Things I've remembered for 16 years

Ms. Liz was my second grade teacher, and my only teacher who followed her title with her first name. (I suppose “Mrs. Seligman-Bravo” would have been a cruel imposition on a class struggling with thee-syllable words.) She was also one of my few teachers cool enough to pull it off. She had wildly curly hair and the spunk to match, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the author of the “Magic School Bus” series patterned Ms. Frizzle after our own uninhibited and unpredictable classroom leader.

Ms. Liz had two sons named Michael and Jordan. For a 7-year-old boy who jealously guarded his set of 29 NBA team logo pencils, using them one at a time from least to most favorite teams (I found the Bulls, Celtics, and Mavericks still unsharpened when I was cleaning out my desk drawer in May 2008), this was reason enough to love her.

Her interest in basketball extended from her sons to her classroom, where she kept the class behaved and engaged with a game called Learnball. Learnball was the best external motivator I have ever encountered. Two teams competed for Friday candy handouts. Points could be earned in a number of ways, but I only cared about “shots”. Students who had earned the right to a “shot” for good behavior or a perfect test score would attempt to toss a Nerf ball into a trashcan on a chair. Shooters could choose from 5 positions worth 1-5 points from correspondingly difficult positions. After complex expected-value calculations, I always shot from 3 or 4. Lining up for these shots made for some of the most thrillingly nervous times of my life, surpassing job interviews and coming up just short of asking out B. Thankfully, I usually did well for my ego, and for my team. I recall one classmate (NHHS friends: it was Patrick Shea) who always shot from 5 and made it at an alarming rate. The hot-handed daredevil is now performing with Cirque de Soleil.

Ms. Liz probably liked basketball so much because she was a vocal UCLA fan. In retrospect, I’m surprised I didn’t have a major crush on her.

Ms. Liz had a bathtub in the back of her classroom. She said it was there for anyone who wanted to take a break in the middle of class and just relax and read a book. By second grade, my sense of proper behavior and overachievement were both well-developed, and I could not imagine getting up in the middle of class without express permission to sit in a tub while the rest of the class proceeded without me. Also, the tub smelled funny and I’m pretty sure its colorful paints covered up stains (but not the grossness) left by previous reclining deviants.

Ms. Liz protected my boogers (or was it my health?) like they were national treasures. On multiple occasions she stopped mid-sentence and shouted “Ryan, don’t pick your nose!” and then told me to go wash my hands. I began to perform my operations more subtly, pretending to drop my pencil so I could dig with my head under the table. But Ms. Liz was smart, and she caught me there too.

Ms. Liz always called us “smart cookies”, and I usually believed her (at least the “cookie” part). While it is usually best to encourage youngsters by complimenting their efforts instead of their talents, Ms. Liz had a special right to praise us because of how much she taught us. Of all my teachers, I think I have spent the most time musing over and using the content of her classes. Here are some examples:

• The numerical values of every letter of the alphabet – Ms. Liz liked to play a game called “100-point words” where we had to find words whose letters added up to 100 (a = 1, b = 2, etc.) I began calculating the value of almost every word I saw (and started to expand and complicate the game), and thus internalized these values. Quiz me. I dare you.
• How to spell manufacture – We had an independent vocabulary scheme where we went through long lists of words with a partner. Only when we misspelled a word would it become one of our weekly ten vocab words. I recall stumbling on “manufacture” partially because my partner said something like “menfcrt…uh…” (though there’s no way I would have gotten it even with perfect pronunciation, an example of usage, and language of origin). I was proud to have made it so far in the list, and to have been humbled by so lengthy a foe.
• Monet painted water lilies – I was assigned to use one 9” x 9” square to commemorate Monet’s birthday, so I tried to recreate one of his water lily oil paintings with crayons. I cannot imagine why, but Ms. Liz liked it a lot, and asked me to try to teach the class. Poor kids. They were all better artists than I was, and I think they knew it. But from then on, Monet was my favorite artist. And if I ever found myself in a conversation about art, I puffed up a bit and asserted, “Oh yes, I really love the way Monet uses light in his water lily oil paintings.”
• Brain teasers (quantagories) – Ms. Liz introduced us to “brain teasers” (which I found out later were only one category of brain teasers, known as quantagories). It involves an equation of abbreviations, numbers, and short words, such as 26 = L in the A (26 = Letters in the Alphabet). We got a new one every week. Oh, what fun!
• The fifty (nifty) states in alphabetical order – Every morning after the Pledge of Allegiance, Ms. Liz would make us sing a very difficult song of the 50 states in alphabetical order. Once memorized, the little diddy is impossible to forget, and I confess that it is one of my most-used intellectual tools (up there with hypothetical thought and deductive reasoning). I don’t think I’m going too far when I say that I think I would be a different man without this song.
  

