Cotton-Pickin’ Days

Bouncy castles, those big inflatable trampoline-type play structures, are a staple of birthday parties. Last year, Stephen was invited to one that featured a bouncy castle that took up half of a small gymnasium and could fit 15 kids on it with room to spare. The party was made-up of children aged 2-5 and was utter chaos from beginning to end.

At any given moment, a child or more would be crying from having been jostled or bumped. One kid even started a “game” where she brought a handful of gummy candies onto the bouncy castle and threw it up in the air with every bounce. Needless to say, other kids soon had to have a try at throwing candy with a few others eating the candy that was thrown. Crazeee.

Personally, I would never host a party that included a bouncy castle (unless it’s at an indoor playground where you pay to get in). As an American, I’m all too aware of the risk of getting sued when children are likely to be injured. And that’s exactly what happened to two parents in the UK who rented a bouncy castle for their triplets’ party three years ago.

Sam Harris, now 13, of Spalding, Lincolnshire, suffered a broken skull when a 15-year-old boy kicked his head at the party in Strood, Kent, in 2005.

Mr Justice David Steel said Timothy and Catherine Perry, who hired the castle, had not provided enough supervision.

Damages, for which Mr and Mrs Perry are insured, are likely to exceed £1m.

The High Court had heard Sam sustained a “very serious and traumatic brain injury” and now needed round-the-clock supervision.

~BBC News

Accidents do happen.

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Todayonline has a great article on various countries’ efforts in teaching kids how to be more resilient, to understand their emotions, and to behave in a sportsmanlike manner. Unfortunately, the article ends with with a ridiculous quote:

…we’re definitely making progress in teaching our kids to be happy, but it’s like exercise — you must see it through for it to make a difference.

~Singapore Temasek Polytechnic lecturer Marion Neubronner

Gimme a break. Why does everything have to be about happiness? Should we expect to be happy happy all the time?

My personal philosophy doesn’t focus on happiness. I concentrate on striving for excellence and perseverance. Some of the time, achieving a goal brings a measure of happiness but more often, it brings me satisfaction. I think the word “satisfaction” is more precise and describes how I feel better than the blanket catchword “happiness.”

Speaking of sportsmanlike behavior, I enjoyed the NPR interview of baseball legend Cal Ripken, Jr., who played in 2,632 consecutive games spanning 16 seasons. In his book, Get in the Game: 8 Elements of Perseverance That Make the Difference, he wrote about how, as a child, he was “the worst loser and the worst winner in history.”

My strong will showed itself early on when I didn’t have success or I failed or we lost. I tended throw fits and be angry because I didn’t know what to do with that energy.

My parents were pretty cool. They didn’t really scream at me, they didn’t yell at me, they didn’t punish me so to speak. But they asked me, “Why do you react this way?” I told them that I can’t stand it. I have to get it out somehow. They encouraged me to put it into something positive so therefore you derive the benefit. It was a way to manage that inner drive that served me so well all those years.

See. It’s not about being happy all the time. In fact, I give you permission to be unhappy and to be ok about it!

Life’s about channeling your energy so that you can be productive. And that takes some serious perseverance.

Update: Persistence also crops up in an interview with Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Randy Pausch, known for The Last Lecture.

We weren’t surprised to learn that the “secret” to winning giant stuffed animals on the midway, like most anything else, is sheer persistence.

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A good memory is a key ingredient for success.

I have a fairly decent memory for most things except numbers and Chinese names. Pathetic considering my own name is Chinese.

David Brooks of the New York Times says that more and more of us are suffering from information acceleration syndrome in which “more data is coursing through everybody’s brains, but less of it actually sticks.” Here’s his solution to meeting a person who you can’t seem to remember at all:

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

You can’t tell the truth. That would be an admission of social defeat. The only possible response is: “Of course, I know who you are. You’re the hooker who hangs around on 14th Street most Saturday nights.”

My own solution is pretty straightforward. I usually confess to not being able to recall the person’s name.

“I’m sorry, I can’t quite remember your name.”

It’s really not such a big deal, is it?

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This season’s UK Apprentice started last week and already I’m totally disgusted by the behavior of one of the contestants - Jenny Celerier. Her profile says:

…she has combined her maternal role with a successful sales career.

