Of Monsters and Zhu Zhu pets

Julia's ultimate bedtime story these days has been that of her favorite zhu zhu pets who are either attacked by a monster or Doc Oc and are saved by Spiderman. So needless to say, her drawing requests have also been of her zhu zhu pets trapped by a monster's net or are being chased by a monster. I'm pretty glad oil pastels could easily produce the bright colors that suited her imagination. In this particular exercise, I learned that I liked having a limited color palette better than having a wide variety of colors. Simplicity and bare spaces attract me.

Pictures from the Lantern Festival

 

 

 

Face and Maira Kalman

I used to think that drawing people's faces was the easiest thing to do. That was when I was still in grade school and most of my classroom doodles were of girl faces. That's not the case now unfortunately. I believe that the best watercolor painting I did was of a child's face basked in sunlight. I did it back when I was in college, during one of those hot summer breaks when I had nothing else to do and glad that I could get away from studying numbers for a while. I then gave it to my college boyfriend. Now, I wish I could have it back, as I have quite fond memories of it and that memory serves to inspire and remind me still that it is entirely possible that I could do a nice full watercolor painting of people. It took me two months to make it. I remember waking up everyday and greeting it in the morning before I start and lovingly gaze at it before I fall asleep. By the end of the two months, I felt like she was my "child". That's the thing with drawing or painting, because of the time we spend on it, delicately placing each line and color on a blank page, it sinks in deeper into our subcosncious so that when we see or imagine it later, it brings out a lot of feelings and memories of the time when we were making it.

I hope to go back to painting people and be really good at it. Below is a quick watercolor sketch of a face I did the other day. Unlike that two month portrait I made in college, this one was made in under an hour. That's one thing I like about watercolors, one can do quick colored sketches with it which is ideal for moms of four year olds. I think I'd prefer to have it more abstract or impressionistic next time. Like maybe just some blotches of color here and there to give an impression of a face or person. The background color is permanent rose which is one of my favorites. I got my inspiration on this from Maira Kalman's children's book illustrations. (You could type her name in google and see the many images of her illustrations that come up. ) I find Maira's illustrations playful, colorful and free flowing, which I like very much. I enjoy her children's books (e.g. Chicken Soup, Boots, Grand Central and Fireboat) much more than her "adult" books (Principles of Uncertainty), mainly because I could understand the point of the stories much better!

Some books of Maira Kalman that I borrowed from the library..

Day off with Julia

I got a day off from work so Julia and I had our lunch out in our favorite japanese place. We splurged on our favorite roe makis: masago (smelt roe), tobiko (flying fish roe), ikura (salmon roe). Yum! yum!

Did I say it was our favorite? :)

Mindfulness

Sometimes when we're not looking, great things pass us by.

Making Raspberry Jam

A Small Patch of Heaven

This small space in front of our house used to be barren and filled with dried leaves and weeds. Early this year, I started to plant anything that my friends/friendly strangers gave me and cuttings/flower seeds Julia and I pick up in our walks. It's astonishing how they have all grown and blossomed throughout the summer. This small patch now gives me a lot of joy when I come home everyday. It is like a collection of living remembrances. Almost each one has a story of its own. It's a patch of good memories.

Tourist lane

One thing about living in a city where tourists flock in every year is that you often hear the locals commenting about how slow the tourists walk (a fact that frustrates many specially when they are going about their non-touristy business like maybe dashing for their moring coffee before their morning meetings). For me in particular, I love tourists. I enjoy watching them, eavesdropping sometimes in their conversations as I pass by, wondering where they are from and looking at what they are taking pictures of, to name a few. It amuses me to see the things that amuse them too.They just add vibrancy to the community. But unfortunately, their pace can be an issue for some locals and this video is deemed by many here at my workplace, as a neat idea that may solve their tourist woes. The idea cracked me up.
Here's the full article.

