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imma crazy like that

Out of My Mind

February 5, 2012

in random

I went to a grade school talent show on Friday evening that lasted 2.5 hours. Yesterday we had Catholic brainwashing religious class, band festival at our local senior high school, gymnastics meet and team dinner. Today is the Chinese school New Year celebration performance: reporting for rehearsals at 9 am [it's now 3 am] and we won’t be let out until 4 pm the earliest. My youngest has two book reports/reading projects due on Monday. I may have replied to my boss’ email yesterday and promised I would send out something this weekend…

If I survive this weekend…

The following are the thoughts that went through my head over the first half of the action-packed fun-filled weekend: [And if you are lucky, I may just spare you the second half]

Why am I here at the talent show? I must be the only parent here whose child is not in the show.

Ok. Do they just let anybody in the show? I guess it would have been mean to have some sort of application process and to insist on some criteria.

Look at all these extroverted kids on stage.

Look at all these people confusing ham-ish-ness with talent.

I like Bollywood song and dance and costume. I hope the older white couple behind me don’t die of shock.

Another Bollywood number? Well, Bollywood style dance is the only thing that can fill up this huge stage with 3 tiny kids performing anyway. And this suburb needs some culture.

Pink and Adele sure are popular.

Why do girls think their dance in front of the mirror in the bathroom is going to translate well to the stage? Ok. Am I being a jackhole for even saying this inside my head?

What was that Daniel Radcliff said in his “You CAN do anything” SNL skit?  ”I tried, and therefore, no one should criticize me.”

Ok. You are probably just being an asshole.

But I am hungry. I did not have dinner yet!

It is very important to know how to do a cartwheel.

When is this going to end?

People probably think my kids are in every act the way I am applauding. Every act gets me closer to the end of this.

Mother. 1.5 hour. This is only the first act?

When you have an awesome set of pipes, you are set for talent shows for life.

 

What a stupid question in the workbook: “Is Jesus a man or God?” Of course, he’s a man. He’s the Son of God I will give them that. I can rote memorize with the best of them.

Why does the religious textbook insist on Jesus being The Son of God AND God at the same time?

How did I miss this? I thought I’ve read the Bible the first thing for college… Oh… Old Testament. Dude was not even in it.

This is confusing. So all of a sudden I have to tell my son that Jesus IS, somehow, also God?

This does not even make sense. How is he the son and the father at the same time? Do people really believe in this?

How do I say this with a straight face? Am I rolling my eyes too obviously right now? [I guess this is something you just have to believe. You either believe it or you don't. Leap of faith required]

I did not sign up for this. This feels like lying through my teeth. I refuse to say it.

I am such an idiot! Why did I not know until now?!

Good. The kid figured the “correct” answer out on his own from the textbook. We will just pay for his therapy in the future.

I am going to kill my husband.

[Later, I did express with strong emotions my inability to even verbalize the statement so could he please handle that from now on should this subject resurface again. And he laughed out loud. He just laughed. What's up with that?! and I should probably explain: I am agnostic and did not grow up in a predominantly Christian country. My husband is one of those twice-a-year Catholics. We are bringing the kids up Catholic. Or as I believe, we are waiting for them to be confirmed to make my mother-in-law happy. I feel like I have signed some important agreement without having read the fine prints first. I feel like an idiot...]

 

[Listening to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me] That is Gary Oldman? Gary Oldman is British?

Oh my god oh my god oh my god.

Cars should come equipped with the ability for me to tweet and update my Facebook status and to write on my blog just by me thinking out loud.

I would be the most prolific blogger ever.

Gary Oldman is such a great character actor. I have never heard him speak as himself!

This is absolutely scary and amazing and awesome.

He scares the bejeezus out of me in The Professional.

Nobody ever cracks their neck in such a scary way. The scariest neck-cracking ever.

 

Interesting. The percussion section has quite a few tall blonde young male persons. Look in the opposite direction!!!

Yeah. And they are complaining about too many Asian kids in this neighborhood. Look who are the nerds now.

Ha ha.

[Just so we are clear on this: My son is in the band]

[Also, I love nerds and geeks and dorks and whatever labels you throw on cerebrals]

Look. There is this kid that looks like a younger Jesse Eisenberg!

And wow. He even has the same smugness about him [as Eisenberg in The Social Network]

I think I have a crush on Jesse Eisenberg.