If her bullying behavior on this week’s show demonstrates her “maternal” side, I shudder to think how her 17-year-old son was raised. Check out the way she, acting as project manager, treats one of her fellow team members in this clip - Be quiet, I haven’t finished!

In Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, he writes about the damage insults can cause in boss-subordinate relationships:

In a relationship among peers, an affront can be challenged, an apology asked for. But when the insult comes from someone who holds all the power, subordinates (perhaps wisely) suppress their anger, responding with a resigned tolerance. But that very passivity–with the insult going unchallenged–tacitly confers permission to a superior to continue in that vein. [emphasis added]

I can sort of understand why the other team members didn’t stop the Tyrant Jenny from berating Lucinda further. Better to stay in “good” graces with Jenny than to risk being called into the boardroom. But by staying silent, they made it seem like Jenny’s bullying was acceptable. And it was NOT. Someone should have put a stop to Jenny’s outrageous treatment of her teammates. This time it was Lucinda, next time it will be one of them. No doubt about it. That is, unless someone manages to give Jenny what she deserves and boot her to the curb. There’s always next week!

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As I suspected, I don’t really have Imposter Syndrome. I may, however, occasionally pull the “self-styled imposter” act to fake humility and lower people’s expectations of me.

In short, the researchers concluded, many self-styled impostors are phony phonies: they adopt self-deprecation as a social strategy, consciously or not, and are secretly more confident than they let on.

…Dr. [Rory O'Brien] McElwee said that as a social strategy, projecting oneself as an impostor can lower expectations for a performance and take pressure off a person — as long as the self-deprecation doesn’t go too far. “It’s the difference between saying you got drunk before the SAT and actually doing it,” she said. “One provides a ready excuse, and the other is self-destructive.”

~New York Times

Come to think of it, I think all my classmates at Stanford were “phony phonies” some or most of the time.

And that’s today’s tip for success!

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One of the moms at school was telling me about her daughter, then six, who was at a girl scout retreat. An older girl was gagging at one of the meals because she hated the food. My friend’s daughter said to her,

They’re not asking you to like it. You just have to eat it.

I love the sentiment of that because making it in life requires such a stalwart attitude. You don’t have to like something to do it and to do it well.

Take me and cooking, for example, I simply don’t enjoy the mess in the preparation and clean-up. If I can get a dish prepared for me that tastes the way I like, I’d rather buy it than make it myself. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to cook that dish, or that I don’t cook for my family, or even that I don’t know how to cook at all. It just means that cooking is not high on my list of priorities. I have better things to do with my time (like blogging for example ). I still cook at least five or six days out of the week but I do not like it. I don’t like cooking but I have to do it and I do it well.

Other things I don’t like but do just fine:

• Shower (heh)
• Keep track of money
• Discipline children
• Socialize
• Take tests

Similarly, just because I can do something well doesn’t mean I like it. Such is the imbalance and unfairness and general suckitude of life.

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This poor pigeon reminds me of the Chinese story about a man who died from starvation. He was so lazy that he couldn’t even be bothered to eat the necklace of buns that was put around his neck.

Famine by Xu Xi at Ploughshares tells a similar tale:

She used to tell me an old legend about sloth.

There once was a man so lazy he wouldn’t even lift food to his mouth. When he was young, his mother fed him, but as his mother aged, she couldn’t. So he marries a woman who will feed him as his mother did. For a time, life is bliss.

Then one day, his wife must return to her village to visit her dying mother. “How will I eat?” he exclaims in fright. The wife conjures this plan. She bakes a gigantic cookie and hangs it on a string around his neck. All the lazy man must do is bend forward and eat. “Wonderful!” he says, and off she goes, promising to return.

On the first day, the man nibbles the edge of the cookie. Each day, he nibbles further. By the fourth day, he’s eaten so far down there’s no more cookie unless he turns it, which his wife expected he would since he could do this with his mouth.

However, the man’s so lazy he lies down instead and waits for his wife’s return. As the days pass, his stomach growls and begins to eat itself. Yet the man still won’t turn the cookie. By the time his wife comes home, the lazy man has starved to death.

via Neatorama

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Because I said so!

Here’s Anita Renfroe’s “purse driven” website.

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A Texas family has sued Australia’s Virgin Mobile phone company, claiming it caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and website advertisements without consent.

…..
The picture of 16-year-old Chang flashing a peace sign was taken in April by Alison’s youth counsellor, who posted it that day on his Flickr page, according to Alison’s brother, Damon.

