I'm writing this article to summarize my thoughts on leaving VIETNAM in 2017 after five years of teaching English. I decided to return to America, my motherland. There were several reasons for exiting from a career I was developing as a freelance educator. I've written about this in the past. I find it a bit hard to talk about because I have so many mixed feelings about all of this. One question I ask myself is whether I would do it all over again if I were to go back in time. I guess depends on how many years back I was to go back. In some ways, I adore the adventures I had. I also appreciate the work I've done in my life. It seems that the sequences of my life events led to other events which then led to other events. I'm in a position now where I'm able to do things I want to do. I left Vietnam not so much to leave Vietnam. I still think about returning to Vietnam sometimes. However, the title to this post is More Than Vietnam meaning I wonder if my destiny lies beyond that. But I still have so many conflicting thoughts on that and on so many things really. There was a fear that I would end up with a career in Vietnam but no lasting legacy or family. That was a fear. Not to say it would happen for sure. Anything can happen both good and bad. But I was thinking about that. I was thinking that I could end up working as a teacher for the next 30 years in Vietnam but with no family or lasting legacy. I can't say exactly say what would have happen if I stayed in Asia. I thought about moving to Cambodia or other countries. But my fear was in losing myself. I was worried that I would wake up one day as an old man missing out on some opportunities. Well, on top of those thoughts was the idea of helping Trump win in 2020. I left the United States in 2012 to travel, to teach, to live, to explore, to work in Vietnam. But I was also leaving to run away from Obama who was destroying the country that I loved. I mean the country that I love. I went to Vietnam for several reasons and one of them being to give up on my own country. I felt like America was dying. I would sometimes contemplate leaving Vietnam the entire time on and off. I was thinking about leaving in Vietnam in 2015 and more so in 2016. I ended up leaving the end of November of 2017. My mind was contemplating leaving Vietnam my last 25 months roughly speaking at a higher level going back to November of 2015. I ended up procrastinating in some regard on my departure. I was thinking about going to Vietnam for a year or so and ended up going the end of November of 2012. Likewise, my decision to leave was made over a long period of time. I was debating with myself regarding the choices available. So, as I rant on these life choices, I wonder sometimes where I belong. I could probably go back to other choices I made all throughout my life. But I wanted this article to focus on things relating to Vietnam and how it relates to my entire life. This article might serve more like an incomplete rough draft outline placeholder for all of these thoughts and beyond. I do wonder what would happen. Had I stayed in Vietnam, I would not have ever wore a mask and I would either end up living and teaching at a house somewhere in the countryside where they would be ok with me showing my face if I was lucky or in prison or something. I would imagine they would put me in prison or try to deport me. Choosing to leave Vietnam is one thing but how I went about leaving is a whole other thing all together. I ended up getting a visa extension. A student got me a plane ticket. I missed my plane. I bought a plane ticket and made it back to Oregon just in time for Thanksgiving. Another option could have been to exit Vietnam on land into Cambodia. I was thinking about that but decided to just go directly to America because I didn't want to risk running into any problems and I felt like I was on the path to eventually return to America. So, after praying about it for two years, I decided to just go as soon as I got that visa extension which I paid an arm and a leg for. Part of the purpose of writing this article was to explore what kind of legacy I want to leave on this planet. My thoughts split on the matter. It's not like I could not teach Vietnamese and others on the Internet no matter where I live on this planet. Also, it's not like I couldn't make videos, write articles, and whatever else I wanted to do, even while teaching English in Vietnam. I say that to say I was faced with a wide variety of choices. I wanted to visit America and reevaluate some things. In 2017, I returned to Oregon to reunite with my dad and his friends. Part of my goal was to document things as the family historian. I was taking photos of my dad's yearbooks and other things. In 2018, I moved in with my mom so I could scan photos. I've been building photo albums. I've been scanning some of my writings, articles, art, etc. I've been copying home videos, audio tapes, hard floppies, hard drives, etc. A major reason for leaving Vietnam was to work on documenting my life and family history. The idea is to archive some items and to then move on. So, currently, that is where I'm at. I've been here helping out with family. Eventually, I desire to be done with my work here. Either that or a stopping point. With everything I'm doing here, my fear is in doing everything either too fast or too slow. I fear running out of time as I often do. I'm in the middle of copying over around 150 hard floppy disks. These are the 3.5 inch size disks. I also have the larger kind too, the 5.25 inch disks but don't have a functioning drive in order to copy them over. But I'm not saying that is necessarily important. But I say that to help illustrate where I am. But beyond that, say for the sake of argument if I was magically done with all of my work here, then what would I do right now? I would likely continue living where I was but I would focus my time on making money and on where I would want to eventually live. My mind is set on continue life in America. But that doesn't mean I don't belong in Vietnam or other