Bride Does Not Equal Center of Universe

(Tomorrow is our 3 year anniversary, so coincidentally, here is a wedding-related post)

This past weekend, a co-worker's son became engaged to be married. Naturally there was some talk about weddings.

He mentioned how he knew of a bride who'd bought a $10000 dress. But wait, it was marked down to $4000, so it's okay. Yeah...sure. I said, "That's still ridiculous!" A young female co-worker rebutted how $4000 is not that expensive for a wedding dress these days. I held my position, claiming that it's still ridiculous. That part of the conversation was closed out by her saying that "it's all about keeping the bride happy."

Um. Perhaps I'm just being "insensitive" or buffoon-ish, but becoming a prospective bride does not make a girl into the center of the universe. I will concede that it brings her a little closer to the center of the universe (a little). I think it is entirely selfish for women to magically revert to the maturity level of a 3 year old and rampage on about how this is her wedding and she deserves to have her way. (Or maybe this situation just exposes what she's really like inside) Let's also not forget that there is another person involved in the marriage. What if he would rather spend the money on something else? In this age of the feeble man and dominant she-man, you know what would happen.

Actually, what annoys me is if a bride expects her parents to pay for ridiculous things like a $4000 wedding dress. I mentioned this to Harmony and she agreed that we were not going to destroy our own financial security by paying satanic amounts for one-use items. If Pearl wants a $4000 wedding dress, she will pay for it herself or take out a loan. Hopefully she won't ever want a $4000 wedding dress.

Institutional Schooling

I often read about homeschoolers' viewpoints on education and this-and-that, and I often read about the comparison of homeschooling versus public schooling.

But there is another faction that they often leave out, namely private schools.

Or perhaps they are actually lumping private schools together with public schools. Some might object to that, and rightly so; private schools (on average) probably achieve better academic results.

I attended a private school from the middle of 6th grade through 9th grade, after which I attended an IB program at a public high school. I really can't speak much on how I "would've" turned out if I'd continued at the local public schools, because I can't observe my parallel universe self who attended those schools, nor can I rewind time and convince my parents to keep me in the then-status quo. But what I can tell you is that in terms of character building (or shaping of self or whatever), it's my opinion that a private school is not much better than a public school.

Sure we attended chapel every morning (you had no choice). Sure the teachers were a bit more free to make the occasional mention of God. Sure we had a religion class every Friday (you had no choice). (memories of my religion classes go something like this: watching an old Lion/Witch/Wardrobe production and laughing at the stupid looking costumes, watching Ben-Hur, and the Episcopal priest telling us that sarcasm is a form of anger, to which I thought "I might be a very angry person.") But the fact is that aside from those things, uniforms, and school size, private schools still do strongly resemble their public counterparts. You still get grades and your scholastic development is completely tied to that fateful range of letters. It's also age-segregated, and there is no requirement of any sort of piety from students or their parents.

This is why when I discuss education with Harmony, I will often discuss in terms of two groups: homeschooling, and institutional schooling, because I have grouped private and public schools together. I do that because, while private schools get better results than public schools, my observation is that private schooled children are still largely being educated by someone else and are spending the majority of time around someone other than family members.

Perhaps I've ruffled someone's fur in this matter. My point wasn't that privately schooled children can't turn out to be wonderful people (just like publicly schooled children can turn out to be wonderful people, for instance my wife); goodness no, if Pearl were to be struck motherless or otherwise unable to be homeschooled some day, I'd do everything I could to get her into a private school. Rather, the point was that it's not really valid for people to trash public schooling while thinking of private schools as proverbial cities on a hill.

What do you think? Are any of you former private schoolers? Do you agree or disagree with what I've said? Am I completely missing some secret point about private schooling? Do you notice a difference between public or private schooled children?

Just Sing the Chorus, Please!

You know what annoys me? When someone who's leading a hymn decides that the congregation is going to sing all the verses of a song first, then sing the chorus once.

Perhaps you are someone who likes singing songs like this. You are quite puzzling indeed. I don't know what it is, it's just annoying to me.

Songs that I've heard sung in this manner are "How Great Thou Art" and "Alas And Did My Savior" / "At The Cross" / whatever your congregation calls that song.

The Magical Non-Existent Formula For Perfect Children

There was much driving over the Thanksgiving break, and thus much discussion that ensued. A good portion of the conversation eventually shifted towards how to raise children in a way that maximizes their chances at turning out "right."

We examined anyone and everyone that we knew who had children who either went crazy or turned out to be responsible people and faithful Christians. The majority of our analysis focused on the parents rather than the children. We were a bit limited because we knew mostly came from observation. Most of the time we had no direct contact with the parents on these sorts of matters.

