Raising Rockstar

1) Mushy-mushy feelgood pics with similarly titled link: True Love Does Exist

Nope, no can do. Tried, I really did, to hold it in – but then Shaggy comes to mind (It Wasn’t Me). That’s a cheat. Those are animals. Fake love in the animal kingdom is news. Or Huffpost should amend their title to True Love Does Exist Well, D-uh It’s Animals.

This however, is my favorite. Turtle tries to “get in there” for a cuddle. See the lurve in those beady reptilian eyes.

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2) Speaking of cute animal love pics, this is just a mum and baby standing there but I think it’s really cute anyway:

Don’t you think?

From When Nature Runs Out Of Paint: 25 All-White Animals.

3) Now that that’s over with… To My Daughter’s High School Programming Teacher. It’s long. Here’s some excerpts:

“………..For her entire life, I’d encouraged my daughter to explore computer programming…… cool projects, the amazing career potential, the grants and programs to help girls and women get started……..

…..I was all too familiar with what my daughter was going through, but I was unprepared for the harassment to start in high school, in her programming class.

……talked to my daughter about how to handle the situation in class. I suggested that she talk to you…

…My daughter has no interest in taking another programming class, and really, who can blame her.

……Look, you don’t have to tell me how hard your job is or how underpaid and overstressed you are as a high school teacher. I’m a single mother working in tech publishing…. I like to think what I do is important, but what teachers do has the potential to change the world. No article I write will ever do that, but the daughter I raise might……

That was from her letter to the teacher. This is from the update on her blog:

……..after bringing the problem to the teacher’s attention several times, (her daughter) finally asked him whether she could talk to the entire class about sexual harassment, he told her he’d think about it, and that’s when he reported the situation to the principal.

She quotes her daughter:

“And a couple days later I was in the principal’s office being explained to that it wasn’t my place to do that…”

Not knowing anything else beyond the blog post I linked to, this is here as a nod in awareness of bias in general.

CJ Gregg in an episode of West Wing described how her white father retired head of a high school math department (instead of a higher post) because “there was invariably a less-qualified black woman in the picture.” I wanted to acknowledge there is  also a case for “reverse bias” as it were. Because people are people and human nature given an opportunity can be ugly.

I know someone whose dad was very senior in a tech company and so he (the son) expected to start college with fewer required modules. He refused to go in when told he wouldn’t be allowed a “headstart”. That I know of he dropped out of a different tech course after receiving a C because he thought he deserved an A. That I know of he then didn’t finish any of those. Then again neither did Mr Gates and various other multi-billionaires but for the rest of us mere mortals sometimes humility is under-rated. Alongside giftedness or brilliance should be some respect for the voice of experience. 

Then again there is no excuse for true bias or bullying. Realistically, there is some bias everywhere, bias is almost like a nod to various cultures and upbringings and even history lessons. Awareness of how it can shape our thinking I believe to be the first step to not ultimately making poor decisions because of it.

No, this is not me being trite or flippant, I’ve been the only female in tiny dealing rooms with huge, loud traders who bellowed how raping some female colleague in the next department was proper punishment for a mess-up. But at least I’m a big girl.

The blogger I linked above struggled because as tough as you are at work and facing all this, your weakness, your biggest vulnerability is when you have kids. And she hadn’t expected her daughter to be exposed to some of these things while still at high school. This is a parenting blog, I guess that’s the real reason this is here. As parents the best thing we can do for the kids is to parent. Instill resilience, confidence, teach them as best and as quickly as we can to fend for themselves. How and when of course depends on our own kids’ individual personalities. Bias and bullying in the real world are not always clear cut and the best response I believe is to ultimately become so freaking good at what you do no one can say anything. Become so good a bully cannot throw you off your game. Then be nice. Because not many people ultimately work “alone” – they can work with you or they can work with someone else. Why not have people want to work with you. 

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4) 31 Haunting Images Of Abandoned Places That Will Give You Goose Bumps. Way to change the subject.

Y’know, they say it like that, and really some look downright creepy (like the one above) but it was also interesting how people found other uses for these places (tourist attraction, photo backdrop, filming location for horror movie anyone?)

5) Super Fun Kid Time, an App for kids, designed by 9 year old girl to schedule playdates (she presents at the 2013 SF Hackathon, in the link.). Way to drive home the point. Rockstar’s class has iPad and ICT time where they play educational games on iPads and computers, there’s lotsa educational games on the school’s Virtual Learning Environment, we have online spelling or math  homework (now also Chinese revision) – which came in handy last week when we were waiting at the doctor’s and I could access some of it on my iPhone. I mean they have traditional writing with good ole’ pen and paper too, but then there’s also online Spelling City. Kids can start learning to type.

OH YES THEY CAN.

Yeah I have friends who believe in only good ole’ pen and paper. To be honest I haven’t put much emphasis on Rockstar’s writing personally. My own handwriting is not pretty. Won’t be too long I think before Rockstar’s is nicer than mine. To me this is an achievement. (Seriously though, last year I even messed up his use of capitals: one parent-teacher meeting early in the year the teacher had remarked that just that morning she’d noticed Rockstar seemed a bit confused between capitals and non-capitals and that was when I realized I was writing all my notes to him in block letters. I had also been getting him to write all his notes and cards yes, in all capitals. So yeah the school had to straighten that out <sheepish>.)

But as we’ve been told when they pointed us to the school online Virtual Learning Environment, this is the “world” our kids’ll grow up in, like it or not. Frankly things like the World Education Games are online too – you can’t handle a keyboard/mouse/touchpad comfortably you lose valuable time competing when you submit answers. Or maybe lose your train of thought if you can’t type fast enough. We have to practice writing, now we have to practice typing too <shrugs>

6) But I’d be remiss if I didn’t link a couple caveats in social media:

Xiaxue’s Faces of Haters post.

Audrey’s Instagram Harassment post.

(The Southeast Asians must be wondering why I’m linking these like it’s new news.) Xiaxue’s is here because I didn’t want to use a recent HK example. For the non-Southeast Asians who haven’t come across these (yes, both of you :D) XX’s multi-publicized, on-the-news post is there as an example of how your Facebook account and thoughtless remarks can seriously get you in trouble.

Audrey’s is there in part because of how things change when you have kids. Also to illustrate how people can then get “smarter” about being nasty (or at the very least just nuts). So the nice people need to get smarter about these things too.

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7) And that’s the weekend because it is actually my birthday today (yes, Friday the 13th!) and though we’re not celebrating yet (in fact, around this time yesterday I still thought my birthday was going to be on Saturday) I want to be a little bit lazy. Hope this makes up for it a bit:

“Oh, the new frontiers I shall discover…!” “Knock-knock…. knock-knock…!”

Little Miss’ first time trying on her helmet (by Nutcase – love the name!) and test driving (kind of) her scooter. Rockstar uh, demonstrating how a good helmet works. Isn’t every day he gets to knock-knock on his baby sister’s noggin. Obviously he takes that seriously.

Good weekend dears…