Homework Is a Waste of Time

Richard does think homework is a waste of time. The first piece is what he wrote out from his heart. After getting scolded at by me, he re-wrote it. It's a lie but the tutor said it's better.

Homework Is a Waste of Time

I feel that homework is a waste of time, because some people have tight schedules. Some people can learn all the things the teacher teaches right at school. For example, a student has math homework, but he already knows how to do the math. Why should he do it?

For a person with a tight schedule, homework will make the person stressed out, because he or she is thinking about how many things he or she has to do. Not only that after the person is done with all the work, it is probably midnight, and the person can only get a limited amount of sleep. Some people in my swim team have a lot of homework plus parent assigned homework and chores and swimming at 5:00 AM. I do not see them anymore, because they moved into different swim teams that train in the afternoon. Without homework, those people would still be on the swim team.

People might think that the people who are not that smart should have homework, but I do not think so. Teachers can use more effective teaching strategies, and they can keep students afterschool for a while to explain the concept to the student separately. There are also online guides that can help the children learn.

Many students can make the same progress in school without homework. Without homework, many people will not be stressed, and I can see my swimming teammates again.

Rewrite

Homework Is a Waste of Time

If I paid more attention to school, I would think that Homework would be a waste of time because I could learn everything at school, but I still think people should be given homework from school. There are many reasons why students should be given homework.

First of all, even if the teachers help the students who are not that smart by using more effective teaching strategies, some of the concepts would take longer for those students to understand them, and the teachers would have to give those children homework to try to do the problems on their own. Some people like me who are smart but do not really pay attention in class should be given homework, so they can practice the things that they learned in class independently. Even if those people who prove themselves smart but never put their potential in school know what the teacher is talking about and already know how to do it, the homework will make them better at whatever the teacher is teaching. Some students have learning disabilities, and it would take them a long time to understand one concept. The homework is essential to help the students with learning disabilities understand the concept better.

Some people might believe that homework is a waste of time, but homework is essential to many students in the world.

recess

True words from Richard: (word by word, I only block out the names). Sad but funny and enlightening. Best paragraph I had read from him. So I think all these other pieces that didn't turn out well were because he wasn't interested in them.

Recess was the best part of school, but now, library is. Now, I spend my time at recess reading Harry Potter. I broke up with my best and only friend at school, xxx, because he is now friends with a boy called xxx. xxx is a lousy jerk who knows about all the swear words in the entire world, and he is not afraid to use them in school. From my point of view, I think he is going to be a gang member, a person who commits a serious crime, or a person in the asylum. I don’t think he knows what he is doing, but I think he should be expelled. My mom says that I have to make some friends at school, but I already have friends elsewhere. People do not have to be friends at the same school and play with each other longer to form a bigger bond. I have a huge bond with a person who I only see every day for one and a half hours. I feel perfectly fine reading during recess. I heard that reading makes people good at vocabulary. One of the students in my class reads even more than me, and she can get 95% on a spelling pre-test that has complicated words such as arachnophobia, which means the fear of spiders. At lunch time in school, I have nobody to sit with, so I sit with these people who play cards at recess. They start to call me a stalker, because I am not their friend and I sit at their table every day. I don’t care about the comments they make, because they are misfits themselves. One person trades his one pint YAHOO chocolate milk for a small cup of apple juice, and another brings seaweed for lunch every day and never eats them. People always say that recess is a time to be active, and I am active. I read my book while walking around the school, and avoiding packs of girls who tend to steal people’s hats. From the substitute at school, I heard that the first born or only child in a family is supposed to be the most aggressive and the most talkative person, so now I have an excuse for being quiet: I want to defy that theory, and scientists will have to say that first born children and only child in the family are the most aggressive and most talkative except Richard Liang, who is born in Irvine, California at Hoag Hospital. My mom forced me to do this paragraph, but now, I feel proud of it.

恭喜发财 (Gong xi fa cai)

Because it's Chinese New Year Eve today, and a Sunday, kids got to take their final (Chinese school year calendar is following the traditional school in China) in the first period and last half an hour of the class, they got to enjoy a party, which meant devouring as much as sweets as they want, thanks to all the parents' contribution.

As a token, Chinese teacher also gave a lixi money bag to each student. Before giving one to each kid, she asked the kids to each say a New Year greeting, in Chinese, of course.

Some said "新年好", some said "新年快乐", some said "万事如意" and some said "恭喜发财", like Richard. All were fine. Then I started to notice a little variation. A bigger kid throwing something so formal that I couldn't say or remember or repeat. He turned out to be the presenter of the incoming Chinese New Year Gala and he was reciting his "script" :) Another kid just said "你好", mm, hello?! Then the funniest thing I heard - "守株待兔" (A Chinese idiom that was the title of the last lesson in Chinese textbook!) 。LOL.


Funniest thing I heard in Chinese school today.

