From techne23 and luvmoose

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE
-Enginering Manager
-Editor of Technical manuals
-Receptionist
-Salad maker at a fast food restaurant

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER
-Labryinth
-Casablanca
-Sense and Sensibility
-Any documentary produced by David Attenborough

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
-Bangkok
-London
-Philadelphia
-Oakland

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH:
-The Daily Show
-The Sopranos
-Family Plots

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION:
-Burma(Myanmar)
-Turkey
-Peru
-Italy because doesn't everyone want to go?


FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY: (this is via RSS)
-blogspot.com
-livejournal.com
-neilgaiman.com
-bbc.co.uk

FOUR OF YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE RESTAURANTS: (revised after Sariuh reminded me about Chez Panisse and I realised the closing down curse tends to be from my parents)
Chez Panisse
this Japanese place in SF whose name I forget. Argh.
Le Trianon (closed down but my parents also liked it)
Paul K (maybe not all time favourite, but at least a favourite restauraunt I go to now)

FOUR OF YOUR FAVOURITE FOODS:
-tea
-chocolate
-cheese
-sushi

FOUR SCHOOLS YOU'VE ATTENDED
-Davis Senior High
-Saint Paul Girl's School
-Bryn Mawr College
-Haas Business School, UC Berkeley

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
-with two healthy kids
-on my first book tour
-seeing Renee Fleming at the opera
-Rome

The kids are laughing together at some joke known only to themselves. Little T doesn't cry when he falls down and his head hits marble if his big sister is there to watch. It amazes me how well they get along. I remember that my younger brother regarded me with adoration when we were kids, but I also thought he was rather a pain until he was sent away to boarding school. Special K seems to really enjoy entertaining her little brother. And bossing him around. Now that part I did enjoy. "Here's your baby shark that you must play with." And of course he does. Then they both laugh again.

C sent me this article just after wrangling with T's medical bills: Treated for Illness then lost in a labryinth of medical bills.
It spurred me on to write more.

I wrote 1000 words today of my non-fiction book. It gradually coalesces into a sleek shape all its own at 10,778 words.

C and I went to Bambuddha Lounge in SF last night. It describes itself as a "hot spot" which usually means it's too cool for us. It serves fusion Asian cuisine, but it was delicious. And it had an amusing mixture of forced retro and Asian stuff that I think of as SF culture. Outside was a drive-in motel which was still painted in the retro 70's colours, but had fresh paint and electronic doors. Arranged outside were funky sculptures and a bamboo garden with black and bright colours. We didn't sit outside, because it was a bit chilly and we also didn't have dyed hair.

I didn't dye my hair in my youth. I never regretted the decision, because I'd have to bleach my hair to do it and I wouldn't want to abuse my hair that much. BTW the only colour I'd want would be purple. I'm still deciding if I want to dye my hair now that I'm older and it's turning white. It's a nice silver white, so I feel lucky.

There was a live DJ, but no-one was in the DJ area. Some Asians lounged outside wearing Mardi gras beads with cups. A few with purple and red hair. They all looked cool and cold.

We had the fastest service we've had in a while before an opera, so we made in plenty of time before Girl From Algiers started. In many ways, the opera seems similar to the restaurant with a silly fusion of cultures. It's a silly opera, though unlike the restaurant it has an underlying seriousness and patriotism. I thought William Burden as Lindero was particularly touching. I was a little annoyed, because even though we have season tickets, we got the second billing stars for this opera: Isabella and Mustafa. And I found Isabella to be second rate. C found her funny, but I found her voice to have a slight burr in it, which grated on me. Mustafa had great antics, but his voice wasn't as robust as I would expect for the part.

However the set was wonderful with a great 20's storybook Indiana Jones feel with some good playacting to counterbalance the repetition of the silly phrases. Sometimes particularly SF opera goes overboard with the playacting, and you miss the words of the opera, but I think this production had the right balance. They let the singer sing the phrase the first couple of times and then start buffooning.

Actually William Burden transported me. Sometimes I think to myself, going to the opera is such a PITA. It's expensive. It costs a lot of time and money. Sure I get to go out with C, but I could walk with C to a restaurant downtown. But when I listened to William Burden singing about missing his love, I was transported back to a time when I missed my long distance loves. Okay it was better than that since they were never perfect operatic lovers. So we had a wonderful evening. Unfortunately the opera was almost 3 hours long, so I was too tired to drop by my brother's birthday party. But I did think of my brother while I was at the Bambuddha Lounge. Because he would have enjoyed the place.

This is a meme that I got from owlmoose. I'll try to provide facts that aren't on my web page or in my journal

1. I loved to stare at punk rockers on the bus in Chelsea, London where I spent my early childhood.
2. The first story I ever wrote was about meeting Mother Teresa in Calcutta.
3. C and I come from mirror universe families. I'm the eldest girl of girl boy girl. C is the eldest boy of boy girl boy.
   
