Month: May 2022

What is Funner?

“What is funner, mom? Tell me the truth. Is it funner to be a child or an adult?” Out of nowhere, Kate popped this question during a bedtime chat. It is a good one.

There are definitely moments that I wish I was a child. For example, before leaving on a trip I find myself packing for two kids, two adults, cleaning up the fridge and ignoring work emails. Kate puts on her pink backpack and announces “I am ready!” When a family friend asks Kate, “What is your favorite subject at school?” Her eyes light up. With pride she says “Lunch.” When she saw me pleased with her handmade happy mother’s day card and a kombucha she bought with all her savings, she added, “It is nice to be a woman, huh?!”

Her world is so pure, fun and easy. I was tempted to give an easy answer to the question. Yes, as an adult, I know more about pain, anxiety, guilt, and a sense of loss at times. But I also fully enjoy my autonomy. I get to decide when to splurge on a cashmere sweater and when to bargain for a 10% teacher’s discount. More constraints are self-imposed as I age. Such as only one Marvel movie each week and no online shopping in the office (the former one takes 90% of my discipline). The children in our house rarely have something to say about what to have for dinner or where we go for a vacation.

The autonomy comes with responsibility and work. It is a fair trade to me.

Kate asked me to tell her the truth. So I told her: “It is nice to have both.”  Some days I long for the simplicity of childhood, but having tasted the freedom of adulthood, I wouldn’t go back.

 

The Grand Gesture

In his book “Deep Work”, Cal Newport writes of The Grand Gesture:

“By leveraging a radical change to your normal environment, coupled perhaps with a significant investment of effort or money, all dedicated toward supporting a deep work task, you increase the perceived importance of the task. This boost in importance reduces your minds instinct to procrastinate and delivers an injection of motivation and energy.”

French club is taking such a grand gesture. We are going to Montreal to practice French. Genuine interest was shown by five out of the six members at my announcement. Budget, time conflicts, and a newborn baby shorten the list of goers to two. Me and Aisela. No surprise.

We are the most consistent with our practice and learning. Together, we just finished the book “The Berlitz Self-Teacher–French”. All 41 lessons. We started from simple vocabularies (such as table, red, and 34) and sentences to most commonly used tenses (perfect, imperfect, and future) and more complicated structures. Our French is still pretty rough and we are slow as tortoises, but I am proud of this milestone. We did not give up.

I used to practice by saying the house numbers in French on walks. My whole family protests. There are times when I lay down with David for his afternoon nap, I tried to name the objects I see in the room. With his eyes closed, David murmurs: “No French.” During those tech talks Chris gives once in a while, my mind wanders off and starts conjugating “aller”. He catches me: “can you pay attention?”

Learning a language is quite like doing research. Hours and hours of work seem to produce nothing. I forgot that word AGAIN. The results are useless because there is a bug in the code. I don’t understand a thing when a French major student tries to tell me his summer plan. The referee can’t look past a model specification and thus rejects the paper three times. In both activities, the input and output relationship is so not linear.

What I learned is this. Focus on the inputs. That is the only way I don’t get frustrated or lose patience. The reward is right around the corner.  It always catches me by surprise.

In preparation for the trip, Aisela and I are meeting every week now to practice and provide accountability. The grand gesture seems to increase our motivation and learning speed. Worst case scenario, we are not able to catch Canadian French and converse with the locals. We will still wine and dine fabulously.

 

 

 

Buy Joy

Plenty of things in life cost very little, but bring me so much joy. Morning sunshine on a slow day, my kids’ fast and steady footsteps to my room, a nice walk in Ault Park, and watching Iron Man put on his suit (no marginal cost with a Disney+ subscription).

Out of the things I spend money on, nothing beats the joy per dollar provided by flowers. However, flowers seem such a luxury purchase. They are short-lived, not edible, and serve no practical function. But they never fail to spark joy in me. They are alive,  unexpectedly beautiful and unique with colors and shapes made by nature. They brighten the room and my mood. With an opportunity cost of two pounds of chicken, I always hesitate to put a bouquet in the grocery cart, but not once have I regretted it.

I have used Mother’s day as an excuse to get jewelry in the past. But this year, all I asked for from my family was flowers from the farmers market and a trip to my favorite bakery.  It was a money-saving and joy-enhancing choice.