Raising Rockstar

(…Because I haven’t finished the books I’m reading, to write about <sheepish>)

#90

Bedtime in the Rockstar household…

Me: Bedtime, darling…

HN: Mummy. Do you really have to ruin my life like that?

Rockstar emerges blearily from bedroom one morning to find the floor covered in fish food pellets, crunching disturbingly under his crocs…..

Rockstar: What the hell?

HN: <calmly> Don’t say that, Ko-ko. “Hell” is a shitty word <laughs maniacally as I spit my coffee>

Lost kid wanders through mall, bawling for his mum…

HN: Mummy. He lost his parents. We should do something.

Me: <looking around for mall security> Y-

HN: Should we bring him to the orphanage?

Lands on her bottom after flailing about crazily, which she does on a regular basis…

HN: Oopsie! I seem to have landed on my booty!

Me: Is there any way she could be intoxicated? Do I not store alcohol and medications high enough out of reach?

Rockstar: What? She’s always intoxicated…

HN: <dances off maniacally> I-KNOW-WHERE-THE-LADDER-ISSS, Mum-may……….

A-and… there’s Rockstar’s contribution… Someday there’s a story about how these two do funfair games… When… y’know, I can finish my reading

OMG? Permanent proof of a temporary sanity? 🙂

Wanted one for my 30th birthday, ok… That was like, a decade ago. Never got one ’til now.

I could never quite bring myself to get one “just because.” What if I change my mind? It is apparently incredibly difficult and painful to remove, and over the years I’ve met not a few people who got tattoos when they were teens or young adults and really, really regretted it because Life then brought changes to taste and opinions.

One young woman who used to work in our area had a simple black “string” around her wrist, and then one day I noticed she had had it removed (she kept other much larger, colourful tattoos on her legs that she appeared happy with, she often wore shorts.)

What’s with the string? “I was maybe 16; we were all there, one big group of friends, and everyone was getting something so I really had to. But it’s so obvious when I work, everyone can see it, people judge you, you know…” (At which point I’m kinda ?? because the ones on her legs are huge in comparison… maybe she later fell out with the group of friends she got tattooed with, and that’s the real reason she doesn’t want the string anymore. Regardless, when someone who has multiple large, colourful tattoos tells me removing a little string of a tattoo hurts, I’m going to believe that removing tattoos really hurts 🙂 ) You can still see a shadow after she had it removed. So then it’s a scar you wished you didn’t go along with, one day 🙁

But I already had a scar and hated it….

My tattoo is actually covering this.

They say there’s a moment after the dye is cast – breathe right and you can still change the way the painting looks… Well in this case it was 2.5 hours under the needle, not inclusive of prep time, and a minimum 6 months waiting for the scar to heal before you can tattoo on it, a reminder that Life is more one endurance race after another, rather than an impulse decision… or mistake. The beauty of hope is in second, third, fourth chances, healing, better choices. 

Unlike my C-section scars*, this sudden and unexpected mark on the top of my foot really bothered me – I got it in the most meh way imaginable, trying to get HN on the school bus one morning. (Not… to be taken as a criticism of school buses or classes ok… I believe in how things take time – how much time depending on a child’s personality – and reinforcement at home is really, really important. One former dealing room head I had was a mum of a then-10 year old boy who loved tv… and I still remember her complaining she had to give up her tv after a hard day’s work when her son was cramming for exams and missed his tv shows…

The seed of an apple is an orchard invisible…

Ever heard that one before? It’s an analogy that both intimidates and inspires me, when I apply it to parenting. Parenting, inconveniently, demands consistency. (Produce a headcase, and someday there might be an orchard-full of headcases in this world, and those headcases…. It boggles the mind! 😀 ) It’s also incredibly unglamorous, particularly in a place like HK where a lot more people clock long working hours in the office and that is often seen as the more erm, “noble” cause because you can “easily” get a helper (which I find misguided because it’s unrealistic to expect a helper who makes minimum wage, particularly one who had to leave her own kids behind to come here and take care of your relatively privileged ones, to effectively “parent” for you when your kid rolls on the floor in a screaming fit), people sometimes look at SAHMs like they are total slugs 😀

Anyway. We happen to live furthest from any of the bus stops and School Bus Run was simply the thing HN had chosen to pick a fight over, for a time. As in, because she is an extreme sports junkee and – Fun Challenge! Let’s Mess With Mummy Before Being Away A Few Hours So She’ll Remember Me – Wheeeee! That’s how I fell one morning, running back and forth up the hill to our block cajoling her on.

I can’t see my earrings, but my hands, typing on a keyboard, are a powerful place for reminders….

Would’ve been Gal 6:4-5, my “life verse,” but for the place I was in when I got this 😛

Almost as visible to me was Bus Fight Scar.

“Cubist Tattoo” was off the cashier processing JD’s pet food order one day. How long had she had that elaborate, colourful image on her forearm? Ever had to touch it up?

I also ask the opinion of another mum after i notice the dark, neat design on the back of her neck, beautiful in its simplicity:

“You have kids, right? You’ll be fine.”

Never thought of it that way before, but I know what she means. At some point, after having little kids – chasing them, taking them for stitches, bone-setting, head scans, root canal… you’re a lot less squeamish. (Bearing in mind I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who had never been elbow-deep in little kids until having some. They’re the ickiest thing in the world, very unlike say, dealerboards and Bloomberg)

Move over, Tattooed Teenaged Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills Yes That Is An Actual Thing… You might be surprised how many mums get piercings or tattoos after they have kids. They just don’t tell you until you also get one. You have to be in a good place before your kids can be, and besides pilates or the spa… well Maria Tash probably made a killing when they brought their NY/ LDN staff over to HK (hosted by Lane Crawford) last year.

I’ve got  friends still waiting for MT to come back. Some happily showed me stuff they got online, to refresh old piercings. Brightens your tired face 😛 Dropping off HN at the (very local) dance studio we sometimes frequent, I pass another mum with a similar-sized daughter – dressed very casually, not a branded item in sight… but with her ears pierced something like the above.

You might think the kids are erm, inspired to get themselves something now (especially the crazy younger one), but you’d be wrong. Rockstar disapproves of open wounds (infection alert!), which they realised is what a real tattoo is, from watching how I was tending it until the skin healed over (takes about a week, similar to when I fell and got the first scar). He’s happy I got something done that I love, though – while I didn’t need stitches for Bus Fight, I once ended up in A&E from running after him.