Clues for Parents

It isn’t easy being a parent. I still remember not too long ago, the helplessness I felt when the nurse plumped the squirming bundle on my hands and to my utmost horror, left the room. That was about four years ago, since then, I could say that I have improved…a lot I think. But even then, each day undoubtedly still brings me my lessons in this parenting 101 class that anyone who has a child in this world have (willingly or unwillingly) signed in. I bet I still have a lot to learn and I'm taking it a page at a time. This past month, I did get to peg down one lesson I am thankful I got. And the lesson is this: Watch for the clues. Closely. If I need help on figuring out what to do as a parent, I need to pay attention to the clues my child is giving me. In her own way, in her own language, in a form that I need to learn to speak and understand.

As with most parenting advice, this is quite logical and pretty obvious but as I have realized, knowledge doesn't necessarily translate to application. Not always. Not immediately. It takes time and a deeper realization to sink it in, not to mention a widened neural pathway that remembers to use it at the right moment and right time amidst the high pitched and often dizzying chaos of a pre-schooler's world.

For me the realization got cemented, when my husband told me of a recent incident of a friend of his, who has a four year old son as well. Early this year, she had enrolled him for pre-school mainly because she was influenced by her cousin who told her about all the good things that pre-school had done for her son. His friend's mom was against it as she saw that the child was still not ready for school. However, his friend went and enrolled him anyway. Now, they’re having problems in getting the child to go to school. He doesn't want to. After weeks of transition, he still is not getting the hang of it and only got worst with time.

As my husband and I talked about it, we realized the great importance of knowing one's child and having the confidence, as a parent, to know when you'd bend in to external influences and when you'd rather follow your instincts and judgment instead. It is never easy.

With Julia, what I found challenging these days is in knowing what I need to be teaching her and when. In an ideal world, I'd like to dump her with all my/and the world's knowledge (and whatever wisdom I've gained over the years) as soon as and as much as I can. Isn't it every parent's dream of having child prodigies of their own after all? But that isn’t how it works though. Everything takes their time. Prodigy or not, as a parent, I realized I needed to keep the balance; the balance between having the string too tight and too relaxed, between too much stimulation and too little, between total freedom and choking limitations. Where that balance is depends mostly on Julia. And so I have to watch for the clues. Like Sherlock. My ears peak when I hear a phrase that she mentions out of the blue or sentences she utters just before she goes to sleep or after waking up. I watch her every move to see any change in interest. I constantly learn the art of parental interrogation to get through the invincible wall of "nothingness" - What did you do at daycare today? "nothing." Did you go somewhere? "no." What did you eat? "nothing." I learned to pick clues from anything printed that she brings with her when she gets home from daycare, studying them and doing some "experiments" to prove or disprove a hypothesis, I research existing literature and eventually come up with theories which I then validate. Parenting, sometimes it feels like doing scientific studies or solving mysteries. Much much more than that actually, as it is different with children. Our heart hangs out there.

Nowadays, I very much depend on the clues she gives me. Nowadays, she's scribbling a lot. She scribbles mazes, figures, shapes, and letters. She forms the letters into alien words which she asks me to read (and which I have great trouble reading). See picture. But I figured, maybe this is one of those clues - that she may actually be ready to spell, write words and read simple ones. (I didn’t think that it would come this soon. I thought this would come in kindergarten or much later.) So even though I was sounding like an alien from Mars, I read her strange words for the sound. Maybe this is where the concept of phonics started…with children writing the language of aliens.

And so with that theory, while she is concocting her own words, I slotted in words from planet earth which I asked her to write and read too. It's a two way street after all.

There is never a single way to learn; no single path to an end. The best path is one that suits the parent and the child. All we have to do is figure out the clues and go from there.

A visit at the Ocean Discovery Centre

     Exploring our world.

Seed

I found a book at the library which captivated my attention. The book was titled "The Bizarre and Incredible World of Plants" by Stuppy, Kesseler and Harley. I love it when science meets art. The scanning electrom micrograph images which have been artistically enhanced with color by artist Rob Kesseler were a rare visual treat. One could never have imagined seeing these shapes and forms to be present here on earth. That's the beauty of seeing things at the microscopic level. It just fascinates me. I use to spend a whole lot of time on scanning electron microscopes years ago, studying non-living materials and not plants however, but still it always fascinated me how things look like seen under those powerful microscopes and how they would go on and change into other forms without us noticing them for most of the time. A scientist on TV have postulated that if there is going to be another catastrophe on earth, similar to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, it would be these tiniest of living things, the algae, bacteria, plants; who would survive. Mainly because they could tolerate a wider spectrum of environmental conditions than humans do. They could survive higher temperatures for one. And from the book, I was amazed to learn about the many sophisticated ways of reproduction and adaptation that plants have developed and evolved over thousands of years, for the sole purpose of ensuring the survival of their species.... Makes one think about our own evolution and quest for survival. 

