Writing Treasure (Ways to improve your writing)

meter, metre:
- A meter is an instrument for measuring and recording the amount of something, such as a commo***y. For example: The operator installed a new meter in the gas flow line.
- A metre is the basic metric unit of length. For example: The truck stopped two or three metres away from the laydown yard.

over, more than:
- Over refers to position. For example: He placed the exit sign over the doorway.
- More than refers to number. For example: By the end of the month, they had spent more than $80,000 on contractors?T services.
presently, at present:
- Presently means soon or in a short while. For example: Tell the others I?Tll join them presently.
- At present means now. For example: At present we have more office furniture than we need.
- Because so many people have trouble distinguishing the meaning of these words, avoid using them. Use soon (or better still, give a more precise indication of time) instead of using presently. Use now or currently instead of at present.
prior to:
- Use before.
priorize:
- There is no such word. Use prioritize. For example: The mechanic waited until the truck was stationary, then placed chocks behind the wheels.
- Stationery means writing materials, particularly paper. For example: David printed our sales letters on the pale blue corporate stationery with the gold embossed logo.
stationary, stationery:
- Stationary means fixed or standing still or having a fixed position. For example: The mechanic waited until the truck was stationary, then placed chocks behind the wheels.
- Stationery means writing materials, particularly paper. For example: David printed our sales letters on the pale blue corporate stationery with the gold embossed logo.
that, which:
- That introduces a restrictive clause that is essential to the sentence. For example: The hard drive that crashed on Friday has been fixed.
- Which introduces a non-restrictive clausê?"a clause that adds information that is not essential to the sentence. For example: The project team, which is made up of specialists from each department, met yesterday to develop the construction plan.
try and, try to:
- Try and is incorrect. Don?Tt use it.
- Use try to. For example: His boss told him to try to improve his communication skills.
utilize:
- Use use.
were, was:
- Use were when referring to a hypothetical situation or to plural nouns or pronouns. For example: If I were head of this department, I?Td make some changes. There were five candidates for the supervisor?Ts position.
- Use was when referring to the singular. For example: He asked me if I was going to the meeting.
who, which:
- Who refers to a person. For example: The team leader asked us who we thought should get the job.
- Which refers to things. For example: The company asked which suppliers would be interested in bidding for the work.

