Vovinam Tournament 2009

Vovinam is a type of Vietnamese Martial Arts that I have taken for a few years. July 2009, I competed in the 9th World Championship Tournament in San Jose against LA, Oakland, San Jose, 4 people from Hayward including me and I think that's about it. I don't remember. I was competing with a Vietnamese form and a sparing match.

In the morning I went to my Uncle's house and left with his family to the tournament. We were maybe about an hour late because of traffic and the schedule said it starts at 10 o'clock but it was 9 o'clock but we didn't miss any of our performances. We only missed the first part of the partner performance where they have a mini fighting skit (one of the performance here).I like watching those skits but to bad I wasn't there in person to see it and I had to watch it on you tube. We we came it was already break time and I had some food. After, Vicky (teacher assistant) and I practice outside with some attacking combos when I compete.

Break time was over and it's was time for Vietnamese form performances. There were two performances going on at the same time, one side with the older kids and the other with the younger kids. I'm not sure how many forms there are but people were performing their third form and up. I was supposed to perform my second form but I couldn't perform it because it was yesterday. The day before the tournament is a seminar I think, and my teacher said I didn't need to go. On that day was my second form performance and I didn't know. My teacher knows the judge well and he told them if I could perform the next day and the judge was okay with it. He said that Vicky will remind them. She remembered to tell the judge if I get perform but they didn't let me and there was no re-takes.

The sparing match was about to begin. The high ranked teachers (also judges) started to weight everyone who were competing and this match is a free fight tournament. The judges announced the order of the fighters and I was last. The rules were no using knees, elbows, and no kicking below the belt line. I was observing some of the sparing matches and I did not see any people using techniques. Most were just kicking and punching continuously and jumping on each other. I know it's a free fight but they should do some techniques. Later, it was my turn and I was nervous because my opponent looked about a year or two older than me and some people said he was good and really strong. I put on my sparing gear and step into the ring. Round 1 started and I get hit within the first 5 seconds and I started punching him in the face. It looked like I pissed him off and he started to corner me while punching me. I tried to dodge some of them but it was a bad idea because I have some open spots for him to get me and when he cornered me he got me down. The ref stopped the match and brought us to the middle to start again. As he came closer I did a spinning back heel to him and pushed him a few feet back and that gave me a chance to combo him. I came up to him and did a upper cut, double punch, and a front snap kick but he dodged it. He some how cornered me again while he was walking up to me and punching. I started punching got some good hits but I fell on the crowed of people. The ref stopped it again and put us in the middle of the mat. The judges ringed the gong and I end up losing.When the tournament was over everyone lined up and sat down for medals. I heard my name for third place and I was surprised that I got a bronze. I'm not sure not how the judging goes but I think I got more points from other players. I was happy that I got a bronze and I would have probably gotten a silver medal if I done my form.

Vietnamese New Years

On February 14 was Vietnamese/Chinese New Years and also Valentine's Day. When it's Vietnamese/Chinese New Years some people don't mention that it's also Vietnamese New Years they probably think it's only Chinese New Years. This year is the year of the Tiger (rawr). Happy New Years in Vietnamese is Chúc Mừng Năm Mới and you probably know how to say it in Chinese Gung hay fat choy. Vietnamese New Years is my favorite day because I get money.

On New Years Eve my mom,sister, and I went to Church. During church I sat there and listened to all the usual stuff. After mass there was going to be a food and entertainment. We went to get food and find some seats before it gets crowded. There were people performing music and singing. The priest went up and sang while he gave out red envelopes to the younger children. The older kids went up to receive red envelopes, including me. The priest had a lot of red envelopes left and some adults went up to get one. I got four lucky dollars.

It was New Years, we went to San Jose to look around at this Vietnamese festival around eleven o'clock. There wasn't anything good or interesting in there. The place wasn't crowed at all because we were early and people should be arriving at noon. We looked around and all they had was a few people selling music and food. In the middle people would be advertising their stuff. In the back there was a mini carnival and my sister and I went browsed the area. They didn't have any good games or prizes and it was mostly for kids. In the very back I saw people practicing dirt biking and it looked awesome. We only walked around for an hour and we started leaving the festival and when we got to the exit a lot of people were entering the festival at noon.

We went to get lunch at the Lion Plaza which is good place to do firecrackers. I haven't been here in a couple of years and it was crowed with people gambling. The most common Vietnamese gambling game (I don't know what it's called in English) involves a board containing a fish, crab, shrimp, deer, jug, and a rooster. The dealer has 3 dices with those 6 items and they cover the dices and shake it. You bet what ever how much money you want on any of the six items before they reveal the dices. If you bet $1 on crab and get one dice on it, your money doubles, two dices add another dollar, three dices add another dollar ending up with $4. I wanted to bet one of my lucky dollar for fun and I won $2. We went to eat some phở (delicious beef noodle soup) and we bought our food and while we were buying our food I bought some cheap fire crackers for $5 for the long roll. My sister and I went to the middle of the plaza where people throw their fire crackers There were so many people throwing fire crackers and it was loud. Some people were crazy to hold it while its popping. I went to light my set and when I lite it my guy walked in front of it. He got hecka scared and started to dance. After my sister and I went to go gamble some more. I was on a wining spree with $1 and won $8 but I should have stopped after because I started to get addicted. I decreased slowly losing my money and won another $5. I stopped because I started to lose one after another and ended up losing $7. We went home and I received more money from my parents. I got about 200 lucky dollars.