Below is a drawing I made of a seed from the book, colored with watercolor.

Two in One

For the past months I have strangely felt that I have two selves. One which I suspected was dominated by my right brain, and kicks in whenever I have at least two consecutive days of vacation. It would have me either writing, drawing, or painting; as I would tend to feel sensitive to the energy and connections that surround me and it overwhelms me not to express them in some form. On these days, I would fill my journal with pages of scribbles, poems and words or just sit down with my cup of tea and wonder in amazement how wonderful the world is or how I finally get things that have been eluding me before. In these days, I feel such peacefulness and calm that if I had the third day off, I'd spend it sitting near the river or harbor just watching boats, planes and people pass by and everything feels as they should be.

But then all these would be lost after I go back to work, where work is nowhere near paints and pens. That's when my second self would kick in. I could feel myself turning into a highly logical and analytic machine, being capable of working out formulas, numbers, and discussing theories for the whole day or till my computer crashes from the many statistical and analytical softwares I got opened at the same time. And I would feel segmented and disconnected from the state that I was.This had been in my thoughts for the past weeks as I alternated between days of vacation and work since last June. It felt like there was a switch button that turns it on and off to the point that the scientific part of me have began thinking of ways in which I could experiment in prolonging my right brained state of being - the one who writes, draws, paints and feels one with the world.

I thought it was a crazy idea. One which would just go away, like a dream, after I've spent all of my vacation leaves and would go back to working all week. So imagine my surprise (and delight) when I saw this video. I couldn't believe the serendipity of finding this one given what my thoughts were. To realize that it wasn't a crazy thought after all. That there is such a thing as two "selves" (the more un-crazy term being "two halves of the brain") in one. That there is a scientific explanation for the two totally different states of mind I was experiencing. And that there is such a thing as us having the choice to be in one - if we wanted to.
It is amazing. It is life changing. It is worth the 18 minutes of watching.



If the video doesn't work, you can also go to this site: http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php

"He's just not that into you"

Last week, during my regular friday walk with a close friend at work, she told me she had broken up with her boyfriend of 5 months. Having been with her since I started working here in Canada more than two years ago and having witnessed the struggles she had gone through in finding this nice guy five months ago, I was devastated for her to say the least. She is the best person there is to have in a partner. How could the world not give her what she deserves? I could feel her sadness. I also remembered how lonely it felt to be in this circumstance. I couldn't sleep last night and so turned to watch a late night movie on tv.

On any other day, I would have ignored this movie. The title alone didn't sound appealing to me. Aside from the lack of "poetry", it gives me visions of women crying and getting dumped and somehow through that it has comedy mixed into it. I thought, "why would anyone want to see a movie that tells them the person they most want aren't into them?" And then find anything in that funny. But since this was a night of heartache, I thought I'd watch it. Also seeing the many famous actors in one movie peaked my interest. There were Drew Barymore and Jennnifer Connely as well as Aniston. (And even though Ben Affleck was in, I figured I could tolerate him for now with all these great girls around.) The movie started out as per my low expectation, a bit patchy, a bit on the cheesy side, trying too hard to be humorous while trying to be smart at the same time, and somewhat segmented as about four different stories were unfolded all at the same time. Also it didn't help that they kept having a slideshow suddenly pop up in between scenes mentioning a phrase which summarizies the scenes earlier and pointing out how one could tell if they are not into you and then a commentary of a supposedly real person (not part of the stories) follows, before it goes back to continue the movie again.

One of the main characters was also a semi-obsessive partner seeker and prone to over analyzing little things and so there were a lot of scenes where I found myself cringing because it placed the character in awkward situations which if I was in her shoes, I could imagine myself not going out of my room for months. Yes, it was uncomfortable to watch.

