Speaking of “trying harder” -

So, this article about Chinese parenting styles has been making the rounds. First, the title – “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” – is ridiculous and begs to breed more hate. Second, it perpetuates harmful and hurtful stereotypes. Third, it hurts my heart to read because I have known first hand, both from me and my friends, the mental & emotional anguish (often to the point of serious suicidal thoughts) that type of behavior causes.

Her response is that she didn’t choose the title, and that she evolves throughout the book, eventually retreating from that parenting model. So is this all a ploy to create a buzz and sell the books? Maybe, but most people aren’t going to buy the book – the book that, theoretically, explains why this model doesn’t work. They’re just going to read that article and either force that on their kids or hate Asian people.

It was one of the most challenging things ever!  Physically challenges, I’m used to failing (ie swimming, skiing).  But mental/academic things?  That was tough on me.  I felt like every picture I took came out flat, boring.  Not engaging and interesting the way everyone else’s photos were – we spent more than half of each class critiquing.

At the end, I really came to appreciate the professor’s teaching style.  We spent only one class on the mechanics of using shutter speed & aperture and the rest was up to you to practice & figure out.  We never went over rules of thirds or composition formulas & theories.  Or how to do lighting.  He wanted us to learn how to feel and see through the camera.  Which frustrated the hell out of me.

(middle of the semester, starting to get better)

It wasn’t until the final assignment where I thought… okay… I’m starting to get the hang of this.  Coincidentally it was supposed to be the most challenging: self portraits.  First, I could finally sort of get hold of the aperture/shutter speed thing.  Not good enough to have fine control over depth of field, but enough to have correct exposure and not be blurry (unless on purpose).  And most importantly, I finally had visions and feelings about how I wanted the picture to look before I set it up.  According to the feedback, it came out exactly how I wanted it.

I was envisioning movie-stills.  I even considered color shades, and light sources.   And my compositions came out balanced even though it was a crapshoot whether would be able to stand in exactly the right place because I wasn’t looking through the camera.  So the professor was right; these things kinda came naturally once I was able to open my eyes.  Also, I learned a secret of the trade.  Photography looks easy, but for every one picture you see, there are probably about 50 on the “cutting room floor” so to speak.  For each assignment, I took 200-300 shots that I had to edit down to 30.  And even then I was reaching.  I think I usually had 20 worthy of showing.

Somehow I developed a fascination with film photography.  I get kind of awestruck now when I see a beautiful shot in a movie.  I just watched Frida and the scenes were so beautiful I wanted to cry.  I have a friend who worked as Director of Photography on movies (including the upcoming Vincent Gallo project) and he just moved to California for some project he can’t tell us about.  I wish I could’ve picked his brain or followed him around when I had the chance.

Next week, I start a two-session workshop on film photography.  Like, actual film!  I ordered a cheap Holga camera, and I’m gonna learn film developing, which I did a few times in high school and once last year.  I’m not in it to fancy myself a photographer; just wanted to get better skills for taking family pictures and casual stuff.

My cousin, who is a 17 yr old girl, got me something in a big pink Victoria’s Secret box.  Now, these days I’m sure that most of VS revenue comes from non-lingerie things, but it still has that awkward association – Look! I’m carrying underwear or sexy things in this bag!  Anyway, everyone made jokes before I opened it.

So I open it. It was a big tube of sparkly glitter-infused lotion and a bottle of shimmer-infused body spray in the matching scent.  Ah, an apt gift for or from a 17yr old girl. Makes me feel young.  So I slather some on my hand and rave about how great it is.  Then my aunt asked me about the scent.

“Well? What’s the scent?”

Me: (pause) “uhhh… Pure Seduction...”

Everyone: **snickers***

What else is new in my life? Driving. I live a tiny bit farther from downtown and my usual hangouts which means I have to actually drive to go places.  And I’ve had to drive out to my mom’s house (2 hours away) a lot – at least every other week, and we’ve done road trips here and there.  Way more driving than I’m used to!  Until a few months ago, we drove the car(s) less than once a week.  I also have a brand new car now, so I can’t use the “I can’t be the driver, I don’t have a car” excuse anymore, which means I chauffer people more often.  I’m still trying to adjust to driving all the time.  I don’t know if I’ll ever like driving.

