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Welcome to my underwater home. This is my personal space so I can keep track of all of my many ideas, memories, projects, lists, and so on. Born and raised in San Jose, California, my aim in life is to become the person I truly admire. In pursuit of that goal, I study the art of communication design, interaction design, and knowledge management to communicate to the public my own sense of humanity.

You have to appreciate the inspiration that Obama gives to artists. Although, it can get a little bit repetitive, sometimes I like repetition. But only in mosaics like these.

vietnamese \ \ \ Vietnamese Youth Vision Progress Report

In March 2006, I wrote my vision of a Vietnamese youth network in Northern California. Let me see how I have done in the 2.5 years since then. The four objectives I have outlined is Infrastructure, Cultural Development, Community Development, Leadership Development.

Infrastructure

UVSA Northern California is now a formal organization, with elected officers and affiliates from 7 schools. We have survived our first elections and second summit, although I will feel more comfortable once we pass the 5-year mark. What it currently lacks is nonprofit status, which as of this writing is currently in the works. The staff application process is being hammered out for the first time since I've stepped down from being a Board Member and am reapplying to be on Staff. Many of the other regional VSA coalitions have died, collegiate and high school, and a new youth group one has started, VAYO. It is my duty to ensure that no more organizations die.

Although the organization is structured differently than I originally imagined, it is a starting point nevertheless. I am going to lead by example and implement the Commission structure by starting out the first branch: Arts Commission. We have picked up a lot of unaffiliated individuals, so this is the first step to absorbing them into Staff.

Cultural Development

Personally I have started a t-shirt business targeting the Vietlish Generation to start bridging the linguistic disconnect. My Brainstorm process helped UVSA produce its second Roadmap, which includes a revamp of both the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Black April Commemoration. These will be two very important projects to get done right in order to educate the younger students the importance of their Vietnamese identity, and were outlined as part of my original suggestion list. I actually want the youths to be able to organize all of the other suggestions, but that will take some time as we build leadership capacity.

Community Development

Serving the (external) community is a relatively neglected aspect of UVSA at the moment. Although we have educated ourselves on a host of issues confronting the community, everything from Deportation, to the Paracel/Spratley Territorial Conflict, there has yet to be regularity in addressing any of the issues. I suspect Standing Committees should be included into the Infrastructure to handle the numerous Areas of Concerns.

Internal community development is coming along nice and slowly. People like going Camping, and the Olympics was a huge success this past year. We will continue to capitalize on these events, but I am thinking the Commission structure will mirror a kind of Family System employed by many VSAs.

Leadership Development

Currently the President of UVSA, Tam Phan, is grooming his Executive Board to be better leaders. But we need some sort of program to train and mentor them, and I'd rather leverage existing programs if possible. Although I have a lot of notes and people liked the Summit workshops, I think leadership development covers these areas: understanding issues, creating a vision and strategy, arming yourself with skills, knowing your resources, creating a proposal, execution of the plan, and going through a feedback cycle. I may be the one who has to create this program in this fashion.

Conclusion

There is still a lot of foundation work to do. Oh so little time. But I'm moving in the right direction at least!

design & vietnamese \ \ \ My New T-Shirt Line: hết-xảy!

“awe-some!” shirts, literally. :D

Our Website! → http://www.het-xay.com
Our Facebook page! → http://www.facebook.com/pages/Milpitas-CA/het-xay/32399317415

About a year ago I caught a disease called UVSA, and since then I’ve poured tons of energy and time into it cuz I love it so much. My business partner, Bao Thien Ngo, has been afflicted for many, many years now and continues to contribute to the org via his many talents. During our service, we’ve become great friends. One day while we were talking over lunch, somehow, a few funny t-shirt ideas came up. And we were like, “Why don’t we just make them ourselves?” Thus, hết-xảy! was born.

Since we’re so passionate about UVSA and the Vietnamese Youth (Generation 2.0 as Bao put it: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=31459958018 &id=2520736), we couldn’t help but bring some of those values over to hết-xảy! Cultural understanding and progression, giving back to the community, free self-expression, and being true to ourselves, are just a few things our shirts stand for.

We made them for you, as much as we made them for us. To strike up a conversation, maybe teach some Vietnamese to someone else, or just bring a smile to someone’s face. So check out our website, buy a shirt if you like them, and help spread the word—show them to your friends and family. We’ll love you forever. :D

Tam Phan, hết-xảy! visionary

P.S. We got more designs on the way!
P.S.S. Send either of us your ideas for a shirt if you want… it might just get made.
P.S.S.S. If you live close by one of us and want to save on shipping by picking the shirts up, let me know. We’ll take that shipping fee off for you.

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