But and a big BUT, they were mostly true. And real.

By the time the second slideshow/commentary came in, I found myself enjoying it. the And then to my utmost surprise, I began liking the character I initially disliked the most. And best of all, I liked the ending very much. I won't spoil it by talking about the details but it is the kind of ending that gives a nice "closure" to the many stories within the movie. (And if you stayed a little bit more after the movie credits come up, they even show some post interviews of the couples which added I found very delightful as well.) And because it had many mini- stories within it, the movie was able to depict love (and relationships) with its many faces, the happy ones and the not so happy ones. Just like in real life. In this sense it felt like the movie was fully packed, with a lot of wisdom and humor. I also quite liked how simple things in our daily life could mean everything when seen at a right time and right mind like when Jennifer sees her ex-partner washing the dishes at the most critical time that she needed help and how that could change everything and make one realize that sometimes we already have what we want in life. As a whole I quite liked this movie. I had fun watching it. So if ever you find this one free on tv like I did, don't be put off by the title, it's a nice movie about finding love in this modern day and the realities within our most important relationships. My initial perceptions about this movie was totally wrong. The movie is deeper than the title might suggest otherwise.

And maybe after you watch it, you could then watch this teaser that some of the actors made for the movie. I think it may be best to watch this after you've seen the movie - when you've gotten to know the actors as their movie characters and not in this goofy way, but...on the other hand, it is quite funny. :)

Random Stuff

It's the season for cherries! For someone coming from a country where the only cherries I know come in the form of expensive bottled artificial looking ones used to top cakes or that of the distasteful flavor they put in cough syrups, I find fresh cherries surprisingly tasty, affordable and refreshing. It is fast becoming one of my favorite fruits.

It is summer finally! And the harbor docks are packed! I sure wish I could just sit around all day like this lady.

It is a bit odd to see people picnicking just behind one's backyard.



I have been learning to use the moviemaker application lately (which explains why my previous posts mostly contained videos) and this is one use of it that I quite like too! (although I feel it might be better if the words were a bit bigger and the page turning a bit slower for me to appreciate the pictures more)

Edward Hopper

I first saw one of Edward Hooper's work in the Chicago art museum. It was his painting of a couple in a dinner late at night. My bestfriend whom I was with commented that the painting was so lonely. It did feel that way to me too. But I was struck at how he could elicit that feeling of "loneliness" through his paintings; surrounding a lighted area with either darkness, uninhabited spaces, walls or forests. In a book I borrowed from the library, I found that he also uses roads in a "lonely" kind of way, having them lead to nowhere or are have them barren or filled with a lot of overgrowing grass. In his simple painting of a woman below, I am struck at how much he could achieve with just variety of colors.

Cool planter box

In Victoria these days, there is much talk (and marketing) about being eco-friendly, environmentally friendly and all that good stuff and from the myriad of topics that fall under these is the increasing trend of growing one's own food. Yes, it is now really "cool" to be planting your own vegetables and crops and being self-sustainable. I feel the slow mass movement towards this in the group of people I know. And so I am finally giving in and am going to attempt to become "cool' myself. Never mind the most likely insect problems that I would have, never mind the daily tending and watering and the most likely heartbreak in seeing them wither in winter. I thought it was worth a try, on a small scale at least. (The smaller the risk, the smaller the pain of failure, I suppose.) So I bought a planter box that I'd place in our patio (as it is nearer to the kitchen and would be easy for me to water daily). I plan to plant herbs and lettuces for now. The hardy ones for sure, aside from the fact that they're the type of herbs we use a lot. Rosemary, oregano, fennel/dill and lettuce. (I'm keeping my goals small although I know I'm being a lot more ambitious with the lettuce but it is what I'd like to eat daily so it's worth experimenting.) And I'm planting the leftover old potatoes directly on the ground in the backyard. I figured that if I could successfully grow these "hardy" stuff, then maybe I could someday grow the more finicky ones like basil, coriander, and tomatoes.

