Life is a journey.

When I was a little girl, I had never thought that I could go anywhere so far from home. At that time, nearly 20 years ago, my Dad was a PhD candidate in Russia. Although Russia came to me through my dad’s letters and gifts, I did not have any definitions about it. For me, it was just a country so far away, where it took my father 3 years to get and come back, the Snow Queen’s homeland as in Andersen’s old story as well.

As I grew older, I read a lot of books I found at home, many of them were Russian novels about the beauty of the land and people, about love and more than everything, about love in life. However, the time in which I grew up was also the time Russia experienced the depression. Day by day I used to either read or listened to news about the crisis in politics and economy there. Overall, I understood the word “Russia” from both good and bad sides, both its beauty and devastation with all the fun and sorrow that a child as me could feel. Even so, I still did not have any ideas about a trip to this land, even that I would learn this “old fashioned” language of confusing Slav alphabets until I received a government scholarship to study in Russia.

Only after a 9-hour flight, my life completely changed. I was not astonished at what I first saw, because I did not have any illusion about Russia, anyway, it seemed to not be as beautiful as I knew through the books I read. Perhaps because I arrived there in an early winter day, so I missed the chance to see a golden fall as well as not yet to see a land of dazzling white snow. I just saw a gloomy and leaden Russia, and I wondered whether my future would be the same. I applied to the University with first impressions not very good at all. I missed my country, I missed my house, I missed everything I had in Vietnam. Whatever, I thought, all comparisons could be wrong! However, during the time I was there, I met many Russian people, my teachers and my classmates were so kind to me so that sometimes I had to ask myself if I could be like that if I were still in Vietnam.

My first summer came. After a cruel winter that nothing seemed to survive outside, in April, nature appeared to wake up and burst with vitality. Everywhere was full of green, the colour of life, just after 2 weeks instead of the grey before. I had never seen such strong vibrance like that. Later, the yellow colour of dandelions dominated the lawn. The flowers like thousands of small suns seemed to collect all the sunshine for their petals. Since then, I began loving Russian songs, and feel that this country is really beautiful. This feeling also abated a lot of uninteresting things around my life in Russia. When you integrate in a society, you can discover a lot of things. I felt it was the right way when I chose Russia for my higher education.

Now I live in the US. My journey still keeps going on. Life is a journey, not a destination. It is made of many, many steps. You never know what you are going to get before you start walking. I believe that every step I walk, I will concentrate on the next step to be sure that I am going in the right direction.