At the end of the school year, our class put together a little book to thank Ms. Liz. Each student received one page to decorate however they pleased. On the back of my sheet, I wrote:

30 = SFR8WLML.

Below, the solution:

30 = Students From Room 8 Who Love Ms. Liz.

Letting go

I like beautiful rationales. I spend a good chunk of my thinking hours trying to find the purposes for my actions and my circumstances. My co-worker is taking out her unreasonable anger on me – maybe she will reflect later, become miserably repentant, and look for a savior. There is an extra soft drink from an office party – maybe there will be a day when someone really needs sweet refreshment. I just barely missed that train – maybe it’s going to blow up. (Note that a rationale does not have to be reasonable, and the instinctive ones are pretty self-centered).

To be clear, I don’t think I’m deluding myself by concocting a world of pseudo-science and magical forces (at least not to an unhealthy extent – I think we all probably do this at least a little bit). Instead, a number of my strong beliefs and traits incline me to constantly look for meaning, or how things fit into a larger picture. I’d like to say that a large percentage of this drive is good faith – or maybe just hope – that God is weaving together all of the world’s details for some spectacular exhibition of his sovereignty. Part of it is a Hollywood-esque romanticism, a pining for the charmed life. I have to admit that at least sometimes it is a defense mechanism. Some of it is just a fun way to keep my imagination working. An uglier force is the prideful ache to always be in the know.

Each rationale, of course, may be driven by one or more of these forces, and so the accuracy and motivation of each will vary. But all contribute to the fact that I brainstorm rationales large and small with impressive regularity.

My rationales usually fall into one of two categories: narrative and mathematical. The three examples in the first paragraph are narrative rationales – an exploration of the unseen, unfolding tale of why something had to happen. (I’m talking about “This happened in order that…[future],” not “This happened because…[past].” The latter is an example of a post hoc rationalization, or an excuse.) Mathematical ones are a bit harder to both demonstrate and describe; their explanation lies in the fact that there is some elegant numerical result of the situation. I’ll try to explain by example.

Recently I bought a gift for B. Those of you who have been shopping with me know that my buying strategy is clear and impossible: to scour every last corner of the retail kingdom to make sure that the product I choose is undeniably the best. This assurance is all the more important the higher the cost/value of the purchase. But this time I was looking at a semi-costly investment and had virtually no time to inspect the glut of relevant shops in HK. I did my best (slogged through the entire inventory of all the shops on one particularly concentrated block), but it was far from a guarantee. When faced with the decision to buy, I had prayed hard and then stepped out in (uncharacteristic) faith that I should not shop elsewhere. My conscience demanded an explanation all the way home.

It turns out that B really liked my choice – and that, I know, is most important. But I have to admit that I wasn’t completely satisfied with it until I found that the total price was almost identical to my overtime pay for August. The numbers worked out, and by extension, it was Providence. Some (small) throbbing part of my psyche was finally put to rest.

It’s impossible to “prove” the correctness of a rationale. Nonetheless, I still like to have one on hand for most events that I analyze. Even if I don’t really believe that it is the Truth, at least there’s a story to tell.

(Disclaimer: I do believe there is a difference between reality and my rationales. I do not believe that reality is simply a psychological or social construct, and I understand that all of my rationales may be wrong. That is, the real reason I missed the train may actually be to get me in trouble for being late, so I won’t hit the snooze button three times tomorrow. But being wrong just means I should continue exploring for the right ones. And I think that in particularly (divinely) inspired moments, I can/do actually get it.)

This has gotten longer and more philosophical than I intended, but it sets the context for what I’ve been thinking about these last 24 hours:

Yesterday was the first day I spent in Hong Kong without seeing B. There were two earlier days that, at the time, seemed like they would be “the day”. But in both cases we snuck by with a careful shift of schedule. Interestingly, both fell on days where the mathematical rationale was clear: the first was August 4, the first day of my third month in HK; the second was on September 11, my 100th day in HK. Under either case, the numerical rationale was a compelling argument (to me) that yes, this was the right day to end our streak. But yesterday was day 107 (3 months and 15 days) since I arrived in HK. What a meaningless symbol! I can think of no good reason why our first day apart should be the 107th.

And so, I’m just a little bit disgruntled. Perhaps I should explore the narrative rationales, and all the potential purposes for our separation on 18 September.

Or maybe yesterday was about letting go. Twice.