I painted the planter box sea blue. This shade of blue reminds me a lot of a beach house in Scandinavia for some reason. Not that I have been in Scandinavia. Just looking at it transports me to a nordic place or a more peaceful place like heaven maybe. I could hug this color to death. It is amazing how much color, if it is the right one that matches you, can make a lot of difference to how you feel about your day. This one does it for me. Not to mention that I figured I needed a back-up plan; being that in the the high likelihood that all my herbs would die on me, at least I have a nice empty planter box to look at.

Thoughts on Blogging

These days I feel like blogging is a hole in the kettle which lets out the steam that is building inside. And that is good as we don't want to end up spewing ourselves all over the place. However I realized that there are instances where I need that steam to build up.. so I could use it to "power" something else..like in a steam engine, like in powering up my dream to write and illustrate a book. In this sense, blogging becomes something that I shouldn't be spending my limited waking time on. At least that is how I feel these days when I am struggling to squeeze in working out the first pages of what I think would be my first book.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all the "noise" and information available to me everyday. And I wonder, why would I add to that?

At other times, I want to change the world.

Afternoon Delight

On my way home last friday, I saw this couple dressed up formally, playing their string instruments on the harbor sidewalk as if they were playing in some grand music hall. They definitely elevated my definition of street musicians. And it was such a delight to be listening to the violin and cello (my two favorite string instruments), by the waters on a friday afternoon. I hope they come and play again. I love musicians. They add happiness to an otherwise bland existence. Bless their generous and artistic hearts.

Seagulls

It's always mesmerizing to see a flock of birds gliding up in the air. These seagulls, viewed through my office window, looked larger in real life than in film.
The seagulls are on the move.
The Canada geese have come back from their migration south of the globe.
The ducklings have hatched and are following their parents all around the park.
Everything is stirring.
Summer, here we come!

Book Sale

Last Sunday, I went with a friend to a library book sale that is held three times a year. What is unique about this booksale is that since it is done by the Greater Victoria Public Library, its' purposes are to generate funds (instead of making profits) and to get rid of used books from all the libraries in Greater Victoria so they could replenish their shelves with newer books. It was a two day booksale and on the last day, at 1:30pm-3:00pm, instead of pricing the books individually, for these last hour and a half, they charge $5 for entrance and you can carry ALL the books you could possibly carry out within that one and a half hours.

I have been to eat all you can and drink all you can events but nothing compares to the carry-all-the-books-you-can-for-$5 experience. My friend Deb and her friend. Nadine, are "seasoned" book sale hunters, for them, this is a hunting  (and social) event they book in their calendars every year and they definitely have the entire process down to a pat. First we started with an eat all you can lunch, where we stuffed ourselves up to the brim (it was definitely a day of gluttony) before going to the afternoon booksale at 2:00pm till 3:00pm and then we carried our haul to Nadine's place where she had bowls of cleaning solutions ready for us to use and then for the next hours, we clean and talk about the books that each one of us have hauled over. As a newbee, I had wondered why we had to spend a lot more time (from 12pm -2:00pm) in our lunch going to an eat all you can place instead of the faster order type lunches and hurrying up to the booksale. As it turns out, I realized later there was a method to my friend's "madness". And it's mainly because during that one hour, that we spend actually being in the booksale, I could honestly say that I have lost every calorie (and more) that I ever have gotten from all that stuff that I ate earlier. I had expended so much energy  within that hour between physcially carrying my haul and putting them in the car for a relaod and going back again (and again), and mentally scanning the thousands of books and screening which ones I'd shove in my bags or boxes within a second (all the while having high levels of adrenaline pumped into my system whenever I chance upon books I really really liked). It was like being in a reality show. And I was actually glad there was a limit of one hour or else I would have broken my back carrying those heavy loads or Deb's car would have flat tires from all that weight we were stuffing into it. 

I realized that there is a big difference between buying books individually versus paying for the entrance fee and carrying all you can. In the former, we are in a way forced to scrutinize each book and weigh it against how much we are willing to pay for our perception of its value. In the latter, money never crosses my mind, the main pre-occupation was in scanning and loading as much as I can, and it is my bad back that is on top of my mind. It definitely was more enjoyable to pick up books and in a split second decide if you push it down your bag or move on. And after all that hauling, you already forget which books you have picked up but then get to savor them (with intense pleasure) when you are cleaning them individually later and getting surprised at seeing books which make you wonder whatever reason had made you pick them up in the first place. And this is quite a significant thing, because I have picked up a lot of books in my haul which had topics I never would have looked at or bought if I was buying the books individually. And I am learning a lot of new things outside of my normal zone because of it.