As for HN… she would like to change her tattoos and face paintings every day, thank you very much <uppity sniff>.

This is her showing off  her nose, last Christmas – guess who she chose for dress up 🙂

Can’t do that with a permanent tattoo. Ends.

ps: Re C-section scars – Barely used the recommended scar cream. I had substantial gift coupons from co-workers and market counterparts back then, and maxed them out with La Mer Serum. I got the idea to use it on my scars because of an article about how the guy who developed it from ocean plant life had been motivated to do substantial research based on extensive facial scarring he sustained when a previous unrelated experiment had blown up in his face.

Sold as a kind of “youth serum” meant for ageing facial skin, it’s horribly expensive, and so I would mix it with cheaper lotions. I credit that serum as the reason I have far less scarring from my huge C-sections – no discolouration, no keloid, just a long, light seam that I frankly love the way it is.  

pps: Everyone has already heard about Logan Paul over the new year, right? (LP donned a funny hat and went to make a Youtube in a known suicide site in Japan – one they do NOT like to publicise, for obvious reasons. He and his friends apparently then come across an actual suicide victim’s dead body and he starts hamming it up. He then posts it, gets reviled by the internet, and follows up with an apology in which he claims he was trying to raise awareness.

Thing is, it was not just this latest horrendous action – Rockstar found Logan Paul last year through the much less-watched Dwarf Mamba, who had turned his own then-104cm height into a music video, Dwarf Problems. 

Just from that one thing (because we don’t watch that much) I did think, “Now there’s a guy who’s trying to make the most of the hand he was dealt in life..” DM used to have around 1+mio followers, while the 188cm tall, very athletically built LP <resists urge to go on Beauty Is As Beauty Does rant> then had a whopping 18mio followers thereabouts – and if they really were friends like they said in old videos, then – can you imagine growing up with dwarfism around guys like LP who make videos where they strut about an apartment smashing plates everywhere and think that looks cool?? So yeah it was back then that we stopped watching. Not because You Will Turn To A Life Of Crime After Watching Plate Smashing Ah Boy but because… surely you have a bit more than that to be proud of, right….?? (Don’t get me started about the idiots who upload pics and videos dangling from high places (particularly RESTRICTED high places) without safeties)

Going for the cheap laugh is so easy, and well, cheap. But more than that, it’s horribly desensitising – Watch And Hang Around Enough Of That Ah Boy, And Someday You May Also Think Posting Something So Horrifyingly Insensitive Is Less Than Horrifying. You could throw away what you were blessed with – looks, charm (maybe. I don’t find LP charming, but lotsa younger people must’ve) – on a choice you make and the internet documents unforgivingly.

You should value yourself more than that.

Somewhere in the many articles I skimmed was this one skill that is expected to be extremely useful for kids – the ability to debate. To convince another person, not through untruths but sincere… argument, of your point of view. Presumably LP started off having some of that, given his massive following. And then maybe he got a little…. overconfident. Allowed himself just one little cheap laugh. And another. And another, because people loved him, right? But now he’s the guy who made “that” video. It’s going to be very, very painful to come back from this, it’s a wayyyy bigger “string” to laser off your wrist.

What happened to Logan Paul is a wake up call. We can all do better with our time, what we watch, what we say, what we do. We can write, draw, film, edit, create better. Because we become, we ARE, what we watch, say and do.

Don’t run, fly? 😛 (For real – Rockstar’s good friend had flying lessons, one recent break. They did however use a plane haha)

Let’s make 2018 about Better, dears. Have an awesome year ahead, being awesome you.

Forgot to post this, better catch up…

Our goldfish from Tai Tong Ecopark lived about 5 weeks, and then something might have gotten in the open vases tanks on the balcony one night, because one morning we found everyone belly-up.

Goldfish Apocalypse inspired us to get a few Swordtails – those little red guppy-like things our nearby fish shop guy feeds the Oscars with (I’m obsessive-compulsive about things like this – Oscar Food are going to die anyway, may as well come home with us and maybe not die. I don’t like getting something that would’ve had a better (and possibly much longer) life if it didn’t come home with me.

It’s… possible I applied this to the kids as well, because one moment I was striding about that dealing room 25kg heavier with a belly I had barely registered as being attached to me except for being cold turkey on all medications and alcohol (yes. ALL. for both pregnancies AND both 1+ year nursing durations (but I do pump and dump milk)), then in the next two days they schedule a semi-emergency C-section during Christmas season, Rockstar comes out, I get an unexpected proverbial lobotomy. (HN’s delivery btw, was a full-on emergency C where they literally snapped the bracelet around my wrist and said “you will not be leaving this hospital until the baby is out.”)

So here we are 10 years later and not a day passes now both kids are finally in full day school that I don’t long for some serious work action… that must nonetheless not keep me from being there when their bus pulls up at the end of their day. Working late nights especially after they sleep is fine, but Why The Obsession With Being There After School, mum friends have asked.

Because for us it represents a commitment, a binding agreement , signed not in “blood” but in “effort”. You cannot easily parent a child bent on sneaking junk or dodgy websites (I once had an incredibly educational conversation with a cabbie regarding his 14 year old daughter who spent the night on a beach in Hong Kong when he thought she was in Singapore on school excursion), that is instead a relationship between two… adversaries.

Yes, I’m aware that in very traditional Asian households last generation in particular, fear was a powerful motivator. I bet it still is today. BUT. Think how much more productive we would all be if we didn’t spend all that energy on dancing around each other, and instead put it into well, getting good at something. Like, really good. I’m obsessive compulsive about all that energy that could be put to so much better use, when parent and child duke it out struggle to get away with murder are trying to pull one over on each other. The greater the fear (or insecurity) instilled, the greater the effort put into hiding stuff. The greater too, the waste of energy and creativity, on something that is quite simply not productive…

Besides, the last time I took an office job couple years ago that required some entertaining and well, not being “there,” instead staffing it to a helper, HN was, put quite bluntly, awful. (Not… that said helper could handle her either, she was rolling on the floor and carrying on for longer and longer periods. The flip side of a fearless child is a fearless child :D)

Anyway. Fish Shop Guy casually pulls a plastic mug through the water and pronounces “HKD 30” in exchange for its contents. I also lug home as big a plastic bag of the tank water from the shop as I can carry, along with the 7 fish that went from random tupperware to our flower vases.