Year of Dragon

It's year of Dragon again. 12 years ago, in the year of dragon, at the tail of it, Richard came into my life. And look at what he has done! Although I'm not superstitious about the almighty "dragon", a legendary animal of the Chinese zodiac considered the sign of divine bless with fortune and dynamism, I was and am proud to have a dragon baby. In the year of dragon, Richard will go to a camp without parents for the first time and will go to middle school. Above all, Richard will continue to be this sunshine boy that is my son.

Richard's email to a pen pal:

Dear xxx,
Sorry I didn't KIT. Well, there isn't much to tell u. And guess what, this year is the year of the dragon. I was born on the year of the dragon. My dad was born in the year of the sheep. There was this legend in China in which 13 animals took part in a race. One year was dedicated to each animal according to what place they get. The mouse and cat rode the ox through the river. Mouse threw Cat overboard, because he wanted to win. When the ox go to the other side of the river, mouse ran over to the finish line and was first. The ox was second, because he needed time to get out of the river. The tiger was 3rd, the rabbit was 4th, the dragon was 5th, the snake was 6th, the horse was 7th, the goat was 8th, the monkey was 9th, the rooster was 10th, the dog was 11th, and the pig was 12th. The pig was fat, so he got last. He said at the end of the race, "有没有东西可以吃的吗?" The cat was last, and he did not get a year honored for him, and he got mad at the mouse for throwing him overboard. That's why cats want to eat mice. Well, the legend's over, and it is 8:03 PM, so I've got to go to bed soon. KIT (Keep in touch).

6th Grade

Here we go again! First time that one hand is not enough!!! And we almost reach the peephole.



I have been telling myself: have to keep this blog alive! have to keep this blog alive! And this is precisely the reason. I have to keep this tradition going.

Last year in Alderwood, can't believe it. This will probably strike a chord about how fast time flies - pictures taken in front of front door at the beginning of each school:

Richard's jokes/

What is a sad tooth? - bluetooth

What is an animal that is always hurting? - an OWL

What is the animal that likes to cheat? - cheetah

The whole 5th Grade

Reading Comprehension

Recently my tutoring session with Richard is focused on reading comprehension.

OMG, this was a year ago (editing a post starting on 1/15/2011 at 1/22/12, Chinese New Year Eve). At the time, Richard was still with Bridges Reading and Writing, which we have stopped since April 2011. Since then, we have had Barun, ACI, and now finally settled with Mrs. C. More about Mrs. C later, who deserves a brand new post by itself!

Parenting debate

Two parenting articles apparently stirred up quite a bit of a turbulence in the net world:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read#articleTabs%3Darticle
By Tiger mother Amy chua
(—Amy Chua is a professor at Yale Law School and author of "Day of Empire" and "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." This essay is excerpted from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright © 2011 by Amy Chua.)

and the other one:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/14/american-mothers-superior/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)

By AnnMaria De Mars, sort of a counter.

Richard, I don't know by the time you are reading this blog if these two articles are still available but basically they are about the eastern and western parenting style debate. It's utterly stupid and arrogant to say one extreme is "superior" to the other extreme. The truth is always somewhere in between. That is the advantage that we are hoping for Chinese raising kids in America.

2011 first tooth update

Did I say Richard is a tooth extraction pro now? There goes another molar by Richard pulling it out himself 2 o'clock in the morning. I think it is time to pay the dentist a visit even though there seems to be no need to make a tooth extraction appointment.

When do we need braces? You see? there goes one problem (changing teeth) and here comes another (braces). Never ending. How about the ever night brushing and once in a while flossing? Parenting is a perseverance test.

Tooth Update - Richard pulled out his tooth on his own

When Richard called me after he walked home from school today, he excited told me that he pulled out his own tooth today at school. My first response was that "did you freak out?". I imagined that he saw all the blood and he would scream and make a scene. Richard is not particularly good at pain or blood. One time he was wiggling his tooth and saw blood oozing out and started crying.

But he told me that he did not freak out and I would take it as that. He said he was wiggling his tooth at class and blood start to come out and the teacher asked him to go to the bathroom to clean it up so he went to the bathroom and pulled it out and dry the blood with paper towel and then went to the nurse's office to get some cotton ball. I wouldn't have done it better. In fact, I would freak out. And this is the lower right second molar! It's big!! Hooray!!

Junior Olympic time, well, almost!

Richard swam a very good 100 breaststroke time during last weekend's Nova swim meet. 1:35.42 (1:35.30 is Summer JO time, which is slower than Spring JO time). So his standard is the June INVITE time - June Invitational time? Whatever that means, it means a lot to us.

We didn't expect much from this meet because first of all, it was the first meet intwo months and after an easy summer swimming. Second of all, Richard didn't have very good practice lately. Lastly we have been struggling with Richard's butterfly lately. (Coach Tao's private lesson didn't seem to help much, Lynn's lessons brought out the problem but didn't really correct them; Dad's home-brewed coaching sessions went in vain; Michael Phelp's butterfly video was too perfect to follow).