What is philosophy?
Most of Vietnamese educated people have to listen to or deal with philosophy without loving it, some even hating it. As a matter of fact, nowadays all of Vietnamese university students have to take Marxist-Leninist philosophy class which is boring and sleepy in lecture and unnecessary challenge in exam. Do they find the knowledge acquired from the class useful in real life? Most of them will say no, I believe. A similar attitute applied for ?~Three religions?T (Confucianism, Buddism, and Taoism) even though all Vietnamese heard about Khong-Manh philosophy (Confucianism) and tu thu-ngu kinh (four books-five classics). Do you agree with me that those names and books sound incomprehensive and mysterious even though you have never read them. As a consequence, you choose either to keep a distance from it or to simply ignore it as it never exist. Its existence rejection is a price the subject has to pay for its uselessness which I totally agree with you. However, Marxist-Leninist philosophy , taught by Vietnamese teachers, is useless because it is not philosophy at all but a elementary politic training in ideology. Confucianism is useless because it was denied and not taught properly its dignity. I strongly believe that philosophy is useful and relevant to you if you understand what philosophy really is.
What is philosophy ? Literally, philosophy means ?~love of wisdom?T, the meaning of yesterday, of thousands of year ago. It was appropriate in that time when people equalize philosophy to human knowledge or wisdom, when various modern disciplines such as physics ,literature, history, and logic existed as one subject-philosophy. Philosophy in modern context lost their genuine meaning because modern people lost in a forest/matrix of ill defined concepts, countless authors and classics, and various ?~-isms?T (a boom in 20th century). As a consequence, common people tend to ignore philosophy for its incomprehensiveness. By re-discovering real philosophy, you will get much benefit from it.
Despite of countless definitions given by great philosophers, defining philosophy is still controversy issue. In my opinion, philosophy is to think, is to ask philosophical questions. What are philosophical questions? They are simplest and oldest questions concerning on nature/foundation of human and universe. They sound simple but almost impossible to answer any one of them regardless how much our civilization has progressed. Those questions could be classified into different topics such as EGO (I), MORAL, THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE, ONTOLOGY etc. EGO questions such as ?~Who am I , Where am I from? Where will I go after I die??T ?~How should I live or conduct my life? What are good and bad??T are concerned by MORAL. THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE asks ?~ How do I acquire knowledge??T while ONTOLOGY wants to know ?~What exists and is permanent?T, ?~what is the truth??T ?~Does God exist??T. Why are they useful in attempting to answer them? I believe by thinking throughout any one of them, we become wiser to understand more about the nature of the questions and the issues it addresses. In answering the questions, we become a citizen of the universe. We escape from boring daily life, are free from religion beliefs and its moral constraints. We are totally free, we are equal to ancient saints in trying to answer the philosophical questions.
How do you benefit in attemping to answer questions of EGO? To anwer them is to solve a problem of identity, a person without identity is lost in crowds. How are you different from others? How is a man different from a woman? How are Vietnamese different from other races or what is Vietnamese identity? So on and so forth. Question generates questions, a long chain and complex questions were created. Whether a question could be answered or the chain came to an end is not important but going through this reflective thinking process will matter. Reflective thinking is to gain insight of yourself. What are your strengths/weaknesses? How to improve/perfect yourself? As soon as you know those, you transform into ?~a better you.?T That is personal /identity development.
How do you benefit in attempting to answer MORAL questions? You may wonder society has its law and customs/rituals to govern your behaviors. You are already in much trouble with moral constraints in family and conventional Confucianism/Buddism rule, why do you need to concern more about MORAL? Yet again you may ask what are rule and law by the way? Why should you obey them? Is it good or bad to do so? What are good and bad? For example, should Iraq government hang Saddam Hussen for his crime of killing thousands of people? Yeah, punishment is to prevent futher harmful actions. However, he is old and powerless now, what people need to do is just to imprison him to prevent him for harming more people further. I can guarantee you that no second Hussen would come to exist, on other words punishment in this case is meaningless. To kill one person in order to revenge/save for thousands of people is good or bad? You can not use ?~common moral law?T to judge such case. Similarly, you can not use ?~common moral law?T to confront against themselves. If you want to rebel, to against common moral law you have to use your own moral law. You can not have your own without thinking through MORAL questions fundamentally.
We come to third question category, ONTOLOGY which concerns ?~the truth?T, ?~God existencê?T, ?~permanent subtance.?T Why do people ask such kinds of question? Because they love ?~the truth?T and ?~permanent thing?T which give them a secured and safe feeling in human relationships and surrounding world (universe.) In relationship, why do people hate ?~fake lovê?T and desire for ?~true lovê?T? Because they know ?~true lovê?T is true. Yet paradoxly, people are aware of the fact that money, fame, and beauty will not be eternal, not true, why do they still chase after them in order to be injured and miserable? Because people blindly enter the life as aggressive soliders. They fight for happiness, fight for money, fight for fame without pondering ?~are they worth to fight for at the first place??T Stop and think (philosophically) before you decide to fight for rewards. If rewards turn out to be fake ( not true), please do not complaint ?~life is illusion and miserable.?T
In summary, philosophy is to ask questions. EGO questions are ?~good?T for personal development/identity while MORAL questions give you guidance to conduct your life. Lastly, ONTOLOGY questions tell you the truth story of the life.

TL,
Nice piece of writing. I''m so sorry I haven''t been able to respond to your writing right away. However, I will try to respond to it in the next couple of weeks, cuz the final week is coming, so I won''t be able to have that much time. Please bear with me and forgive me

Thank you Trang. It is very kind of you to give such compliment. In fact, it was not a piece of ''writting'' but speaking. I prepared it for my own speaking practice. To be frank, I gave up in e***ing it or completing its content. In fact, I intented to prepare a few topics for my speaking practice- what is philosophy, what is good/bad, enjoyment of classical music, how should we conduct our life. However I discouraged myself then: who need them.

Hi all,
Sorry I haven''t been able to write anything lately, so I decided to post one of my essays that I had written for my class from last semester. It''s kinda long, and I don''t know how it sounds, but I''m willing to hear all of your feedback... Thanks

Who Am I?​

Through out the history of literature, writers from all over the world have written many spectacular stories. Sadly, many Asian American writers?T works could not get published in the early days. However, their works were finally able to get published for the audience to have a chance to read. Many of these Asian American writers are very well known nowadays. They have such an incredible talent. Many of their works are sometimes considered very controversial, but this does not mean nobody stops reading their works. Personally, I got a chance to read some of their works. At first, I only thought that since I am an Asian American too, so I assume that I already knew all about ?othe stuffs.? Consequently, once I read them, I was totally blown away by them. I personally already knew some of the problems, but I admit that there are a lot more that I have never known. The three Asian American novels that I had read are No-No Boy by John Okada, The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, and Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee. Even though these are three different sets of novels, the authors are intentionally building their main characters up for the same purpose. Therefore, these three novels focus on the main characters. Although each character has been exploring/ experiencing through different things/ aspects of life; yet, they all manage to have the same purpose which is to find and to construct their identity as an Asian American while living in America.