Yes This Is How We Do Fish. There is a lot of stuff that makes up the water that fish, even the ones they use to feed other fish, live in – bacteria, minerals, a very big load of I Don’t Care Exactly, But I Do Want To Give Them Their Best Shot At Not Dying On Our Balcony.

Long story short, –

Fish Babies!!

Last little-tail-count has us at about 30 fry.

Not…. that it persuaded the kids to leave off Goldfish Fishing back at Tai Tong Ecopark, one weekend past…

The attraction has now expanded to three kiddie pools of goldfish, and they were completely out of bagged goldfish prizes when we arrived. (We were not surprised, because we’d passed a big bunch of local school kids and they were all holding bags of fish :D, the kids were perfectly fine fishing for toy prizes – traditional Chinese whistles – Rockstar translates the text on the packaging as something about these being the same kinds of whistles used in ancient times to catch birds (?!))

Two local boys in their teens join our kiddie pool. One of them tries to strike up conversation with Rockstar:

“(Casually, in Cantonese) I haven’t broken a single “net”…… <indicating Rockstar’s net> How many’ve you gone through? Three? More? I’m still on my first one………..”

Rockstar breaks another delicate paper “net.”

“……still on my first o-one………”

I bristle slightly, and search the teenaged boy’s face. He’s very quick, obviously very bright, and Rockstar and I exchange a puzzled glance. Usually, the hecklers we meet are…. not quite that intelligent, with some form of “insensitive gene,” when they mouth off.

“(same tone)….. be-cause………… I’m u-sing………… 5 papers in my “net” all at once…..”

Rockstar blinks (who says he completely can’t understand Cantonese haha)

<throws his head back and laughs><holds up his net to show us>

Rockstar: <immediately opens up the plastic frames of his remaining “nets” and starts stacking the papers together>

Local Auntie manning the stall: AIYAA! THOSE BOYS! They love messing with our customers! They are VERY TRICKY AHHH! You be careful ahhh! <waggles finger affectionately at them>

The boys chuckle, then ask us where we’re “really” from and chat awhile more, before busying themselves elsewhere. They’re local middle school kids working in the park for extra spending money 🙂

Y’know, once upon a time Richard Branson and his best friend Nick Powell bred budgerigars in their very first business venture. They were 11.

Things that make ya go Hmmmmmmmmm…..

The true Fish People, the Black Belts in fish (and probably most any other critter)-rearing, create mini-oceans in their homes or offices, with the salt water tanks and micro-organisms and what-not. I had a boss like that once – it’s a very serious hobby that requires a lot of commitment, he would hire consultants and what-not. He would test, measure, mix, test again, because Black Belt Fish People have this whole PH-balanced mini ecosystem complete with the micro-organisms and minerals down to the incredible science that it is – they let the sand settle, the micro organisms grow, they wait for weeks and weeks, before they introduce a freaking fish into their little box of immense stress and work tank.

Oh, and they follow the press and research about ethical harvesting of living organisms vs farming/breeding in captivity, when stocking their tanks.

There’s this correlation, I feel, between the ability to successfully care for critters (fine, Other Living Things) and some form of drive and ability to see things, projects, through to completion without going batshit (ironically) stressing out. With living things, you don’t get a “second chance” once the pet or plant is dead. (And of course there’s all the benefits of caring for something other than yourself.) I can’t say why, specifically, but like per Big Data (more on that later) increasingly correlation is good enough and therefore better than the need to prove causation…

#89

(That’s her Xmas gift wish – the Poinsettia headband she’s wearing; matched with Unicorn tee from H&M picked out by her bro, Stella McCartney Kids jacket warehouse find from couple years ago, Zara Kids patent boots last couple seasons…) 

(Rockstar wanted a custom Nerf sniper rifle)

For real though, the old border collie can be quite shy and reserved, while HN is this LOUD active kid with the BIG movements, and somehow the dog isn’t hiding from her 😀 

He has a penguin fighting with him for the corner of the sofa, and we need more furniture

HNs nativity scene activity at Sunday school..

And with that, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND PEACE ON EARTH!

When they were younger, Rockstar and Friends once developed a huge fascination with Blue Tack – that gummy stuff used to put kiddie drawings and other work on the walls. It became a huge commodity. Like, instead of money or drugs, little 5 year olds would trade little gobs of the Magic Stuff That Could Make Things Go Up On Walls. Little gobs hard earned by stalking the movements of paintings being displayed, and examining school walls.

Back when Rockstar was a Y1 (yes, some 5 years ago), the 4-5 year olds also had a No Sharing Stationery Supplies Between Tables rule, I guess because with so many little kids new to the primary school routine and all the stationery being supplied by the school in the first year, they needed to keep better track of all the supplies (For eg, Hamster Ninja, if kept unchecked could go through her weight in markers and pens).

During this time, a little boy in Rockstar’s class was asked repeatedly by friends at the next table to hand over some erasers from his own table (because they’d lost all theirs).

“But… (Teacher) said no sharing between the tables.”<looks around for teacher so he can ask><friend who has been refused the eraser looks a little disappointed, goes back to own table> 

“Wait, wait, you know what? Take it” <calls friend back and hands eraser over> “Bring it back when you’re done…” <keeps track of eraser being returned to own table.>

Rockstar’s then-classmate had understood the principle behind the rule, the “spirit of the law,” so to speak – that sharing between tables in itself wasn’t “wrong.” It was that stationery needed to be accounted for per table, and that was why there was this rule to begin with. So he broke the rule but accounted for the stationery. (Yeah of course you got that, you’re not five :D)

After seeing that, it highlighted a developmental “skill” I hoped my own little kids would pick up, the sooner the better. Kind of the little kiddie equivalent of an exercise in judgement when kids are teens: 8 Life Skills 18 Year-olds Should Have 😛

Anyway, to Freakonomics’ Cheating Sumos story.

Now, I don’t know that much about Japanese culture, but I have certainly witnessed the strict honour and etiquette they are so proud of. I remember someone long ago telling me they’d left an expensive camera on a subway in Tokyo and when the train eventually got back hours later….. yup. The camera was still there 😀 (We’ve done similar with Rockstar’s laptop in Hong Kong too, I love HK Lost & Founds in the city in general)

So… why do Sumo wrestlers cheat, and how did checking the games data tell Levitt & Dubner this (without anyone ever admitting to it)?

