Monthly Archives: November 2009

There should be a law against laziness… (Wo)man up, Award Time!

On 17 October 2009, the lovely Jane over at They Call Me Jane temporarily lost her mind and shared with me another award that she just won.  It is displayed below as Exhibit 1 Exhibit 2:

Kreativ Blogger Award

If I don’t end up in the nut house, it is partly because the love and support from a stranger, who no longer feels like a stranger any more, and her name is Jane.  I am not saying this because Jane has given me two awards.  Two awards!  That’s got to count as something, right?! She is one of the most level-headed, fair, rational, understanding, sensitive, thoughtful, and wisest people I have come to know through this thing invented by Al Gore. Her blog is like a fresh breath of air: a thinking blog that does not put your to sleep.  And the most important thing is?  She is REAL.  She is NOT pretentious.  She is naturally cool without having to say one single cuss word.

At this point, after reading her blog on a nearly daily basis, Jane can say nothing wrong in my book.  If she says, one day, and this is purely hypothetical, people, that she is actually a bunny killer, Imma gonna guess it is the bunnies’ fault.  Just sayin.

It took me more than 2 weeks to officially “accept” this award because I have to come up with 7 random things about me.  I guess nothing X-rated is allowed…  And you all know, at least those who have read my blog on a semi-regular basis (i.e. more than 3 times in the past 6 months), that I am Asian, more specifically, Chinese.  There goes my Number 1 through Number 3: Hi, surprise! I am Asian/Chinese. I can speak/read/write Chinese. I like rice. (I DO! DAMN IT!).

Ok.  Here it goes, in no particular order:

  1. I am secretly obsessed with angels.  As in, I believe in them.  Or, I strongly wish they are/were real, even though I am not Christian. I envision them to be the angels in Wim Wender’s “Wings of Desire” (Der Himmel über Berlin). NOT the Nicolas Cage one. Oh, god, no.
  2. I am agnostic because I am too cowardly to make up my mind.  I want to have my cake and eat it too.
  3. I am a classic insecure overachiever.  Psychotic.  A bit bi-polar.  I guess I should have added these to my “About” page. Oh well.
  4. Laziness and fear of embarrassment are the driving forces of my life.
  5. I played Lizzie Borden in a play when I was in graduate school.  In fact, I played a few other homicidal characters, including Hamlet and one of the women in “Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird Dies in a Gilded Cage” who gets to wield an ICE PICK!  (I was totally typecast, I suspected…)
  6. Being on stage was the only times when I felt completely free.  I miss that feeling with a heartache, barely noticeable except during the night, when I am writing to nobody.  Like now.
  7. I also played Billy the Kid (adapted from Michael Ondaatje’s book) and I had the best lines in my acting career:

After shooting Gregory
this is what happened

I’d shot him well and careful
made it explode under his heart
so it wouldn’t last long
was about to walk away
when this chicken paddles out to him
and as he was falling hops on his neck
digs the beak into his throat
straightens legs and heaves
a red and blue vein out

Meanwhile he fell
and the chicken walked away

still tugging at the vein
till it was 12 yards long
as if it held that body like a kite
Gregory’s last words being

get away from me yer stupid chicken

I am kind of depressed now because I just realized that none of these things that I have shared with you I share with my co-workers after more than 5 years working together, in a very small office space.  Because I don’t think they are interested in hearing about it.

Without further ado, I am going to pass this award along to….   Drum roll please…

Tomatoes on the Vine

Velva’s food/cooking blog is more than that.  She genuinely believes in the simple ritual of sharing a meal as the way we create and maintain a community.  Besides, it is always yummy to look at the photos.

booshy

On her blog, Jessica comes up with ideas.  Lots and lots of ideas.  I honestly cannot tell you what her blog is about.  But I enjoy reading her ramblings.  They make me smile.  Her latest “scheme” is to get everybody to come up with a “I am thankful for” list and send it to her before November 24.  So why not?!

Life is Not a Movie

I think Robin is a bit insane.  I said that with affection and as a compliment.  She is a woman of many talents: a radio show, a photography blog, and who knows what else.  Warning: She is an avid Kevin Spacey fan.  So don’t say anything bad about Kevin. Or introduce yourself as Mrs. Spacey.  I never know what to expect when I click on her blog every day.  But it is always a nice surprise.

My Wildlife’s Words

Jennifer Lynn is a wildlife biologist. Seriously, I’d never thought I would meet someone in that line of business.  She is saving the earth for all of us!  And her observations of life are full of interesting perspectives that will make you go, How come I’ve never thought of it that way?  (Well, you would have if you were a wildlife biologist.  And if you are, do let me know!  I’d never thought I would meet TWO!)  She is probably going to protest and say, “I don’t write about THAT topic on a regular basis.  It was an one-off special edition. Limited time only.”  But her post on Elk Vagina, yup, you read that correctly, is educational and hilarious.