First day of the meet, on Saturday, Richard didn't have a very good day. Although he still dropped his time for two events out of the three, he did horrible in the first event. Richard's problem is race strategy. He has the capability but doesn't know how to race his best. His race results are often no better than his training time. We were mad because his 100 free time after one and a half hours' hard training is better than his race time. After "coaching"/"talking"/"motivating"/"bribing", he did better and better in later events.

It was a hot weekend and Richard also had his first USTA tennis match on Saturday afternoon. I think we both got overheated/dehydrated so when we came back we crashed right away and Richard skipped dinner and slept till the next morning since 7pm the night before. I was going to scratch Sunday's events but Richard said he wanted to go. Allen and I suspected that he just wanted to go there to play so we warned him that he would just sit quietly and read in-between events and Richard agreed.

What a great decision! On Sunday, Richard swam 3 best times and all 3 times are first time blue standard times. What's more, his 100 breast stroke time is almost summer JO time! You bet we are proud. Lately we have been feeling a little frustrated with Richard's swimming because he show little improvement. This definitely helps as a motivation.

Tooth Update

I think by the time when Richard is done changing teeth, I will miss the "tooth updates". Recently Richard has many of his teeth pulled so I think he is almost done. He just had 3 teeth pulled during the last couple months so I thought it will be a while till the next one. Last night Richard woke up in the middle of the night and asked his dad to pull his tooth. Naturally, he was turned back to sleep. But this morning before school, before breakfast, he had to have it out. So there it goes:

5th Grade

Our tradition: Taking a picture in front of the porch with the fingers showing the grade. Next year, we will to have Richard use both hands.

This year, Richard has a guy teacher - Mr. MacWilliam, A.K.A. Mr. "Mac", who has a girl's first name - Kelly because his parents name him before he was born and thought he was a girl. And he got a sister whose name is Kevin. It seems his parents got them all confused. But anyway, Richard thinks he is funny. Being funny is almost Richard's utmost praise for anyone. So we can see Richard likes him. He also still has Jordan Montrose as his classmate - best friend and share the same birthday. As Richard put it: "I can't believe it, three years in a row!". Yes, they have been placed in the same class for 3 years, unbelievable, and most unbelievable, they are still best friends.

Tooth Update

So fast, two teeth in one week, and another one coming. It came out in 2 seconds. Couldn't wait till the weekend... Looking at his missing and half-grown first and second molar in the mirror, Richard yelled, "I got Texas!". I looked and, really, Richad got Texas in his mouth:

So now we have a continent (his birth mark on the belly looks like Australia) and a state (Texas)!

Summer is over

My last blog is "summer has started" and this blog is "summer is over", what is in between?!

Well, obviously Richard didn't go back to China. Long story short, I almost sent him home. We found this summer camp in Shenzhen that kids stay in a boarding school for 3 weeks. I booked Richard a China Eastern flight to fly to Shanghai and then to Shenzhen but was later told that "unattended minor" service was available only to Shanghai and then we will be on our own from Shanghai to Shenzhen, which sounded ridiculous but I had no choice but to cancel the ticket with a penalty.

So Richard went to Chinese school summer camp for one month, and then tennis camp for a week and three weeks to Irvine city excursion camp on and off with one week vacation at the end which was last week. In between we also took a short weekend hiking trip to Mammoth.

I had been talking about taking Richard to visit Alice (our neighbor's relative whom Richard made friends with last Spring break) in Phoenix some time. Since he is not going to China this summer and Allen didn't feel like a big trip to Bahamas or elsewhere so I thought this is a good time to make this trip. And some friends invite us to go jetskiing in Laughlin in the weekend of August 28th so we made a week-long trip from Irvine to Phoenix-Sedona-Grand Canyon-Las Vegas-Laughlin-Irvine. The highlight of the trip, for Richard, are playing with Alice and Chelsea on Sunday at "Amazing Jake's" (similar to boomer's except that everything is indoors - thank God - it was 114 degree outside), pink jeep tour, rock sliding at Oak Creek Canyon and last but not least, jetskiing in Laughlin.

I will let Richard tell all about it in his blog at: www.allenliang.com/Richard

Now, we have to shop for school supplies.

Tooth Update

Another tooth update after almost two months! This is the first blog in two month, unbelievable. Summer comes and goes, now school is starting in a few days. I shall make an effort to at least blog about Richard's summer after this tooth update.

This time, upper left first molar. Richard has been wiggling it all last week during our vacatin (more to come later). I had warned him not to wiggle too much because we were not taking him to a dentist because it was a molar and it probably needed a dentist to pull it out instead of dad's floss.