In the novel, No-No Boy by John Okada, Ichiro, who is twenty-five years old and just got out of jail for having been as a No-No boy, appears to be having a very tough life. Ichiro does not know how to distinguish himself when he stated, ?oI am not Japanese and I am not American.? (Okada 16). For this, he blames on his mother whom had ?oopened my mouth and made my lips move to sound the words which got me two years in prison and an emptiness that is more empty and frightening than the ****rns of hell. Shê?Ts killed me with her meanness and hatred and I hope shê?Ts happy because I?Tll never know the meaning of it again? (12). It seems he does not know what to do about his problem, so he just keeps on blaming on his mother since from the beginning of the novel. I would have been the same as him if I were in his situation. I do not think the mother is mean. However, I think she is so deep rooted with her own culture and tra***ion which makes her to be the way she has been so that it trapped her from reality. Ichiro is so caught up torn between two worlds to which he does not know who he is, so he just keeps on blaming. It raises the question up in my mind; is blaming the only way out for Ichiro? I think from the beginning is yes when he thought that:
?oI am neither and I blame you and I blame myself and I blame the world which is made up of many countries which fight with each other and kill and hate and destroy but not enough, so that they must kill and hate and destroy again and again and again. It is so easy and simple that I cannot understand it at all. And the reason I do not understand it is because I do not understand you who were the half of me that is no more and because I do not understand what it was about that half that made me destroy the half of me which was American and the half which might have become the whole of me if I had said yes I will go and fight in your army because that is what I believe and want and cherish and lovê?? (16-17).
This passage shows how desperate Ichiro is for not knowing exactly who he is, and that is a shame for his mother for making him this way. She considers him being in jail as a pride; however, for him is a total misery and darkness. Therefore, he is crushed between two worlds, and he does not know where to turn to when all the people that he had met since getting out of jail are only offering hatred against him even that someone is a Japanese.

Luckily, Ichiro met Kenji, a friend and had been in the American army. Kenji has lost a leg when he was in the army. Unlike others, Kenji totally understands what Ichiro has gone through. He supports and helps Ichiro to find his own self. It shows how yearning Ichiro is to find his own self when he was telling Kenji that he would give up himself to be in Kenji?Ts place although, Kenji would not have lived any longer. Therefore, the fact Kenji is a ?oYes-Yes Boy?, he was able to see and understand Ichirô?Ts dilemma, and this means so much for Ichiro so that it gave him hope and reason to live and continue to go on. Moreover, Kenji leads Ichiro to Emi, a young Nisei woman who is both lover and an advisor to him. Emi is another person who totally understands Ichirô?Ts struggling. She opened him up to another whole new level that shows him how to forgive. These people show a hopeful side to him that he has hope in this world, and there is still someone will offer him help when he needs one. I totally agree with Stan Yogi for saying:
?oThe dance floor becomes a metaphor for America, and dancing becomes a metaphor for the constant cooperation and respect necessary to maintain a truly pluralistic nation. Ichiro sees that there is a place for people as diverse as Emi, who throughout the novel challenges Ichiro to dismantle his self-absorption and see the positive in the world, and Freddie, who as a foil to Ichiro runs from his problems and accepts no responsibility for his actions. Ichiro''s dance with Emi symbolizes a more benign version of Kenji''s assimilation theory, because it does not necessarily result in the disappearance of racial and ethnic differences. As if as a sign that the vision of an integrated yet diverse America is possible, a slightly drunken white man insists on buying Ichiro and Emi a drink. Okada slyly plays on the expectation that the drunk will pick a tight with Ichiro and Emi because they are Japanese and instead has the man surprise the couple with friendliness. After offering explanations to Emi that foreground their ethnicity, Ichiro tells her, ?~I want to think . . . that he saw a young couple and liked their looks and felt he wanted to buy them a drink and did?T (211). By providing this final explanation, Ichiro signals his hope for a truly unfragmented Americâ? (Yogi).
Early in the novel, Ichiro would identify Freddiê?Ts anger as his own. However, through Kenji and Emi?Ts helps, Ichiro is able to find hope in his own dilemma/struggle. This leads Ichiro, at the end of the novel, responding to Freddie by telling him that perhaps his parents have "nothing to live for except making enough so that they could go back to the old country and be among their own kind and know a little peace and happiness" (201). ?oThrough this sympathetic reaction to the immigrant generation, Ichiro acknowledges his Japanese heritage as part of his own past, as part of his identity as an American? (Yogi). He reaches a point where he understands that "the past had been shared with a mother and father and, whatever they were, he too was a part of them and they a part of him and one did not say this is as far as we go together, I am stepping out of your lives, without rendering himself only part of a man" (154). Ichiro learns how to forgive himself and others in order to find hope, and that is the only way out for him.
Likewise, The Woman Warrior is dealing with the main character?Ts struggle to find herself in America. Kingston is caught up between two worlds, Chinese and American, just like Ichiro. She could not find a place for her in Chinese tra***ion nor the American tra***ion. Her mother would tell her stories about woman warriors and all that, but it pushes Kingston more confused when she finally confronted, ?oI don?Tt want to listen to your stories; they have no logic. They scramble me up. You lie with stories. You won?Tt tell me a story and then say, ?~This is a true story,?T or, ?~This is just a story.?T I can?Tt tell the differencê? I can?Tt tell what?Ts real and what you make up. Ha! You can?Tt stop me from talking. You tried to cut off my tongue, but it didn?Tt work? (Kingston 202). It?Ts a very strong passage in which it offers how Kingston has been going through for all those times and how miserable she is. Again, the mother is the force. Kingston relies on her fantasy to find herself through including the stories such as Fa Mulan in her novel to show how desperately she wanted to be like Fa Mulan. I also agree with Ken-Fang Lee for saying Kingston ?otranslates the ideographs into a landscape in which ?~the imaging of self in a bird?Ts flight, symbolic of onê?Ts freedom and transcendencê?T (Li, ?oProduction? 327) is also a means for the young narrator to escape to the fantasy world of her mother?Ts tonguê? (Lee 107-108). She could find herself in the fantasy world, yet she could not find herself in the real world, and that is very hard for her to have a life like this.