Christmas in September

A few nights ago, I arrived at B’s apartment complex as I usually do after work – with a bag full of laundry and stomach empty of food. The front gate guards still welcomed me like an old friend, with broad smiles, warm “right this way, Sir” gestures, and cordial words like “Have you eaten?” (or maybe “Your fly is down!” Who knows?). But tonight, the complex’s gray and brown tiles were lit up with the glow of Western Christmastime. The bulbs were perfectly round, as opposed to the familiar teardrop shape, and red chandeliers substituted for Santa and Co. rooftop figurines; but maybe I missed home enough to convince myself, just for a moment, that my family, my dog, and a tree would be waiting for me inside.

According to several valuable sources (B, her mom, and Wikipedia), Mid-Autumn Festival doesn’t mark a significant historical event, like Independence Day, Easter, or my birthday. Instead, with distant origins in moon worship, the modern Chinese holiday is the aggregation of a number of fall-time traditions, such as the end of summer harvest, falling in love, and killing the Mongols.

(photo: children's lanterns and child) Despite this entry’s title, Mid-Autumn Festival is probably most similar to Halloween. Thankfully free of strong Satanic undertones, it involves parents buying their children a lantern (traditionally a paper box with a candle, but now “anything that lights up,” says B), staying up late, and eating deliciously unhealthy snacks. Children’s lanterns, like Halloween costumes, are patterned after classic (fish, rabbits) or popular (Hello Kitty, etc.) figures and usually use LED lights to avoid catching fire. Older kids prefer glow sticks (low quality ones that leak radioactive trails), and teens are too cool for this nonsense. The whole family stays up late to eat mooncakes (main ingredients: lard, sugar, flour, lotus seed paste), play with lanterns, and watch the bad moon risin’. For the easily distracted, it is common (and illegal) to heat candle wax in a mooncake tin until it begins to flame; add any liquid for pyrotechnic effects.


As this was my first Mid-Autumn Festival among people who celebrate it with time off work, B’s mom bought me my first lantern. It was a wheel with lights that could be sent flying up like a helicopter with a hard yank on a string – the perfect lantern for a fussy pre-teen male. I loved it. The night before the Festival, the three of us ventured down to a local park to play with it, and I was the envy of all the twelve-year-old boys (all two of them, since it wasn’t the actual Festival night). (photos: night lights)


To celebrate the actual day of Mid-Autumn Festival, B’s mom booked tickets for dinner and squidding. On the northeastern coast of Hong Kong is Sai Kung, a fishing village well-removed from the MTR lines and hardly comparable to the city’s more developed areas. After a brief stroll down the boardwalk, B, her parents, and I met our trip-mates over a seven-course seafood dinner. The four of us shared a table with two other groups, and the lack of interaction between the three parties ached of the awkward social obligation to speak to someone sharing such close quarters. But B explained that the regular sharing of restaurant tables in Hong Kong releases people from this pressure. I released myself for language reasons. (photo: on the boardwalk, with sea-inspired lanterns)

After dinner we had a few hours to get something cool for dessert before loading up on our boat. After a 15-minute ride we anchored near some outlying islands in the company of at least a dozen identical boats. Each vessel was equipped with bright lights shone directly on the water (to attract the squid?), and its passengers were, it seemed, in the middle of a collective fit. Squidding (squid fishing) involves little more than a line, a hook, a white piece of tubing (for lure), and an irregular jerking motion. Here I would like to make a snide comment about how embarrassing it must be to be taken by a spasmodic piece of steel, but since I caught no squid, well, hmm.

(photo: the full moon and our squidding boat) One slight consolation was that my zero squid tied for best in our party. B grew tired after about an hour and joined her parents on the upper deck to enjoy the night’s ocean breeze. I believe Mr. and Mrs. Liu were the only two on the trip not to drop a hunting line, but with the uncomfortable weather (the hottest Mid-Autumn Festival in 13 years), I think the quiet trade winds were a wise choice over the unrelenting shower of floodlight radiation.

The Christmas lanterns will be gone the next time I drag my sweaty body over to B’s flat, and I won’t have a good excuse to play with my light-up helicopter toy for at least a year. But if all goes well, I’ll have a family, a dog, and tree waiting for me in just a few months.

a new identity?

I haven’t yet decided what kind of blog this will be. Witty and understated? A giggling diary of vanity? Raucously political? Intentionally airy and incomprehensible? An unmaintained waste of webspace?

I suppose the answer lies in the ancient saying: a blog riseth from the soul of the blogger’s projected self. I’ve never met my projected self, but I doubt his soul would be able to pour out any of the above except the last.

I’ve never done this before, so we’ll all have to stay tuned.