Snowboarding Trip

During my first day of my four day weekend my sister and I went snowboarding. This was a two day trip and the plan was to leave on Thursday and snowboard on Friday. Thursday after school we were headed to Squaw Valley Ski Resorts. When we were an hour away from Squaw valley and it started to snow. It was hard to see the road because of the snow and it was scary. This was my first time I've seen it snowing in person.

We had arrive in Squaw Valley trying to find our motel. Before, my sister called the motel to make reservations earlier to check if they had a refrigerator in our room. They weren't suppose to have one in the room but the front desk clerk was nice to give us a refrigerator with to motel room. We were going to have dinner at a restaurant but all of them were closed, our only options we could go was at AM PM gas station. (That's sad) The next morning was snowboarding day. The car was covered with an inch of snow. It only took us 10 minutes to get to the ski resort.

I got my lift ticket and we started to snowboard from left to right on the map. On my first run half way down was okay but later on it started to get flat and I don't like it when it starts to get flat.When it's a flat surface I tend to get stuck. The other couple runs were good and we went up to the very top. It was windy and cold on our way up on the ski lift and I don't have snow goggles to protect my eyes. When we got to the top I was really blind because of the fog especially when the snow was blowing in my face. I manage getting down half way though the fog without falling. We were about to take a break at the car so we snowboard down. While we were going down the slope turning, we saw someone hanging on a rope that was towards the trees. We ran over there to help him and it was a 9 year old kid about to fall, and about 30 feet away I can hear his father yelling at him. His father wasn't even coming to him, is what the heck help your own son out instead of yelling at him.

It was almost closing time and we wanted to go on this lift but I had a lose binding. I was scared to go down with a lose binding and one of the workers called up a snow mobile so they could take me to a different lift. I got to ride a snow mobile but my sister couldn't so she had to snowboard down. I went down on one of those ski lift cable car to get down. When I got it fixed we were the last ones to get on the cable car up half way the slope. The ski resorts were closing so this was our last run. Then we went home that took us 3 hours.

Crises of Faith

A time of crisis had occurred to me last week when my sister told me what she learned in her biology class at Berkeley City College. She was telling me how some factories are breading and treating cows badly. There are a few big companies that nurture cows these ways that are called battery cow farming.

I always thought all cows were raised in regular farm fields where they have a lot of space to run around and eat all the grass they wanted, until my sister told me otherwise. Sadly, they aren't. When cows are born, the people take the newborns right away or the next day from their mother. They are raised in the field for 6 months eating grass and this will be the last grass they will eat in their lives, then they are taken to the factories. The cows are in a confined space placed in a "cubical stable". A few companies are planning 16 new indoor dairy farms housing up to 18,000 cows in "cubicle stables" for 24 hours a day for eight months of the year. They don't even have enough room to walk around, they could probably take a few steps backwards, or stick their head out of the fence, and that's about it. The cows also have a poor diet. The farmers feed them corn, rather than grass, and antibiotics are added to the corn at every meal. They add antibiotics in their food to prevent the cows from getting sick, but later on they start to get immune to the antibiotics. If they do get sick the antibiotics will not affect them. Another issue with the cows is sanitation. The cows are crowded next to each other and they stand in their own feces, along with feces belonging to other cows. All the cows' feces are either put in a pile or leave it as it is. Why do they do that? Think about it. There are about four times more cows than the human population, so there is a lot of waste. The feces build up and are put into one large pile. The feces from sick cows also lead to diseases when it flows into the sewer lines and the water source becomes contaminated. My sister told me that a child most likely became handicap from drinking the contaminated water.

Companies feed their cows with corn and antibiotics, so they can grow faster and make more money. In fast food restaurants they sell their beef burgers fast and cheap. Since the cows can't use their muscles to move around in their confined spaces, it causes them to fatten and that's why the meat tastes so good. When the cows are sent to the slaughter house, factory workers cut the meat in pieces in fast assembly lines. The workers aren't very cautious when they cut the meat because the assembly line moves quickly and this gives a higher risk of not inspecting meat properly. Also, about 2 years ago someone had E. Coli from a burger at Jack In The Box. This was the first time they found E. Coli in a burger. The cows aren't even healthy or happy, but the advertisements on TV say that, "Happy cows come from California".

When my sister told me about all of this I felt a little disgusted and sad that the cows are kept in a confined space. When she mentioned how the cows were being raised way differently from what I expected, it makes me want to change my eating habits, but at the same time I don't want to because of the delicious beef out there. Now I'll try not to eat a lot of fast food because it's bad for your health. I need to be careful of what I am eating. It's so sad for the cows being they are so compacted in a small area and being tortured. It must feel like being in prison for the cows. These company owners probably don't care about the people and our health. All they want from us is to buy their beef, so that they could make loads amount of money. Why do this to cows when there is plenty of land filled with grass and good farmers who want to raise their cows in a healthy, clean and natural environment? These cows aren't even meant to be locked up for the rest of their lives. They should have some freedom running in the wide open spaces and eat all the green grass they want.