Today, apparently Richard asked his dad to take him to the dentist and his dad "refused" - either mom take him to the dentist or dad pulls his tooth. Finally Richard gave in and asked dad to pull his tooth, which usually means the tooth is so loose that he can bear it anymore.

So even it was a molar, it came out in seconds.

Tooth Update

Richard had 3 teeth pulled with one month. When Richard told us he had 3/4 loose teeth, we told him to slow down, wiggle one at a time. But Richard has a thing with loose tooth: as soon as it becomes loose, he wants it out immediately so you can see him constantly wiggling it. So that the result: 3 out in a month. Allen pulled one at the beginning of June and took him to the dentist to have the second one pulled on June 25 and today, while he was upstairs reading, we heard this loud, hysteric cry that he needed to have his tooth pulled. We ran upstairs wondering what went wrong and found out that Richard's loose tooth was bleeding because he wiggled it too much. And the hysteric cry was just Richard's typical reaction to seeing blood. The tooth (#3 in the lower left side of the chart) was gone in no time. Allen is practically a dentist as far as Richard knows. Now Richard trusts him pulling his teeth as much as he trusts this one dentist (not any dentist).

Summer has started

4th grade was over last Wednesday. That was the third consecutive 3-day school week in June because of the furlough so school was pratically over since the beginning of June. Next week, summer vacation officially starts.

This summer we don't have plans for Richard to go back to China. Mostly because Richard is now swimming with coach Tao and the only time we can take vacation without being yelled at is August. Going to China for just one month is hardly worth going, in my opinion. Not enough for Chinese to sink in. Secondly, this summer's air fare is very expensive, probably because of the Shanghai World Expo. Thirdly, we kind of want to find Richard a summer camp in China to go so he doesn't get bored at home with grandpa and grandma but we haven't found one yet. We recently found one 3-week boarding experience. I'm not sure about it yet. I think that's a good experience but 3-week no going home, in a foreign country in a different environment with kids with different culture and background might be a little too big to swallow now. Although Richard surprised me by flying back to China by himself last summer. We will see.

Tooth Update

6/25/2010 pulled at the dentist. Now Richard only goes to Dr. Ngyun who pulled his first tooth successfully.

This one (lower, left #4) was relative big, not that loose but the permanent tooth was coming out so the job belonged to the dentist. No big fuss. Richard has become a pro now. He even sang a little song to calm himself down at the dentist's.

tooth update

This one came off within two weeks since Richard started noticing it's loose. There's no time Richard was not wiggling this tooth. It has gotten to the point that I was annoyed by him putting his finger in his mouth all the time. He also became very antsy about the loose over the weekend so he asked his dad to pull his tooth. Trying to prolong it, his dad said it would hurt a lot if he had it pulled right now. Knowing Richard, that's the most powerful weapon. But I guess it had gotten too uncomfortable that this morning after swimming, he insisted having it pulled. "It will hurt a lot!", one said. "I don't care", replied the other. And boomed, it was out in no time. "It didn't hurt AT ALL!!!", Richard exclaimed, partly in disbelief, partly in pride, partly in relief.

Quail Hill to Newport coast - 4-hour hike

Ever since I knew that the quail hill trail is open to the public I have wanted to take Richard on a hike from quail hill all the way to Crystal Cove State Park, having a friend who lives close by to pick us up at the end of Ridge Park Rd. and drive us back home. And we did just that last Saturday. In 4 hours! I was wishy washy so we ended up starting late (at almost 11am) in the mid-day sun. The first hour was a bliss, the next was long, the third was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, the last hour seemed to never come to an end. The last half mile was really Richard's limit. 300 yard from the "finish line", he wanted to sit down right there right then. That's good, that means his limit has been reached and that's what I wanted - to test Richard's limit, physical limits anyway. Richard is a pretty good walker/hiker. He rarely complains about not able to walk any further so this was a good test. Not to mention that the 4-hour hike was after the hard swim lesson earlier in the morning.

Although Richard vowed not to ever take that hike again, I think some day, when he read his blog, he will feel proud of himself.

p.s. The hiking spur is spawn from a fellow swimmer in Coach Pauline's swim team who was taken to hike by her dad since she was 3-4 years old and that's how she developed strong kicking legs. And I secretly hoping that some training will lead to Richard's ulitimately joining us in Mt. Whitney hike 10 years after we did it in 2002. Year 2012 will be our 10 year anniversary.

Orlando Walt Disney World

It was pretty crazy. We have it all here and we went all the way across America for disney. It was fun though. If ask Richard what he likes the most about Disney World, he would probably say the Sea Serpent water slide, which is not even in disney. The place we stayed at - Disney's Port Orleans French Quarter has a nice themed water slide and that's what Richard liked the most. As far as rides, "Expedition Everest", "Space Mountain", "Thunder Mountain Railroad" are at the top of the list. Scariest is probably "Tower of Terror" but it's a nice challenge that he would like to take on. We were going to go on Rock'n roller coster in Hollywood Studio, which is boasted the fastest thrill ride in disney, but we didn't get the fast pass early enough for that day so we passed. That was a shame. But at least we did "Expedition Everest" twice! Oh man, we zoomed through the parks like we were on a computer-optimized program - dashing from one end to another to maximize fast pass ultilization.

