Several weeks ago……..
Where is dis? (Yeah I don’t really know either… Hint: we passed a big tub of raw chicken flesh covered in flies nearby… We have no idea what it’s for, nor did the people we were going to see…. Ok, lousy hint)
Applying The Force to The Door
Grass Bottom lift…
…And where are we?
Coming soon……..
Been there, done that. (And that could be for either of us)
People who have some recollection of me and YJ in primary school, do your double take right. Now. Both of you. On annual yoga conference here from Labuan, YJ came looking for me.
For the other person reading my blog who didn’t know me in primary school, YJ has featured in my early memory for some time as………… I don’t know. Not the only one nor the only time I had that sort of…. growing pains relationship (I maintain that I had Come Hate Me Face growing up), but back then hers had been a name that stuck.
When our family left Sandakan for Penang, I was 12. Out of the blue, I received a letter from YJ 2 years later. She’d somehow found my mailing address when we were both in Form 2. The one thing I remember from the long letter 14 year old me barely reacted to was something like, “I’ve always felt bad about how I treated you, and I’ve always wanted to say I was sorry.”
We had been just 11 when YJ, initially one of my closest friends, and I fell out. I remember myself as the weaker girl of the two of us, the one on the ropes. I remember her as the one with girl friends. Therefore, my Alpha Girl – her, and another classmate who’d been my earlier Alpha Girl (and whom I’m also back in touch with, but that happened before the blog :D).
Me, I hadn’t fit in with a whole bunch of girl friends, I always just had a good friend here, a good friend there, and so of course Whole Bunch of Girlfriends was almost the only thing tween me ever wanted, socially. I longed for pajama parties (DON’T LAUGH) where we painted each other’s nails and braided our hair. (Oh, shut up. I thought that was what a cool tween girl should like. How come I didn’t really? Something must’ve been wrong with meeeeee!)
Instead, I played with – ugh – boys. Yet YJ tells me I was the one she had wanted to be like and that she wasn’t the only one. Watch my eyebrows reach my hairline. So basically our meeting was a lotta Really Meh Really Meh Really Meh Really Meh? 😀
But here’s the thing – 2 years later, in her writing me that letter out of the blue, when we would probably never see each other again, YJ demonstrated how she had grown far more than I had. What really impressed me today was 14 year old her.
14 year old me had been rather surprised. I wasn’t still mad at her, but I was pretty indifferent. I don’t remember in her letter any return address or invitation to respond, but certainly I could have hunted her down and it would’ve been much easier for me to do than it had been for her. My family had left town, hers hadn’t. After our class, her dad probably still taught in that school for a good few more years.
But I was “busy”. Around a big move were taekwondo gradings, music exams, lotsa hours in tuition classes, my first counterproductive crush on a boy… I just had so much stuff going on, I knew neither to bear a grudge nor to respond to her. Now I look back and remember a few more worse periods of erm, social stress and think – during the usual growing teenaged-girl angst, had I known to rebuild my friendship with her – a real friendship – it would have provided some insulation against further problems making friends/ fitting in in my new environment.
So yeah, mental note to myself re Rockstars. (Though of course one has also to make sure that letter from 14 year old isn’t written by a fruitcake :P).
Anyway, it was a very long time before I looked back and respected her gesture, though I never forgot it. And so now, almost 30 years later, here we are.
Clarification: Not my FIRST crush on a boy, I said my first COUNTERPRODUCTIVE crush on a boy.
#12
Me: <almost dreading the question> And…. What’s your name for today?
Miss: <enthusiastically> Duck!
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As a taxi goes by…
Me: Okok I know you know that one – what car is that?
Miss: <enthusiastically> Tree!
Me: O-kay, there’s a Dou-ble-De-cker-Bus. Can you say double decker bus? (She’s gotten to double bus and decker bus before)
Miss: Look-look! Cloud! <triumphantly> White cloud! Clap, Mummy. Yaaaaay.
Me: Aren’t you a little young for sarcasm?
Ain’t she gorgeous, though (Yes, fans, that’s your Ralph Lauren gift dress!)
#316
One day in the Rockstar household…
Rockstar: NNNGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!
Miss: <Looks up briefly, then IGNORES>
Me: Are you trying to use The Force to move your sister?
Rockstar: Yeah! NNNGGG! NNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG!!!!!
The Miss abruptly gets up from playing with her toys, walks over and strikes a pose right in front of his face.
Miss: <cheerfully> Ta-DAAAA!