Here‘s a little more about Sumo:

“…Life is hardest for the lower ranked wrestlers, who are expected to get up earliest and cook, clean, serve food and generally wait on the higher ranked wrestlers…”

“…It is a fact of sumo life that the younger, inexperienced wrestlers endure systematic hazing and physical punishment in order to toughen them up. This is part and parcel of sumo culture and something that young wrestlers know to expect, but it can sometimes go too far – resulting in injury and very rare cases even in death…”

The final night in a Sumo tournament is called “the pleasure of a thousand autumns,” in which the victor “receives all kinds of elaborate prizes for his success. And a fat wad of cash, of course.”

(You’d think this is why Sumo wrestlers cheat right…? Like why Lance Armstrong famously cheated, for fame and glory……

Lance Armstrong pic from slate.com

But you’d be wrong 🙂 )

Lemme carry on painting the current picture for the moment though – even for the referees of the Sumo matches, Sumo completely dictates their lives. They enter the profession young, around 16 years old, and remain referees until they retire. “The traditional clothing they wear in the ring is strictly graded according to rank, and as they progress up the ranks they earn honorific names by which they become known….” 

 (pics off wikipedia)

“…the gyoji also carries a sword, or tanto, of about six to twelve inches in length. The significance (of the sword) is the seriousness of the decisions he has to make – and is prepared to commit seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment) if he makes a bad decision” 

I. Know.

So again, I wonder how they feel about:

These Dudes. (-pic from Amazon.com)

And there’s more – “sumo wrestlers aren’t… allowed to choose their own clothes.  …They are expected to wear (the samurai hairstyles of the Edo Period) and traditional dress at all times when out in public…”

pic from insidejapantours.com

“…sumo wrestlers are even expected to control their demeanour and personality in public. …wrestlers must be self-effacing and softly spoken, and during tournaments they should refrain from showing joy at winning or disappointment at losing…”

So Sumo wrestlers cannot do this (pic from fifa.com)

Or this (pic from freshwallpapers.net)

Maybe not even this (pic from nydailynews.com)

So now again:

Why do Sumo wrestlers sometimes cheat?

To help the wrestler who needs the win more.

Levitt and Dubner illustrated that when wrestlers went up against each other, the one with a 7-7 (ie 7 wins 7 losses) record, who needed the current match win to make 8-7 (8 wins being the benchmark for a huge bump in paygrade and respect), won far more often than pure chance would’ve allowed.

This is why I loved playing with probabilities in my former life: The assumption being 8-6 and a 7-7 Sumos are fairly evenly matched, the 7-7 Sumo would have a roughly 50-50 chance of winning. Or maybe slightly lower odds, since they do have 1 less win than the 8-6 sumo. So say about 45%, 47% chance of winning the crucial match.

Guess how often the 7-7 Sumo actually wins against an 8-6 Sumo? Not 50% of the time, not 47%, but a whopping 75% of the time.

AND, what d’you think happens when next the two wrestlers meet again?

There’s payback: Former 7-7 guy (now an 8-7) almost always lets his new friend (also an 8-7 since he lost his previous match with former 7-7) win.

Now, wasn’t that sweet? 🙂

Have a good rest of the week, dears…

Really wasn’t planning on a “Wonder” post. Firstly, Rockstar and Friends have been looking out for the movie adaptation of this former Battle Of the Books book ever since they heard about it last year. (More than a little useful that the school library appears to curate BOB books, painstakingly labelled including with the year it was in the BOB, plus the kids read some of them in class too.)

Secondly, Rockstar has friends who a) ran, ran, ran to catch the movie at the cinema before we even  realised it was finally out and then were talking about it over at Big Pirate-Themed Birthday Party last weekend, and b) even had opinions about the extent to which Auggie’s disfigurement as portrayed in the book was not 100% accurately captured in the movie.

KIDS THESE DAYS <MAJOR EYEROLL>

Yeah, and that too. (pic from quickmeme.com)

But to my point –

Anyone remember who this is anymore?

Or Them?

Oh, COME ON. (pic from today.com)

(Can I just say Gal Gadot studied Law and was a combat trainer in the Israel Defense Forces for 2 years before making movies (I like Army because of the basic concept of a “chain of command” – it was very important during my former life in 3 banking mergers when reporting lines changed 5 times in 3 years – very hard to get something done if you don’t know who your real boss is):

And she says, “You give two or three years and it’s not about you. You learn discipline and respect…” (but no I don’t agree with her Maxim skimpy swimsuit shoot – men’s magazine is SO not the same as women’s fashion skimpy shoot a la Emma Watson‘s, the majority of men I know don’t even understand women’s fashion haha))

Anyway –

Everyone’s talking about him.

So, as previously intended, I won’t. (The book was awesome, the movie is awesome, nothing more to say. Go watch it. There are many powerful illustrations and visuals in it)

…but also look out for her. (pic off twitter.com/emmasharkey)

*spoiler alert*

Now, I don’t know how the portrayal of Miranda in the movie stacks up against Miranda in the book, but Movie Miranda is Auggie’s sister Via’s best friend who goes off to camp, and when she returns she’s gotten too cool for her old friends. It Girl makeup, hot pink hair.

Like, who knew “fetch” could almost happen in a BOB book? 🙂 – pic from thesoedit.com

(Couldn’t find a nicer pic of Miranda in the heavy eyeliner in my opinion either. Because my attitude to heavy makeup is about the same as with higher heels. Too much work when less is more – doesn’t make sense. Unless you’re an ancient Egyptian. Then the massive amount of blue eyeshadow totally makes sense. :D)

Miranda goes on to snag the lead part in the school stage production. Her former best friend Via, Auggie’s rather neglected and incredibly selfless sister, gets the role of understudy for the part, despite her best efforts to get an actual role, with the encouragement from her new boyfriend.

Now, Via is mostly a straight-up beautiful person throughout the movie. She counsels Auggie, “It’s not about you. Not everything is about you”…  I do believe when not everything is about you, not every insult or hurt or “attack” is about you either. And it increases your own resilience. (Otherwise “everything” is a personal attack and you’re an angry, angry person.) Anyway here’s why I especially loved Miranda in the movie:

It turns out that Miranda has put a huge effort into reinventing herself in the wake of her parents’ divorce, her father’s preoccupation with his new wife, and her mother’s subsequent downward spiral. Sophisticated “It” Girl Look is one of several efforts to deal. (And she can’t bring herself to tell her former best friend any of this. Or the fact she’s gotten popular at camp pretending to be her best friend, Special Needs brother and all.)