4. Bee* and me don't get along. I'm allergic to bees to the point where I keep an epipen. When I eat beef, I literally throw up. I also hate beets and beer.
5. I have had season tickets to the opera since 1995.
6. I had a horrible crush on Mr. Spock from Star Trek when I was twelve.
7. I'm not afraid of heights. I'm afraid of jumping. I'm not suicidal in any way, but when I look off a bridge or any tall building, I feel like jumping off. Sometimes I dream I jump off buildings and I start to fly.
8. My favourite numbers are 13 and 42. 13 because it seems witchy to me and 42 because it's the answer to life the universe and everything.
   
9. My maternal grandfather was a Burmese diplomat before the military junta took over.
10. I've travelled all over Europe, North and South America, and parts of Asia, but I've never been to Africa, Australia, or Antarctica. I've always wanted to go on a safari and to the Great Barrier Reef. And I will when we can travel again. I'm not sure about Antarctica.
11. My mother forced me to take piano lessons as a child and I hardly ever practiced. As as result, I can sight-read pretty well, but I'm an awful piano player.
12. I prefer to play computer games with someone else. I don't mind "watching" if I can kibbitz. In fact it's usually easier for me since a lot of games are frustrating for me to play with my movement disorder. Not that I have time to play many games these days.
13. If you judge favourite movie by number of times most watched, then it's Casablanca. Otherwise I think it varies. And see below.
    
14. Other than a few memorable movies like Casablanca, I tend to forget the plot and dialogue of most movies a few years after I've seen them. C finds this shocking. I think it's great. I get to see a movie over again and it's like new.
15. I've been misnamed a variety of names in my time, but the best name I was ever mistakenly called was Athena in college. I didn't correct her and it took her months to figure out my proper name.
16. I like tea tastings and drinking fine tea on occasion, but every morning I drink Tetley tea. It's comfort food for me.
17. My favourite colour is purple.
18. Before I had kids, I used to think vomit was the grossest thing. Now I'm pretty blase about it.
19. I have hyperflexible ankles which is supposed to be related to my myoclonic dystonia, so I've sprained both ankles a lot. I've reduced the number of sprains in recent years by doing ankle exercises after each sprain.
    
20. I was asked to be Water on a MUSH, just because someone wanted me to be part of four elements. Then later I discovered one of the meanings of my name Thida is Water.

That was harder than I thought it would be.

The continuing saga of Thida, which I'd typed up for a bboard a year or so ago. Please let me know if you like it. If you hate it, well I'll interpret silence as no-one wants to read about my past.

At age 8, my parents decided to send me off to West Downs the boys’ boarding school run by my grandparents. I loved the academics, because it had a well-deserved good reputation and you moved up in the classes according to how well you do on the exams rather than by age. I loathed everything else about it. I missed my family terribly. It was cold and draughty. I was one of only 10 girls in a school of 200. And most of the kids hated me on sight, because I was the headmaster’s grand-daughter. Two of my cousins were also there, but they had started before me and they stuck together. I think they knew I wasn’t going to be there for the long-term. They also weren’t nerds and were good at sports, so they fit in better.

But I did have one friend named Victoria Morse. She was a fellow nerd. I lost contact with her, but I still think fondly of her. Hey, it's interconnected world out there, so I'll give it a shot. If anyone for some reason knows a Victoria Morse in England, please tell her to contact me.

My parents decided to move to California and while they were getting things sorted out, for a couple months they moved into the flat where my grandparents lived at West Downs. We weren’t allowed to see each other any more often than other families, which was once a week on the weekends. Then my parents took a cross-country trip across the US for a couple months. They took my brother and sister and left me behind at West Downs. My brother really really missed me and began every postcard with “Dear Thida, I miss you a lot.” I think the only good thing I can really say about that year and a half is that I gained a new appreciation of my brother.

So at age 9 and 9 months, I went from West Downs to 6th grade at a Catholic school in Davis California called St. James. I suffered massive culture shock. I thought boys were for kicking not kissing.

I wrote part of my bio for a bboard last year and I lost chapters 1-3, so here's chapter 4. You'll get the rest eventually.

This was of course back in the days before car seats. My dad owned a VW bug. My mum didn’t drive. All 5 of us, my parents, brother and sister would go camping in that car. My sister was in a carrier cot or small bassinet in the back and my brother and I would squeeze in next to it. We’d take the ferry over from Dover to France and camp in farmers’ fields.

One time my parents started looking for a site a little late. As it was getting dark and starting to rain, they found an actual fee-paying camp-site. There was only spot left. What we didn’t do know was that it was the only spot left, because it was on top of a dry stream bed. My parents pitched the tent as it began to rain harder.

