Here is a not-so-brief summary of myself:

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1. I was born in a small town on the Highlands of Vietnam in November, 1989

2. My dad is a coffee farmer, my mom sold sugarcane juice in the market throughout my childhood, now she has a small shop at home selling herbal medicines. Both of them did not have any high school education. My dad reads newspaper and watches the news on TV everyday, my mom never touches a single book or magazine in her life or reads anything in her life. She types on Facebook with spelling errors and writes ‘phay but’ instead of Facebook (Vietnamese pronunciation). I thought it’s important to explain my family background and all these factors a lot later in my life, as I have now traced back and try to connect the dots.

3. I fought hard and won an ASEAN scholarship to Singapore when I was in 2nd year of high school in Vietnam (11th grade), and moved to Singapore in September 2005. I had to re-start 9th grade in Singapore, the equivalent of funking 2 grades for a girl with a record of topping every single of her class in Vietnam, and condemned to be 2 years older than my Singaporean classmates, 3 years older than my American college classmates and much much older than my peers from then onward. This, as I have also recognized back now, has left a profound, permanent dent in my life.

4. From that point on, at the age of 16, I started living a privileged life, without even realizing it. Four years of prestigious boarding school in Singapore. Four years of college in America, at Yale, on full tuition & board scholarship. Two years of private business school in Germany for a Master’s in International Business degree (now a defunct program at my alma mater) — also a full governmental grants and tuition scholarships. Graduating into real life at the age of 26, this is when I started struggling, hardcore. Or in layman’s term, when shit hit the fan.

5. Now at the age of almost-31, I can conclude that the last five years has been one hell of a struggle. Graduating from Yale, armed with a Master’s degree, got fired from my very first job, picked the wrong second job and a resulting identity crisis later, I started on the third job one year ago at the age of 30 as a fresh associate, officially joining the rank of new college graduates in my cohort, officially the oldest associate (aka analyst in banking industry terms, aka lowest-ranked corporate slave) in the entire company, earning the equivalent of fresh graduate’s minimum salary, I could finally say that my life hit rock bottom at the age of 30 and it can no longer go downhills from then on.

6. One year later, here I am, still trudging along and counting my blessings.