Re: Attention: Scholarship Fund for VNese Students at UPenn

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

Hi all, my answer to Kim-Anh
----------------------------

Hi Kim-Anh, very glad to receive your letter and get to know you. You can 
check out my homepage at

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/anhai

(if you haven't) for a short introduction of myself.

> I am glad to know know you and all your friends from XXX. I really
> want to join in the VNSA. 

You and your friends are most welcome. You can check out vnsa's webpage
at http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/anhai/vnsa/vnsa.html for more info 
on how to join vnsa; but I suspect you have done this already. 
Alternatively, you can just let me know that you want to join, and I will 
add your name to the subscribers' list.

> My name is Kim Anh Phan, a sophmore student at PennState University. I
> major in actuarial science, and minor in math.I love to talk about VN.
> Also, i like to travel ,and go fishing or camping .( It is not necessary
> , isn't it ). I am staying on campus of PennState, which is 4 hours away
> my house. I have been in the USA for 4 years ( will be on May coming
> up). I miss Vn so much.Don't you ?

Glad to know you. Yes, I miss VN very much also. I have been out of VN 
for ten years, and have been able to go back to visit only twice. I plan 
to go again next summer. Partly because I and my friends are missing VN 
so much that we created this VNSA mailing list. :-)

> Currently,some of my friends and I  get together to form a group , which
> is called The Vietnamese Scholarship Fund of PA. Basically, we are
> trying to help those VNese students , who can't go to college because
> they don't have money. our process is getting complicated now for some
> reason. Do you have any idea about this ?

Well, as we often say "Nhu+~ng ta^m ho^`n lo+'n ga(.p nhau ta.i mo^.t 
ddie^?m" :-), there have been a lot of discussions on VNSA about 
establishing a scholarship fund for needy and talented students in VN.
However, things are going slowly because (1) we are all students, and are 
very busy with courseworks or research at this moment, and (2) many of us 
have been many times in VN, know the situation there very well, and know 
that getting the money to the needy students is *not a simple process*. 
There are many other things we need to do beside collecting money. So we 
are slowly working in all necessary areas and directions.

We also plan to work with the US committee for scientific cooperation with VN
on scholarship fund issues. They have been doing this for a while, and have a
lot of experience in this area. 

In short, I understand why your scholarship process runs into 
complications. We have talked and discussed at length about such things, 
and we are charting out solutions. It would be great if we could 
coordinate our efforts in this project. Together, I'm certain that we 
would be successful and could do more for our fellow students in VN.

> 
> Our web-page is under construction right now. However , if you have
> time, you are welcome to visist at "http://interface.cac.psu.edu/vssf "

I have checked out your webpage. It looks great. You guys already have
something concrete going on while we are still talking :-(.

Just some quick words. Again, I am really glad to get to know you and 
your group. I'm looking forward to seeing you and your friends on vnsa,
and to taking part in your scholarship efforts.

Best, AnHai.

PS. I'm forwarding part of your letter to vnsa in an effort to make people
on the forum aware of your scholarship effort. I hope you don't mind this.