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Name: SD
Interests: feet, fonts, friends, fuzzy creatures, festive days, funny sounds, faces from different places, for the lack of a word that starts with an f, catchy music and a good drumbeat
Expertise: nicknaming my wanderful friends
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
2/11/2003
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| these days it really feels like we have a little alien walking around our house. she speaks her own alien language, babbling it everywhere she goes, talking to herself, talking to the dog, talking to inanimate objects, talking at us. she seems to be learning our language though too, sometimes copying me when i yell at the dog to stop barking, "thop! thop!"
she likes to rummage around in our things. she picks things up (or grabs them as we swing her away from things we don't want her getting into) and then very seriously studies them, turning them over and over in her small hands, trying to figure out how things work in our world and what things are used for. it really seems like someone from another planet- like alf without the clear english, strange snout and furry body. sometimes she tries to copy what we do with things like the other day when she watched trevor clip his nails and then later picked up the nailclipper and bent over to put the nailclipper by her little toes.
she watches things we do very closely, studying our intonations and facial expressions, whipping out her own mimicry at will leaving us wondering if we scrunch our eyebrows up like that too. trevor tells her not to throw her food on the floor for the dog, putting his hand to his mouth to sign "eat" instead. now when she throws food to saffron she looks at our disapproving looks and signs "eat."
she starting saying "no" last week on the day that we finally moved. sometimes when she gets really upset she will say "no no no!!" and for those of you linguists out there, she does a retroflex n so it sounds more like "noh" which is pretty cute. her voice changes a lot when she learns our language. her speech sounds sound natural and carefree, flowing like a waterfall out of her mouth, making me afraid of what it will be like when she masters human language and can say whatever is on her mind.
for now, when she tries to talk like us it sounds very forced and funny, like a second-language speaker trying out new sounds. "appo" for "apple" (which might be a peach, or an onion,) "ack" for "look," "uck" for "hug," "duk" for "duck," "dogh" (unrealeased g) for "dog" (which could mean a dog, cat, bear, cow,) "kak" for "cracker," approximate "hi" and "bye." sometime her register gets especially high like with apple or bye, but sometimes really low like with dog. the words are spoken in a choppy way, but she's learning and practicing new ones every day.
we have one more day with her all to ourselves before she goes out into the big world and begins attending childcare regularly while i do school and trevor works in the office. it will get harder and harder to trace the actions and reactions she does back to the things we do or teach her (or the things that our friends or family did or taught her.)
our little alien is growing into a little person right before our eyes-- and it's amazing.
 (
(these pictures are not current at all, but they will have to do as placeholders for now since all pictures after this (around her 7 mo) were downloaded onto trevor's computer. still, she does make mostly the same faces she made when she was real leetle plus some.)
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| Trevor, Emy, KK, and Mike Ling ran the San Diego Blood Bank 5K yesterday down by Seaport Village. They said it was a gorgeous view and though it was unusually humid, it was a good race.
Afterwards, the guys changed into clean, dry shirts while standing around and KK found himself staring at Trevor while he changed.
KK: I'm staring at your chest hair.
(Almost awkward moment.)
KK: I think I have chest hair envy.
Mike: Give us some.
Me: LOL
KK: I think I have like one chest hair.
(KK and Mike proceed to pull up their shirts to look for chest hair.)
KK: (laughing) I think my neck started to cramp from looking down.
Mike: (laughing like a muppet)
This is the second time Trevor has had a funny hair interchange with Chinese guys. I think it's especially hilarious because guys with hairy chests often wax or shave their chests to get the hairless look. Yet another example of how we always want what we don't have. | | |
| people: come on, andrew (to andrew chang) what kind of girl do you like?
trevor: like a shannon-type?
shannon: please onatde, usete my name (or whatever pig-latinish things she said. i clearly don't know pig latin.)
trevor: ok, like a cindy-type, or estella-type...
annette: what are you speaking, shannon, is that...that, piggy language?
me to daniel: daniel, man, you gotta cut your hair! several times today i saw you and thought you were a girl.
daniel: i know, i know.
dave watson: hey, he looks like michael jackson.
daniel: yeah, it's my michael jackson tribute hair.
(just now)
trevor walks behind me carrying my laptop.
trevor: careful not to trip on this cord. (as he pulls cord across the floor and puts laptop down.)
walking behind me he totally trips over the cord he just laid down.
me: LOL | | |
| This decade has been an incredible decade of moves. I moved back to San Diego from college in Irvine, I moved into an apartment in La Jolla with Mary Ann and Tomoko, I moved to Dallas, I traveled back and forth from Dallas to San Diego several times, I returned to Dallas to plan my wedding, I moved back out to Dallas as a newlywed so Trevor could finish school and we could look for an assignment, we moved out of there to travel around and say our goodbyes before we took an assignment in Southern Asia, we moved all over that very populated city in that lentil-laden country before moving back to San Diego to focus on health where we moved three more times before last year we came to live in the apartment we are in now- a dog-friendly place with two bedrooms to accomodate the baby that was coming that next month.
