Standardized Testing

Received NN and SW's standardized test scores from last year.... both of them scored exceptionally well.  For the most part... NN's scores are a 13th grader's equivalent and SW is, on average, a 10th or 11th grader's equivalent with the exception of his Reading Vocabulary.  Not going to kid... it does feel good knowing both are exceling academically.  Also validates our choice of drilling SW with vocab during the summer.  Though.. his vocab is still based on memorization, and not the fact he can recognize root words or figure out the parts of speech based on clues.  Clues like... "-ly" being an adverb.  Or "-tion" being a noun.  The time will come, I suppose.  

How I wish they can both do other extra-curricular... not cuz it's required, but cuz it's their passion.  Heh... to be a tiger-dad, while wearing sheep's clothing.  

Another trip around the sun...

Another trip around the sun.  This time, I actually made a special request to hang out with my friends.  Back in May or June.. we saw that the A's were gonna play the Giants at Oakland.  Figured tickets were gonna be cheaper and easier to come by.  

The day started out greeeeeeeeeeeeeat.  I woke up.  I was able to breathe.  Get up.  Pee without any problems.  The kids were awake too.  Things are different now.  When they were very young, they would RUUUUUUUUUN to wake me up on my birthday like it's Christmas morning.  As they got older... NN would wake up that morning and hurriedly, quickly whip up a card.  SW, if he had time, would do the same.  Or he would sign his name on NN's.  This year... they sat on the sofa and read. Heh...

I made a quick run to our local McD's to get a mouth watering sausage mcmuffin, hash brown and $1 coffee.  It's my bday... I should eat what makes me happy, right??  

During breakfast... for some unknown reason... NN get harping on SW about his love for ketchup.  And she wouldn't get off his case.  After the n-th time... I lost it and said, "Stop it.  Just mind your own business."   (Oops!!)  The house is now as cold as a random Tuesday night at Candlestick.  NN knew she messed up.  Joyce knew I was pissed.  SW was a bit.... aloof.  

You can hear them whispering... about getting daddy his presents.  I was sitting there on my phone, planning out my day when SW came up to be with a bag of gifts.  NN was about 3 steps behind, staying away.  I grabbed the bag and said "thank you SW."  I open the bag to find an iWatch and AirPods.  I hate gadgets especially if they cost hundreds of dollars.  Especially, after I found something I wanted and I told them explicitly what I wanted.  I didn't try to hide my disappointment.... I was actually, just pissed off at NN more than anything.  

Ended up hugging NN before I left for the game... sorta, kinda made up for my mis-step.  The game turned out to be amazing!!  The coliseum was ironically, my first baseball game ever.  Back then.. my friend would call me and I wouldn't even need to ask mom or dad.  I just grabbed my bag, stuffed it with some food, and went.  An odd atmosphere when half the fans cheered for one team and the other half was wrong.  But there was never a dull moment and it was all positive energy.  40,000 fans.... in the midst of COVID.  Unheard of.  The previous series, Oakland was drawing 8,000.  Geez.....

After the game, we trudged over to Gao Viet to get a bowl of Phozilla. An $80 bowl of pho with pork shank, prime filet and a whole lobster.  We messed up... and didn't place our name on the waiting list via Yelp.  Ended up waiting an hour 45 minutes.  Both kids knew... this was daddy's bday.  They didn't complain.  NN kept saying, "I'm not hungry."  SW was hungry... and we got him a bag of chips.  But after the initial hour... I didn't want to wait anymore and we went to a noodle place next door. It was dark and cold by then... and all we wanted some sustenance.  The waitress dropped off menus for us to mark up.... when.... Joyce got a text that our table was ready.  Sigh...  What would you do????  Since I was the bday boy... I made the executive decision... to go back and cash in on our "sunk cost."  I apologized to the waitress and said we have an emergency.  The food was amazing.... not worth the wait... but definitely worth going again.  

After all was said and done and I dropped Geoff off in the city... I finally got home around 11PM.  Expecting the family to be asleep.  Only to find them wide awake.  Not because they wanted to cut a cake with me... they know I don't like sweets... but because they had a third surprise present for me.  After an amazing day... they could've gotten me anything... and I would've been ecstatic.

"We saw you were a little grumpy this morning... so I told momma we need to get you want you wanted." 

Smiling from ear to ear... I gave them a kiss, tucked them in, sat down on the same chair I sat this morning... and watched the clock tick away the final minutes of yet again.... my 39th birthday...

求拉

Couple weeks ago... Hody told us about a Kings Academy WeChat group.  We clumsily figured out how to join... and then she told us there's a group for each class.  Not sure how long this has been formed.... but boy are the parents active!! 

