Nguyen Van Ba – 2111510018

Class: K60 – Anh 03 - CTTTKT

Course: KDO411E(GD2-HK1-2223)CTTT.1

Midterm Essay
In my life, I have gone through a number of challenges: taking the IELTS, applying into
a research club, dealing with day-to-day conflicts with my friends,... However, they
seem inferior when compared to the challenges that I have to face coming to Ha Noi to
attend FTU. I have to learn to navigate myself in the street, learn to deal with traffic and
do things by myself. Being away from my parents had made me realize that there are so
many skills that I was lacking and this had brought me many sorrows. In particular,
there is one experience involving traffic that I will always remember to this day.

It was the night of October the 19 , one day before International Women’s Day, I was
th

taking my girlfriend to go eat Texas Chicken after we had spent the afternoon watching
a film together. We were having the time of our life when I encountered a red light.
There was no signal that we could turn right but I was so rushed to go to the restaurant,
plus the fact that it was a small, dark corner on our right. It was not big like an
intersection so I assumed that it would be fine to turn right. But unfortunately, I was
severely wrong. Just as I was turning in the corner, a traffic police officer appeared in
the dark corner and blew his whistle, signaling us to stop.

I was deeply terrified as I had never been pulled over by the police. And not to mention,
my girlfriend was sitting right behind me. The policeman asked for my driver’s license
and my registration paper. As I was giving him my paper, my hands were shaking like
crazy. I couldn’t help it as much as I tried not to shake. He then proceeded to tell me
that he could take my license and I would have to pay up to 1 million VND to get it back.
I was speechless, thinking about my remaining balance in the bank and then looking
back to the police. After a few seconds, I managed to spew out a couple of sentences:
“Please, sir! This... this is... th... the first time that I’ve made this mistake! Can you
please let us go?” To which he replies with a strong tone that almost made my heart
explode: ”WHAT? WE CANNOT LET YOU GO. EITHER YOU PAY NOW OR YOU
CAN PAY AT THE POLICE STATION, OKAY. ” I tried my best to get myself out of the
situation, saying that I’m a student, that I’m ill,.. but it was useless, the man was hard as
a rock. After 15 minutes, my girlfriend started to get frustrated, she was so furious with
both me and the police, she had to call her brother who was in the police to help us. In
the end, we managed to escape with the fee of 150 thousand VND.
My girlfriend was so mad at me and I was also furious with myself. I still think about it till
this day. Not only was I careless, I couldn’t do anything to defend myself, I couldn't take
care of my own problem. I couldn’t even face the man properly, my heart was beating
so fast that I thought it might just run out of my chest. I realized that I lacked emotional
intelligence and courage. That made me really sad.

A few days later, I would just think over and over again about that night and how
useless I was. I made a vow to myself that I will never be careless like that again and I
will never be weak physically and mentally to deal with whatever comes in my way.
Sometimes I think it was a blessing in disguise. It might be lucky for me to learn this
early and draw a lesson from it. The later you learn, the more severe the consequences.