A Fresh Start

This entry has been edited on May 14th, 2010. For more info on what has been going on in my life since this blog started, read the recap entry.

My name is Brian Q. Dinh. I’m not going to go into what the “Q” stands for, but obviously, it’s something Vietnamese. It’s not that I’m ashamed of the heritage that has given me my middle name—no, not ashamed at all, not anymore.

I’m currently single. HOLLA!

Yes, I am “downe,” which is barely less difficult than saying that I am jee-ay-why. I don’t hate myself, it’s just something I don’t like saying.

I recently discovered that I love dancing, hip hop dancing in particular. It is the most fun thing I’ve done since this other old hobby, one that I abandoned long ago. My Filipino dancer side is finally coming out. Every day I’m constantly pushing myself to improve.

I am from San Jose, but in September 2008 I left for college down south at UC Irvine. I miss my family every day and regret not having ended my war against them far sooner before moving away.

I want to be a high school teacher. I will raise my own kids, starting from the moment they are out of the womb. Whether or not these interests and hopes will hold true through the future—this is a question to which I have no answer.

I am starting over with blogging. For five and a half years, since the eighth grade, I’ve used LiveJournal. I had written over 1000 entries, and I considered transferring some of my significant entries over to this blog. However, I eventually decided that it was time for a fresh start. A really really fresh start.

Some things to expect from this blog: A huge variety of different writing styles. I like to experiment with the way I tell a story. Generally, I recount my life in just a random “slice-of-life” summary. Sometimes though, something totally crazy happens in my life and so I write about it in a more narrative-style way, with a plot and resolution and all that. And sometimes, the events in an entry won’t be presented in chronological order. And sometimes, I’m an unreliable narrator. For example: I am not part Filipino. When you get more familiar with me and my writing style, you’ll be able to better pick out those times.

To sum things up... I’m an overall positive kind of guy. Well, not actually all that positive, I guess. Rainbows don’t spring from where I lift my feet, but I’m definitely not the emo debbie downer that this entry has made me out to be. Over time, you’ll see what I mean, so cheer up.

About Flashbacks

When I moved over to blogspot, I thought about transferring some significant entries over from my previous blog. I didn’t really know how I would do that, but somewhere down the line, I conceived of flashbacks.

Nearly every entry has a flashback, and a flashback usually comes in two forms. First one comes in the form of something I wrote previously as an entry in my old blog, and that’s introduced by three dashes (---), the title of the entry, and the date it was written. The second form is just me retelling it right there, and it’s something that I have never written about before.

Those are just the basics. There are, of course, variations.

I try to keep entries short; I limit the non-flashback actual present stuff to no more than two pages, and then the flashback is however long it needs to be. You should read the flashbacks because, as it says in my little mini-profile, you “can’t understand the present without knowing the past.”