Category: Rant

Great things; sucky things; boring things; stupid things…

What’s in a Name

I have been going by “Chu” for the longest time since high school. Quite frankly, I don’t remember why I did it. But I think it had something to do with a constant reminder for myself not to bring shame to the family name for which I represent. There’s been a few confusions every now and then when people weren’t sure what my first name was, and consequently, the most common joke about my name is, “So your name is Chu Chu?” Hah, real creative.

Then there are the clever Americans who try to make a joke out of my name. Here’s a few:
1. Sneezing: Ah Chu!!
2. Object: Hey, Shoe!
3. Automotive: Chu Chu Train!
4. Star Wars: Chu-bacca (followed by grunt)
5. Latino: Chuy
6. Action: Chewy, or simply, Chew
7. Cartoon: Picca-chu

Real respectful, jerks… But then it beats having my name spelled wrong altogether (Brian complains having his name often misspelled as “b-r-a-i-n”… not cool…).

I also have had a couple of nicknames as a result:
1. Chuy (or Chewy?)
2. Chu Chu (most common)

Being called “Chu” has been great when I am the one and only “Chu” in the entire school (or among the circle of friends). It’s unique and easy to remember. But ever since moving out to California, it’s a little awkward being called “Chu”. The primary reason is that my mother-in-law’s maiden name is “Chu” as well. And most of Grace’s relatives on her mother’s side live in California. My cousin, Jennifer, also lives here. When there are so many “Chus” around, to be called THE Chu is a bit selfish I guess. At my wedding, there were quite a few Chus there. It must’ve been weird and confusing for all our relatives to hear my friends calling me “Hey, Chu, drink up!”…

To remedy the situation, I have started introducing myself to new friends here in California as “Sean” (yeah, as in Sean Connery, Kyung). Sean Chu, Shun Chu… sound similar. I can live with that.

The funny thing is, a friend I know from college also started calling himself “Chu” although he did have an English name before (Robert), and he originally started having call him “Piccachu” and even bought domain name along with it. So the joke is on him now. Piccachu.

Cry Babies

Before there was science and logic, “old school” parents have this deeply rooted belief that babies, even the newborns, are the masters of mind manipulations. Those are the parents who are self-proclaimed life-experience childrearing experts, such as my mother (and countless others).

They swear by the ingeniousness and cunningness of babies and how they are all conspired to manipulate us adults. Well, there may be some truth in what they believe in as it turns out. They think they babies cry to manipulate adults to hold them so that the babies don’t have to be alone. To remedy this and to teach them to be more independent (read: lazy parenting), the solution, they argue, is to let them cry themselves to sleep. This way, they don’t get spoiled at a very young age.

What a load of crap. (No offense, moms of the old tradition.)

Every single one of early childhood development and education books I have owned and read (published after my birthday) states this simple fact: infants and young toddlers don’t have the cognitive means to comprehend the meaning of “manipulation”, let alone actually doing it. The only way to explain why babies cry (and why they stop crying as soon as you react to their cries) is just asking for help. Birgit puts it best:

If you didn’t speak any language and you wanted someone to help you, what would you do? If you were really hungry, you’d cry too!

Yeah, no shit. There are only three reasons as to why pre-lingual babies cry:
1. Hunger.
2. Discomfort (wet/soiled diaper, fever, stomach ache… etc).
3. Companionship and love.

Many modern studies show that babies who’s needs are attended to will grow up with more self-esteem, self-confidence and a more positive view of the environment around them (even NPR says so). But having their needs met immediately, they grow up believing that the world is a safe place. This probably has to do with why most of my American and European friends (whose parents most likely subscribe to the more infant-friendly philosophy) have way more self-esteem and confidence over most of my Asian friends (whose parents subscribe to the don’t-spoil-them philosophy). This is not to say that culture and traditions have nothing to do with it though.

Unfortunately, to much of my dismay, the “let-them-cry” practice is still widely accepted among much of the Asian community. I wonder why they aren’t more educated about the latter method. Even some immediate friends around me still believe in the practice.

Wrap your mind around some new ideas, people. Attend to your babies and don’t just let them cry for hours and on. They can’t talk; they cry for a reason!

UPDATE: Ironically, my mom thinks the infant-friendly practices are just theories; they are not practical. When I brought up the logics behind the infant-friendly practices, backed by countless research and experiments by researchers/authors who are also parents, she brushed them off and said my arguing with her is what happens when one becomes too academic and book smart. Coming from someone who’s whole life has been trying to put more education under our belts is a little confusing and alarming. I have also tried to use similar points and strategies arguing about my sister’s behavioral problems and how the family should deal with them (long story). Her sentiments are the same. Sometimes I do think experience can be a burden to one’s attitude towards learning.

Here’s a list of sites that support the theory:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fcs/human/pubs/infant.html
http://www.humsci.auburn.edu/abell/beeprogram/links/resourceupdates/infants/crying/crying.htm
http://www.vtaide.com/png/ERIK1.htm
http://babiestoday.com/resources/articles/cry.htm
http://www.brandnewdad.com/monthbymonth/three-months-old/teachyourbabytotrust.asp
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/parenting/crying_baby.shtml
http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/parenting/cfspoil.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/parenting/your_kids/babies_crying.shtml
http://www.drgreene.com/21_5.html
http://www.bchealthguide.org/healthfiles/hfile92b.stm
http://target.com/target_baby/ii_article_07_e.jhtml
http://www.maternitymall.com/homeMInfo.asp?SelectCase=Article&CategoryId=1&PageLp=1&ArticleId=353&SubCategoryId=1

In fact, I challenge anyone to produce a credible study that shows attending to crying infants can indeed spoil them and that they are just manipulative bastards.