Even as the girls continue to drift apart, Via perpetually has what Miranda wishes she did, only Via doesn’t know it.

On the night of the school play Miranda, all dressed up and poised to play the lead part she has rightfully earned and worked so hard for, notices Via arriving with her family – the family she wished were her own.

Miranda is painfully aware she has no one coming to watch her shine onstage. (Oh yeah, Via’s boyfriend has a part in the play as well, Miranda doesn’t have a boyfriend.) What do you think Cool New “It” Girl does?

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

Miranda claims sickness and insists she can’t perform, thereby providing Via the chance to be the centre of attention in her family for the first time.

OMG!!!!! IF YOU EVER FIND A FRIEND LIKE MIRANDA, DON’T LET HER GO!!!

😀 For real though, in that moment when Miranda is faced with this choice: The easy option – just go along with the big part and shine and have fun (kind of) basking in the attention of people she mostly doesn’t know (and therefore can’t care that much about) vs the crazy, much more difficult decision of going above and beyond, to yield for someone with a greater need, she makes the hard choice. It is in that moment that Lonely It Girl “saves” – nope, not Via but – herself. 

I can’t explain exactly why, and in the movie you just see that it does,
(but how on earth do you ever easily portray why it does, right?) Maybe it’s because everyone is aware of the sacrifice Miranda has made.

Maybe you think what Miranda did is stupid, lead part is a chance of a lifetime, it’s never coming again, she earned it fair and square and they may not even be friends later on when they go to college. Yeah maybe. But the point was not the play (and if you think the pinnacle of your life achievements is going to be lead in the high school play then um………).

The point was what the ability to see another person’s greater need and make a “lesser” sacrifice on your own part does for you, your personality, your drive and ability to perform more and better achievements like that one. Miranda was able to see that even if she went on with the lead, there was no one there to watch her (this time). She could not change that. (And yes that is sad. If it were about her, you’d feel really sorry for her, right? Like we feel sorry for what happened to her mum? But Miranda proves stronger than her mum; more valuable than anyone watching that ability/ talent onstage that evening, is Miranda’s actual ability to clinch that lead in the first place. That doesn’t go away just because no one is watching at the moment.)

I like to believe that ability gets stronger when you don’t feel you’ve “arrived” because you’ve got the lead.There’s some study that says your likelihood of achieving a goal actually diminishes, the more people you tell about it because psychologically the more you talk about it the more your unconscious mind thinks you’ve kinda already done it. That makes you try less hard. For the Type A in all of us – would you rather have the one lead or would you want to perpetually have more and better and keep being able to bring joy to families like Via’s? It’s almost like a superpower, except they don’t all come with costumes. (Well, they could have pink hair…)

Also – Miranda could not fix her parents’ marriage, any more than she could change the fact no one was coming to watch her be the lead. However it was in her ability (and hers alone)to place Via in a position where her family would see her onstage in the spotlight for awhile despite Auggie’s constant needs, for the first time.

When you are the only person able to create such happiness and magic for several other people who live day to day with surgeries and hassle (not to mention bullying) I believe that is even more empowering for your future self than just going with the lead in this one play.

It’s staking your own belief in yourself, that you are much more than just this current achievement. Because you are the lead in a play/ a banker/ a doctor and what-not for 2 weeks, 15, 40 years. But you are who you are, for your entire life.

No, it’s not easy. Nothing that is worth anything is ever easy. But people make sacrifices pretty often when they grow up. They’re called parents. (Can you imagine what parenting looks like if parents literally make it “All About Them”?) Spouses. And many more besides. (If everyone does not want to yield how are you going to ever raise kids/ compromise on careers, and- and – why are Hong Kong taxi drivers often so angry on the road???)

“Sacrifices” ironically are one of the “backbones” of our society, whether the more selfish Type As care to admit it or not. (Come to think of it even your spine has bits with cartilage so you can bend and move right, and can you imagine how miserable everyone who drives would be, if the roads only had angry Taxi Drivers on them? (I’m just going to get cabbie hate mail now, aren’t I :P))

You are your actions.

I never really got this, for a long time… (pic from meme generator)

BUT

True beauty (and worship, I was once taught) is in sacrifice and kindness.

ps: Remember when I said Rockstar had a wager going…

Remember this?

Rockstar’s wager after cramming for as respectable a grade as possible (having spent the rest of his time on things like Youtubing Megalovania on Synthesia) was that if he makes “Merit or above” he gets Thor’s Hammer.

We owe him Thor’s Hammer. Only, he doesn’t want the hammer anymore and it wasn’t a Merit. (Hasn’t decided what he wants, he can take a few months researching Amazon haha).

Something interesting about his ABRSM results – he could’ve put in more effort on practicing sight reading and scales – and his test scores accurately reflect that (I mention because it has always mildly annoyed me that sight reading and scales can easily be practiced straight out to help your chances on the bits you can’t prepare for… and he’s still so chill :P).

What “saved” him however (and Rockstar, dis is payback for the chill BUAHAHAHAHA) is – get this – his aural. He got a freakin’ 17/18. Turns out he does have a bit of an ear and can sing in tune. But you’d have to light a bonfire under him before he’d ever do it (sing). Otherwise rest of the time he’s just making goat noises. All over the apartment, all round the mountain trail at OB, a high, bright “Beh!” sound. Amazing they didn’t leave him on the mountain somewhere 😀

Partially influenced by Hamster Ninja not allowing me to tell some stories 😀

She allowed me to put this up after some persuasion though…

(Don’t get me wrong, they totally yank each others’ chains, and have a gadzillion long-unfolding dramas going at any one time…)

…but they spent their “last evening before camp” sitting like this for the better part of 2 hours. HN shampoo-ed and shampoo-ed Rockstar’s hair, convinced he would reek when he got home (we were all surprised he didn’t) 😀

After he left, HN committed to immersing herself in what she dubbed “The Only Child Experience”. As in, Rockstar got to experience being an only child for 4.5 years before she came along and she never got the chance to do that, so she would like to try it, thank you very much. (Well for that matter neither one has jumped out a plane either, but anyways <shrugs>.)