But I’ve learned some funny things about driving a hybrid:

• When I get angry at people for driving too slow, I can say things like “OHMYGOD. You are driving so slow that my ENGINE SHUT OFF!!!” (it shuts off at around 40 mph)
• I feel much calmer in traffic, like when I’m outside of Boston and stuck going 10 mph for an hour (it happened last weekend) because I know that I’m not using any gas. But it usually evens out when I later have to drive 80 to make up for lost time haha.  Luckily I can do that because I don’t have one of the wimpy ass hybrids.
• Now that the weather is cold, I learned that battery mode isn’t always good.  Because that means the engine isn’t on to generate heat.
• When I’m on a neighborhood street and there are no cars around, or in a parking lot, I coast as much as possible so that the gas engine doesn’t turn on.  Brian gets annoyed and says UGGGHHH YOU’RE DRIVING LIKE THOSE HYBRID PEOPLE.  And I’m like yeah, deal with it. I swear I check to make sure there’s no one behind me though.

Here I am all bundled up in my hat & jacket.

I brought this white hat (wool/silk blend) and some socks (wool/cotton blend) so the fibers were warm but not too warm.  I could’ve used fingerless gloves too but I couldn’t find them in time.  The temp got down to the 40′s + rain one night (I even slept with the hat on), and the mornings were cold too.  Actually I brought the fleece & shell combo that I bought for skiing.  It was so weird to be wearing my ski parka & wool during a “summer” activity.  See why outdoor gear amazes me so much? so multi-functional!

Shopping for supplies was fun.  I love gadgets, especially ones that are compact and multi-purpose.  This translates into a secret love & fascination with camping & outdoor gear even though I never had a use for it – UNTIL NOW.  We got a cool, but small, tent.  These cute meal kits (I got pink, he got green).  I know that they won’t be that practical if we ever want to cook while camping, but I still needed to have it.  I bought a my first pair of shorts in like a decade, oh-so-outdoorsy convertible pants, and a dorky but necessary hat because I was not thrilled about sitting exposed in full sun during the canoeing.

My friend, an uber-planner, planned on a 19 mile canoe trip.  We’d canoe half way, camp on the river’s beach, canoe the rest of the way, then camp the next night in a state park campground.  The canoeing wasn’t as hardcore as it sounds.  I could’ve walked 95% of the route, as in most places the water was less than a foot deep, as evidenced by this picture:

Two nights, 3 days.  Other people brought some elaborate food – coffee percolators, bunsen burner type setups, canned foods.  Since we had to fit all of our gear into the canoe, I didn’t want to mess with that stuff.  I planned a menu of calorie-dense [and therefore easy to pack] foods: nuts & dried fruit, Cliff bars, snack cakes, Spam musubi (travelled very well for the 1st day), and hot dogs cooked over the campfire. I think it worked just fine.  Next time if we go “car camping” we’ll probably buy a stove, but I still can’t see myself storing, cooking, & keeping cold enough food for more than 2 days.

The canoeing was kinda scenic; not OMG beautiful, and there were lots of other people.  We could also hear highway traffic when we were camping on the beach.  What was really gorgeous was the Mt. Washington area, where we spent our 2nd night and regrettably, didn’t get to spend much time other than sleeping & driving home.  What really blew my mind though, were the stars.  Having spent just about all my life within the DC/NYC/Boston megalopolis east coast, the sky was sky and stars were stars.  But this night sky was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.  It was the stuff of NASA satellite photos and planetariums.  It was actually BLACK-black, not just hazy charcoal or reddish gray like it is around here.  And it wasn’t just individual stars.  You could see clusters like clouds made out of stars and galaxies!  This, coming from someone who doesn’t appreciate nature and shit.

