All about Dạ Ly

I believe that there are milestones in life – the moments that life just intentionally throws hard rocks at us to wake us up from a childish dream and push us onto chasing our own self. My very first milestone did not come until I was 13, eighth grade. Back then I had always been a freaky kid in everyone’s eyes, I suppose, but I was likeable. My friends loved me for being the weird kid who always showed up when there was a need for ideas and crazy things for the school musical show. One day, all classes had to prepare a number to perform in the school’s Christmas show, and only the best performances would be chosen. My classmates just asked me “Hey, why don’t you write a play for our class?” Because I had written and directed some plays for the class before, I agreed immediately and invested myself in creating an original play. But my friends did not like it. They decided to toss my work aside and do a song instead. I, however, had so much faith in my own work that I met up with the show director and showed her my play. She was really interested in it, and despite the fact that only senior students were given the priority to do plays at that show, she said my play deserved to be performed for the school to see. When I delightedly informed my classmates about that, to my surprise they were not happy at all. They gave me cold looks and many of them refused to join the cast. As a result I had to ask some friends from other classes for help, which just fueled the anger in my class. One day, a girl from my class, who I liked before, just sacastically told me “Hey, how is your brilliant play? I figure you’re so talented that you don’t even need any help from our class, huh?” What she said to me was like the straw to the camel’s back. Before I loved everyone in my class and I thought they loved me too, but it was the very first time I found out that we were not innocent kids anymore, that hatred and jealousy started to penetrate and tear us apart. I cried for 5 minutes when I got home that day, but I wiped my tears very soon and acted natural again. After all, my classmates had reasons to be angry, so I came up to them the day after and apologized for whatever I did was wrong, and I knew for a fact that the only way I could end this fight was to forgive and to make the play a success. Well, it was a success. Our play was loved by all teachers and students, and they talked about it days after the show. The feeling of standing on the stage hearing applause from the audience was something that stays in my mind until now. Well, that time, I have to say, was truly happiness, seeing something I created being performed and well received by the audience.

That was an incident which put me into thinking more about my future career, like, where would I be in the next 10 years? I had been deeply attracted by art works, music and books. I used to spend summers practising drawing and writing my first comic books (which were not finished, unfortunately), writing English poems and even tried composing some silly songs, but I never knew where all of these things were leading me to. But that first time I realized how much I loved being on that stage, not only as a performer, but also as someone who created. I just can’t live without the craziness and “Imaginativity” inside me.