For this round, I have limited my selection to children's books. Mainly because I ran out of time before I could even go to the adult section. So I have this big piles of children's books (the lady kept giving me empty boxes to fill), waiting for me to explore and savor every night, for days....till the next book sale comes. All these for $5 bucks. Makes me re-think the value I put in five dollars. It is equal to a cup of coffee and a muffin I consume in a morning.

Maybe in my future blog entries, I'll do some children's book reviews on the books I got from the booksale. I rarely buy children's books as I could easily borrow them from the library. However, after knowing about this booksale, I definitely am starting my collection of used children's books. I already got a bunch of old fairytale/folktale books from countries I have not heard of. And I tingle with excitement whenever I read them late at night and get transported to old far away lands rich in myths and ancient folklores where candles were still the order of the day. It is an adventure on its own. A nice refuge after a day at work, overloading my head with numbers and the issues of the modern day world.

Explore your libraries. You never know the wonders you will find.

                                                           My Haul of Children's Books

And so I've discovered pen and ink

On the bus last week,  a woman (in her fifties maybe) was sitting at a 45 degree angle to the side of me reading what looked like an art book. I saw glimpses of sketches and handwritten things on pages which instantly caught my eye. Fortunately, she lifted the book just enough for me to make out the title, "An Illustrated Life". I thought that was a nice title and then looked it up in the internet and found it had good reviews. I ended up buying it this weekend and had been reading it since yesterday. It got lots of nice hand drawn watercolor, pen, pencil, colored pencil drawings/paintings mostly on sketchbooks from different artists. It talks about journalling but instead of using mostly words or the newer version of journalling which makes use of collages or scrapbooking, the type of documenting this book talks about are ones which mostly contain intricate drawings/paintings/doodles with some words written on the sides. It is journalling by artists and looks at the artists' sketchbooks instead of their more formal works. It is a different kind of artform in itself. More personal, unedited and raw. Overall, it inspired me to document things I encounter in my everyday life. (I already am doing it once a week on average, obviously not as often as these artists do. They do it almost everyday!)  It just feels right to me and gives me the opportunity to reflect on things which otherwise would get blurred in the hustle and bustle of everyday rush. It almost is similar to praying. As one artist in the book said (Peter Arkle), " If you make a drawing, you remember much more than if you take a photo.

Here is the blog of the book's author - Danny Gregory, which is quite inspiring on its' own as well.

While reading through the book, I did find myself yearning for much more than what the book had. Although it contained numerous examples from different artists which gave me lots of ideas, after a while, I had hoped to find some more substance or story somewhere in the drawings, instead of going through a lot of fragmented examples all throughout. Maybe it's a different book altogether that I need to read or a zine perhaps. I hope graphic novels or maybe these sketchbooks someday would soon evolve into illustrated storybooks for adults. Much like children's books with all the beautiful illustrations but which tackle more mature topics.

One thing I got from the book is that it made me experiment using pen and ink with my watercolor sketches. Here I tried the steel tip nib with plastic holder and black acrylic ink. Not having gone to art school, I have long been wondering how those comic type drawings were achieved, and now I realized, they may have used these nib pens or some other caligraphic pens and not necessarily brushes. It is quite addictive to use. I could easily find myself getting lost in making crosshatches all over my drawing. It is calming to be marking out line after line after line. I had liked the erie feeling of the crosshatches found in Edward Gorey's work anyway. It is quite nice to try something new and finding out I'm liking it... now I just need a story.