Lady details and Possible TMI: Shower was all baby wipes.  I also constantly washed my hands with soap & drinking water to get the grime off.  My hands were sooo grimy all the time.  Some people “bathed” in the river but Brian saw a dude rinsing his latrine in the river and I was like oh hell no. I survived peeing in the woods, but I still want to cry thinking about it.  I managed to avoid having to do “that other thing that ladies don’t do”, so thank god for that.  Sorry if you didn’t wanna know but all of this personal hygiene business is what scared me most. I wore mascara & tinted moisturizer, and I used sample packets of facial cleanser & night cream.  I was pretty happy to be able to bust out some of the beauty samples I’ve been hoarding.

On a scale of 1-10, I give the whole thing a 6.5 (keeping in mind that I hated the majority of people I was with, so that ruined most of the experience).  I’ll try it again.  I have to try it again because I had to spend so much on gear.  Soooo in my mind, I need to go camping two more times before I’m satisfied that I’ve gotten my money’s worth.

I wonder how long it takes her every day. Where does she find the time? Did she go to fashion school? I’m so envious of her perspective and overall style.

That reminds me, I’m moving today and noticing I need to downsize my belongings to make it all fit. I filled up a bag of clothes I’m going to get rid of, so maybe I can start by cutting those up.

Why is every generation and life-phase so interested in labeling and defining themselves as a group?  First this invention of quarter-life crisis, a term I use with full sarcasm and ridiculousness.  Now this invention of the “formerlies” who claim to be stuck in pre-middle aged limbo.  But they’re like 39 and up.  Sounds middle aged to me! And by that, I mean that is the new middle-age to me.  People in their 40′s are middle-aged, but today they are fun and funky rather than sitcom boring. (Dude, the parents on Charles in Charge are supposed to be 35. 35!! The mom wears clothes like a Golden Girls!)

In my previous job, I had to know a bit about “millenials” and “gen y” and every other day a different article comes out saying “oh they’re shallow, narcisstic and shop a lot” or “they want to do good things for the world and don’t care about money”.  The consensus changes depending on the moon.  The context for the articles is usually around marketing, so it sorta makes sense to want to pigeonhole demographic groups, but they also rely on academic research.  Why not just say “this group of people: age x and enjoy x” rather than “most people born during these 10 years are like this”?  With option A, kids grow up saying “I like this and there are people like me.” *Yay*” Under option B, kids grow up saying “I don’t like this but I’m supposed to. What’s wrong with me?” *cries in room alone*

It was also funny when I had to talk about that stuff and people were like “So, you’re a millennial, what do you think/want?” And I’m like I DON’T SPEAK FOR AN ENTIRE GENERATION, just like I don’t speak for an entire race or class, dickwads.

Actually, the thing about “formerlies” does seem more Option A.  It does seem like an interesting marketing demographic though.  Didn’t GAP try a new store specifically for that age group and it failed?   It’s not for me, it’s not supposed to be for me and I get that.  I don’t hate it.  I just don’t want the suggestion that I’m supposed to be having some sort of crisis when I turn 39, just like I’m supposed to have some sort of crisis when I’m 25.  On another note though, if you navigated the world based on pretty looks alone, no wonder.

During his “look me, I’m changin’ things up” campaign, he addressed the inequity of nation’s history of sentencing crack and cocaine crimes, and how the system was inherently racist.  And today, Congress actually changed the law! [sort of]  The crack vs cocaine example was one of the most often cited lessons during my college days of learning how The Man oppresses people.  In short: a person convicted of crack cocaine possession gets the same mandatory prison term as someone with 100 times the same amount of powder cocaine.  Who’s more likely to get convicted of crack, and who are the biggest cocaine users?  Therein lies the perfect example of institutional racism.

And now the law is “only” that 1 crack = 18x the amount of cocaine, rather than 100. That’s getting somewhere I guess.

It’s hard for me to admit defeat, but this administration is almost surpassing the super-low expectations I had in the beginning.