So Rockstar came back from Y6 camp last Friday. As previously agreed between us, we said our goodbyes at drop-off on Tuesday, and would see each other again after camp on Friday after he took the school bus home.

He didn’t even come back really skinny, he says they gave him like, 7 eggs a day (loves)

Lemme back up a bit – a year ago I was very upset when Rockstar went for Y5 camp because, among others, it hadn’t occurred to me to do a little erm, “emotional vulnerability check” before he left… and so as the days wore on and I mostly couldn’t see nor hear hide nor hair of him for something like 5 days and 4 nights, my head started to fill with… thoughts. (Not….. of physical injuries – I grew up with parents who were there for every taekwondo grading, but walked out of the room if I was getting pummelled, just so they didn’t chew their fingers off  😀 I am an only child not by any of our choices, and willingly pushed myself, trying to fill what I felt were unspoken aspirations for the otherwise 3 children my mum had always hoped to raise (so no, I’m not naturally “competitive” for the “regular” reasons, more on that later).

Anyway, not actively separating the paranoia from the legit worries was becoming a huge… “weakness” – on my part.

Y’know, like when you get a new job in an old building in Wan Chai and the first time you’re going to be working alone late in there you discover colleagues who derive enjoyment out of telling you who died violently nearby.

Epiphany I: The people who tell you there are body parts in the walls don’t want to be friends <shot of the blindingly obvious> and once you get that (which is very, very important because you really need to prioritise who you spend your relatively scarce resources on and that should always be your real friends) –

Epiphany II: You will be so determined not to be afraid of zombies in the walls that they will nonetheless help you more than your real friends could. The sincerely well-meaning ones who come up to you and go, “Is it my imagination or did we never see Rockstar in any camp pictures? Hope he’s ok…” (OMG! My friends think there might be a problem?! Should I be freaking out more??)

When your 8yr old has had periods of lying awake at night worrying about life expectancy and genetic history of those near and dear (I fairly frequently follow dooce.com because she has an older child who, besides reading at an astounding level for her age (but having low muscle tone she needs to work on), at one point was checking weather apps every 15 mins thereabouts – and yes HK public health system has psyche evaluations during some annual checkups, that I recall – one year everyone had a very long questionnaire and thorough interview – and it’s all practically free!)….. and then you have a second child who proverbially thinks bungee-jumping is for babies (why do you need elastic?), you realise that it’s very hard for someone whose child doesn’t lie awake to understand someone whose child does.

If I had had only a “Hamster Ninja” child, I would’ve thought someone who had only a “Rockstar” child was a total fruitcake. But that is how utterly different kids’ personalities can be, and so a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunications among parents, education and healthcare professionals, I believe tend to be because of how different kids simply are. The “margin of error” is just naturally so wide, and I don’t think it can easily be fixed anytime soon.. When I compare what Rockstar was like at that age and what HN is like, it’s sometimes hard to believe they’re even the same species. (Of course if you ask them, they will tell you they are not :D)

Regardless however, we all have our demons, and if they get to creep up on you, they will eat you alive and very slowly. Sometimes, they have to take a bite and start chewing before you realise that; I believe the biggest obstacle to your parenting the way you aspire to will always be what’s going on in your own head. (Including caring what’s going on in other people’s 🙂 )

Oh look, I found a comic book adaptation imagery of “Fear” – this is from Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern movie, where burning ambition to harness more power** leads to a well-meaning Elder Of The Universe being consumed by fear – pic from wired.com

But get this – you will never have as much motivation to chop the infected arm off than if you don’t want the proverbial Office Zombie People to continue preying on your fear. (Not… that I ever understood the concept of bullying – if you’re insecure, doesn’t the additional having to look over your shoulder in case you pissed someone off make you even more insecure? <demon alert!> Doesn’t fear of/preoccupation with possible retaliation rob you of energy you could better spend running at full steam to achieve your goals? This is a paradox of “competitiveness” – if a person truly wanted to win more than anything, surely there is a point where they must realise that to spend energy on say, cheating or intimidating a competitor is energy taken away from purely raising their own abilities.)

But back from the tangent: Then we heard Y6 Camp would be an Outward Bound Camp and we were all Yeah!! (OBS is rather comfortingly familiar – there is similar in Singapore, and in Malaysia we even met a large camp of primary schoolers from Beijing doing “Adventure Camp” in Penang last CNY. The big difference however is the Beijing kids didn’t sleep in tents, they were slumming it at The Hard Rock Cafe Penang 😀 (but that might also be due to safety).. Another mum asked me how Rockstar was, and I said “He’s on camp and I’m sure it’s fine cos there’s OB and he will be jumping off a jetty!” 

For real though, like everything else from computer education to 4m OB Jetty Jumps, kids seem to do these much younger, nowadays. During our time it was at university orientation and when HR ships the entire dealing room off to Pulau Ubin for simulated parachute jumps et al.

And then in a flash, he was home again.

Rockstar didn’t have enough money to get two bandanas, so he got the hot pink one for HN. Anyone who knows Rockstar personally will attest to how much he hates the colour pink.

And therein lies the bit I have to tread carefully with. HN…… appreciates (other) gestures by her brother to be sure, but when it comes to OB bandanas, she is also fiercely determined to earn her own someday. This is a little kid who shrieks in frustration at not being able to keep up with the older kids at Ryze trampoline or Verm City climb park. Crumpling in a muscle-trembling, angry teary pile is not uncommon. S-o… that exchange did not end well and I’m not allowed to say more 😀

Ends

ps:

*Besides going to Katherine Sellery’s Effective Parenting Course through the school (it was like, 30 classroom hours plus homework), I went, “Every One Dies!! It’s not just older people! D’you know how many people die on the road every day? But you’re not going to stop using roads, are you? (Seatbelts. Speed limits). Lemme show you this statistic on how many people die from vending machines falling on them. 150 people killed by coconuts. 24 killed by champagne corks. 100 people died from being scalded by hot tap water. 450 people die in the United States alone from falling out of beds.” 

However, ultimately, the belief that there is a God who sees all and plans all is incredibly comforting and liberating for anxieties.

“To all my enemies: I could not have done it without you.”