My parents had two camp cots and we normally slept on the floor, but water started streaming into the tent. Suitcases started floating in the water. We were all starving, so my mother had to stand in the tent in the stream cooking on a camp stove while the rest of us piled into the car. She made Beef Bourguignon with local French red wine. I can still remember the wonderful smell mixed with the smell of rain and the sound of the rain sloshing against the car. My brother and I slept that night in the camp cots, which were fortunately just above the water level and my parents kinda slept in the VW bug. We thought it was a great adventure.

On Saturday night, my husband C and I first went to the 25th anniversary of Acme Theatre Company from my hs. I met some old friends and had a great time. Most were married and had kids and had returned to Davis. It's called "returning home to spawn." Elizabeth is now a freelance writer with her husband and call themselves Write The First Time. Anton lives on a horse ranch nearby and still welds. Sarah is a systems engineer.

Analisa is an energy state government official and showed us the prototype of a fuel cell car which she finangled. She drove it around for the weekend, then it'll go to the people in her department then to politicians. C said seeing her car was the highlight of the weekend and it was really cool.

Analisa met us at the high school reunion and we wandered around. Unfortunately apart from Malcolm Young whom I'd met earlier, I didn't see anyone I was actually friends with in hs, except Cheryl Washino whom I was friends with at the beginning of hs, but then we drifted apart. I talked to her for a bit. She was still really nice, but I ran out of things to say.

I met some classmates at St. James Catholic school where I went for grades 6-9. I had nice chats with all of them. Nothing earthshattering. One woman said something about how I wrote this great book report and the class liked it so much that they asked me to read it again. I don't remember it all. In fact I wouldn't have remembered her or the fact that she was at St. James if she hadn't reminded me. I was a total nerd and social outcast at St. James. I was 1 of 10 girls and the rest all glommed together. They're just a mass in my mind, not even real people now since I assume they've grown up now and know better. That's not to say that everyone from that era isn't real, just the people who were only mean to me and nothing else.

I did have one weird interaction with someone I vaguely recognised who turned away from me while I was in the same group. I think she must have been one of the folks in hs who thought I was stupid, because I have a movement disorder. I remembered that contingent when she did it. I was disappointed, because my 10 year reunion was unmarred by such incidents. I thought I remember her name, but when I looked in the yearbook, there was no such name.

The main theme for me was that pretty much everyone ends up at the same place. In hs I was still pretty shy and learning social skills. But I always knew that I'd grow up and life would get better.

And the highlight of my evening was dancing with C. We haven't danced just the two of us in a while.

My kids, my husband C and I all drove to Davis Friday night for my 20-year high school reunion and Acme 25th anniversary dinner. Poor C had to drive in rush hour traffic most of the way, because we didn't leave until 5pm. He's a good husband. We ate some bread and cheese with my parents. We always eat a lot there. Then we left the kids with my parents and went to the first hs reunion event at a local bar.

To me, bars seem optimally bad places to meet people you don't know. The lighting is dim, so it's hard to see, and once you do see someone, it's hard to hear them. So I failed to recognize anyone and the people I talked to didn't recognize me or actually know me in hs. Still, I was amused to hear from the guy who said "I was in the wrestling club, but now I'm an environmental lawyer." Then I saw this woman smile and I recognized her smile. She has a smile that lights up her entire face. Her smile brightened my French class along with my friend Naomi. It turned out she was one of the reunion organizers. We reminisced about French class. Madame Stevens couldn't pronounce my name, so she called me Mathilde, which I hated. She was French and therefore never appreciated the difficulties we had in learning French.

The next hs event was Saturday morning meeting at the farmers market, except there was no meeting place and I failed to recognise anyone again. Meanwhile my daughter Special K had a blast on the carousel which a volunteer powers by pedaling. Then she rushed off to the playground. Finally C overheard some folks talking about hs reunion. I introduced myself, then met someone I shared a class with in hs and asked her who else was there. She pointed out a friend from junior high. I'd walked right by him and utterly failed to recognise him. We had a nice chat and learned we live in the same town, so we'll probably meet later. I also saw his parents who still live in town. My parents and his parents were friends, but lost touch, so perhaps they'll reconnect again as well.

I also saw the hs friend that I mentioned earlier. She's not in my class and said she wasn't going to be in Davis, so it was fun to run into her again.

I met a friend from hs. We hadn't seen each other in a while, but we slipped back into things like old friends sometimes can. It was lovely.

I went shopping w/Sarah. After hours and hours of searching we found a top, skirt, cardigan and shoes for me to wear to my hs reunion. Hooray! And thanks to Sarah! I've known Sarah since Dec '93. She's a pretty old friend too, but young at heart. More tomorrow on my life. Goodnight.

Special K climbed to the top bunk of her bunk bed and scared me half to death. I use the top bunk to store her outgrown clothes. So while she was up there, she also put on a dress and did it perfectly. Then she climbed back down. C had taken out the middle rung of the ladder to prevent her from climbing up. Well, that didn't work. So now he's going to put the rung in, so she's less likely to fall.

