About me and my first Nerds Rope

Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog! ^^

I'm Charlotte Ho, a sophomore from Vietnam pursuing biochemistry at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin. I'm also on pre-vet track. I'm from Ho Chi Minh city, the largest city in the country so moving to Wisconsin for college was definitely a big shift for me. 25-hour flight... and here I am!  Of course culture shock happened to me in many aspects especially the weather and food. Due to COVID-19 that I have not been home or two years now and homesickness hit me in may aspects...

I missed the view of my city when my mum drove me to places on a motorcycle 

I missed the spicy Vietnamese food that my mom made and my dad's signature sauce at every family meal.

I missed the heat

I missed all!

Therefore, to capture those feelings and embrace Vietnamese culture as a way to remind me of my origin and introduce Vietnamese culture to the readers, I decided to encapsulate all these emotions in this blog by writing about little sparks of my day while in college that bring me back to my childhood when I was back home. Hang tight...! yep, you are going on a journey with me from the "land of cheese" to the land of wonders in South East Asia, Vietnam. I hope everyone enjoy this one of a kind adventure.

Here is a short example that demonstrate how I guide the readers through this journey:

I don't like candies and Nerds Rope is something I have never heard of. But somehow it brings back my childhood sweet tooth and I'm grateful for that short happy moments. It was fun to eat each piece of tiny, crunchy, tangy Nerds candy wrapped around the chewy gummy. Nerds Rope is a zany, color, texture, and taste combination best defined as a candy celebration. Even when we are not celebrating anything, eating a piece of candy releases brain chemicals that bring us a much-needed moment of happiness in our otherwise chaotic lives.

It brought me hint of memories when I was very little, the time when I was still obsessed with candies, especially the ones from my hometown market. My parents didn't want me to eat candies from the market because they contained way too much sugar than usual and artificial color as well. However, to an innocent kid like me back then, those colorful crocodile gummies coated in extra sugar hyped me up whenever I felt lonely. Another fact about me, I am the only child in the family so loneliness is something that I have been growing up with and I am just get used to it.

“In nature, light creates the color. In the picture, color creates the light.

  Hans Hofmann

Dose of joy