-Antonio Garcia Martinez, Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune And Random Failure In Silicon Valley 

Off and on again in a general pursuit of inspiration when parenting the kids, I’ve been reading these three books:

1) Anti-fragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by initially French-educated Lebanese-American intellectual Professor Nassim Taleb, 

2) Option B by Sheryl Sandberg following the devastating and unexpected loss of her husband, and

3) Chaos Monkeys by… a guy who coded the tracking of derivatives at Goldman before moving to pre-IPO Facebook (it is in itself fairly rare that a Physics PhD can write so entertainingly haha).

(That is not to say I don’t try to keenly follow what the people actually trained in childhood education say – if it’s one thing I learned from a former life on investment product desks, it’s that you don’t interrupt the “‘expert’ in that particular field” – credit, equity, forex, interest rate, commodity – (unless you’re just excited! haha). HSBC in Singapore used to have these daily early morning “meetings”, where everyone just stood in a loose circle in the middle of the room clutching mugs and the occasional satay stick to skewer a siew mai and someone from each desk/team spoke for a few minutes. It was to quickly prep everyone across teams, for the day. You’d listen and be thinking, “Now, how can I use that for my unique desk/ client/ trading/ creating needs today? How can I put together what I need, from what they know?” Not…. Do They Know What They Know :D)

Reason I also look at (seemingly) unrelated stuff for inspiration in parenting is because, with the exception of completely absentee parents, who you are or what you know cannot completely be exclusive from your parenting choices. (This whole blog is about how we show our true colours by how we parent. The good, the bad, the stuff we all want to hide (and we all have something – Google will tell you 68-81% of parents take some of their kids’ Halloween candy – which just means that there’s somewhere between 19-32% of parents who like to lie on surveys :D).

Yet parenting should be a teacher like no other – of us adults. We are charged with raising another human being to someday be a part of society, hopefully as a useful member. By some unwritten rule encoded in our DNA, we perpetually strive to give our children better than we ourselves received. Because y’know, otherwise we’d all be extinct <shrugs> , evolved into a bug or something :D)

Anyway. Sheryl Sandberg is Zuckerberg’s choice for COO of Facebook, whom he poached from Google, then re-defining the role to fit her specifically (can’t deny the beauty of tailor-made anything, because it takes into consideration unique strengths and weaknesses). I never followed her “ban bossy” campaign, but like Freakonomics authors Levitt and Dubner – 6 kids under 5 between them at the time, Levitt reeling from the loss of a 1yr old to meningitis, studying in the subsequent parental support group why parents are notoriously bad risk assessors of child safety (people go nuts about mad cow which has a pretty low probability of occurring to them, while leaving raw meat full of harmful bacteria on kitchen counters, then re-using the same kitchen rags to wipe all manner of surfaces every day) – Sandberg (and Grant) wrote Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy while parenting two devastated children (then aged 7 and 10) through her own pain, following the unexpected death of David Goldberg.

We will always fear devastating loss. Yet eventually, after what feels like an eternity, is hopefully the compensating kindness of a newfound clarity.

And so here I am plagiarising narrating Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant:

pic from fineartamerica.com

This Timothy Chambers painting features in the chapter on raising resilient kids. Mr Chambers is legally blind and 70% deaf. As in, if he looks you in the eye, he can’t see your mouth.

Now go back and look at that painting.

Now back here: Mr Chambers suffered from sometimes-paralyzing fear and nightmares when first told there was no cure for his conditions.

(How many of you went and looked at the painting again after that last line? :D)

“While they suffered an irreparable loss, my children are still fortunate… our circumstances have softened the blow… Two out of ten U.S. children of all backgrounds live in poverty…” 

Food drives and collections, like Box of Hope for eg, are a powerful visual: when you are packing the things the recipients need, you are reminded there are people, kids, worse off than you who don’t have them. Pencils, toothbrushes, towels. Can you imagine needing someone to buy these things for you?

“…resilience is not a fixed personality trait. It’s a lifelong project….”

Rockstar loves the “shark in the sushi tank” analogy:

Sushi connoisseurs could taste the difference if the fish arrived at the kitchen dead, not alive. Now, packing live fish in a tank for transport is not exactly cheap. Connoisseurs could however still taste the difference if you kept them alive, but packed them tightly. Finally, someone came up with the bright idea of putting a few sharks in the tank. Sure the sharks ate a few fish, but apparently somewhere in the costing trade-off between packing live fish tightly vs “free range” is a factor whereby if they get chased around by a few sharks, they taste even better. Supposedly, the increase in sales from the better-tasting sushi made out of fish that were fleeing from sharks more than offsets the loss of a few that get eaten by the sharks.

(Darn, don’t you want to see what that costing spreadsheet might look like? :D)

So I told Rockstar we all need a few sharks in our tank. His response was Sure, Because Our Goal In Life Is To Be Delicious. Work Hard, You’ll Taste Better.

So yes, Rockstar – you are a pink cupcake. (pic from Youtube)

Anyway. Next author – Nassim Taleb, distinguished Financial Risk Engineering Professor and prominent critic of risk management systems during the financial crisis.

I find it a little hard to read Dr Taleb lightly. Reviewers keep saying how his are some of the “smartest” books of his generation (no doubt there), how he’s really funny….. Well he is funny, but it still takes some work. (Phd Monkey guy is easier to read, but Taleb is kind of the Anti-Fragility guy.)

So at risk of being the little kid who asks why the funny man surrounded by livery-ed guards isn’t wearing anything, I’ll say that Dr Taleb’s…. is often times the writing style of an academic egghead professor (who nonetheless also likes to lift heavy weights and eat big steaks :D). He’s relatively soft-spoken, and known to walk out of the room when press suggests he speak up. Something about importance of person inversely related to volume 😀 (See, you’d love him too.)

Dr Taleb has an obsession with bones – literally, there is a similar picture in his book of the indigenous women who carry baskets on their heads….

pic of Mysore woman from Wikipedia

Dr Taleb questions whether ageing really causes loss in bone density, or loss in bone density causes ageing. Up to a point, you need bone stressors, gravity, carrying stuff in your day to day. The controlled strain makes them stronger; deprive them of all stress, support near-collapsing, near-insolvent banks, and that leads to blow-ups.

That’s not a typo – Bones for Banks. You might think this irrelevant, but banks are run by people who, hopefully, are useful members of society. So too, markets traded. In fact, until Spielberg becomes reality, without a real AI phenomenon that runs the Central Bank or corporates et al, we’re pretty much stuck with people, their foibles, and human nature.

