summer sch is finally over, but strangely instead of feeling really relieved i feel like i'm gonna miss it. even though during that 6 weeks half the time i really just wanted more time curling up under my comforter every morning; fell asleep on countless nights over matters classical thinkers spent their lives mulling over and writing about, i still had a pretty productive and enjoyable time... and i'm really really happy with my lamp. even though it might not seem much, but for the first time almost i embarked on something i thought i couldn't do, yet with every step i took i could really see the whole thing materializing... it's just such a satisfying process that for a while it really convinced me that if i really set my mind on doing something, perhaps it isn't that impossible... now i am pressured to pursue all those lofty goals i once had... haha. oh well, but glad that i now have some free time to read all the novels i wanted to read, over summer... =) and i can't believe i just bought this book that i never would have taken a second look at had i not taken PEIS 100 this summer... hopefully i will go on to shock myself by finishing it =P

the revolving lamp i spent hours and hours making... yes, looks kinda out of this world, still imperfect, but that's also kinda what i like about it... in a nutshell it has my friends revolving round me... and if you think you see your own lun2 kuo4 don't worry, your eyes aren't failing you, since some of you who frequent this blog are probably in it... =P

i really do respect individuals who are really brilliant yet extremely humble and do not make ill-informed individuals like me the least bit uncomfortable even though i can ask silly questions =P it also turns out that some of the best instructors i had at Berkeley are mere GSIs... i would rank my PEIS instructor as one of the best instructors i've ever had, not only cos he's passionate about what he's teaching...he also REALLY knows his stuff and tries to make dry, more philosophical material at least more palatable... i'm really inspired though there is so much more i dunno or cannot understand properly... and just a little piece of trivia that i probably ought to have known long ago but don't: where did the left-right terminology in politics originate? was enlightened during office hours today. can't put it properly in words myself, so here's a mini explanation from Wikipedia-- The terminology of left-right politics was originally based on the seating arrangement of parliamentary partisans during the French Revolution. The more ardent proponents of radical revolutionary measures (including democracy and republicanism) were commonly referred to as leftists because they sat on the left side of successive legislative assemblies. And though it doesn't make much sense now, use of these terms have kinda stuck...

just to convince you that i really am not obsessed with child rearing, there shall be no part III nor any other instalments in the near future. the weather these few days has been horrible. it's cold and foggy, totally unlike summer. dunno why i am blogging at 3am in the morning instead of sleeping; just spent a good 4 hours finishing up my frame and selecting pics for my lamp and i am hoping that everything will turn out the way i want... actually i'm mad, spending so much time over this when i have my PEIS prob set and finals due on friday!! but i dunno, i just cannot forsake it just cos i really really want my idea to materialize... we had a pinhole camera workshop on monday and i got some really cool 'negative images' on photo paper.. if i have time to take pics of them in the next day or two, shall post them on this blog ... but prob not cos i foresee an almost sleepless 2 days ahead=P didn't know that there's a darkroom in Wurster till 2 days ago...=)

Child Rearing Part II

and so i continued my mini investigation this evening and asked my landlords if they ever beat Kai, cos it's somewhat unimaginable if kids never ever get spanked even when they are really bratty... and i guess it's somewhat misleading for me to make a sweeping statement-- that angmohs don't spank their kids while Asians do.. cos i'm sure different people, even within the same culture, educate their kids differently... and while generally Americans don't use canes, many of them (according to my landlady+ speaking for her friends...) do spank their kids, when they really need to... so the main reason why my landlords never beat Kai is cos he is usually never that 'bad'... and also because it doesn't work on him... and apparently once his dad got so mad at him he slapped him; yet Kai just started laughing...(seems like we have quite a cool crazy kid here) and so just as his dad said, "you lose all leverage... what can you do? slap him harder??" it seems like child rearing really does have to involve some creativity too...

Child rearing 101

having lived with my 'family' for about a month or so, there were quite a few occasions whereby Kai started crying for no apparent reason and i never once saw my landlady/landlord hit their kid to 'teach him a lesson'... and today was esp funny. Kai didn't want to wake up to go for dinner and started crying.. after initial stern attempts to make the kid stop, the parents decided to cry along with their kid.. and so from the living room (where i was sitting trying desperately to twist my wire), for a few min, i heard this communal howling emanating from Kai's room... and i really felt like laughing... i dunno, i just felt that their way of bringing up their kid is so different and 'fun'.... such stark contrast to the caning or threats of policemen arrest or 'babu-singh-kidnappings' that i'm so used to... or for that matter, many of us are used to... the group confession of having once been caned by our parents before, and comparisons of the diameters of the canes our parents used to own (at In and Out some weeks ago) still remain fresh in my mind... =P and the scary thing was (which i didn't really dare to voice out then) that out of the 4 girls and 2 mums present then, 3 of us agreed that the best way to discipline the kid is to cane the kid.. else the kid wun learn.. i didn't say anything, cos i really dunno what i would do... does caning really work? is it a very Asian thing to do? i should ask my landlords one day what they think about caning...