For a child like Kingston, when she hears about ghost, she is very confused because when people tell stories to a child, the child might misunderstand them due to their limitation knowledge of the world. In her life, the boundaries are blurred. In Chinese culture, when adults talk to you, you cannot talk back at them. This is the reason why it has put so much pressure on Kingston for not having the opportunity to talk back when something is confused her. However, at the end, she was able to tell ?othe hardest ten or twelve things on my list all in one outburst? (202). Going back to ?oghost? thing, I found that somehow Kingston finds herself as one of the ghosts too because she couldn?Tt fit herself to Chinese tra***ion nor the American tra***ion. Neither side is familiar to her, nor neither is too real to her, so both of them are more ghostly to her than real. For her, both Chinese and American tra***ions are strangers to her. Through her fantasy world, she connects herself as the woman warrior that she has long been prolonging so that she found ?oThe swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar? (53). These woman warriors use swords to fight to claim themselves; consequently, in Kingston?Ts real life, she could not use sword to fight anybody to claim herself so that it leads her to use words to construct and claim her identity. ?oMay my people understand the resemblance soon so that I can return to them. What we have in common are the words at our backs? And I have so many words?"?~chink?T words and ?~gook?T words toô?"that they do not fit on my skin? (53). She fights her war with words, and words are her weapons. She is writing to a larger audience to be recognized as a wholly American. In the end, Kingston includes the story of Ts?Tai Yen by saying, ?othe babarians heard a woman?Ts voice singing, as if to her babies, a song so high and clear, it matched the flutes. Ts?Tai Yen sang about China and her family there. Her words seemed to be Chinese, but the barbarians understood their sadness and anger. Sometimes they thought they could catch barbarian phrases about forever wandering? (209). Likewise, she is comparing how similar Ts?Tai Yen to her. One might not understand what she has gone through but at least one understands her frustration and anger through her work. She draws inspiration from legendary where she gets fantasy through being a woman warrior. Therefore, she finds inspiration in Ts?Tai Yen?Ts life through her writing. Similarly, by expressing her frustration and emotion, she lets the non-Chinese to understand her frustration, anger, etc. So at the end, this has led her to state this, ?oIt translated well? (209).
For the novel, Jasmine, it focuses more on the post-modernism aspect of how the novel went. The main character has several names that are Jyoti, Jasmin, Jazzy, Jase, and Jane. ?oWe murder who we were so we can rebirth ourselves in the images of dreams? (Mukherjee 29). By saying images of dreams, I assume that her dream is all about finding her identity. Even though, she does not have a lot of education, it has brought her to a new perspective which led her to say, ?o?TI don?Tt want to be a steno. I don?Tt want to be a teller, either? I want to be a doctor and set up my own clinic in a big town?T? (51). At first, she wanted to go to America for the reason of fulfilling her husband?Ts, Prakash Vijh, dream and die. Somehow, she unconsciously deep inside of her wanted to escape from the life in India where she has become a widow, and widow in India means no life at all. Unfortunately, when she got to America she decides not to die anymore. I think the reason she does not want to die is because when she got raped by Half-Face, she is no longer pure. She is dirty now so that after she got raped, she immediately went to take shower in order to rinse out her dirtiness.
After a while of living in America, she has found that nothing is staying the same. Everything is changing almost everyday just like herself in order to be an American. For instance, the hotel where she got raped, after few years, it got rebuilt to where they said it?Ts a heaven. All the bad things got wiped out. One day, Taylor and Wylie were together the next they were separated. Bud was walking and now he is in a wheelchair. At the beginning of the story, the fortuneteller had foretold about her widowhood and exile; somehow, it?Ts true to her life now, but she wanted to fight back that she realizes she ?ohas already stopped thinking of myself as Jane. Adventure, risk, transformation: the frontier is pushing indoors through un-caulked windows. Watch me re-position the stars, I whisper to the astrologer who floats cross-legged above my kitchen stovê? (240). Through all of her different names and transformation, she realizes that in order to be in America, she needs to change constantly so that she would have gained her identity even if she is ?ogreedy with wants and reckless from hopê? (241).