Rockstar: <scandalized> No! Naughty! (The Miss continues laughing and being in his face; yes she knows it gets under his skin. But frankly he asked for this one, she was minding her own business when he started trying to Jedi her.)
Me: Maybe with little sisters The Force works better when you describe exactly what you’re trying to do with it. (Watching Rockstar still struggling with the Miss) Or…. the opposite of what you’re trying to do…
(Rockstar having better luck moving his sister this day…:)
1) The latest in animal exploitation! Clever ads involving animals. SO much better than animal testing…. especially now they have photoshop.
Panda selfie
Panda Selfie is my absolute favorite because endangered animal + cellphone selfie = Interesting World Our Kids Are Growing Up In Today.
This one is an ad for hand soap – “you are what you eat”
(But really it’s here because it brought back memories of my hamster-rearing days – they always seem to look like that (facial expression) when you put them in things – pockets, through toilet rolls, in cups… It’s weird – if you’ve ever had a hamster you’ll know what I mean; Have Rodent Will Develop Compulsion For Putting Them In Things)
And this last is because I KNEW there had to be a use for all those pictures-of-dogs-diving-for-balls
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2) Title on Buzzfeed says 28 Unbelievably Dumb Questions That Still Need To Be Resolved, but I really don’t think some are that dumb…
It was really hard to pick just one…
So I didn’t 🙂
But this one is sad… Because I’m thinking HORMONES 😀 (for real though, sad because she just had a baby and thinks the dad might be cheating…)
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3) You guys remember Fashion By Mayhem, from one of my TGIF posts?
“…We began making paper dresses for fun. We continued making paper dresses for fun. And as long as it’s fun, we’ll continue to make paper dresses….”
“…There’s a reason we haven’t done many interviews or appearances…. …The immediate response from the TV media when our story went viral was EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE and that was a MAJOR turn off for us… …Nearly everyone who reached out wanted Mayhem to create a dress “on the air” for them. And I believe the quickest way to destroy her creativity or desire to continue to make dresses is to force her to do it…. “
Respect her self-restraint. That’s why this is here. We are parents first, especially when the kids are so young.
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4) This Mother Catches Her Own Daughter Being A Bully. Here’s What The Mom Did Next…
Wasn’t sure about putting up the picture of her daughter, but anyway it includes her holding up a message that says:
“My name is —-. I am a kind, caring, smart girl but I make poor choices with social media. As punishment I’m selling my iPod and will be donating the proceeds to the charity Beat Bullying in hopes of changing my behavior as well as bringing awareness to bullying. Because bullying is wrong.”
The mum received some criticism; because as you all know it is much easier to sit back, not post, not put yourself out there, and criticize. I hope any serious critics at least signed their real names. Otherwise – cowards. People write because they believe in something. (Rightly or wrongly, but to put it out there and know gutless armchair critics will have a field day is to believe enough in something to sign your name to your words.)
Anyway the mum’s response:
Now, KNOWING NOTHING ELSE beyond this article, may I applaud her mother?
Over here in this part of the world, not a few mums-of-kids-older-than-the-Miss have told me of a rising trend they’ve noticed, in leaving off correcting kids “too much” because they want to “build self esteem.” People want their children to speak up and be confident. Of course. We all want this for our kids. The problem with not correcting (or fake, lip-service correcting) your child’s little misdemeanor against another child is, it’s at the expense of the other child. I mean, it’s not always that bad where you have to sell a bully’s iPod, sometimes when your child has taken all the bricks/ crayons/ whatever for the umpteenth time, you’re just tired. We all stumble sometimes.
My closest mum friends are – how you say, really not fake-correcting parents. Y’know, the difference between parents who pay lip service, “No ah, now don’t do that ah” but they don’t really stop the child, vs those who really do (and I don’t mean rotan :D) Just it’s not easy to catch every single time, is all. But certainly some try harder than others.
And so I believe unselfishness in parenting to be a phenomenon worthy of huge respect. Everyone needs encouragement, even mums. Being a mum on a meltdown day can be like a real blackhole of energy and enthusiasm – no light escapes, the 15 minutes your child is screaming their freaking lungs out. It’s not even like you catch your tired reflection in the bathroom mirror and at least you’re dressed nice because you had to go to work with real people :D.
From the mum who praises the other child for their patience which her own child is still learning, to the mum who is determined to fix bullying – when her child is bully, not victim – rrrrespect.
(And please, please let someone not email me and say the mum is actually a witch and using child support money for drugs or something <ducks head>)
5) Enough words. Eye candy.