Another fun thing is the water taxi right next to the pool at our resort. Free water taxi running between resorts and downtown disney all day long. Nice perk.

We also liked the Cirque de solei show "La Nouba".

tooth update

Very busy day, almost forgot about Richard's dentist appointment. I'm so pround of Richard that he's becoming more responsible more quickly than I think. The appointment is 3:30, I need to leave work at 2:45 and I knew that. As soon as the meeting started, I got sucked into it and totally forgot about it. Luckily, at 3:15, Richard called (I just stepped out of the meeting then) to asked why I didn't return his call or come home yet. Then I rushed home. We were late for about 20 minutes but I would have totally missed it if Richard hadn't called.

Richard has been looking forward to this appointment because this tooth was bothering him since the pamernent tooth is coming out underneath it and next week we are going to Orlando so we won't be able to go to the dentist next week. We definitely don't want to miss this one.

Richard has totally mastered the dentist office visit. Very proud and very relieved.

Western States for 600

Lately I have Richard memorize all the state capitals. We start from western states and will move slowly to middle and estern states. We made it a game so it was fun. All three of us will participate, taking turns to be the questioner and questionee.

I have to say that state capitals are anything but intuitive. Western states are easier and it gets more challenging when we move on to the east. Allen asked "What's the capital of North Dakota?" Richard and I were quiet for a while. I shushed Allen when he was about to give out the answer. Richard quick-wittedly said: "Quietville?" - because I shushed :)

Then the format changed to multiple choice because it was too hard. Michigan's state captial is A. Springfield B. Lansing C. Detroit. I buzzed and said "What is Springfield." Richard said, "I chose 'Western states for 600'!". Then everyone was rolling and laughing.

I think Richard must have memorized 1/2 - 3/5 of all the capitals by now.

Winter Olympic

2010 Vancouver winter Olympic is over and Richard became quite an expert on all winter sports. It was like festival to him because for the two weeks that winter Olympics was on, he got to watch TV for 30-40 minutes every night as long as he had his homework done.

Whenever an Olympic came along, Richard will pull out his sports encyclopedia and read it. This has been the case from 2006 winter Olympics. We missed the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, which is a shame and Richard asked if we would go to Vancouver to watch the winter Olympics. I would like to entertain the idea but when the time comes closer, it still seems very unpractical.

At the end of the Games, one day, Richard pulled his shirt over his head and mimicked the skaters skating. I said that was long track skater (long track skaters don't wear a helmet, instead, they wear an overall with a hood). Then Richard mimicked Apolo Ohno cutting the corners of short track and the incredible gymnastic jump over a crash during a semi-final. All was very funny and real. I couldn't help but laughing hard. I think Richard got encouraged so he started to micmicked a lot of other althletes he know about, including US 4-man bobsledding team pilot Steven Holcomb pushing his sled off. He was good at it: catching the most character-defining moves of them all. One of my favorites was when Richard micmicked Linsey Vonn's celebrating her victory, waving her arms in the air, sliding down the hill. You have to see how Richard does it to love it.

I look like an egg

Richard's hair grows so fast. We asked the barberer to not cut his hair on the top so short because now that he's older, he might care about how he looks and hair too short might not work with his friends. Soon hair gets in the way of swimming. Wild hair is hard to get under swim cap's control. Today, I asked Allen to cut Richard's hair at home. It came out great, in my opinion. Richard seemed shy and said, "I look like an egg." It's round, right, but I think "looking like an egg" is not necessarily a bad thing. We will see how that goes and if Richard would let his dad to cut his hair again.

When Richard said "I look like an egg", he was so cute.

Second and third swim meet

The first month that Richard was with coach Tao, he made tremendous progress in every stroke. That's why we wanted to stick with her for a while even though she is very strict, too much sometimes. But since she pushed us to switch to morning practice, Richard seems to hit a roadblock. I started to think that he might have burnt out. Too much too soon has never worked for Richard. Maybe we need to back off a little. One and half hours Morning practice is just a lot, maybe too much.

(3/8/2010)
We wanted to get Richard some private lessons from coach Tao but was afraid that that will add to the burn out effect. Plus weekends are always busy and we didn't want to have Richard do double workouts during the week so we never did get private lessons. One of Richard's swimming buddies - Eric got a lot of progress since he started private lessons. Maybe that was a coincidence, who knows?