Yesterday Special K insisted on wearing her dress inside out and backwards to a friend's 40th birthday party. She also insisted on wearing her gum shoes. Her idea of a fashion statement looks like a ragamuffin to me. The host hired Tainted Love, a band that covers 80's music. Special K danced by jumping up and down. I danced with Little T. That was all fine and good with Special K, but when I wanted to dance by myself, she wasn't happy. I don't know why. I don't think my dancing is that bad. Maybe on some level, she knew that without Little T I was a little too free. And she wanted to make sure her mommy didn't run off.

Some of my best times in my childhood and teenagerhood were spent dancing to music. I particularly like New Wave music. I didn't really discover New Wave music until my frosh year in college when a friend gave me a handmade Depeche Mode tape. I loved it. I associate it with being wild and free. Even back then, I knew that though I had hard times, I wouldn't always be free to do whatever I wanted like I could in college. I traded freedom for responsibilities that I'm glad to have...most of the time.

Most rock songs celebrate an idealized youth, but 80's was in my youth. I like the silly mindless songs like "Tainted Love" and "She Blinded Me with Science." Yes, old Madonna songs appeal to me too. And that's what people play at parties. They don't play Pink Floyd. For me, music was a good fun escape. If I wanted angst as a youth, I listened to maybe a little Depeche Mode, but that was always with a tinge of irony. If I really wanted angst, I read a sad book. I still feel the same way. I do sometimes listen to songs on the radio and I like some new artists, but if you want to get me dancing for sure, put on some New Wave music. Do you love 80's music too? Tell me all about it. What music do you associate with your youth?

I'm somewhat depressed. Or is that sad? I am grieving. The closest analogy for me is when I'd break up with someone. My heart literally aches in the same way. My jaw tightens. My throat hurts. I feel the weight of sadness on my chest. Part of me is so glad that chapter is over. I have no regrets. But I'm processing what happens. I need to process, to feel sad, but it drains me.

I don't really want to do anything. Special K's angry at me, because I started withdrawing. I started reading My Sister's Keeper, a very depressing book about a girl whose parents created her so they could harvest her blood, organs, etc for her sister who has leukemia. I realised I had fallen into old habits of reading a book instead of dealing with my own feelings. I remember clearly in grade school after a classmate said something to me that made me want to cry that I biked to the library and read Moreta. I could feel sad, but it wasn't about me. And it didn't show on my face as much. Sadness was wimpiness. Sad people were too vulnerable. It wasn't until age 21 when I first broke up with someone that I learned to cry.

Special K loves a good cry. She cries everyday. In fact she just woke up crying. She said "Hurts" probably her neck had a crick in it. I'm not ready for a good cry yet. But I'll try to take a leaf from her book and feel more sadness.

I originally wrote this as a part of a personal essay I'm submitting to Brain, Child, so the tense is different than usual.


My body tenses as I watch my daughter round the circuits. After only 4 weeks of gymnastics class, she will not perform well on the quarterly assessment. What I was thinking to put her through this? My daughter jumps on the trampoline and laughs when told to freeze. She jumps up and down and claps her hands while waiting her turn. She performs a front flip with some coaching, but she clings to the teacher on the bars. Does she know she’s being tested? Doesn’t she care? Class is over. The teacher hands my daughter a purple ribbon and the test sheet with a “Great job.” I’d heard that so many times. And everyone gets a ribbon. I want to spare her being cut, because she didn’t made the grade.

As a child, I loved ballet class. My arms formed awkward angles due to my disability, myoclonic dystonia. But my lower half felt graceful doing ballet.

For the year-end recital, the entire class would perform a simple dance together. I was proud of my costume, just like the others, but made with my mother’s own hands. My leotard slid smoothly across my back and my tutu jounced as I glissaded.

A day before the recital, my ballet teacher called my mother: “I’m concerned about your daughter performing. I don’t want to feel her uncomfortable.” My mother assured her, “She’s fine. She’s looking forward to it.” After a long silence, my ballet teacher said. “Well, I’m worried she’ll feel embarrassed.” My mother responded sharply, “It sounds to me like you’re embarrassed, not my daughter.” My ballet teacher softly replied, “Yes, I don’t want her to perform.” I never took ballet again.

My daughter drops the paper without a glance. Then she strokes the ribbon. Purple is her favorite color. I pick up the test sheet and stare at its expanse of empty checkboxes littered with few stars. My daughter chatters excitedly, “I love gym! I want to do it again!” The other kids in her class are older and bigger and have taken gym for much longer. She tries to imitate them and if she can’t do something, she just waits for the teacher to help her. I want to defend her, but she doesn’t need it. She seems happy to try her best.