In brief, the three novels have posted a very common issue that I assume almost every Asian Americans could find themselves in the three main characters while living in America. These novels truly captured the aspect of someone who has no identity. Therefore, they are able to challenge us (the readers) on an emotional level. The three main characters were able to find their identity as an Asian American. Through constructing and finding their identities, Kingston identifies herself as Woman Warrior whereas Jasmine identifies herself as a fighter and an adapter. For Ichiro, he identifies himself as a forgiver.

Hi Tr,
How popular three novels are in America? You spent so much time ''tell stories'' and give quotations that you have very little space to present your own opinions.

Hi TL,
I''m not so sure on how exactly popular they are, so I can''t tell you. Yes, I know it, that''s one of my weaknesses in writing. I tend to go off topic or somewhere else. Plus, I was rushing to work on it during my final week cuz it was due right on the final day, so I was like, whatever I can think of, and that''s not good at all.

I wanna share with you something. Maybe it''s helpful in your translation
1 - Phải chi = That
e.g : That i chould see him again
Phải chi tôi có thể gặp lại anh ấy
2 - Coi, xem = if, whether (dùng cho câu gián tiếp)
e.g : He asked whether I wanted a drink
Anh ấy hỏi tôi xem có uống gì không
3 - Liệu = Do you think , if, whether
e.g : Do you think it is going to rain
Liệu trời sắp mưa hay không ?
4 - Thà = would rather.........than better
e.g : I would rather die than love her
Tôi thà chết còn hơn phải yêu cô ấy
5 - Chỉ khi nào = Only if (đảo chủ ngữa ra sau động từ)
e.g : Only if the teacher has given permission are students allowed to enter the room
Chỉ khi nào có sự cho phép của giáo viên thì sinh viên mới đc vào phòng

6 - Hóa ra = as it turned out ; turn out to be sth/s.o ; turn out that
e.g : It turned out that she was my elder brother''s girlfriend
Hóa ra cô ấy là người yêu của anh trai tôi
7 - Đến mức đó = That
e.g : It isn''t all that cold
Trời không lạnh tới mức đó đâu
8 - Không ai mà không = no man but
e.g : There is no man but feels pity for that begger
Không ai mà không tội nghiệp cho người ăn xin đó
9 - Lại còn ......nữa : Yet more
e.g : Yet more one newly born-child without havign father
Lại một đứa bé ra đời mà không có cha
10 - Sở dĩ = if, that is way
e.g : If she was tired, it was because she work too hard
Sở dĩ cô ấy mệt vì do làm việc quá nhiều
Here are some Vietnamese idioms, proverbs and their English tranlation
1 - Tích tiểu thành đại = Many a little makes a mickle
2 - Cái khó ló cái khôn = Necessity is a mother of invention
3 - Không nên ngã lòng = Never say die
4 - Con sâu làm rầu nồi canh = One scabby sheep is enough to spoil the whole flock
5 - Có công mài sắt có ngày nên kim = Practice makes perfect
6 - Đèn nhà ai nấy sáng = My house is my castle
7 - Vạn sự khởi đầu nan = It is the first step that costs
8 - Thất bại là mẹ thành công = If at first you don''t succeed, try and try again
9 - Gần mực thì đen,gần đèn thì sáng = Evil communications corrupt good maners
10 - Anh em như thể tay chana = Blood is thicker than water