Summer Vacation

Last summer my family didn't have any plans to go anywhere for at least two weeks for vacation. Over the summer break I just stayed home and hung out with my friends. At the last minute of my summer vacation my family and I went to Yosemite for three days. We were planning to go river rafting for the first day, second day was to go walk around Yosemite, and go home the third day.
We left at 6am to go river rafting and it was a three to four hour drive over there. We went straight to the river rafting place and when we got there the instructor told us how to use the paddle and went over the safety procedures. We took off into the river and the water was steady for 10 minutes. Later we saw a mini river stream ahead of us and a big rock in the middle, 30 feet away. We weren't paying attention ahead of us because the river was calm and we had to paddle has a team to get away from the rock. This had happen several times and when we go down steeper steams we start to lose control and start moving to the left because of the current pulling us. It's scary when we start to head over to the tree branches with spiders in there. This was a 5 mile river rafting trail and it took us about 6 hours to finish. We went to eat dinner and spend the night at a motel.
The next day we were headed to Yosemite to look at mountains and waterfalls. We headed to a waterfall and took pictures together. After, we climbed up the rocks and my brother and I went to the very top and saw a big waterfall pond. We walked around through the forest towards a river and swam in there for a while. The water was freezing cold to swim in, it was about 45 degrees. We were across from the half dome watching the sun set. We went to a motel and spend the night. Then we went home.

Video Games

Are you a gamer? I started to play video games when I was in the 2th grade. My first game console I have played was the Nintendo 64 and my favorite game was Super Smash Bros. Before the Nintendo 64 my brother and sister played the Dream Cast. My sister told me we had one but i didn't remember but I remember having games for it. She told me when I was two years old I ran in the living room naked and pissed on the Dream Cast.
In the 3rd grade I was interested in shooting games when my brothers friend brought his xbox over on New Years. I liked to watch them play Halo. He offered me if i wanted to play, so I tried it out and i enjoyed playing Halo. A few months later i got my own xbox and bought Halo. Over the passed months Halo 2 came out and started to play online with other players. I was okay playing it but as i played with my friends I've gotten better. Later there was a halo 3 game that came out on the xbox 360. I kept playing it in middle school everyday and I turned out to be good at first person shooters.
In the 8th grade my sister got me an xbox 360 for Christmas. I mostly play first person shooters in general. A few months ago Call Of duty: Modern Warfare 2 came out and I'm slowing down on the video games because of school. When I'm done with my homework I get on my xbox 360 and play MW2 for about two through three hours a day. When my friends come over to my house to play MW2 and when I play sometimes they get surprised because I'll be shooting and get a kill when they didn't see the person. They think I hack or something but I'm just pro.
The best arcade game I like to play for first person shooter is Time Crisis. Using the gun controller is fun with the pistol because I can shoot rapidly fast. I could probably shoot a 9 clip gun in about 2 seconds fast.
For people who play on the xbox 360 add me if you want- Gamer tag: xSoxGudxVIETx

San Jose Sharks Game 3-4 =(

Have you ever been to a sports game? Yesterday on Thursday I went to a Hockey game, San Jose Sharks Team after school. Before I went to the game, I got through school. After school my sister pick me up, and we went home to take a short break. We headed to Dave & Buster's to play some arcade games. When we got to the freeway, there was traffic and we couldn't take it anymore so we exit the freeway. It took us a while to get back on the freeway because we got lost.
We arrived to Dave & Buster's and this was my first time going. We didn't get to stay long because of the traffic we had to go through and we only had about 45 minutes to play. We played a couple of games of first person shooters. We had to leave Dave & Buster's.
We got to the game in San Jose and it was crowded like always. San Jose Sharks were going against Chicago Blackhawks and Sharks lost to 3-4 =(. There are three periods for the whole game and in the first period the Sharks got in a really bad start. In the beginning Blackhawks scored in 5 minutes of the game already and everyone started booing. After they scored, one minute later they got another goal, 0-2. Four minutes later they got another goal from a rebound shot, score was 0-3 all in the first period under 10 minutes of the game. Finally the Sharks scored before the first period ended, scored by one of the best players,Pavelski. 8 minutes until second period was almost over Sharks almost scored three times but the Blackhawks blocked it. There was two minutes left and the Sharks scored again by Pavelski.
The third period started, and 5 minutes in the game the Sharks scored again by Blake, 3-3 tied. They had a chance to win in 15 minutes but the third period ended. They had to go into overtime which is a five minute game with no break time or changing players. Blackhawks scored ending the game with 3-4, this was a close game. They probably lost because they had a 5 day break against no team and maybe, they were out of shape and they usually play two to three games a week. But overall the Sharks are still leading with score point by one point ahead in NHL. Sharks have 79 points total and Chicago are second with 78 points.