Anti-fragility is something we could all use. Imagine the Hydra (Taleb really does say this), that mythical multi-headed beast that grows two heads every time you chop one off.

pic from forestimel.deviantart.com

If you follow Captain America in comics, you’ll notice that this is the name given to Captain America/ S.H.I.E.L.D’s main adversary, the fictitious comic book terror network:

“Hail Hydra!” – pic from marvelcinematicuniverse.com

(Am I the only one who was terrified, the first time (long ago) I realised in comic books everywhere that (albeit fictitious) terrorists sported this logo….)

There are a lot of things that gain from disorder and we shouldn’t always fear it. By which Dr Taleb was referring to attacks, writing “…if you can survive them, (attacks) help enormously, conditional on the person appearing to be extremely motivated…… There is a visible selection bias: …why you instead of someone else…” 

This doesn’t work for everyone though, just those who have a slight tendency (not that it’s totally bad, but it’s also a risk) to be too full of it. Isn’t it instead possible people aren’t attacking you personally because they um, don’t know you exist? 😀 It is incredibly liberating to realise that you no longer want what someone else has the power to give you. The irony is when the liberating loss of value was handed to you by someone intending the opposite. Where the irresponsible pursuit of pleasure is a much more obvious known “sin”, pride is probably the biggest risk. Ego is a big weakness. That’s the one you don’t see coming, and when you do… (not.. that you don’t have a mild detached curiosity about what happens next…) that is what will set you free.

Voltaire was a well-known critic of government and Catholic Church, whom Dr Taleb refers to as a “gadfly” (don’t you just love that :D). It is however extremely true of governments and large corporates (which ultimately are run by people) “…when you hear a government or debt-laden corporation trying to ‘reinstill confidence’ you know they are fragile, hence doomed.” (Because of The Lady Doth Protest Too Much syndrome haha.)

“To all my enemies: I couldn’t have done it without you.” No, Dr Martinez, that’s not true. Yes you can. It’s not enemies you need, it’s epiphanies! (And not anemones!)

ps:

So, you thought immortality and Hydras were all fiction?

Nice to meet you too. – pic from futura-sciences.us

No, those aren’t “heads”, they’re tentacles – the real life Hydra is a 1cm long predator (mostly of water lice named – get this – Cyclops, that carry some disease :D) with regenerative capabilities; it appears to never grow old, and when well-fed can produce babies (like that one growing out of its trunk) every 2 days. But someone decided to get Hugh Jackman.

Beat that, Wolverine. pic from moviepilot.com

 

Went to pick Hamster Ninja from Lego activity after school… Happened to pass by these boards detailing the latest learning activities, from Y1 to Y6… 

My favourite is the tornado with a cow and car in it…. better paper cows than real ones… 😀

All this stuff is not an exhibition, it’s just what’s up for the kids to look at when they walk up and down the stairs to their classes in between breaks, go about PE and Games, get to after-school activities – and it changes pretty often..

Aside from the obvious amount of facts, figures, exercises and what not however, what really struck me is this: 900 kids, some of ’em barely 5. Many of ’em opinionated, relatively extroverted (“risk-taking” – to not be afraid of speaking up, risking being wrong, is encouraged during learning). I had to bend down to take some of those pics, the boards are placed low, so all the little kids can see them up close.

BUT.

No one messes with any of these displays. No little itchy-fingered graffiti, pulling at papers, and what-not. Paper cow and car are still “sitting pretty” in paper typhoon.

I didn’t pass any armed guards or electrified fences (because we all know you need to have these. People touch things), no alarms appeared to have been tripped when I got real close… Yet no one took Paper Cow home.

Both kids had “exams*” over the weekend – Rockstar took the ABRSM Grade 4 in piano while Hamster Ninja sat for her Green Belt in taekwondo…

That’s them horsing around outside the little exam centre because everyone was so reserved and well behaved inside – including that dog under the receptionists’ table.. I think everyone periodically takes their little kids outside to dance about and push each other around before going back in to sit quietly for their turn 😀

This is him emerging from the exam room (we were advised, preferably no sneakers or casual wear – either a nice shirt and leather shoes or school uniform…)

Meantime, we’ve been running around trying to navigate Siberia for exam venue rehearsals and practice because we still don’t have a real piano and this year even the local cabbie had problems bringing us to the exam venue for rehearsal. (Both kids don’t want a real piano because they say they would probably have to be wayy more careful with it.)

*Not… to be confused with how some of our friends whose “thing” is music – from Boy Band/ Girl Group-style to Classical – might approach this, Rockstar takes the ABRSM every two years “just” to have a piece of paper to show for all those music lessons (as in, someday under “hobbies,” “grade 2 in piano” is more specific than “plays the piano”). The rest of the time he’s doing all manner of things like searching out Megalovania on Youtube, and then as it gets closer to exam time he starts cramming on the actual test material (aural, sight-reading etc), for as-respectable-a-pass-as-possible, on the ABRSM.

This round Rockstar then also proposed a wager: if he makes “Merit or above,” we throw in “Thor’s Hammer” – some magnetised gadget you can use to make the aforementioned comic book hero’s weapon of choice stick to the ground (well any metal plate) as though you are not Odin’s Chosen One and therefore unworthy to lift it. So basically rather than a real piano, he wants a real hammer.

Hamster Ninja –

Was waiting eagerly for her grading last night

She took her yellow-green belt the night before her first day of Y1 at Kennedy School, and it was kind of a little “goal” for us because I didn’t expect her to make any more gradings for maybe a year, once she started full-day school. They’re quite particular about whether the kids actually know their stuff before they’re called for gradings (better than being failed in the exam hall, they don’t let you sit for the test if you don’t have a good chance of passing), and she had initially struggled to get down all the moves for the Taegeuk 1 pattern. Took her about a year to qualify, over summer break leading up to yellow-green we even doubled her lessons, thinking for her to clear the test and then concentrate on adjusting to primary school life.

So you can imagine what a pleasant surprise it was, that while “adjusting to full day big school for first time” she made Green Belt grading. She’s super in love with the sport now –
Taegeuk 2 has substantially more turns, long and short stances, middle and upper punches.

…And just in case we mistook her for someone else, she then put everything on – the standard Green Belt Issue shin and forearm guards almost covering her entire limbs – and went jigging about madly in the empty quiet street last night.

Primary school life must be good for her, with also the Games and PE Fundamental Movement Skills et al.