Hello my name is Mai. :)

Nguyen Thi My-Thuan is actually my original name. I changed my name to Mai Nguyen after I got my America citizenship. Born in Cam Ranh, Nha Trang in 1990. Came to America when I was 10 years old, so I am privilege to still be able to speak two languages, Vietnamese and English. During the last 20 years, the biggest lesson I learn so far is how to love and appreciate the people around me, especially family. However, that lesson I learned it the hard way. Came home from school one day and I lost my grandma, she died from a stroke. She was my mom, my buddy, my sister, basically my everything. She literally raised me and my 3 sisters while my parents are busy working to put food on the table for us. It was her death that made me realized I have not done "shit" for my parents or anything for my grandma. I took them for granted. I always put them after friends, never tend to make time for them, never tend to stop and think whether that will hurt their feelings, never once do something small to cheer them up. I just went on to do my everyday thing and never really pause and question things. Even though, she is no longer with me physically she still taught me a lot. After she's gone, I learned to take care of my sisters to help out my parents. Since my mom is always too tired to clean and my dad is a tidy person, I'm starting to turn into a neat freak after years of cleaning. Having 3 sisters I have always felt like an outcast as the middle child and hated my parents for awhile until I understand how hard it is to raise all 4 girls together. Now, we are not the best kids in the world that do not cry or get sick and scream and yell and nag and gosh who knows what! Through all of this I just know I have to work extra hard to make up for the sacrifices my parents made in order to give us this educational opportunity in the states. Don't know how, but I got lucky to get into UC Berkeley and met all of these wonderful people from REACH! (API Recruitment and Retention Center).

I decided to participated in EAP ever since I was a freshman.  Even though I lived in Vietnam for 10 years, coming back now Vietnam is not the same Vietnam as I used to remember. My main goal for this semester is to challenge myself to explore and find those memories about Vietnam that I was longing for years. From eating the street food, to riding a bike around the village or small town, to connecting back to my roots. I remember, when the sun is about to set I would come and sit in front of my house and listen to parents chit chat with my neighbors. I would come by my neighbor house and play with her kids  everyday until its time to come home and sleep. I guess I would call it "chilling." "Chilling" in America is quite different, I usually don't "chill" with the neighbor, only friends or people I would know. mostly is also because they don't have time. But in Vietnam, "chilling" become a living style that everyone does everyday, interacting with the people around them and make great relationship! During my short staying here, I hope to create those relationships and continue to make it last doing whatever it is that I have to do.