Benjamin Vong’s shipwreck shoot using real divers who can hold their breath 3, 4 mins at a time. There’s a “making of” video in link too…
6) This week’s Miss Skit is titled “Something’s Not Right Here.”
Things that make ya go Hmmm.
Like, we never come here, but on a less regular errand recently…
The Miss tried to put back the toy she got out of the machine
It’s just not right… Why should we be getting toys for the pleasure of inserting coins in a machine?
Thought for the weekend…
Have a good one, dears…
Yes, an actual Noah’s Ark in Hong Kong. Kings found it. My mum friends would later laugh at me when I was all gushy about the place because it turns out there are occasional school trips here. But this day of birthday celebration of She-Who-Likes-Animals, I shall award accolades for finding the place to Kings. Whom I think googled 😀
Opening Credits Shot (Yes Birthday Girl is asleep in this one)
Though they were jumping around outside before that so maybe partly why she KOed (btw Rockstar is in very light cotton longs per advice of pediatrician long ago because he got bad bug bites. Touch wood the Miss doesn’t, plus she gets very sweaty)
The place overlooks a beach that got very crowded in the evening btw…
Anyway just as well Nap Happened, because this place turns out to have lots and lots of seriously educational exhibits, which Rockstar was very happy to spend a couple hours on. If the Miss had been awake she would probably have been bouncing off the walls and ceiling so much he couldn’t spend as much time, so it all worked out: Older Sibling had loads of fun on Younger Sibling’s birthday.
Older Sibling balancing a Nautilus on his palm…
And building stuff…
And trying to hear all the historical stuff about different musical composers – in both English and Cantonese
And jumping on Thing That Lights Up To Show Path Where Water Is Absorbed Into Roots Of Sunflower
(btw this would be why I didn’t put more pics up of displays)
This day amidst the crowd we spotted only maybe one Caucasian family (who might also speak very good Cantonese for all you know haha), it appears to be a very local place… A Cantonese-speaking toddler roughly the same size as the Miss (or a bit smaller) points at the lift buttons and says “One! Two! Three!” #getintimidatednow #rightnow.
And the tour continues…
At this point I suddenly realize some of the exhibits now involve possible evidence supporting the existence of the actual Noah’s Ark in the Bible. The “game” Rockstar is on is to “decode” files of historical evidence of the Ark (Ararat is the name of the ancient country in the region)…
Here’s a few more interesting screens or displays, including some computer simulations about the specifications of the Ark, the kind of wood it was likely built with, etc etc:
Kings asks, “Didn’t the animals eat each other?” I took this pic as a possible answer to the hypothetical:
(Sorry, no matter what I did with my limited cellphone-pic-savvy, I couldn’t get the whole thing in. But yes, those are actual tortoises in the tank above the words :P)
And I especially liked this one – the historical recounts of various cultures re the Ark
Among the many things I didn’t know… That there is such a robust Cantonese Christian community here (don’t scream at me please, yes I know there are very active Cantonese churches, and belatedly I remember there is at least one very big and active Korean one too)…
The Miss wakes in time to enjoy the animals!
(Though you can’t tell from looking at her outside :P)
Things that make ya go Hmmmmm…..
There’s a fairly big park compound, and lotsa animal statues, but we soon find blessed relief from the heat indoors. Oh, and a note on her dress – I thought it was pretty nice and one of the few times I bought something full-priced at Zara…… Then a few days before I was going to happily put her in the dress for her birthday I was on school run and saw another little girl wearing it…….. as a coverup over her swimsuit with the buttons undone 😀 But after she had ice cream birthday cake we had to change her dress anyway…
And we end with the obligatory family shot…
(I find this shot quite funny because it’s like we’re being photo bombed by the Ark)
Happy Birthday Missie Miss
Standard Haagen Dazs cake this year; well we did plan on that last year too, except then it melted in the fridge and I felt so bad I went out and got Cake with a capital C. This year I just made sure we didn’t melt the cake 😀
And here’s the money shot, the Miss blowing out her candles.
Dis is art.
We’ve been waiting to unwrap this doll’s house I got at a super crazy price (as in, you can find it online in some places for almost 250% what I scored) for like, forever. The Miss has been asking “Where house?” for ages (at some point I realized each little attachment had so many other things she could play with preliminarily and occasionally I got other stuff to go with, but the Big One would be when we ceremoniously opened the house)….
Anyway guess what Rockstar got his little sis for her birthday?
What dat?
Rockstar’s been working on a Lego sofa (well armchair, really) ever since I remarked there were just no suitable permutations or combinations of miniature furniture out there that involved a nice sofa.