There is now road construction every day right next to our apartment building. Evidence that the 15 is being widened to accommodate more traffic, the growing pains are accutely felt as we watch the wall being built closer to our street meaning car traffic will be closer to our living space. The construction dust leaves a thick layer over all our cars and the cones, dug up street, and big equipment take up precious street parking that all of us hate to see lost.
There is an unsettling-ness to the hard hats hanging off of half-built walls and huge cranes hanging above menacingly while we try to weave beneath them in the tight, war-torn street that leads away from our home. But it also makes me kind of excited-- I like the feeling that something new is happening and change is afoot.
I am reminded that though things look like a huge mess that will never end (all this freeway construction really does seem never-ending) and though it sometimes seems like things are just getting more wrecked for worse rather than better, there really will be a nice difference, a more favorable outcome in the end.
And so it is with my life. This decade that I just lived through was like a huge construction project, and though I had had high hopes that certain bridges and byways would have more progress by now, and have had major disappointment by the pitfalls and dead-ends in some of my roadwork, I have also been very pleasantly surprised in many other new paths that have been formed.
I'm certainly not finished but I'm not stunted either, and I think that the fear I had last year of the unknown potentially holding more scary bad stuff has sort of given way to the hope that my good God uses all things to perfect those that He loves.
One thing I do know, this milestone really doesn't seem as old as it used to.
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| yes, i am an insomniac.
but tonight, ah, tonight i am a productive insomniac. after being on a total roll in getting ready for this trip i started hunting for one very self-indulgent packing item from the past. more on that later. maybe.
anyway, i totally found what i was looking for, but i also found a lot, LOT more. there are a bunch of boxes stacked in one of our closets that are filled with things, mostly paper, from my past. i have been taking these boxes, a few at a time, from my parents' house, always with the good intentions to clear them out. of course, i haven't.
but tonight, rather than being a ridiculous burden on my being, i found it delight and embarrassing to read through some of my old notebooks with it's little scribbles. they cracked me up.
so i want to endeavor to start a long-running series unearthing these old notes, and talking them through on xanga, part self-reflection, part self-disclosure, part for posterity, and in part to work through some of those awkward years trying to make sense of them and maybe even show me that i've come... well, somewhere.
ooh, which warrants a tangent to an encounter at target today. i ran a bunch of errands today, and the first one was to buy some baby supplies. as i was paying for my items the nice, older, african-american lady behind the counter looked at my purchase and then asked me with a kind of innocent curiosity, "are you a mommy?"
to which i answered, "yes, i am," as i thought about asha. i was surprised at how unphased i felt in answering. i guess i'm finally used to it. it was pleasant.
then she said, sincerely, "girl! you look like you're twelve!"
both of us were a bit surprised at each other, i think, but i managed to smile and stammer, "well... thank you!" as i stuffed my credit card and receipt a bit nervously into my bag. then i went on to say, "i'm turning 30 this year." i emphasized the *thirty*. she gasped in honest shock, catching it with her hand over her mouth, and stumbling over her response, "you... there's no way, you don't look..." it was pretty funny. i nodded, "in april." as though saying the month would really hit it home and make it real, or something. as i started to leave she said something like, "just keep doin' like you're doin' and you'll just look fine as you get older!!"
i beamed as i walked out the door, feeling like a teenager who someone doesn't believe is old enough to drive, and yet is on her own! outside! shopping at a store by herself! look at her victoriously bringing her spoils to the car she drove by her very own self!
anyway, i think it wasn't that i felt flattered that she thought i was younger than i am, but maybe that i've been feeling like the last year or so i went from running in place to running in place but moving backwards. it's been more than a little frustrating to feel like my youth is slowly evaporating and feeling like i have nothing to show for it. and not in a showing off sort of way, but more like a--- i've actually been doing something with my life--- sort of way. rather than having dissolved into a puddle of unrealized dreams.
and that wonderful, beautiful woman tonight, she made me smile, and feel really human. she smiled at me and talked to me in the store so that i felt like i was having a fun, spontaneous conversation with another person instead of a cold exchange of money and goods, and we were able to rise above our situation to enjoy a connection. (i clearly don't need to tell you that that makes an extrovert very, very happy.)