Moonstruck

I find it hard to blog these days. Maybe because my mind have been quite preoccupied with work and whatever is left at the end of the day, I spend mostly playing with Julia. Not that I'm complaining but I do miss having some quiet time for myself. That's the struggle of most working moms I guess. However, I do have a really COOL picture to share. Considering that I took it by putting my point and shoot camera over the eyepiece of a $50 telescope, it was a stroke of big luck to even get a decent picture that at least resembled the real thing. Yes, it is the picture of the moon. Our beloved 4.6 billion years old (according to NASA) moon which shines upon us on cloudless nights and have inspired thousands of people for ages. To finally be able to see it myself, for real,  in more detail, and see the dark and light spots and the circular structures on its surface, felt so amazing. (It looked clearer through the telescope than the picture below). This must have been what Galileo have seen. I am awed by that the thought; that I am looking at the same thing someone had looked at several hundreds years ago. Now I could say Galileo and I have something in common. :) ...4.6 billion years..that is very old. My lifespan is nothing compared to it. Someday I will die and my bones will crumble away and the moon would still be there. Shining. It is a humbling thought.

MukMuk and friends

Another one of Julia's stuffy-on-face pictures..Mukmuk is one of the mascots in the Vacouver 2010 winter olympics. Further below is the styrofoam/cardboard box house we made for him and his friends. It's looking like a stuffy dormitory complete with gumball machine and a picnic table filled with goodies. It even has an upper deck where hippie kitty likes to "perch" and the unwanted dorm crasher "Octo" jams around. I enjoyed making the origami boxes for the tiniest ones. It's quite a neat way to organize tiny creeters, don't you think?

Gift in the Mail

This arrived in the mail the other day. A thank you gift given by ICA (Inter Cultural Association) for a talk I gave in one of their immigrant programs a month ago. They are quite a nice bunch of people, and they have a tough job helping immigrants settle, integrate, and find jobs. Sometimes I feel guilty for helping a little but not helping a lot..the world is full of people in need. A lot of people are silently suffering. I admire people who spend every day of their lives giving themselves to others. It is amazing how they even find the time to show this simple and well thought of gesture of saying thank you.

A Good Day

I had a good day today. For maybe the first time I had a small feeling of being at home here in Canada. I always have felt like I'm a stranger here, even after two years since we immigrated. Maybe because I haven't really been socializing much. I didn't feel I needed to. And even today, on my good day, we spent most of it at home. Cooked pancakes for breakfast, let Julia loose in the front yard and watched her collect cherry blossom petals from the street and re-planting them in a patch on our frontyard, rearranging the patio and hanging some pansies, cutting the grass in the backyard, playing badminton with Chris and having Julia as our net in the middle, having pizza and ice cream in the patio and then cooking dinner which was halibut fish simmered in ginger and soy sauce (my mom used to cook this for me). It is a day without much fancy stuff and filled with what we almost do everyday, nothing special. Yet it is a day which reminded me a lot of what I have felt back home.

Back home where the kitchen smells of sauted onions and ginger, where the dogs are barking at people passing by, where nothing much happens, just playing around with the leaves gathered from empty lots, walking with a stick in hand and wacking at almost any surface, and most of the time I'd just wait for mom to come home. Her presence in the house always made a difference. Today reminded me a lot of my childhood. And I find it amazing how much of my memories of it are of tiny, uneventful stuff.

My mind doesn't remember much of the details but if there is a "feeling" memory, I remember what I felt quite distinctly. Often times, I ask my husband what the purpose of my life is or was (since I'm almost halfway through it) and most of the time I was sort of expecting a grandoise answer (from myself mostly), like invent something that would benefit others, inspire and help people, or become somebody of value in this world. Maybe, just maybe, it is not as big as that. Maybe the answer lies in the smallest of things, nothing fancy. Maybe we don't really need an audience. Maybe our essence is best left in the tiniest of details or of feeling. Maybe we don't need a purpose because it is already there inside us. Maybe all we need to do is sit down and listen.

Alien loves spring! Me too!

Julia has taken into the habit of putting Alien (or any other stuffies) over her face when I take pictures of her. I thought it annoying at first but realized later how creatively ingenious it was. How in the world did she ever thought of it? I guess children just do and not think about stuff too much.

Below: In our early morning walk to daycare, Alien stops and wants to smell the flowers.

He says he loves daffodils. Me too.

When you give a camera to your 4 year old

This is what you'll see.