The third swim meet we only signed up for one day partly because of convenience, partly because of the concern that "more is not necessarily good" but got scolded by coach Tao. We thought she was being unreasonable, coming out from the old Chinese regimental school of training. But none matters. As long as we stay, we need to compromise. It's not a winning game to argue with her while at the time putting our kid in her swim team. Some of her tactics I thought was out of the line. For example, she scolded the kid and, in my eyes, humiliated the kid for his mom's tardiness.

Richard's performance at the third meet was very good. PR'ed at every race. So anyway, we still stay.

Tooth Update

Upper right first molar gone. (It is interesting that the first molars are gone before the cuspids, hopefully this is OK.) This is the third time Richard had his tooth pulled by his dad using a piece of floss. He has gotten so used to it that he doesn't want to go to the dentist anymore. Maybe it is less intimidating for him. But for me, personally, it is more scary. What if the tooth doesn't come out completely? What if Allen pulls the wrong one? Luckily, nothing seems to have gone wrong. After all, our teeth were mostly pulled by parents.

Academic Excellence

Because Mr. Hornor was on leave for a knee surgery at the end of last year, the quarterly award ceremony was postponed to the beginning of the year.



Today I found a slip from Richard's backpack inviting to me to the award ceremony for Richard's "Academic Excellence" award from the first trimester. Even though 1/3 of the students got an award at one of the 3 award ceremonies during the year, it is still gratifying to learn that your kid get an award.

I am whole-heartly excited about every Richard brought home.

Christmas break

If you ask Richard what his favorite season is, his answer will be winter. Easy question, because Christmas is in winter. Not that Christmas is special to him, but that he get two weeks off, he get Christmas presents, usually games, and we often go skiing during this time. Whenever we are on vacation or go to holiday parties, he's pretty much on loose - which means he's either playing DS, or Ipod Touch or PS3. This time since he just got a PS3, we took it to Mammoth so he can play there.

After coming back from Mammoth, there were dinner parties after dinner parties. I wasn't hosting any so Richard got to play his portable game devices (DS, ipod Touch) a lot but didn't get enough of PS3 time. Couple days before school started, I was on a dilemna between wanting him to play more because vacation is ending and not wanting him to play so much because it would be hard for him to adjust back to school from gamedom.

Richard and Kathleen singing "Jingle Bell" in the ski lifts in Mammoth was definitely a highlight of this holiday. Although the Avatar movie and spending New Year Eve at Universal Studio (with Anan) and counting down at Li Fan's house were all fun.

Lyrics from "Jingle Bell" is included here for future reference :)
Dashing through the snow
With a pair of broken skis
Or the fields we go
I'm Crashing into trees

The snow is turning red
I think I am almost dead
I Woke up in the hospital with stitches in my head

Oh, Jingle Bells, Batman smells Robin laid an egg,
Batmobile lost a wheel and Joker did ballet, Ei!

Oh,Jingle bells batman smells Robin laid an egg
batmobile lost two wheel and Joker did ballet.

Batman in the kitchen, Robin in the Hall, Joker in the bathroom peeing on the floor
Oh, Jingle bells Batman smells Robin laid an egg, Batmobile lost three wheels and Joker did ballet.
Oh, Jingle bells Batman smells Robin laid an egg Batmobile lost all of his wheels and Joker ran away, Ei!

Morning Swimming

Today marks the completion of Richard's first week of morning swim practice. I applaud him and especially Allen for getting up when it is still dark to go to swim. I heard the pool is like a sauna pool in the early darkness of the morning.

3/8/10
Till today, two and a half months since the start of morning practice, I have yet to get up with Richard once to see him jump into the pool. I feel pretty bad. But I need my sleeeeeeeeeeeeep.

First USA Swimming Swim Meet

Richard has switched to Coach Pauline Tao's team practicing at Water Works Aquatics since October. This is the third month and first swim meet. We missed the first two meets because of the USA Swimming Membership registration.

All these time, we grew up and evolved with the kid. First we found out it is a two-day meet, then we found out we had to attend both days because the coach like Richard to attend relays. Let alone all those "minor" details of the coach suggesting Richard to come to morning practice which starts at 5:30am !!! The coach asked Richard because she knew I would scream "Noooooooooooo!" More on this later.

Back to the meet. Swim meet starts at 9am but we have to be there before 8:00. Team building, warm-up. I don't understand the warm ups. They warmed up at 8:00 and for some kids, they don't start their event until 10am or later. What a learning experience for first-time meet going parents! I found myself constantly checking on time, event schedule, fetching towels, picking up slippers, wowing at more "professional" looking teams' color-coordinated outfit (like the sea of blue and yellow parka, swim caps, jammers, swim suits, jackets, t-shirts and the list goes on). "Professional looking" comes with professional fees, of course. Richard's knock-off parka cost $60 while I heard one team's "team parka" was $150 with the team name and swimmer's name embroidered. Our coach's chair is from sports authority. Their coaches' chairs all have their names on it. "Wow" is the only word. But at the same time, would I rather pay for the "team look" or more personal attention? This is definitely the edge of Coach Pauline. Our team is small but each gets a fair-share of personal attention.

