I can't sleep. I can't sleep. I can't sleep.

I went to bed since 12am. It has been two hours since then and I still can't sleep. What's the problem? It's obvious! It's too hot and dry to sleep. What kind of stupid weather is it? I hate it terribly. Damn it!

I started to get up (Get up? Not really since I even didn't sleep). No, I started to get out of the bed and look for something to do. The first thing I did was to open... Google! I typed in "Why can't I sleep" and get 61000 or more results. Voila! I'm not alone! Then I called my closest friend in Vietnam. She told me that it was the same hot in Vietnam, too. So... nothing to complain.

Global warming? North Pole ice is melting? I don't care but please don't increase the temperature any more! I need to sleep and I can't sleep in 35 degree.

OK. Try to sleep again now...

Well, I finally decided to upgrade this blog to the latest version of BlogEngine 1.5.0.7 because I were too eager to wait! I wanted to try the new nested comment experience as well as to have the better integration with the new Windows Live Writer.

It took me around an hour to finish the upgrade. First of all, I downloaded the current version of this blog from the server to my local computer. Then, I downloaded the latest version of BlogEngine from the website and make the following changes:

• Update the theme to support nested comment
• Update the CommentView and AddEntry to support Vietnamese Input Method
• Update the MetaWeblog information so that it can be retrieved by Windows Live Writer and display the customized theme for Windows Live Writer
• Update the file robots.txt to allow search engine to crawl through my website

And that’s it. Now I’m having the latest version of BlogEngine 1.5.0.7. However, I notice one annoying thing. That is BlogEngine currently does not support daylight saving. As a result, sometimes, the time shown in my blog differs from the actual time of creation one hour.

Today I intend to write a summary report for my expenses throughout the year. As a result, I have come up with a very nice chart in Microsoft Office 2007. Then it was when I was about to include it on my website that I discovered there was no such function in Microsoft Office 2007 to export the charts into other formats. Interesting and surprising!

I don't know how Microsoft think about this. Do they suppose that their charts can only be put in their softwares and not anywhere else? That's something not so pleasant.

As for now, there is no trivial way to get around this. The only simplest thing I can think of is to copy the chart and paste it into some image editor and then save it as an image. Afterwards, I can do whatever I want with the image of the chart.

I think Microsoft need to be more serious about their products!

Facebook, Friendster, MySpace are a few examples of popular social networks nowadays. It is inevitable that social networks have changed the way we interact and keep in touch with each other. They provide us with a tool, a place, an opportunity to stay close to each other. However, I start to wonder what are exactly inside those social networks and how people appear to be there.

Just a few years ago, people started to share (or pose?) their personal lives with their friends and millions of other people on the Internet using their blogs. Since then, blogs have become so popular that almost every person has his/her own blog. Some even have more than one. Now when the technology has grown to a higher level of maturity, it is feasible for people to share even more of their lives. They can share not only their photos and videos, but also their thoughts, their current status and feeling, even their friends and relationships. Everything now is possible thanks to the rapid advancement in Information Technology.

Putting the façade aside, I start to think more about the real people on the social networks. What are they actually doing there? Are they trying to share their real lives with everyone or are they trying to build up a marvellous unrealistic virtual online life, something which they always dream about? Are they reflecting the reality in the online world or are they using the online world to cover the reality? What should we behave and react upon our perceiving of others' lives in the social networks? If we can't conclude anything and if we can just use them as a place to keep in touch with each other, then am I right to say that the social networks are more beneficial to the people who are sharing (because they can make their dreams come true) rather than us who are reading others' lives?

I understand that every person has his/her own way of thinking. However, to me, I've been using the social networks to tell others what's going on in my life. What I've been sharing is the reality and what I expect to get is the understanding, sympathising, and encouraging from those who I regard as friends. I've never tried to build an online dream. Neither have I tried to pretend to have a perfect and enviable life. That's my standing point.

The online world will keep growing no matter what changes are brought about in real life. As a consequence, their façade will be misleading sometimes. You need to be alert to make it clear what is true and what is just a pose.

I was travelling on an SBS bus 197. I was going to the chicken farm in Tanjong Katong. It was in the evening. The street was very crowded. There was a long queue of cars following each other one by one. Dozens of people were hustling on the bus. The bus moved slowly in the heavy traffic, so slowly that the scene on two sides of the street nearly stayed still.

And all of a sudden... I started to miss Saigon...

Looking at the sea of cars reminded me of the streets in Saigon during rush hours but they were thousands of motorbikes instead of cars. I used to be in that chaos, together with my Cub 84...

Sitting on the bus, I recalled the time when I had to take the bus to explore the city of Saigon myself. I recalled the time when I had to wake up early everyday and travel half an hour by bus to the English centre. I recalled dozens of funny stories happening when I was on the bus...

It was... four years ago... The feeling, however, was magically the same although things were a bit different here...

I missed the city. I missed the hard time I had there...

The city has changed, tremendously and everything has become memories, forever...

It has been five years since I graduated from Tien Giang High School for Gifted Students. Five years is not a short time and indeed long enough for us to look back at the past and compare it to the present. You'll discover a lot of interesting facts which you never thought of five years ago.

Finally we have our first classmate to get married. We used to joke that marriage was something very far in the future and we shouldn't think about it but now it has become reality, something that we start to think about.

Some of my friends used to be very ordinary when they were studying in high school. They looked ordinary and their performance was not outstanding, either. However, most of them now have a very good life: a good career with a good salary, a good house in a big city, a handsome and rich boy friend, and so on. So I start to believe that to study well is just an important factor contributing to a good life of yours. However, it cannot determine everything and neither can it be everything. You still need more than a good degree to have a good and comfortable life. You'll need luck. You'll need cleverness. You'll need a little bit charm, too.

I had a very advantageous starting point in high school. I had a position which everyone wished to have. However, I wonder if it can help me to secure a good life. Now I doubt so. I start to worry that I will be surpassed by those who started worse than me. If life is a marathon (a long-distance race), then I have probably wasted too much energy in the beginning and thus am about to lose the final metres. What a silly strategy I used!

People usually don't care how you start. On the contrary, they care pretty much how you end up with. No excuse. No explanation. Not at all.

So let's start to imagine about life in ten years' time and let's plan for it. You need to win this time.

This is a very inspiring song. I heard it once in the World Cup 2006 but I had a special feeling when I've listened to it again recently. It was a hard time for me and the song did cheer me up. I felt like having a lot of more energy to step forward, rush forward, towards my goal at all cost as if there were no one or nothing that could get me down.

The reason why I looked for this song again was that I thought it was orginally in French and it would help me in learning French. However, to my surprise, I couldn't find any French version of the song. I finally found out that the song was originally composed in Spanish and there are versions in English and German but not French! It's interesting!

Whenever you are sad, depressed or someone turns you down, listen to this song and you'll get the inspiration again!