“Why don’t I make her one?“
That is like the most brilliant idea ever. He took it quite seriously. Up in his loft bed, he went through several different attempts (the legs were a problem because they had to be sturdy enough not to come off when you pressed on the seat)..
Dis de finished product
He mentioned he had used some “valuable” pieces from different sets of his, (and now I realize from the photo there are 4 legless Lego-men up on his loft, among other things – there is what looks like it used to be the jets of an X-wing fighter or something, which he has also employed as a channel changer in the headrest. A-and, the set of legs you can’t see clearly but for a bit of orange – they are Two-face’s legs, from one of the older Batman series Lego sets). And he also ceremoniously presented her a brush thing “It’s my only one, you be careful ha…” which he thought could pass off for a toy duster…
(The Miss btw, especially loves Rockstar’s stuff from Rockstar. She loves wearing his hand-me-down Jacadi suede booties, crocs, and in winter I’m hoping to turn some of his nicer shirts into tunics for her, with girly tights and the little tassle-y mukluks when I can find some on sale in her size. Really hope that doesn’t go away soon, at the moment if you tell her it was Ko-ko’s she’s even more happy to wear it… We had a mild problem for a short while when she insisted on clomping around in Rockstar’s old suede ankle booties that were still a size too big, but still please, please let her not meet an Alpha Girl anytime soon who sniffs at boy hand-me-downs 😛 At one of her classes some of the slightly older girls really dress up in frilly party frocks, though I don’t think she’s noticed… yet)
Anyway armchair. The stuff above the head rest is “for tv channels when you sit on it.” Rockstar made an armchair that “switches on the tv” when you sit in that red seat.
Belatedly I realize I forgot to ask how you change channels. By wiggling your bum?
And then this is where we went for the day. Coming soon……….!
Any surprises this is he (Rockstar, not Spidey) before bedtime…
And the following morning…
JD must be thinking: Twins! (Matching paws)
ps: It’s the Miss’ birthday today, so this is more Shoot Out First by request of the Firstborn, because after that Her Highness is the Princess for the day… He keeps wanting to wake her because he has stuff planned for her too, but we were all late yesterday after his grading and after-grading buzz …
He missed a grading sometime back because we had to travel; been really itching to get that belt eva since…
There’s no mistaking the pleased look on Rockstar’s face…
Kings scheduled an earlier flight so he could get back in time to bring us all to grading…
And by “everyone” we include little well-dressed kicking pad-bearing assistants…
Who deigned to give him back his kicking pad only when she deemed it absolutely necessary… (Cuddles were extra)…
As are pats on the back…
And so it were a good Sunday, as we ride off into the sunset…
Still loving the chance to drive home the whole all-that-hard-work-pays-off message as well as the one involving “discipline”; all that ninjago and jedi stuff Rockstar and friends get taken up with, martial arts is still a great way to explain how if you don’t follow instructions well enough you’re going to fail or maybe be barred from the next grading…
And….. it’s 10pm and Rockstar is still wearing his new shin and forearm guards under his pajamas.
ps: The youngest Green belt-and-up we know is a good full year younger than he is, thereby making him the youngest or near-youngest in P1 at the same school (his mum had a pretty good brainwave to start him young, seeing as he would be one of the youngest in his year, I remember thinking when she told me how I wished I’d thought of that too… Earning his Green early must’ve helped a lot with the boy’s confidence when he started P1 on the youngish side just as Rockstar did…) Oh, and Rockstar also has a Green-Blue belted classmate at school who will be going for Blue soon and who is therefore to him the coolest girl he knows. Yes – an actual GIRL 😀
1) “Let us run the race with endurance…” Showing Rockstar Heather Dorniden’s inspiring run, this weekend…
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2) If you can win, after falling flat on your face in the race, surely you can laugh while running? 33 Funny Parents. We’re not there yet, but I get the idea it must be hard to be the parent of a teenager…
Some dads need to start practicing…
Though I think he’s got this one down pretty nicely.
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3) If you read one inspiring and serious one this week, let it be 10 Life Lessons From A Navy Seal.
Just to put a face to those amazing words – Naval Admiral William H. McRaven
“The University’s slogan is, “What starts here changes the world……..”
“……….Our struggles in this world are similar and the lessons to overcome those struggles and to move forward—changing ourselves and the world around us—will apply equally to all…… ….To me basic SEAL training was a life time of challenges crammed into six months…”
Before reading this article, I never really understood, when I heard accounts of Singaporean classmates’ BMT (Basic Military Training), why they always scream at you and make you miserable and physically uncomfortable. There’s this bit in the article that explains it – your uniform is never going to be good enough to pass inspection and no matter what you do, you’re still going to end up with the discomfort of “punishment for imperfect uniform.” The purpose of the drill was not about the uniform or the nicely made bed or etc – it was to build emotional resilience, that sometimes no matter what you do right, you will not get your “just deserts”.
