A Small Dream
Someone once defined youth as “not merely being young, but also the most beautiful years of one's life.” As I see it, youth is above all "a beginning". More concretely, it is the time when we are still young, still healthy, full of ambition, always eager to prove ourselves and to try our hand at everything new in life. That is why youth is the starting point of the future, the moment when we are, as the saying goes, “fully fledged” and ready to charge into the battlefield of “life”. But youth also means "impulsiveness and stumbling".
As children, we could do anything we pleased, for even our mistakes earned no more than a gentle scolding — back then we were simply called “children”. But as we grow up, standing at the threshold of youth, we take on a new piece of baggage: “responsibility”. From then on, what we do can no longer be called simply what we like; it is called the "future" of each person. Our forebears had a saying: “If you do not strive in youth, you will grieve in old age.” Time is the opportunity of a lifetime, but it is also the sworn enemy of every one of us. While we are young and healthy, more than a few of us think there is still plenty of time, so why start now? And so youth slips away while nothing has yet begun.
Youth is always bound up with dreams and ambitions. No one taxes a dream, so why do we set limits on our own dreams? “A dream is only ever a dream” — that is how many people excuse their own lack of real effort and determination. Dreams change gradually with time and age. From something as simple as a kite for a five-year-old, to a bicycle for a third-grader, to becoming an English teacher for a fifth-grader… and by high school the dream was to become a doctor.
And then the most important exam drew near, and that girl still had her head buried in her books, revising and working through practice papers. Every candidate must be the same: forgetting to eat, forgetting to sleep, dark circles under the eyes, still chewing over an unsolved maths problem even while sitting at the family dinner table… After finishing the Group A exam with a sense of relief mixed with an anxious, nervous apprehension, she took the train with her father into the city of Huế to sit the Group B exam.
The whole family's hope was that she would be admitted to General Medicine at Huế University. In her mind she kept thinking that in a few months she would be studying in the beautiful city of Huế, and that later she would become a true doctor — a doctor in the fullest sense — so that when her parents or relatives fell ill she herself would be the one to treat them. What is more, she would do charity work, treating poor children, the elderly living alone, and people in the mountain regions free of charge — and not far away at all, right in her own village.
That was the bright future she had painted in her mind — a dream nurtured throughout her three years of high school. After nearly a month of waiting the results finally came: Group A was a certain pass, but Group B was not safe, and she waited anxiously for the cut-off scores.
Every night the girl prayed, hoping only for just enough to pass, and she felt somewhat confident it would be so. But luck did not smile on her: she was half a point short. It was heartbreaking — even her parents wept with regret, so how could she not? For several nights she cried until her eyes were swollen, utterly crushed, her mind so tangled she could not think of anything. Although the whole family avoided mentioning it for fear of upsetting her, she knew her parents were even sadder and more disappointed. Thanks to their care, comfort and encouragement, and to the quiet nightly talks with her sister and younger brother, after a few days she regained her composure and was able to talk things over with her parents. The family's decision was that she would study Information Technology at the University of Engineering and Technology, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and after the first and second semesters take a leave of absence to sit the exam again for General Medicine at Huế University.
And so she carried that thought with her to Hanoi. That had been the decision before she left, but after three months of study she grew discouraged and asked her teachers and friends for their views on retaking the exam. The opinions were divided, and she did not know what to decide. Then one day her father called and said: ”Well, you have already studied for nearly half a year. If you got into Medicine, all the better, but if you did not, you would lose a great deal…… Just keep at your studies. That is my opinion, but the decision is yours.” Their second daughter was studying far from home, and her parents loved her and worried a great deal.
In the end she decided to follow her parents' wishes and those of her high school principal, and to continue with Information Technology. Life in Hanoi held many temptations, but she still worked hard at her studies and spent as frugally as she could. The first semester of her first year was genuinely hard going: in high school she had concentrated only on Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and English, without touching Informatics at all, so learning the C programming language was very difficult. She asked one friend after another and still could not fully understand the instructions in a sample piece of code, and she felt under great pressure.
What is more, with the general subjects, in high school it took several weeks to finish one chapter, while at university it went by in a flash: one or two chapters covered in a single session. It was truly exhausting, but thanks to the constant encouragement of her parents and friends her end-of-semester results were not too bad.
Then in the second semester she began learning C++, and she enjoyed it greatly because the lecturer helped her wholeheartedly and because she had already learned C, so she started off very well. Because she understood what she was learning, she gradually came to like programming, and her results improved along with it. You cannot know what you like until you try, and it is the same with programming languages: besides the ones taught at university (C, C++, Java), she has tinkered with and taught herself a few others such as Python, HTML, and so on.
Her goal for the future is to become a software quality assurance specialist proficient in both manual and automated testing, to obtain the ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) certificate, to use English better, and to teach herself Japanese.
The naive little girl of those days has now entered a challenging twenty-first year; she is a final-year student, a little more mature, a little more careful in thought and action. And that girl is myself. After completing my university studies well, I will look for a stable job, perhaps branch out into business as well, have money to send home to my parents every month, and if possible sponsor some scholarship funds, so that together with those funds I can go on giving wings to the dreams of the generations that follow.
The dream may be small, but to make it come true I have tried, am trying and will go on trying very hard. For I believe that “We all have our own lives to pursue, our own dreams to weave, and we all have the power to make our dreams come true, as long as we keep that faith.”
Maria Nguyễn Thị Hồng Hải Parish: Xã Đoài – Xã Đoài Deanery Field: Information Technology Vietnam National University, Hanoi