They discuss the appropriateness of leggings (or no leggings) for girls.  They debate about "flipped classrooms" and complain about drop-off/pick-up.  They set up playdates and carpools on the side.  

They'll talk about the strangest things like "Do we really need lockers? They have backpacks!"  Or "What are the library hours?" or "Do I need to sign up for sports or is it optional?"  

I guess most of these parents went to school overseas so these questions are... banal. It kills me though... how reliant they are of other families when asking the simplest questions.  In the Chinese school WeChat 群， parents are so lazy.  They don't bother reading previous texts or emails... they just ask the teachers to send them this or that.  I guess that's the difference between communal cultures and garage door cultures. 

It's nice to see the banter though...and the language they use!! This is a whole new world to me.  

求拉, 啥， 娃， 折滕， 拉桿箱...  Hahaha... as I told Hody...to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth... you must learn the languages at the ends of the earth. 

Dragon Ball

SW has been pouring over the Dragon Ball manga/comic books the past few weeks.  By some miracle... I was able to get the entire collection from the library (a combination of several libraries).  We even founded the Japanese anime on Hulu with subtitles.

I originally wasn't going to retrace my footsteps... but on some days when you don't want to read anything else... I grabbed a copy of it.  And man.... there's a reason why it's the top 5 Japanese Manga of all time.  This is probably my 2nd or 3rd time going through the series... and it's amazing how cute and funny young 悟空 is.  The first 15 issues of the series actually had a story line.  There were random characters like Dracula and a dinosaur.  Saw the first issue where they introduced "Kamehameha" (龜波氣功).  There was a sense of adventure...character build-up and development... appropriate level of lewdness and humor.  You simply couldn't NOT love 悟空。 

And then...with all comics (with most comics), your protagonist grows up.  And when 鳥山明 was starting to run out of ideas (I can only assume).  He had one final Tournament of Heavens.... and the story started to veer and moved from rated PG to PG-13.  We started digging into the backstory of 悟空 and introduced the character of 比達。  He even dared to fancy with a 2nd generation with 悟飯。 

The first "all powerful" villain, Freeza, was fascinating.  Leading to the breakthrough and till this day, cultural reference of 超級撒亞人。 But the story, really could've ended there.  鳥山明 simply re-did Freeza with Cell...and then much later with Boo.  Give him props for trying to pass the torch to 悟飯 and then testing the waters with 悟天 and 杜拉格斯。 These characters never took off or was never received as well as  悟空.  Time and time again,  鳥山明 couldn't wrap up the story and just had to bring 悟空 back. 

Here I am...criticizing this cultural phenomenon that transcended multiple generations on multiple platforms.  The time finally came for me to return this series to the library... and hope that another father can pass this on to his son (and daughter).  I even thought about buying a set for keeps.... then I thought better of it... until the thought comes back again.  

盡我小小力

 Spent almost 2 hours with mom over the phone and Zoom tonight... helping her send tuition receipts out to Chinese School parents.  There's sooooo many things so she's doing wrong.  She's adding so much waste.  She creates images..edits them..then creates another image.  It takes her hours upon hours to create these receipts... and she is so inefficient.  That's not how you work. That's not how you run a business. The school is so dysfunctional... Lord knows how they've remained in business. 

So many times... I almost lost it.  "我拉左上去。"  Where???? Where did you "pull" it mom?? She doesn't know.  She doesn't realize that she has both an Outlook/One Drive account and a Gmail/Google account. 

But in the midst of all this... she said something, "我整左個table..."  How does a 73 year old, Chinese lady know how to create a "table" in Word or Google Doc?? Mom.... she's come a long way.  And that's when I settled down.

RESPECT.  That's what it is. RESPECT. 

She really doesn't know how to run a business. Nor do their school board.  Yet they keep running. They don't have to "hire" her and get a high school student.  Yet... they still have mom do all the administrative work.  This Chinese school can fold and they won't lose any sleep. Yet they keep churning away in the midst of competition, pandemic and what I call "business ignoramus."  

I changed my attitude.  I need to exercise my patience and give back to the very school that got me to where I am today. I ended up sending out all those receipts using mom's account.  I started teaching mom on how she's mis-managing this school.  I told her there's a better way.  But I fell short of revamping their system - I'm not the person to do it - maybe. 

It's 11:30PM.... I worry that mom is tired and cranky.  And she says, "I'm wide awake. Rarely do I get your full attention and you're not yelling at me."  My heart shattered.  

Friendly neighborhood, Spider-Man

Spider-Man... Spider-Man... does whatever spiders can....  