One of my biggest stumbling blocks in human relations (me being mildly obsessive compulsive) has been the preoccupation with, shall we say, “Type 1 and Type 2 error”. Being wrong about someone (thinking they’re guilty when they’re not, thinking they’re innocent when they’re guilty) is – was – a big reason for my at times freakishly long fuse. I got through it by telling myself “When no one sees, God sees.” Then recently, my nightly prayers turned to helping me see.
Now back to the article. As I read about the drills, the physical discomfort, what stood out for me was: Emotional Resilience. No matter what you do right. No matter how perfect you think your uniform is, how well made your bed is, that was never the point. That’s why instructors are mean, it’s because if they don’t make the quitters leave, the rest of the platoon might one day be in a life-or-death situation where they rely on would-be quitter.
If you are in an actual situation, say, a military deployment, where you can see people are literally going to die if you feel sorry for yourself about shit happening to you that you didn’t deserve, you will probably pull yourself right out of that hole asap. And that ain’t just for the military. It’s just easier to see when you’re in there, I guess.
One more:
“…you must be your very best in the darkest moment.”
That’s point #8 in the link, it’s a story definitely worth reading, here’s another which I will otherwise probably never find a place to mention. It’s somewhere in Our Daily Bread, and I forget most of the details but for one point – “When one person kept something for themselves, we knew it was the beginning of the end for them.” That was in some horrible concentration camp where the prisoners were starving. But they shared every extra morsel they could.
Go back and read that sentence: “….we knew it was the beginning of the end for them.” I took that to mean that it wasn’t whether you had an extra bite to eat that really determined if you “survived”. It was your heart. Emotional Resilience.
When God tells us to be a light in a dark place, it’s because that’s the best thing for us.
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4) If you read two… 25 Life Lessons From Albert Einstein. Because freakishly smart people are totally known for their humongous EQ and social graces.
And, bunny slippers.
Yeah, I wanted an excuse to put up a pic of Albert Einstein in bunny slippers. In honor of a certain little brokerage-style private bank I once worked in (they no longer exist) – the really cool boss man had only two rules for RMs: 1) You have to make some money, and 2) You absolutely cannot have any compliance issues while making that money. Geddit? RMs were installing massage chairs and dvd players and tvs in their cubicles – during the very uncomfy HK summer months they ordered in and watched soaps – and yes, flopped around in Juicies and bunny slippers (they hung their client-intended power suits in said cubicles too).
Pic of Mr Einstein and bunnies from:
3) San Francisco Globe’s 69 Rare Historical Photographs You’ve Probably Never Seen And Will Probably Find A Little Disturbing.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
Proving Nerd + Nerd = Cool.
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4) Also maybe a little disturbing: China has a Sphinx. (Or maybe for not much longer, according to the SCMP story.)
Dis issa Sphinx in Hebei
So Egypt complained to UNESCO, and China has to take it down. And I’m going to say my wishy-washy two cents: China has actually some amazing, seriously amazing historical monuments of their own from an incredibly rich culture. The Sphinx is………. not one of ’em. As in, to the nth degree. There is just no freaking way there can ever be an actual historical mixup or whatever, to having a Chinese Sphinx surely? Like, who is going to visit Hebei for the Sphinx? Or maybe they can…… not make it look too much like the real thing? No one gets mad at Vegas for Eiffel tower-decorated hotels or Caesar’s Palace or the other swanky one – whatitsname-something to do with Venice…
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5) Public service message: Secondary drowning – what you need to know. It can happen when a small amount of inhaled fluid acts as an irritant, causing inflammation and leakage of liquid into the lung. Your child can drown in their own fluids and symptoms can take up to 72 hours after the incident to appear. Very scary, especially when our second one, the “fearless” one, has no problem leaping into all kinds of pools of water (she assumes you, her servant, shall always be there to catch her if she goes under…. Actually it’s not just water, it’s anything she can climb on, jump off, etc.)
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6) The Miss has the skit this week, and it’s Beam Me Up, Scotty.
“Left Eye Selfie…”
“Ok lemme get into position…”
“A-and, the coast is clear”
*image blurs as Stripey-onesie-crystal-heart-shaped-goggles-wearing explorer is beamed up*
Good Weekend, dears…