And now whenever I think of Marc Zuckerberg, I think of Jesse Eisenberg’s face.

Does that mean I have a crush on Zuckerberg?

Shudder.

I am convinced that I will now think of that kid as Zuckerberg as played by Eisenberg. He can be a totally good person and I will still see him as a smug jerk.

Poor kid. Being judged by me.

Movies are so powerful.

 

[Watching my oldest lifting himself straight up in the air on p-bars at his gymnastics meet] Whoa.  That kid’s got some awesome biceps. When did this happen? Where did those come from?

He can probably snap my neck just like that. Ha ha. Awesome.

 

Gary oldman irl Out of My Mind

 

 

{ 8 comments }

My blogging friend Nance over at Mature Landscaping posted about the new issue of Time Magazine with a cover story titled:

“The Upside Of Being An Introvert (And Why Extroverts Are Overrated).”

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It’s about time!

I have written about Introverts, or rather, the misunderstanding, mishandling, and under-appreciation of this group of people in the past. Ok, I ranted with foams at the corners of my mouth. I LOVE this paragraph below and will quote it again, and again, whenever I have a chance:

The American dream is to be extraverted. We want our children to be “people who need people.” We want them to have lots of friends, to like parties, to prefer to play outside with their buddies rather than retire with a good book, to make friends easily, to greet new experiences enthusiastically, to be good risk-takers, to be open about their feelings, to be trusting. We regard anyone who doesn’t fit this pattern with some concern. We call them “withdrawn,” “aloof,” “shy,” “secretive,” and “loners.” These pejorative terms show the extent to which we misunderstand introverts…

Introverts need to learn about the positive benefits of their personality type. They need to be taught that reflection is a good quality…

The time has come to respect the introverts in our families and classrooms, and the hidden introvert in ourselves.

Source (1999)

 

This was written in 1999. It is now 2012. About time that a major publication such as the venerable Time rights the wrong, sets the record straight.

I was ready to take out my credit card in order to walk through that pay wall Time.com cleverly set up so I could read the said cover story.

Then I took a good look at the cover Time has chosen for this issue.

 

time cover introvert Introverts are not shy.

 

No. No. No. No. No.

Introversion does not equal shyness.

Introverts are not necessarily shy. In fact, psychologists have been warning adults from labeling children “shy” if they seem reserved. This will only create a self-fulfilling prophesy. This is ironic since Susan Cain, whose book Quiet this Time article was based on, wrote an article titled “Don’t call introverted children shy” published by Time Online at the same time. She specifically addressed this common mistake of confusing introversion with shyness:

Shyness and introversion are not the same thing. Shy people fear negative judgment, while introverts simply prefer less stimulation; shyness is inherently painful, and introversion is not. But in a society that prizes the bold and the outspoken, both are perceived as disadvantages.

Though I along with many others are excited that the undue attention paid to the extroverts in this country is finally being brought to light by such a widely-read magazine, I believe this cover is doing a lot of people, esp. children a disservice by reinforcing a misconception.

And, that’s what I have been doing these past two nights. I tweeted, I Facebooked, I google+’ed. I could not let it go.

So here it is. A Facebook page for  Introverts are not shy

 

 

LIKE the page if you agree! Chances are nothing will get changed. I don’t have the self-grandiose illusion of this starting a movement. BUT, it certainly makes me feel better tonight.

And I am going to bed.

 

 

p.s. Now it’s two days later. Still cannot let it go. I added a Google Plus page for good measure.

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When last summer was over, finding pants that fit all of a sudden became my obsession. Oh not for myself (I mean, that’s another, sad sad story). For the strange teenager that took over my oldest boy. Overnight the pants from BOYS’ department no longer fit him and those from MEN’s department won’t for a while. My choice seemed to be either highwater pants or a barrel.

Of course my son was no help.

“Can’t you just ask your friends where they buy their pants? For sure you cannot be the only person built with crane legs!” He looked at me with horror.

For weeks I had to refrain myself from asking random model-grade teenage boys with legs rivaling Manga characters (ok, to be fair, so you won’t tzk tzk me, they look almost 20. I think.) where they got their jeans.

After repeated whining of “mom I need new pants!” for a few weeks, I managed to drag him along to the mall. To be honest, the only store I was familiar with was The Gap. But somehow their designers have decided that the waist on boys doubles as soon as they outgrow Size 18. I was gearing up to go home with Erkel when I walked past this store with a name that I could not (and still cannot) pronounce.