You can only recognize our swimmers by their gray, low-key caps.

First day (Saturday) was excitement and the second day was a kind of a drag. This is only the beginning of probably endless meets.

Overall, Richard did pretty well. 5 ribbons for 7 events he entered.

Kidism

Richard loses/forgets his jacket at school sometimes. Recently I have been bugging him to look for one of his most frequently used jackets at the school "Lost and Found" for days and he forgot everyday. And he forgot to call me after he walked home with a neighbor's grandma 3 days in a row. The other day, when there was something else (I forgot what, maybe his library book) he forgot in addition to the other two, he sighed, "I seemed so brainless". Hahaha, I said, "You are not brainless, you are just too happy doing whatever you are doing, my baby".

Today, after his tooth fell out, he played with it for a while, set it aside for a while and then put it back into his mouth. I asked why. He said he just wanted to see if it still fit.

Tooth update

Another tooth gone, accomplished by Richard and Allen. Richard for wiggling it everyday nonstop and Allen for making the final pull. I don't know what to do if Allen is too chicken to pull it out today because when Richard told me, the tooth was literally just dangling. He didn't have the guts to pull it out himself but it can't stay there for the weekend.

Luckily this one was just a floss pull away from falling down.

Halloween

This is the first time in a long time that we didn't get a pumpkin for Halloween. I asked Richard what he wanted to be about a month ago but he said he didn't want to go trick-or-treating. That's kind of sad because it means he grew up. I put out some suggestions but he seemed to be not very interested. And then he said he wanted to stay home to hand out candies. That's not a bad idea. I just needed to wait patiently to see if he changed his mind later and he did! In the morning of Halloween day, he answered my inquiry about whether to dress up or not by saying, "let me see my costumes". So we took out all the costumes he had worn "in his life" (altogether 4 of them left). The policeman costume still fits him and is comfortable and looks good. Richard does look very handsome in a uniform. And all the gadgets come with it - plastic handcuffs, belt, badge - engaged him. So he was wearing the costume for the whole day on Saturday, even on our bike ride.

We went out trick-or-treating at South Coast Plaza (probably got a whopping 6 candies from the whole mall:( ) and ate dinner at Rainforest Cafe and came home to trick-or-treat at Quail Hill and Woodbridge, which was fruitful.

I was glad that Richard has not grown out of it yet.

水平提高了

As of swimming practice last night, Richard's time were:

50 Free: 37:xx
50 Breast: 51:xx
50 Butterfly: 47:xx
50 Back: ?
100 IM: 1:38:xx

Some of the times are the fastest ever recorded (non-official).
Water Works Swim Meet Time:
50 Free: 41.78 (10/17/09)
50 Breast: 51:72 (10/17/09)
50 Butterfly:
50 Back:
100 IM: 2:06.75 (5/16/09)

And yesterday both of us went to watch him for the last 15 minutes of practice when the coach timed 4 older kids (younger kids practice for 1 hour and older kids for 1.5 hours). There were a girl and two brothers who were all faster, way faster, than Richard when he just started. But last night he was consistently faster than the younger brother - Eric. Daniel (the older brother) and Christine were still faster than him. Because Richard's technique of diving and turning is not polished yet compared to other kids, he has bigger potential.

What I'm very glad to see was that when he swam with Eric and when they were close like in 50 yard Breaststroke, Richard really showed his competitiveness. He was always able to pull ahead at the last half of the lap.

Have I mentioned the coach was strict? Even she praised Richard after the practice. She said Richard started to pay more attention (He got scolded many times by not paying attention) and showed willingness to work hard.

Coach Pauline even said our goal is to compete in Junior Olympic next February. I better hold back that piece of information from Richard. I want him to try hard but I don't want to give him pressure. For now, exercise, boosting his confidence and giving him some skill that he will benefit from for the rest of his life are the priorities.

OK, so we said "Richard，你游泳的水平提高了很多!" (you made a lot of progress in swimming) and he asked "why my water bottle is raised?" (literal translation) "水平" and "水瓶". Yeah, not sure if he's goofing or seriously confused.

An old habit is kicked

I don't know if it is just the right time or what, but I think Richard has really kicked the old habit of... Whew, it is about time. A lot of the success contributes to Richard's dad who camped out at Richard room to listen to the alarm because Richard sleeps too soundly to hear the alarm. Part of the success contributes to an effective alarm. And I think the rest contributes to the timing - Richard is ready.

Now Richard gets up about once, sometimes twice to go to the bathroom. Accidents are really getting less and less.

