Category: Monthly updates

August was the vacation month. September was the transition month, packed with school preparations for Kate and David, doctor appointments, catching up with friends in town, and some service I opted to do for my department. Above all, Chris went through a surgery (ablation) on his heart. It went well and his recovery has been smooth, but the built-up anxiety prior to the surgery and the worry from all sorts of scary thoughts were not fun. Our church congregation prayed for him several Sundays in a row, text messages came in at 6:40 am (which woke me up) on the surgery day, and homemade chicken noodle soup and a multi-course Bangladeshi meal were delivered to our house. We are fortunate to have such supportive and loving friends.

My parents were concerned on the other side of the world, counting down the days like we did. When my mom found out Chris worked quite a few hours the day after his surgery, she was not happy and insisted on sending a message to him. The message says: LIFE first, money second! I don’t know where family stands on that list.

My sabbatical became more real when I saw my colleagues hustling between classes and meetings while I, in my cozy sweatshirt with a sunflower on the back, wondered if I should start my day reading Roosevelt’s biography or reviewing my French lesson notes. With such luxury, came a deep obligation to optimize my time usage. I noticed that other than my initial desired activities (research, learning French and reading), there are a few other things that I started doing more and felt fulfilled in doing so. Cooking is one of them. Without being drained on my usual teaching days, I cooked more during the week. As I packed sour-sweet ribs, sauteed napa cabbage and rice into Kate’s thermal lunch box, I thought I have finally found my comparative advantage in motherhood.

Back on my progress report:

Research: not much is done, except that I seek feedback on my paper on childcare choice from a colleague, made some editorial changes accordingly, and sent it off to a journal.

French: I made a decent amount of progress by studying lessons 3-10 of Season 3 Coffee Break French. I managed to hang out with the French club members individually on different occasions, but the group has not assembled these two months. As we all have now transitioned into the fall routine, I am hoping to get all the ladies together soon.

Reading: I finished 3 books: The Four Loves, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, and Brick by Brick. The Roosevelt’s biography is absolutely a masterpiece. It has politics, it has history, it is based on a legendary figure, and above all, it is beautifully written. What a treat! Thanks Aisela for the recommendation and lending me the book. It was worth packing this brick-like book to Montana and back.

It is hard to believe summer went by this fast. Kate started and finished her first summer camp at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. I took two memorable trips (Cape Cod and Montr`eal). Our sunflowers took off in full bloom and added a nice cottage curb appeal to our house. We bought an inflatable pool that is embarrassingly large for the front yard but it is a cheaper and probably better substitute for trips to the city pool.

As most of our friends went and already returned from their main summer vacation, we are only getting ready for ours. Our family usually spends a month in Montana where Chris’ parents and siblings live. We are leaving this Sunday and will be gone for three weeks. The rising heat and humidity in Cincinnati only add to our anticipation for the trip.

Progress report:

Research: I finished all the data analysis for the empirical project and wrote up a draft! My main results are:

Children from less-educated households who are cared for at a center (relative to having only parental care) have higher reading and math scores when they reach kindergarten.

Child care type (parental care, center care, or relative care at age 2) does not have a significant effect on cognitive skills for children from more-educated households.

Once approved by the Institute of Education Sciences Data Security, I will be able to circulate the paper and polish it for publication.

Studies on child care choices are interesting and important on their own and with young children at home, I have additional incentives to read the literature. With rich data on individual households and children, this project is a thrilling adventure that feeds my own curiosity. The best part is pushing the “run” button on many lines of software code and watching trends emerge from initially unorganized information.

French: This is a neglected area for the past month and half. Due to staggered travel schedules, French club was not able to meet. Losing the accountability and interrupted by trip preparations, I only managed to study two lessons with Coffee Break French. My saving grace was the trip to Montréal with Aisela. When the Customs Border Officer in Canada asked me in all seriousness: “What is the purpose of this trip?” In broken French, I declared: “I come here to practice my French.” I don’t know it was my answer or my French that was amusing to him. He tried to contain himself, but couldn’t help letting out a chuckle.

Reading:  I finished 3 books: Poor Economics; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; 斑马. It is a great mix of economics, classic literature, and modern fiction. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo are recipients of Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019 for their work in field experiments to alleviate global poverty. I read their second book “Good Economics for Hard Times” and enjoyed it. So I decided to add their first book “Poor Economics” to my reading list. Both books serve as a literature review of empirical work in development economics. Insightful and eye-opening. Through the statistical findings and behavioral psychology in the book, I sensed the deep humility and patience of a group of researchers who aim to tackle a seemly unsolvable problem.

Nothing beats a good story. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” is one. Good writing transports you through time and space, and leaves you with strong emotions as if you are the main character. I felt Tom’s fear, joy, a sense of freedom, short-lived guilt, and desire to do the right thing. His passion for adventures and thrills? Not me.

斑马 is a story of a Chinese woman’s journey to fight infertility, and rekindle the relationship with her husband along the way. I find the author’s message rather trite and the plots far-fetched. However, it is nice to read a light story in Chinese and I have a couple of classic books in 武侠and SciFi lined up to read next.

The first month of my journey was pretty eventful: family visited from out of town, our nanny was gone for two weeks, we took David to the ER for stitches (just 3 months after the last trip), Kate caught a cold and it passed through the whole family. It was also a transitional period. Kate finished school and hugged goodbye to her friends. We moved out of the house for a few days to have the basement asbestos tiles removed.  The heavy use of sunscreen announced the impending arrival of summer, along with its humidity.

Given the unexpected sickness and loss of childcare, I had to take two weeks off from research. During the days I felt so miserable with a sore throat, I was in pure survival mode: nap, eat, Lego, and repeat. At least, I was not utterly unproductive.

Progress report:

Research: I started an empirical project on how the type of childcare affects development in early childhood. I will be using a restricted dataset that follows more than 6,000 kids from birth to kindergarten. So far, I read through the data manual and files, picked and cleaned the needed data, ran some preliminary regressions, had a meeting with a colleague who is an expert in empirical work, and formed a clear direction for the paper.

French: As we wrap up the French book we studied for a year and half, Aisela and I are switching to Coffee Break French. This is a great podcast for language learning. We have listened to the first 2 seasons (free version) already, and now purchased the member version of season 3 for its texts and more comprehensive lecture material. So far, I studied the first two episodes and have most of the texts memorized.

Reading: 3 books finished: All Creatures Great and Small; Mere Christianity; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. They can’t be more different from each other. The first book is wholesome and pure. It puts a smile on your face, and you get quite a few good laughs. The last book is so odd in a good way. It reminds me of my teenage years when I was so into Sci-Fi stories that I even wrote one myself. My favorite out of the three books has to be C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. I was simply blown away by his intellect. In this book, he broke down some hard concepts in Christianity into pieces that are so easy to understand and apply in life. He did it with clear logic and clean writing. He did it with an ease that  almost makes you think it is easy to do. I know I will be reading more of his work.