That theme song still rings in my head... in the Leung household.  We just got done binging on the MCU series... ending with Tom Holland's Spider-Mans.  Then we went back to what started it all... Toby Maguire's Spider Mans.  And what gets me... or what I don't get... is why Spider Man is hands down... the most popular comic book hero.  

"He's a teenager. He's relatable." 

Those are the words my NN said... those are the words I've heard over and over again.  And it's true.  The movies even go out of their way to point out how insufficient he really is... especially that one scene where there are no buildings for him to swing around and he's running across a giant field.  Outside of Manhattan (or Brooklyn....apparently), or any metropolis... what can Spider Man actually do? Or if he runs out of spider-serum... what can he shoot? Which is why Stan Lee and Steve Ditko limits him to fighting crime in his neighborhood.

Wrote a post 8 years ago... that was suppose to launch another post on  "Why Superman is my favorite super hero."  Over the past 8 years... I've waffled.  Jackie Chan, on one of the late night talk shows once said, his favorite super hero is Batman.  Not cuz he's cool... or he's rich... or he does things his way. But because he is human.  All his capabilities... is mortal.  But I never got over how dark he is.  I will always hate the times that DC comics wrote how he beat Super Man.  Whether it was synthetic kryptonite.  Or OD-ing Superman with the power of the sun.  

Same thing with Iron Man. He's but... just a mere mortal.  A billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist.  Who doesn't want to fit those shoes.  But yet again... Tony Stark is dark.  He's a maniac. And even if Kevin Feign tries to portray him as the fallen hero when he saved the universe... there was something you unattainable.  Or something you didn't want to attain.

The one thing... that goes back to Superman... is not his super human strength.  Or his ability to fly.  Or x-ray vision.  Those are powers of gods that any childhood would want.  What ultimately attracts me to Superman... the Man of Steel... my favorite super hero of all time... is his super human ability to love.  His one true Achilles heel... and the single way that Batman or Luthor has been able to defeat him. Logically... no human can possibly defeat him.  Even if you use the Mechsuit... or the Hulk Buster.  Or even the Infinity Gauntlet for that matter.  And if my my true weakness... is having too much kindness in my heart... well then... that's why Superman is my favorite super hero.

As for friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man... I like him. But I'll save that for the rest of the world. 

Q-tip

Back in the early 2000's... mom and dad came to visit me at Cal Poly and stayed over one night.  The next morning... they told me dad was dying from his ear being too itchy but couldn't find a Q-tip to pick his ear.  Apparently.. he had a habit of Q-tipping his ear every night.  I didn't understand back then... cuz I simply didn't need it.

Flash forward 20+ years... and I found myself in the same situation.  Maybe it's old age... where I now have more wax build up.  Maybe it's from all my headset suffocating my hear since I'm on telecons all day.  But it was worse than a medieval torturing device when we ran out of Q-tips at home.  I couldn't sit.  Couldn't stand.  Couldn't concentrate from the itchiness. 

Some doctors say it's a bad thing to use a Q-tip.  You can sever your ear drums.  Or you can push in wax that shouldn't go so deep.  The proper way to clean your ear is to use ear-wax remover.  Well then... when you're ear itches like a mutha... and your finger tips don't fit... what options do you have???

It is finished

 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” John 19:30a

Summer coming to an end...

Summer is wrapping up.  Camps are done.  The kids have two weeks left of chilling.  To not completely waste their time, I'm having SW learn to touch-type, while brushing up on his vocabulary in preparation for the upcoming SSATs.  In June... I had him make about 150 flashcards (to which he hasn't flashed once).  

Today... I asked him to starting memorizing 20 words a day and type out 2 sentences using each word.  (There, you don't have to do the typing tutor!!) Here are some of his words and sentences... 

Aloof means distant relations with other people

2) Some families have aloof relationships but our family is very close

Artifice means to trick someone or to be able to imagine

2) One time Loki went too far on a Artifice when he cut off all of lady sif’s hair

Amorphous means feeling of ill will, dislike for someone or something

1) John wilks booth felt Amorphous for Abe Lincoln so he assassinated him.

Adjunct something or someone in the secondary position.

1) Jarvis is an Adjunct avenger because instead of fighting he helps Tony Stark.  (I came up with this one to help out the kid, then he came up with his own sentence)
2) Friday is an Adjunct avenger because instead of fighting he helps Tony Stark.

Ascertain means to find out by examination. 

2) I have ascertained all the pokemon in existence by reading about pokemon and watching TV about them.

(and lastly...)

Altruistic means concerned for the welfare of others.

1) Some parents are altruistic towards their children because they want the best for them.
2) Altruistic is trait that can be annoying to kids, because it feels like their parents are being overprotective