The process started about 3 months before summer. Thank god Allen didn't get backpain from sleeping on the floor for that long. The first 6 weeks we already saw a lot of progress and in the second 6 weeks we saw some real change. We were afraid that going back to China for two months would throw all these hard work away and it kind of did. Grandpa woke him up every night at 12:00am. We were ready to start from zero but found that Richard adjusted very well after he came back. A lot has to be said about maturity. Three years after the first time he came back to China, we struggled for weeks about his bed routine. This time, he came right back to his
"life in the States".
A big celebration for us!

Water Works swim meet

Last week Richard attended Water Works (a nearby swimming facility) swim meet for about the 4th time. He swept everything! First place in all four events he entered and PR by a lot!

1st place Boys 10&under (Richard only turned 9 a week ago so he's the youngest in his age group) 25 yards free: 17.16 seconds

1st place Boys 10&under 50 yards free: 41.78 seconds
1st place Boys 10&under 50 yards breast: 51.72 seconds
1st place Boys 10&under 25 yards back: 23.78 seconds

And Richard's 25-yard back stroke is the record for swim meets at Water Works since its the beginning of swim meets in 2007.
http://www.waterworksswim.com/pool/resultpool.php

And Richard's 50-yard breast and 25-yard free are the second place ever in Water Works swim meet history. Don't know how much longer he can hold his record, but nonetheless, it's a record.

Well, speaking of swim meets, a little update of Richard's recent swim activities is overdue.

We had been thinking about signing up Richard for some sort of swim teams since maybe two years ago. We thought of Nova, UCI, Irvine City Summer Swim League and Water Works. Richard has been evaluated at Nova twice! Finally we settled at Water Works because of its convenient location and schedule. But we waited till April this year for Richard to join. I think starting from early 2008 Richard started to take some private swim lessons from Lynn (my coworker's daughter) up till the end of summer when Lynn went to college. After that the weather cooled down and we kind of set it aside for a while. We didn't sign up for Quail Hill team (2008 was its inauguration) for ISL (Irvine Swim League) because the practice time was too inconvenient. Then we waited till April 2009 to sign Richard up for Water Works swim team. Richard did well there. And then he spent 2 months in China for summer. We resumed Water Works swim team in September this year but the team has gotten so crowded that we felt Richard was no longer making enough progress. Then we again started to look into Nova and other options. We happened to see another group of well-organized young swimmers swim at Water Works after Richard's team's practice was over. We asked about the coach (she is a Chinese former Olympic swim coach) and Richard joined. So far we like it although it is a little expensive.

The coach is strict and practice time now is one and a half hours instead of 1 hour. And it is 5 days a week instead of 4 days. Coach Tao emphasizes technique. Have I mentioned that she is strict? Yes, Richard has gotten enough criticism for the short three weeks since he joined. Sometimes I told him "never mind her" in a way that does not overrule the coach but means "she is strict, therefore her students excel".

Richard's current team is part of USA swimming so he will be eligible to enter USA swim meets once his membership is received. We wanted him to enter the Water Works swim meet (maybe for the last time) before he joins some "real" swim meets to boost his confidence.

Richard doesn't seem to think that sweeping the 4 events is a big deal but I do :)

Good job, Richard!

late for detention

Richard has been very good with homework since the start of 4th grade. He bought a planner from the teacher for $5. Anything that the teacher suggested buying, Richard takes it very religiously. Actually Richard takes everything the teacher says very religiously. So in that regard, Richard is a very good student.

And everyday Richard would take down homework for each subject in his planner. He wrote down everything meticulously. 4th grade homework is very tedious. They would have 1-2 questions for each subject but something for every subject on one day. I almost think the effort spent on taking out the right workbook, turning to the right page, figuring which page/quesetion to do is more than the actual time spent on doing it. On top of that, Richard has a very neat handwriting, which means sometimes it can take him a long time to finish his howework. I tried to tell him that sometimes handwriting is secondary to get it done on time. But being neat is not exactly a bad thing.

Last Friday, Richard got a blue slip (detention notice) for not finishing is social studies homework. He said he forgot to take it down because he thought that's something they had finished in class. That's OK and I was glad that he told me about it. But then check this out: because he was late going to his detention, he got another detention the next week! I just cracked up at that point. But seriously, maybe we need to work on time management a little more, more than just me yelling "hurry up, hurry up" for about everything.

R.I.P Fluffy lies here

Per Richard, PIP stands for "Rest in Peace".

Acting it out

Recently I found that Richard has some acting talent, or more accurately, "drama effect". He likes to act it out a scene or a story that he read or a funny sentence that he heard so much. I am oftentimes his sole audience but sometimes I'm laughing and rolling. When we do vocabularies, he is so excited when I explain a word and he will "act it out". We started with "drawing out" (draw a picture next to a word to help remember the meaning) but then he improved upon it by "acting it out" too. Nobody taught him to but I guess he is very visual and "physical" type of kid. All is very cute.