In the ad, Virgin Mobile printed one of its campaign slogans, “Dump your pen friend,” over Alison’s picture.

The ad also says “Free text virgin to virgin” at the bottom.

The camp counsellor had a Creative Commons license on his photos.

This is why I never post pictures of other people, especially ones of their children, online in any kind of public format. Even with their consent, there’s still the potential for misuses.

I think all my friends and family know this already but please don’t post pictures of Stephen online with his full face showing unless it’s in a private, locked album. Thanks.

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How many “well-rounded” people do you know? Someone who has a diverse range of interests and is sort-of, kind-of good at everything? Someone who is as eager to go chase a ball as stay home and read Proust?

I don’t know anyone like that.

Over at Wrong Side of Thirty, Lilian’s trying to get her two little bookworms to put the books down and go out to do something more active - swimming, skipping rope, ice skating, something besides lying on the couch and reading all day. While I applaud her efforts, I also think that it won’t change the boys’ preferences much in the end. I know from personal experience because my parents used to drag my sister and me away from our books to go shoot hoops. And just to show how well that took, I haven’t held a basketball in my hands even once in the past 15 years. And it’s not just imitating a mom who professes that she likes to stay home herself although that’s clear in our home too where Marv and I have a long history of being homebodies. A lot of it has to do with our inborn temperaments which are awfully hard to overcome. And, yes, I do believe it’s partly genetics (but you knew I’d say that!).

I think being well-rounded is a myth. A myth that puts unnecessary pressure on everyone to involve themselves in all the following pursuits:

• Intellectual
• Athletic
• Artistic
• Social/Humanitarian

And while we have may have tried an activity from each of these categories, there’s no doubt that most of us are only good at one or two on the list.

Clearly, I’ve focused on the intellect for most of my life. I was on the track team freshman year of high school but didn’t last longer than a couple of weeks although it was the easiest sport. No one ever got kicked off the track and field team as long as they showed up for every practice and participated in an event at every meet win or lose. And, of course, I always lost. You could even letter in track if you had a good record of participation.

Up through college, I had a strong artistic side. At any given point in time, I played at least two instruments and can play piano, flute, violin, and string bass. I played piano and violin competitively and considered going to a music conservatory for a millisecond before returning to my true love - science. Social and humanitarian efforts are a little easier to come by because they can be part of any intellectual interest. For example, fitting genetics with genetic testing and patient empowerment isn’t such a stretch.

I’ve always known I’d never be the perfectly well-rounded person no matter how hard I tried and I never did try all that hard.

As a parent, one of my biggest aims is to teach my child to appreciate all the good things in life, which includes sports, arts, cerebral pursuits, and good deeds. Perhaps the key is not to think that you should excel at all these yourself, but that these activities have valuable qualities not to be dismissed. I may pretend that sports have little redeeming value but I know that they not only teach self- and body-awareness but also team spirit and a passion for pure fun. Not to mention that all the score keeping is math in disguise. haaa

When it comes to American colleges, the mantra is that they look for students who are not just tops at academics but who are also involved in extracurricular activities (note the plural); that colleges want “well-rounded” students, not kids who are indoors all day with their faces glued to the computer screen never mind if they’re entrepreneurs starting their first online business. Not true.

Parents who believe the myth of the well-rounded student and prep their children for a slew of cram school courses and extracurricular activities are probably headed down the wrong track. Admissions officers can smell passion. If an applicant doesn’t have it for the activities s/he fills in on the form, the application will reek.

Here’s an excerpt from an excellent article on the myth of the well-rounded student by Joe Jewell at PrepMe Advice:

Especially early on in a high school student’s educational career, it’s great to explore a wide range of interests. As you mature, it’s only natural that some activities will become better-loved than others, and you will naturally settle into those pursuits. Be aware of this process and seek to grow in responsibility and achievement in the things that you are passionate about.

…a student with passionate interests, even if they are somewhat off the beaten path-in fact, especially if they are somewhat off the beaten path-is truly the hot commodity in college admissions.

So while we should all strive to try different things and push ourselves out of our comfort zone, it’s still important to allow ourselves the freedom to pursue what we truly enjoy and are naturally drawn to no matter what it may be (within reason, of course!). Life is about both exciting new experiences and the comforts of what we love.

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