countries. My heart is split mostly between America and Vietnam. Part of me thinks about Russia. Parts of me thinks about many countries. So, my heart and soul is split all over. Part of me wanted to establish a home base in America just as a backup plan. If I do choose to return to Vietnam, I would at least have a home to return to. I sort of felt like I didn't have that at the same level as I do now which is good. In this article here, I didn't want to study too deeply the pros and cons of the choices I made during the course of my entire life. I don't want to get lost in all of that or theorize with time travel. I'm not even sure if we have time to explore where I would be had I never went to Vietnam back in 2012. I sometimes wonder if I made a difference in Vietnam or what. I think about some of those things. Yeah, I can say I was in Vietnam which is cool to say. I was there. I had adventures there. I met so many people. But I wonder if I was famous in Vietnam or more so infamous. I wonder about perception and a variety of things. I don't think I can do this article justice. I've decided not to outline events from my life. I do want to say that I am still trying to find myself in some ways. But at the same time, I am aware of what I like to do. Some people like some of what I do. I didn't really want to talk about what I do except to say that I sometimes write. I sometimes make videos. I sometimes make memes. The list goes on and on and on. I'm not saying I'm Michael Jordan. I'm not saying I'm the best writer but I do try to share truth on the Internet. Some people can disagree with some of the things I do but I still believe in what I do. The foundation to many of the things I do is set in stone perhaps. That does not mean I am not open minded to some extent and in some ways. I might be SORRY regarding some things. But I am probably not sorry in relation to my core principles and such. There may be nuance there. I want to try to focus on whatever I may be better at and spend less time on things less effective or efficient. I'm purposely writing some of this or most of this in simple English. I just wanted to jot down a few notes. I didn't want to organize my thoughts here. I may move some of the text here to other pages and articles. I may want to update this article in the future to make it better. I may want to rewrite this post or organize it better. But for now, I wanted to say I went to Vietnam for many reasons. I left Vietnam for many reasons. Some of those reasons may or may not be excuses, justification, compartmentalization, etc. I made many decisions through the course of my life including choosing to go to Vietnam or to at least give it a try. I was born in 1985 in Oregon. You can find links here to my biography which outlines my life. I've been around. I wasn't born yesterday. I live and I learn. People lie about me. I'm not perfect. I mean well. My stuff is not copyrighted which means you can steal my stuff. Covid Vaccines are killing people which reminds me that I worry about the future in some ways. If I felt things was hopeless, then I would likely run off back to Vietnam or into the woods of Idaho or something. Instead, I believe things are not hopeless. For now, I choose to be here in America. So, I didn't want to talk about too much about my thinking processes of choosing to exit Vietnam. I decided to come back home to America to work on things. People can disagree with some of the things I'm doing in my personal life and everything. I try to be open minded regarding how I live my life. I might be having a mid-life crisis several years early as I am 37 years old. On average, they say a mid-life crisis happens to men in their forties. Not sure about women. The general aspects to the kind of person I am is pretty set in stone. I understand many of the things I might be good at. I understand some of the skills, talents, gifts, abilities, and everything that I may have. But I may not know the specifics to what kind of choices I might make in the future regarding marriage, family, work, residence, religion, politics, culture, fashion, where I would live, what I would do for work, and everything. I am 37 years old and single. I may have had one girlfriend one time during the course of my life or I would argue none. I would say that one time did not really count. But I'm not here to talk about LOVE and instead wanted to talk about how I am like in a crossroads in my life. I've written about some of this in the past. I wanted to throw this article onto to the Internet for the record. This post may have spelling errors and everything. I'm like a badly tuned guitar. I'm not saying I sound too good but I would like to say I'm a guitar at least with some potential. I am not sure how much I would want to talk about my life in Vietnam right now. I do try to write about my experiences there in Asia. But I do want to say I enjoyed my life in Vietnam. But part of me wanted to talk about governmental corruption in Vietnam and China for example. I feared ending up in prison alongside of other journalists. That was yet again another reason for leaving Vietnam and Asia in general. Like I said, I had many reasons for leaving Vietnam and also at the same time many reasons for returning to America which means a two for one deal. But Vietnam is still part of my DNA. But when I taught English, I would sometimes talk about what I believed politically. I said things like it is bad when government becomes too big. I said things like freedom is good. Some people don't like that but some people loved it. So, this article here has a few general things in it. I wrote a few things about how I wanted to leave Vietnam. I'm choosing not to get into the details for now. If I do dive deeper into the details, then I should try to link to them here. I am choosing to be wordy. I did say this article would be a vague outline. I also said this post would be an incomplete rough draft. My thoughts on all of this is still running around. I will try to add to this article when I can. To be continued hopefully.