Anyone who has not seen this movie… I dunno how available it is from rental places or Netflix, but it is worth watching (so is last year’s Crash, btw).

It’s basically the conversation a bunch of ethnically diverse men have during a weekend retreat over racism. It is emotional at times and rational at times. All of the Teacher Education Program TAs watched it today, but we didn’t have much time to discuss what we saw.

One thing I wanted to say was that I completely understand how one of the men felt when he said that he is tired of having to explain things all the time to white folk. It makes me think about how guarded I am all the time in an unconscious way and how when I go and visit my family down in California and we go to a Chinese restaurant and everyone is Chinese, I can almost literally exhale and just relax. Not that I feel much discrimination up here in the Northwest.. not explicitly so, but it is always there, like a shadow from a moving cloud which sometimes becomes very oppressive and other times is hardly noticeable.

I also remember talking to an African-American friend of mine once about how we just know. We were able to communicate a feeling that we had without even saying anything somehow… The conversation went something like:

Him: You know that feeling when… and it is always there… but in the background, sort of?

Me: Yes, I do.

And I’m sorry, but that is about as best as I can explain it to white folk.

But I do still have to wonder how much of the feeling is something I’m bringing to the table? In high school when I was rebuked by white girls, was it because of me or my race? That nagging thing… race is always a factor. I’d like to believe that it was me… or maybe not.. I don’t really know which is worse.

We got Ushki back on Tuesday… I didn’t post immediately since, though we were happy about it and it ended up costing a couple hundred dollars less than the estimate, I was still in a foul mood.

I ended up letting my mood get the better of me when a couple of my jokes were misunderstood in guild chat and on the forums and instead of correcting the issue, I became defensive.

I will try my best to be more tolerant and understanding… though I have no guarantee the people who were reactionary to my initial statements will do the same.

The thing is that jokes and nuance just doesn’t work very well in text. It depends even more on context and additional indicators like 🙂 have to be added.

But it also sucks that I can’t joke with friends who I’ve known for YEARS without them taking it literally. Which is why I think I need to try to change myself and not be so quick to defense. The least I can do is meet them halfway.

On my birthday, two days ago, we went to the vet again to see if the antibiotics and new diet we received last Monday was helping with Ushki’s bladder infection and high pH level. The answer to both questions is yes. Yet, she was still peeing blood which isn’t so great. So we had an x-ray taken and it turns out that she had a little stone in her bladder which had been building up over quite a while. The vet, a really nice woman, Dr. Johnson, with 4 kitties of her own, highly recommended she undergo relatively easy surgery to get it out.

Happy birthday to me! $1570 surgery… not including the previous vet visits… we had to card it and now are in debt again. Fun!

Also, they had to keep her in the hospital for observation afterward. We’ll get to see her again after the holiday. We have not been notified how the surgery went but assume that if it went poorly someone would have called. So, hopefully, Ushki will be her old self again in a couple of days.

Robin has a way of saying things precisely sometimes, and yesterday she said that Ushki may be small but her presence is huge, and her absence leaves a palpable difference in the way our home feels.

The thought crossed my mind that maybe it didn’t work out. What would we do then? Would we sue the vet for not notifying us? What difference does it make if we had found out sooner? We probably can’t sue regarding the outcome since we signed some documents and such…

Anyway, this event has sort of put us in a funk.

So, I had this really laid-back interview with a guy at ApexLearning. I could tell where the interview would go as soon as I saw the box for a foot bath thing behind his desk.

Anyway, it sounds like I’ll be doing some contract Flash animation for electronic textbooks. The stuff I saw was slideshow-like, but maybe I can throw in some interactive stuff.

I also met with Theresa on Wednesday and we talked about making a Flash or Game Maker game together. Basically, I want to explore 2D adventure game mechanics but don’t really have any content other than having the player role-play interesting ethical and moral dilemmas that have complex consequences. Hopefully, we’ll think of something good.

Joy of joys… 🙂

Actually, about 2 months ago, Ushki, our cat, was urinating blood and not going pee in her box, so we took her in to an emergency vet and she had formed crystals in her bladder from too high a pH. Apparently, her diet is not acidic enough. Or maybe she’s licking aluminum or maybe she gets magnesium from the bonito fish flakes we treat her with…

She got a couple of shots (pain killer and anti-inflamatory I think) and we got some antibiotic stuff to give her for like 2 weeks (which we only used about a week of, since she started barfing on it). The blood went away in like a day.

Anyway, we have been vigilant about aluminum foil and we don’t give her fish flakes anymore. But last week she started bleeding again. A visit to the vet again and we’re now trying out samples of prescription food. So far, she won’t even go near the canned food, and it’s taking a while for her to settle with the dry stuff. At first we had to mix in her old food, but now she’s only on the prescription stuff.

But she’s still peeing blood and her new favorite spot to pee is on our futon. We have towels down and clean up every time she does… but since we have guests coming over this weekend, we decided to buy another litter box and put it outside the room with the futon. Hopefully she’ll start using that.

So far she likes it. We’re trying out some corn-based, eco-friendly, flushable litter. It actually kinda smells good.

While we were at the store, we saw that PetCo has a couple of brands of catfood that make urinary system formulas. Also, they have some pills you can give your cat to help out with urinary stuff (like human pills, they have cranberry in them). We need to ask the vet if those over-the-counter things are just as good as the prescription stuff.

Also, how long will the blood last?? We see the vet again on Monday, so hopefully we’ll get some answers then.

