the ships, while most others were either went on hiding or randomly attacked our cities and towns along the shore. That monster who attacked your ships successfully sank some of them, but when Leviathan arrived, it had became nothing but a giant blood pool on the sea. Apparently, your navy also has extremely firepower on board and under the water, not just the fire spiting birds on the sky." She pauses again, looking down to the table with a sad face.

"Leviathan tried his best, but he alone was no match for such a powerful threat. He were found drifted onto a beach, with barely any life left in him. Despite of his numerous wounds everywhere on his body, he used all of his last breath to tell us how strong your navy is, then passed away. The last son of our great sea god has died like that. He was loved by everyone who knows him. Without him, our fishermen could never have so much fishes on each of their sail back from the sea..."

"I am really sorry to hear about that, that war is so meaningless." Lenny says in a low tone.

"Yes it was meaningless. But his dead had waken up our greatest sin. The lords was angry and vowed for a revenge at all cost. Leviathan's lover, the female lord of fire, Stata, convinced all other lords to use their power to open the Gate of Chaos, our last line of defense. It is not a weapon or anything, but a magical gate that connect this world and the world of Hell. The gate was faced toward the borderline. The lords intended to open it for just one day, enough time to release ten thousands of hellish creatures into the battlefield and put a stop to your people. After that, they will send them back to hell." She sighs a long one.

"However, we didn't know that, shortly after defeating Leviathan, your ships started to deliver hundreds of thousand soldiers onto our shores and our cities. They ether came from the sea or dropped from the sky. Stata and all other lords combined all of their magical power to open the gate right in where your soldiers arrived. They'd never known how much destructive that event caused. Your soldiers captured many civilians but didn't kill them. However, the hell creatures didn't have any mercy for any of the human. They killed all, both of your soldiers and our people. They just massacred every one they see, turned them into lifeless bodies or ashes..."

"Ashes? That is just like my dream!" Lenny stops her with a horror look on his face. "I remember that now, I was there... My friends were slayed one by one, and Joe... He never had the chance to come back for his daughter... That's awful memory...". His eyes become red and tears start to run down his chin.

"As I said, our people has done an unforgivable sin. Millions of life were lost at the end of that day... painfully... "

"It was our fault to start the war first..." Lenny says, trying to comfort the granny.

"..And it was our fault to open that gate and destroyed everything we have... " She slowly wipes her tears and continues.

"The lords realized that horrible thing they have done, but Stata did not. She kept the gate opening to pour the beasts into our world. Vengeance was the only voice she can hear at the time.. The other lords decided to convince her to close that gate, and ended up into a large conflict with her. It turned out that she had planned for this to happen all along and did not use all of her power with other lords to open the gate. While the other lords are weak, they are no match for her power. Several lords was killed and others fled."

"She was consumed by hatred and pain of her lost love, right?..." Lenny concludes.

"Yes, she was..." She says, with an even more sad look on her face.

"However, there was an event happened that changed her mind, and shaped our world into what it is today. After all, she was the only lord left to save our world from herself.."

<To be continued>

Leviathan

Long words

The insight of pronouncing long words came into my mind when I was talking with my new GAP partner yesterday. Most of the time, when I tried to say "ingredients", the conversation ended up with:

"...blah blah blah....ingredblurueahruegheafsg", then followed up by an awkward stop.

"ingre....whaat?" was always her reply, along with knitted brows and an innocent look of widely opened eyes.

She is cute and all but that makes me feel so bad about my pronunciation.
---------------------------

"Ingredients", "superficial", "recurrences" are examples of English words that have four or more syllables. Basically, they are the most challenging words to pronounce when I speak.

The reason is not really simple. Imagine when you start speaking something, and begin with a syllable. There is quite a lot of way to start the next syllable, which are: lowering your voice, stressing on the next syllable, raising your tone, damping your tone, etc. Among them, there are only a few ways or most of the time, there is only one way to start that next syllable right. Speaking is like music, we tend to speak in a flow. If the first syllable comes out of our mouth is right, then we can be able to proceed to the next syllable, or else our brain will be confused and tells us to stop. Same for music, if we are playing a song, then suddenly we get one note wrong, we likely cannot continue to the next note after it. There is one explanation: we do not have that next note/or syllable in our memory, and if we want to somehow derive that note/syllable, we will have to think a little. Thinking takes time, which, in a fast speaking process or a fast song, we do not have. Our brain tends to remember a long word in a tune, and when we speak, our sounding system tries to remake that tune for us. Therefore, when we make any preceding syllable wrong, our sounding system will be messed up. The only way to successfully pronounce a long word is to sound every syllable that has a successor in the right tone.

It seems easy at first because when we try to say a word alone, usually we will sound it right. However, the real life situation is more complicated than that. We have to put that word in use, by placing it somewhere in our sentences. In a sentence, each word should have its unique way to pronounce, and this is what makes thing become harder. There is a chance that after finishing the first word, our sounding system is placed in a tone that is pretty far from the tone of the first syllable of the long word we are about to say. If we are not prepared for that case, for example, the next word is just something we just think of a moment ago and we need it to describe the current situation, then it is likely that we pronounce that first syllable in a wrong tone, or even in an extremely ridiculous wrong way. When the first syllable is wrong, most of the time our brain cannot automatically infer to the next syllable and we are screwed!

There are some countermeasures to prevent these kinds of situation:

1. Be prepared for every speech you are going to make. However, most of our daily conversation are considered chatting, not making a speech. We never know the next chat topic coming so we can prepare for it.

2. Speak a lot. Eventually, if you try to put a long word into your sentences many times, you will go through all situations with that word and know what are the right ways to sound your sentences without breaking your long word. Basically, your brain will infer a proper tune for those sentences. This process happens among native speakers, and their vocabulary of "sentence tones" is being built since they were infants until they master the art of English. Foreigners like me would take quite some time to be able to do the same.

3. Speak slowly. I meant, really slow, like a snail doing a stroll in a park on a summer day, with gentle winds of fresh air and colorful flowers everywhere. Speaking that way would give you the time to think and correct your long words after a few first syllables go wrong. Sometime, you even can invent some incredibly awesome sounds that are funny and original. One known example is when Jim Carrey tried to pronounce "Alright" in Ace Ventura, he sounded the syllable "righ" so long he had to add a "ty" and a "then" after it to fill the expected gap. The result was a distinguish "Alriiighty then" that makes his image into audience's heart. It is funny that sometime, we consider socially awkward as awesome. This slowly speaking method has a drawback though. Most of the time slow speakers will annoy or bore the listeners.

4. Shut up and pretending you are not there! This beautiful method is the ultimate solution for any problem with your speech. It is based on a ground-truth that is "if you don't do anything, then you can't do anything wrong.". The legend says that if thou master this utterly majestic sophisticated technique, thou shall be named as the King of Socially Awkwardness.

The choices shall be upon thy hands.