Aéropostale. (I am still calling them Apocalypse just to annoy my children)

Why didn’t anybody tell me about this store? They call their two departments “Guys” and “Girls” for goodness sake! And because this store is for teens, there is no BASIC items, no STAPLES, no CLASSICS. You know what this means right? SALES. DRASTIC DISCOUNT, every season. Before the season ends.

$18 for a pair of jeans. 50% off of sales price.

AND they carry size 28*32 for jeans.

As I was grabbing at sweatpants, jeans, hoodies, shirts with the cut for gazelles, I was at the same time telling myself:

I am a good mother. I am a good mother. I will NOT wear matching clothing with my son esp. the way the clothes are emblazoned with the logo.

I did get a Peace bracelet for $6. And this:

shot 1316383073220 The things I do for my children

Love the bag. It's now my favoriate bag. Only $15.

Love the fuzzy hoodie too. But…

shot 1316383918107 The things I do for my children

I will not wear the same clothes as my son. I will not buy another hoodie for myself.

But, it is fuzzy. Did I mention that it is fuzzy. It’s like if you scalpe a teddy bear and line the hoodie with the fur. You head is cushioned by the dead teddy bear’s fur.

On top of that, once we got home, he repaid my kindness by pulling on his new jeans without unzipping first.

Zooom. The jeans were on him. Zooom. They were off.

Like a potato sack. It irked me to no end.

I am an adult. I will not wear clothes from the same store as my teenage son and his friends. I do not have anything to prove. I do not need to dress in clothes from “teen stores” nor will I covet those clothes. I am not going through some mid-life crisis. I will not (threaten to) steal my son’s cool new hoodie lined with teddy bear furs… (repeat the mantra)

I told him. I hate you. Seriously.

He beamed and demonstrated the ease with which he pulled on the jeans a few more times.

I said, “I love you. And that is why I will not wear clothes from this store so we won’t seem to be wearing matching clothes.”

He did not seem to appreciate the sacrifice I made for him.

 

* SHOES are the exceptions. Of course.

{ 15 comments }

My 3 words? Surprisingly not W. T. F.

January 1, 2012 random

Chris Brogan is at it again. Chris Brogan, who I really have no idea of, is apparently a very famous person on the Internet and the social media scene. Dude apparently is an inspiration to many, esp. with his annual New Year post “My 3 Words for 20XX”. In 2011, his 3 words were: Reinvest. [...]

41 comments

Some of the Best Decisions I’ve Made

December 19, 2011 random

1. Buying a duvet cover in DEEP RED rather than white like those nice glistening duvet covers in hotels Around 1 am today, as I was wrapping up my work and was looking forward to hitting my head against that pillow, I heard my 9-year-old boy make a familiar sound. A sound from the past. [...]

26 comments

Circles

December 13, 2011 therapy in session

Scene: The basement of an upscale restaurant in a hip Chicago neighborhood Cast: Her. And a throne of other women. It would be accurate to add “mostly young and attractive (and white except her and one other woman, though this has nothing to do with anything really…)” Being young adds 20% at least to the [...]

32 comments

Overload…

November 23, 2011 random

Google announced Google Music (its answer to Apple iTune + Amazon Cloud) last week. I immediately started uploading all our music files to the massive google cloud. (It by the way took almost six days to finish). This plus my existing music drive in the Amazon cloud means that when the Apocalypse comes? I am all [...]

13 comments

These boots are made for…

October 19, 2011 random

When it comes to all these flash sale websites, I am a marketer’s dream girl. I think I give people in advertising like Don Draper wet dreams. I click on every email that MyHabit.com and Gilt.com sends me every day. This undying support for people like Don Draper + the promise of free shipping and [...]

36 comments

Fly your freak flag high

October 1, 2011 therapy in session

or maybe this is not such a good advice. Sigh. I have had a draft of this post for a couple of days now. I was going to write about how we should all let our hair down, show our true colors, and let our freak flags fly high. Way high. To mix the cliches, [...]

30 comments

Spitting Blood

June 9, 2011 random

I am sitting here trying to catch up on the million things people just piled on my desk with a pool of blood in my mouth. I don’t know why but I keep on thinking of Brat Pitt from Fight Club. I don’t remember whether he lost any tooth inside the Fight Club or not. [...]

26 comments