Where Insulin Meets Insolence

Lynn is a great writer.  She has a great way with words.  And metaphors.  (Well, duh, all great writers are good at these things.  This is why I am not a good writer).  This post is one of my all-time favorites: Four on the Floor.  I think she should publish some of her essays.  They are that good.  This is her personal blog where she can be, well, “insolent”.  Her essays are over at “I have measured out my lives in MP3s”.

National Blog Posting Month OR NaBloPoMo. Try saying it fast 3 times…

On the second day of November I learned that November is actually the National Blog Posting Month.  (Thanks to Pajamas and Coffee)

The concept is straightforward:

For the entire month of November, the participant will write a post for every day.  30 posts in 30 days.

I have never succeeded in keeping a long term commitment (except my marriage…)  Every year, when I was growing up, I would vow to keep a diary.  I end up with a dozen journals with no more than 10 pages with stuff written on them.  Maybe I am just coming down from my sugar high (left over from Halloween!  I wonder whether this is the reason why NaBloPoMo falls in November?)  Or I am coming down with the Swiner.  I found this idea intriguing.  So I am giving myself a challenge.

november

What is the most awesome thing I found about this movement that is impossible to pronounce without ending up catching myself saying MoFo…?

They have a category for blogs called Psychotic Ranting / Anonymous Foaming

Perfection.

I am going to put that on my badge when I go to BlogHer 2010.  IF I do.

p.s. By the way, I totally cheated.  And it is only 12:39 AM on November 3…  First of all, I changed the publish date from November 2 to November 1 for the post that now listed as published on November 1.  I DID write it on November 1, I swear!  I just didn’t have time to edit and publish it before the weekend was over.  Then for November 2, I totally crapped out by blogging with charts from The Economist.  What’s next?  Post my child’s artwork and call it a day?  (I already did that!)  On November 3, I blogged about how I am going to blog every day for the month of November.  I can already detect a trend: on November 4, I will blog about how I am afraid I may not be able to keep this up.  On November 5, I will congratulate myself for not giving up and blog about it… etc. etc.

How much is the Pulitzer Prize worth?

I was surprised to learn that the Pulitzer Prize is only worth $10,000. I guess you really need to be in this field for the love of the game.

PrizesFinalB

Now with the doom and gloom not just predicted but realized in numbers for print journalism, and the difficulty in turning online content into actual dollars, we should be concerned about the future of journalism. I enjoy reading a good blog and all, but without the investigative RIGOR that comes with good, solid, journalistic practices, we should be worried. Really worried.

News print circulation drop

Balloon Boy Brouhaha immediately comes to mind.

p.s. Does the number for USA Today include the not-so-free copies they leave outside your door in hotels across the country? The same USA Today for which the hotel charges you $0.75 a copy unless you CALL the front desk to deny the delivery? And you have to CALL, you cannot just TELL THEM when you check in? The same USA Today that every morning when you leave your hotel room you actually step over because you don’t even bother picking it up to read it even in the taxi on your way to your meeting/office/client’s site?

“How you should behave when you grow up”: a primer for your kids

My 6 year-old, at the end of sugar high, launched into a campaign for something that he thinks my husband and I should offer to him and his older brother.

“A program.  A program for ‘How you should be like when you grow up‘,” he said.

“Mom.  I think you and daddy should give us a program so you can teach us what we should do when we have our own kids.”

“What do you mean?” I was intrigued, with caution.

“Well, you see.  You and daddy fight a lot. You don’t want us to grow up like you, do you?  So you and daddy should give us a program called What you should be like when you grow up, to show us what to do when we have our own kids.”

“Ooookkkkkaaaaayyyyy.”  I hesitated.  My mind was racing.  Tickets in hand to take one LONG guilt trip.

I admit that my husband and I fight.  Although we DO fight, I don’t think we fight more than an “average” couple, judging from my conversations with other women, both in real life and online. We argue in front of the children.  From the beginning, I actually made a conscious decision to not hide our quarrels.  I don’t want them to grow up with a pair of rosy glasses with regard to adult relationships.  That being said, we do NOT call each other names.  (Well, not in front of the kids anyway).  There is absolutely no physical contact during these fights.  And I make sure that the kids see when we resolve our differences.

Perhaps this has been the wrong approach? I thought to myself.  How much harm has it done?  Is it too late to undo the harm? Panic.  Don’t panic.  I am not sure any more.

Later when I put him to bed, he brought up the subject again,

“Mom.  It is going to be just a private program for us.  Well, if [his older brother] does not want it, you just need to give it to me.”

When in doubt, be honest with your children and treat them like adults.  I tried to take his words seriously without overreacting (which in itself was against my natural instinct…)

“Well, I think you already know what should be included in the program, don’t you?  If you know it is not good when mommy and daddy treat each other badly, you know not to do it when you have your own children.”

Taking a deep breath, he turned to me, looking worried,

“What if I still do it even though I know it is wrong?”

This is my 6 year old.  Wiser beyond his age.  An old soul.  Although I feel blessed, I feel inadequate as a mother.  There is no witty ending to this story.  No closure.  Let’s file this post under “There is no manual for parenting” and “I don’t know how to tell you how you should behave when you grow up because now that I am a grown up, I still have no idea”.