We spent a lot of time talking about how we were raised. Harmony's family was heavily involved in church activities, which is a plus, but as we discovered, was only a slight plus. Harmony's parents talked God and Bible very frequently, and Harmony's parents' children turned out to be fine young ladies. JunkMale's parents largely left spiritual teaching up to the church. In my opinion, bad idea. When I entered college, my Bible knowledge was woefully inept. It is much better now, but still not on par with Harmony, who lived and breathed it in her environment while growing up.

We also examined strictness to see if it was a factor. Harmony's parents were stricter than most of her friends. A good degree of strictness does seem to correlate with a higher probability of kids-not-going-crazy. Several families of Harmony's friends were much less strict than Harmony's, and a good number of children from those families went a bit wild (or in some cases, still are wild).

Let us speak of a family we are more familiar with. This family has two daughters separated by 9 years (the second daughter was perhaps a surprise, but I am not sure), and some pets. The older daughter went through the church life but apparently the family did not really talk spiritual at all outside of church. I'm uncertain whether or not the father attended with them; he might not have attended, or might have attended elsewhere. (no doubt that is a factor in itself) The older daughter had somewhat of an existential crisis once when she realized "Why am I even here? Do I really believe in God?" "Luckily," she got involved with a good church group in college and improved her life henceforth. Her sister apparently had no such luck and is probably some sort of atheist. She almost never attends church and probably has no sense of Biblical morals or ethics. Harmony is the one who's more familiar with this family, so I asked her if she thought the two daughters were raised any differently, since one turned out fine and the other turned out less fine than her sister. The conclusion was that sometimes it's a matter of circumstance, or "luck."

There is no magical formula though, as you all know. But if there were, it would probably consist of good family relationships, spiritual teaching by the parents, a not-too-strict-not-too-lenient-but-just-right level of strictness (which might even vary depending on the child, who knows), and circumstances. I put the "circumstances" in there because there are some people we know who seem to have done things right but their children have put them through lots of stress.

What is the composition of your magical mythical formula? Did you ever go through a crazy period? What led you to enter and exit that crazy period (assuming you have exited it)? Do you think anything would have prevented you from going crazy? I would appreciate your inputs.

Whole Wheat Apple Cake

As far as healthy cakes go, this is our current favorite. Compared to my grandmother's oh-so-delicious chocolate pound cake with buttercream frosting, this is practically a diet food. And while the chocolate pound cake edges apple cake out in decadence, the apple cake is pretty yummy and there's not nearly the guilt involved in the eating. :-)

Whole Wheat Apple Cake

2 eggs
1 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 2/3 cups honey crystals
2 cups whole wheat cake flour (you can use half white flour and half regular wheat if you can't find the cake flour)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
4 cups apples, diced

Beat together eggs and oil, then add in honey and vanilla. Mix the dry ingredients, then add to the egg mixture. Fold in the apples, then pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. You can top with powdered sugar, streusal topping, or a cream cheese frosting, but really it's delicious as is.

Another Bad Idea Masquerading as a Good One

I wrote a post in December 2007 about how while it might seem like a great idea to have both your relatives and your in-law extended family in town for Christmas, in actuality it's a bit more trouble than it's worth, due to the fact that there's limited time and everyone wants a piece of you. I think I can safely say that we have discovered another one of these bad ideas masquerading as a good one.

And BTW, we have been away for the past week, which is why this blog has been sadly neglected. If I were a good blogger, I would've queued up some scheduled posts so you would have no idea we were not here. Being away (I will not really call it "vacation.") for the past week leads right into this bad idea:

I took the entire Thanksgiving week off and we visited both of Pearl's great-grandmothers. One of them is getting much more feeble than she used to be (who can blame a near 90 year old woman for that?) and the other had not yet met Pearl. The initial thought was that in taking the whole week off, the 1000 mile round trip would be a bit more relaxing than the driving-every-other-day-marathon-vacation-which-is-actually-not-much-of-a-vacation Thanksgiving trips that Harmony's parents usually take.

One of the things we learned on this trip was that grandmothers will not listen when you say "you really don't need to do much work for us, we'll handle things while we're there." Maybe it's best not to ever visit them, so they won't tire themselves out preparing food for us ;)

Right, so now I explain why it's a bad idea to take an extended Thanksgiving break. Grandmothers, stuck in the ways of being woefully good hostesses, will stock up on all sorts of bad snacks and dessert foods. They will insist that you get a good dessert after each lunch and dinner. The longer you are there, the more desserts you will consume. This is why I am 4 pounds heavier than I ought to be :p