The first weekend in August my mom’s mom’s side of the family had a family reunion, the Hsu Family Reunion. Now, I am not entirely certain about other Chinese families, but this one is really, really tight and accomplished.

My grandma has quite a few siblings. Those guys mostly all had multiple kids who in turn had multiple kids. We had over 100 people in attendence at the Eaglewood Resort and Spa near Chigago in the town of Itasca. This was the first reunion in about 70 years.

My family came from all over the world (mostly the US, Taiwan, and China but also Switzerland and Vancouver… maybe more). It was awesome meeting everyone. I only wish we actually had more time and more activities that mixed up people so we talked to people who we hadn’t met before. Most of the activities were instead lecture or presentation format leaving little room to mingle. Heck, I brought a couple of card games (Bang! and Munchkin) but never broke them out.

One of the great uncles mentioned that some great philosopher (was it Lau Tsu?) said that we study the art of war so that our children can study the art of governance and that their children can study art. And this is clearly seen in the three generations. The first generation were in the military. A lot of the second generation folk are physicians and engineers, and a lot of my generation are artists.

Made me want to break out the paints and brushes and start doing some art again. Why did I stop for all these years? I dunno. I feel like… what’s the point? But time to put that feeling aside and get inspired again.

Anyway, my grandma (the oldest of her generation) had a bunch of kids. My mom is the oldest of her generation, followed by uncle David. David and his wife Ming-shu had three boys, Leo, Lee-hom, and Lee-kai. (Those in the know, might recognize Lee-hom‘s name.) Leo followed his dad’s footsteps and became a physician. He’s married to another (Stacy), and they have two kids now. (Crazy hectic life, I imagine.)

What’s the point in all this? Leo and Stacy! I love you guys; you’ve taken the pressure away from Robin and me to have kids! Well, pressure coming from grandma, anyway.
I have no idea if Leo and Stacy’s son is considered the top of the 4th generation. This is because I have no idea if grandma is considered the top of hers since maybe her oldest brother is the top. Preference to males and all… which means maybe there wasn’t pressure on Robin and me in the first place in terms of the family line. but whatever.

At one point there was a talent show and Lee-hom sang some songs for us which people were agog over. He’s very talented. I think I don’t quite appreciate how popular he is in Asia… In fact, it kind of takes me by surprise every time I hear about it. He’s a main actor in the next Ang Lee movie, by god (and no, it isn’t Brokeback Huan Shan or anything like that).
What was particularly cool was that our uncle, Li Chien-fu, was also there. He’s the original singer of Dragon’s Descendents back in 1978 or so… you know, that really, really famous Chinese anthem that basically has been adopted by Chinese people around the world as a unifying song… well.. maybe you didn’t know. I didn’t really until the reunion, either, though I’ve heard the song before. Anyway, apparently, Lee-hom covered that song a few years back and even threw in some rapping. Well, they did a duet which seemed like it was a historic occasion. They really should get together and record an official duet of that song. Chien-fu is trying to get back into singing and it would boost his career like crazy, I’m guessing.

Another thing I should mention. Lee-hom and his dad have asked us family members not to post photos or videos of him. That’s fair. We should respect his privacy. One of the reasons Lee-hom doesn’t want videos on You-Tube and stuff is that he has no control over the quality of the videos. I actually think this isn’t that big of a problem if he spent effort on educating people about new media rather than trying to prevent it from happening. In fact, he could probably pull off some rabid fan-base viral marketing type of thing pretty easily. But I’m not sure he’s that internet savvy. No official website, even… Wow. He should get a myspace site at least. Then he could talk about why he doesn’t want speculation stuff on You-Tube and blogs and I bet a lot of his fans would respect that or at least know how to interpret it if it happens. Admittedly, I know *nothing* of the Asian pop-star market so maybe I am just blowing crap…
Anyhooo… Robin and I and my brother Dee and his girlfriend Nancy spent too much time hanging out with each other and not enough time hanging out with the other “kids” from our generation. Sorry. Of note, we have some cousins (er… I dunno what they are technically, the grandchildren of my grandma’s sister) who actually grew up in Palo Alto, like me and my bro. While growing up we would occasionally go and visit their place. It always seemed so foreign though since they spoke Mandarin in the home and the kids were a little young for my brother and I to hang out with. But now they are all grown up and actually quite cool. Word.

Also, another uncle (of some sort) and his family live in Wisconsin. Of note is that he seems to be really into console and table-top gaming. Heh. His son who was 15 wasn’t into meeting the family, though. Ah well… I remember feeling that way when I was a teen, too. Damn our lack of sight. I remember him saying at one point, “Why the hell should I learn Chinese; I will never, ever have to use it.” I find it very funny that a 15 year old knows how the rest of his life will be…

Sooo… all these accomplished folk in my family. I look at my life and have no regrets, yet I am envious that they all seem to have direction…

Lee-kai (who now goes to MIT) was super prescient (and I am reminded by how impressed I was by his intelligence back when he was 5) when he said that as the years go on, the family will naturally drift farther and farther apart. The only way this won’t happen is if we fight it and make a concerted effort to stay in touch. I think it wasn’t clear before the runion why it is so important to do this, but now that I’ve met everyone, I am amazed at how close everyone already is. Having that as a stable force in a life of chaos is totally empowering and something we shouldn’t take for granted… at least, not anymore.

I noticed that the thing on my foot was getting kind of scabbie or something. Robin noticed and removed it with tweezers. Easily. Heh.