Family

It’s really puzzling

Sometimes I enjoy watching my son think and act.  I sit back and watch his little mind at work.  It’s very entertaining.  Sometimes he impresses, amuses, confounds, annoys.  I especially enjoy watching him put together jigsaw puzzles.  He started months ago putting together six-piece puzzles and has since graduated to 60-piece puzzles featuring characters from "Finding Nemo" and "Madagascar," two popular animated films.  I love to challenge him by upping the ante every time he solves a puzzle.  He solved "Nemo" easily enough.  However, he hesitated to put together the "Madagascar" puzzle because it’s more intricate than "Nemo."  I alwasy encourage him and help him when he needs assistance, giving him a rousing round of applause whenever he finishes a puzzle.  Now he finishes both "Nemo" and "Madagascar" without fail.  I taught him how to put together the puzzle upside down in the frame so he won’t use the frame or the puzzle outlines to solve the puzzle.  Now he does it on his own.
 
Tonight I raised the bar even higher.  I threw the "Nemo" and "Madagascar" jigsaw puzzle pieces together into a big pile and challenged him to solve both of them simultaneously.  That clever little kid.  He was stumped at first, but then he ended up separating all the pieces into two piles and proceeded to solve both puzzles one at a time.  Drats, he foiled my plan!  Eventually I’d like to see him solve both of them in opposite frames, upside down.  He understood what I wanted him to do, but he did his own way.  I have no doubt that he’ll be able to do it over time, but for now I’m having fun coaching him and watching him grow and learn.
 
From the "Things that Make You Go…Hmm" Department:  Is there such thing as a boring discussion topic?  I’m really happy that people (well, some people) enjoy reading this blog.  I wonder if I could write about a completely uninteresting topic no one wants to read.  Is it possible to find a completely uninteresting topic to discuss?  What if I write about watching wet paint dry?  Nah, there’s bound to be someone who wants to read about that topic too, such as a professional painter.  What kind of topic do you think would be inherently uninteresting and no one would want to read?   Now that’s a puzzle I haven’t solved.  If you have any suggestions for the most boring, uninteresting topic of all, let me know!

Our next assignment

Last night my wife and I put together our list of preferred jobs for my next assignment.  Although I won’t leave Seoul until early 2007, I am eligible to bid early because I have enough Mandarin Chinese to qualify to bid.  I would normally bid next February.  For a variety of reasons, I decided to bid early.  I feel confident that I will qualify for one of the nine assignments on our list.  The finalists are Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou, in that order.  There are multiple jobs in some locations.  Most likely I will be heading to Guangzhou if I am chosen early for my next assignment.  I would prefer to go to one of the other four locations, but I would be happy with any of these locations.  If I am not chosen this time around, China assignments will certainly be at the top of my next bid list.  I should find out in about a month whether I will be heading to China.  I initially thought I was heading to China for this assignment, but I was given Seoul instead.  I’ve always wanted to end up in China because I know Mandarin Chinese and know Chinese culture very well.
 
I am at home today with my son.  He just went down for a nap.  This morning we took mommy to work, and then we played on the swing set outside our house.  Later after breakfast, I took him to the neighborhood playground.  He played with a vengeance!  I met a nice family with a young boy about the same age as our son.  They played together for awhile and had a great time.  When he looked tired and a close to sunburning, we headed home.  On the way, we stopped by a neighbor’s house.  They were having a tie-dye party, turning white T-shirts and other clothing into 1960’s-style psychedelia.  I stayed to talk to a few friends while my son watched everyone tie-dye.  The host gave him a Rice Krispy treat and some oversized sidewalk chalk.  He had a grand old time drawing on the sidewalk (he loves to color coloring books with crayons).
 
Blog Notes:  Apologies to Astros and White Sox fans everywhere for not having the confidence to think they could advance to the Major League Baseball championships.  Congratulations!  The Astros 18-inning marathon win over the Atlanta Braves was timeless.  I have to root for the Astros to win it all because they are the only team never to have won a World Series…in 43 seasons.
 
When I told my friend from Taiwan about this blog, he was surprised.  After talking awhile, we discovered that he had come upon it by accident.  He had no idea I wrote it even after reading some of the entries!  Fortunately, he had nothing but nice things to say about it.  I guess I succeeded in being inconspicuous enough that even friends don’t know who I am.
 
This blog still averages about 2,000 hits per week and is now up to about 45,000 hits.  Thank you!  As always, I appreciate your patronage.  Lately I haven’t had time to do long treatises on Korean culture, but I hope to have more soon.

Still at work, heading home

Lately I’ve spent longer hours working in the office.  I just finished going through my full E-mail inbox, clearing out old E-mails and closing out a few pressing issues.  There is always too much to do.  Have you ever had a day or days where you were given action items, one after one after, with no time to do them?  I left a lot of action items unfinished, but I feel much better having cleared out my inbox.  You wouldn’t believe how much you can get done when you have a little peace and quiet and time to focus on getting the job done.  The unfortunate trade-off is that I’m not even home to say goodnight to my son and to spend a little quiet time before coming back to work again tomorrow.  If you are doing what I’m doing–working long hours, I salute you for you working so hard.  But please try to find some time to go home early and have a rest.  For me, thank God tomorrow is the eve of a three-day weekend (Columbus Day).  I can’t wait.  It makes staying in the office just a little easier to handle.