Another thing that made the trip a bit difficult for us was because one of the grandmothers almost constantly second guessing and/or worrying about our parenting style and decisions. (This particular grandmother's favorite hobby must be worrying.) Don't tell her that we co-sleep EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, and no, aside from the first day or two at the hospital, she has NEVER SLEPT IN A CRIB/BASSINET before. Statistics and facts do not matter to this grandmother when she makes up her mind about something. Other things that she expressed worry about: speaking Korean to Pearl, not enough solids, not sleeping in a crib, sleeping in a crib (we do have drop-side that my parents got from a neighbor, but we have never used it aside from a place-to-put-stuff), a midwife birth, home birth, holding the baby too much, etc. etc. etc ad infinitum/nauseum. Although there were a couple of instances where I could've stated that we are going to homeschool, I chose to bite my tongue for the moment. There is a 99.9% probability that she will be against that. There will not be much debate there, if it ever comes up. Out of all the "alternative" paths we are taking, homeschooling is one for which we feel most strongly.

So you can imagine that constantly having to keep my guard up on what we say (in order to keep grandmother blissfully unaware) or constantly feeling like we need to defend our parenting leads to one VERY mentally tiring visit. For the most part, we enjoyed the time we spent there, but going from worrying-as-a-favorite-activity grandmother to the more it's-your-parental-decision grandmother was like a gigantic breath of fresh air after spending too much time in an enclosed small room full of sweaty people who have just had a big meal of spicy chili with lots of beans.

So to grandparents and other family members who might read this: we know you probably would not parent exactly the way you do and even might not really like some of the things we are doing, but we are so so so so so so so so so so so so soooo grateful that you let us be the parents and do not constantly second guess us by expressing worry and whatnot.

"Muslim First, Then American"

I have read that Major Nidal Hasan (the Fort Hood guy, for anyone who lives in a cave, in which case that means your cave has internet access, which is really cool..) considered himself a Muslim first, American second.

Would I be classified as a dangerous individual then, since I am a Christian first, American second? After all, I am an alien and stranger to this world, and my first allegiance is to God. (then again, I do not seek to do violence against anybody, so maybe the government would not consider me a threat) Indeed, I believe this should be the view of any devout Christian. I don't believe that being a Christian (or Muslim, or Mormon, etc...) above all else automatically makes someone a dangerous person.

In searching for the phrase "muslim first then american," I came across this interesting blog post from September 2006. It's from a blog called Muslims For a Safe America, and the particular post shows the results of a survey of 307 American citizen Muslims who were attending an Islamic Society of North American conference. Here's one of the interesting questions:

Do you consider yourself to be a Muslim first, an American first, or both equally?
MUSLIM FIRST 214 (70%)
AMERICAN FIRST 4 (1%)
BOTH EQUALLY 86 (28%)
DID NOT ANSWER 3 (1%)

Well, I got news for people who are outraged over this Muslim-first-American-second bit. If this surveyed group is at all representative of the general Muslim population, then an overwhelming majority of Muslims consider themselves Muslims first, Americans second.

Then again, Major Hasan was in the military, otherwise known as the blow-stuff-up arm of the United States government. It seems to me that anyone who voluntarily joins the U.S. military ought to do so partly out of a desire to keep Americans safe, and at least not harbor terroristic ideologies.

Here are some more interesting results from the survey:
Did Muslims hijack planes and fly them into buildings on 9/11?
YES 117 (38%)
NO 139 (45%)
DID NOT ANSWER 51 (17%)

This one is puzzling, and would've been nice if the people answering "NO" had a chance to explain their answers. Is it that they do not believe that the hijackers were not true Muslims, or is it that they believe that blonde haired blue eyed John Smiths were the real hijackers and the media is in on a big conspiracy to cover up that fact?

If you learned about a plot by Muslims to attack targets inside America, would you tell law enforcement authorities?
YES 234 (76%)
NO 39 (13%)
DID NOT ANSWER 34 (11%)

While I'm glad that 76% would notify authorities, it's a bit unsettling that 13% would not. Then there are the 11% of the surveyed who did not answer this question. What would they do? Why did they not answer? Fear of retribution from other Muslims, due to being a snitch? Or fear of answering the question because their answer was "no"?

Picture Highlights

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past few months.






I liked the 4th picture so much that I printed out a big 8x10 of it. I consider it one of the best pictures I've ever taken (I still consider myself to be a rather poor photographer, you don't see all the under/overexposed blurry pictures that don't make it onto the Picasa album, for those who have the invitation). The wooden teething ring in the 3rd picture has since been gotten a hold of by a certain Luna, who apparently still considers herself to be teething.

I still don't think she really looks much like me, but all of my non-Asian friends and acquaintances say so. These people probably have not seen too many Asian babies before. I don't think she really looks half-Asian at all, but her mother is comforted to know that she has passed on her sensitive gag reflex and big mouthed toothless grin that she apparently possessed when she was Pearl's age. Oh, and one X chromosome.