but also, she made me feel like i had accomplished something. without explicitly saying it she seemed proud of me or impressed that i had become a mother when still so young. and that even though i see my creeping age and feel like nothing is going on in my life, that things are just dormant and that i am standing still while life is passing me by-- it's not really like that. and strangely, that's not how God sees it. and He hasn't forsaken me. even if i'm waiting for the fulfillment of some sort of strange, unknown destiny that i felt i was given a peek at when maybe a bit too young to understand it.
and i know that xanga is only as dead as we let it get, but i can't write much anything good unless those old winds of winsome words comes to tickle my ears with inspiration. right now i'm feeling that old sparkle in my eyes as though God has granted me the joy of His Presence for just this early morning moment...
and yes, i guess this is when i feel God's pleasure. it's not when i'm in school, or when i'm playing the piano, or running... ick, those are all things that i felt miserably like i was lead skating on water. no, i've felt the spark of the Divine in late-into-the-night-into-early-morning conversations with people where time just disappeared, and when i feel so inspired that i can't stop working, or when i just have words and thoughts and ideas that feel like they can't be held down or back, and they make me simply want to grab a pen or pencil and paper or computer with any writing capability and just write and write and write to get it all out.
so you can see why i've felt a bit blah for a long time and haven't written much of anything. i've had nothing to say.
and i know i'll probably fall asleep soon and wake up groggy and dispassionate, remembering tonight and how alive i felt for a moment, though i'll be completely unable to really fathom or feel it. but at least i'll have this post to remind me of the drugless high that i am sometimes privy to on this earth.
but, i digress.
you thought i forgot about my wonderful (still embarrassing) find. no, no, no. not possible as it sits right next to my wrist. so without further ado i bring you my first installment from what i'll call "The Big Glasses Vault."
now you see, before i was officially voted as the best handwriting in the world, (cindy T, i want you to know that i do completely realized my very liberal use of the bold and italic functions, it is duly noted, and yet i pretty much don't care because it is 4am and i'm excited), i was just your average nasty-handwriting kid that couldn't seem to shake the old cursive curse. i felt like i had to play by the rules for a long time, and so it's understandable that i might have some nasty-awkward-dressing-jr. high-like moments as i try to work myself into my own style.
(personally, i think hit my stride somewhere towards the end of college, and then i got a bit too experimental and now it's kinda morphed into something a bit less appealing. but that's just my opinion. and candy is rolling her eyes right now because she thinks i'm being falsely modest.)
so here, i'm posting a scan of the first thing i opened up to in one of these old notebooks. this one, i'll cleverly call it "writing tablet 100, ruled sheets" has a bunch of various samples from various years, but this one looks earlier than the others. someone good with math and deductive reasoning skills (and more coherency than i have after being awake for almost 20 hours straight) can probably pretty accurately figure out when i wrote this better than i, so i'll leave it to you to do so. i'll also transcribe it afterwards with a few comments.
Here's the transcription in bold: (my notes will be made in brackets on the side)
A Typical conversation Might be
Shan- So I can't go --> softball practice [the curvy arrow was my own shorthand for "to". how strange to be reminded as i try to transcribe this and wondering what that sentence would be.]
Sim- No!
Shan- Why not?
Sim- I'm going to play softball. [up until this line i thought i had just found a transcription of a real conversation. when i hit this line about softball i realized that this was either fiction i wrote, or at least that it was only loosely based on reality, like maybe this conversation happened, but it was actually about soccer, and my insertion of "softball" was just to make it look like i had made it up.]
Shan- So why am I going?
Sim- That's what I'd like to know [my handwriting gets really messy at the end of this line which makes me wonder what was going on, was I writing in the car? that happened sometimes.]
Sam- Oh yeah, Shannon really seems like the softball type [for whatever reason, i was pretty surprised by my sudden entrance to the conversation. doesn't it somehow seem like just simon and shannon were talking? and it's interesting that i spelled shann's name with just one "n" at this point. just a hint for the detectives.]
(Glare from Shan)
Shan- Shut up.
Sam- What's that supposed to mean
[hilarious. as awkward and stilted as this is, it actually probably is a good representation of a "typical conversation" from back then. but 'sim and shan' will have to give their opinion on this.]
OR
Mom-I heard that Sally's joining YG.
Dad- Sally? Really?
Mom- They were worried that she was too small.
Dad- Small? She's not that small.
Mom- I said that it usually takes about 6 mos. for someone to get used to being in the group. [it looks like this is from the days when my parents were helping to lead youth group at the inception of cbc youth group.]
Sam- six months!
Sim- It's so weird. Sally & Kevin both don't look anything like their mom.
Shan- Not uh! Kevin look like his dad!
yay for the surprise ending. which is strangely very much a snapshot of our family's conversations back in the day. and maybe now a little bit too. it just really made me reminisce about 'D-O-W dow' days.
well, that's it for the first installment of Big Glasses Speaks. until next time,
( )-( )
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