Breath Taking

I have been noticing some interesting things about Bryan’s breath patterns when he’s a sleep (which is most of the time). Newborns and infants have short and very quick breathing patterns, almost as if an adult is short of breath. But I discovered that sometimes he’d stop breathing for a very brief moment (simply a short gap between his very rapid quick breathes) before the pattern returns to normal again (not to mention he’s pretty loud when he breathes).

I asked Brian about this, but he couldn’t recall of Laura went through the same phase. Sometimes I worry about the possibilities of SIDS. Although nobody really knows why SIDS happens to some babies, Brian and Birgit believe that it’s possible that some newborns may still think they are inside their mothers’ wounds and forget to actually breathe. I think that theory is plausible. I mean, I remember times when even I couldn’t distinguish between reality and being in a dream and forgot to breathe for long enough moments that I woke myself up. If infants aren’t equipped with the cognitive and physical ability to wake from dreams, they can get themselves into trouble.

As for the “shortness of breathes” and Bryan’s irregular breathing patterns (even the times when he sounds like an old man who needs to be on a oxygen mask), they’re supposed to be normal:

Irregular breathing and short apnoeic pauses are normal in young babies and have no adverse effects.

If not for the Internet (and broadband), I’d be calling our pediatrician quite regularly with the tinniest oddities in Bryan’s behaviors. There’s really no reason why there isn’t a “manual” for small things like “irregular breathings” and frequent hiccups.

Live and learn.

More Safari Extensions

Came across this while reading old blogs from Gizmodo. Saft is an app that bundles a good collection of features that are currently missing in Safari. Just to name one I can’t live without — crash protection. Safari has serious issues with performance when opened for an extended period of time, and sometimes it crashes without warning. What crash protection in Saft does is it saves the current tabs and their URLs at the time Safari crashes and gives user the ability to retrieve those URLs upon relaunch.

Another cool feature is the ability to manually shuffle the tabs and rearrange the order; something that’s in existence in Firefox already.

Pimp My Safari has more stuff on improving features that Safari currently lacks.

Also, OpenDarwin keeps a webkit blog (the core technology in Safari) with interesting updates from time to time. This particular entry deals with memory leaks, which Safari is notoriously known for.

via [Gizmodo]

Sneaky Pees

Diaper changes for Bryan haven’t been too terrible. His poops don’t stink all that much and he’s fairly easy to change diapers with. But I was warned as babies move on to solid food, the stink level on their crap will go off the chart. Yeah, like I don’t have enough to look forward to already, jerks!

One thing I think is really funny (though I should be annoyed) is how Bryan ALWAYS picks the worst times to pee during diaper changes. Here are a couple of scenarios:

1. Completely wiped his butt clean, ready to put on the new diaper and off it goes with the power fountain. A few more dimes down the drain on a pee pad.

2. As the new diaper is ready to be fastened, he decides that was the best time to “let go”. That’s a completely brand new diaper plus a peed pad down the drain.

So far I haven’t been surprised with any in-th-face splashes yet. But I have heard crazy stories about them; and I don’t like it. I have learned that Bryan gets particularly quite, as if he’s contemplating the best time to do his deeds, before he pulls those tricks on me. So I have been able to catch a couple of sneak attacks before the old diaper was completely removed.

Got any interesting diaper change stories to share? I have a feeling it’s not too hard to make a sleep-deprived man laugh out loud in front of his laptop. Go ahead. Make me laugh.

UPDATE: No less than 10 minutes after I posted this entry. a routine diaper change again turned into a circus. I got hit again with #1. He’s rapidly perfecting his art.

Immigrant Overflow?

While some Americans complaint about foreign workers taking jobs they say is rightfully theirs, it is perfectly ok for the medical and health system to be flooded with immigrant nurses and assistants. And I can understand why.

Other than the doctors themselves, virtually every single one of Grace’s nurse has been an immigrant from elsewhere, but more frequently, Philippinos. Considering Philippines used to be a U.S. “territory” (and the fact that English is their official language), perhaps it’s somehow easier for them to be infused into mainstream America.

But strangely, at the labor and delivery department, there were very few immigrant nurses there. I wonder why the discrepancy.

Some nursing institutes advertises a quick nursing or doctor’s assistant degree in less than two years. And with the supposedly severe shortage of nurses in the U.S., it’s said they get their own Green Card process of less than six months (compare that to 3 years for tech workers). And depending on the hours and the nature of the job, they get paid $80k or more a year.

Am I really in the wrong profession? Damn it.

But I still love computers. And I don’t like blood… either seeing, drawing or being drawn… So stuck with being poor and Green Card-less, it is.

RIP, Kitty

I am so sorry to report that the kitten we rescued had been put to sleep. In case you haven’t been following, I wrote about it here, here and here.

We feel incredibly guilty for having turned him in, thinking he’d receive a good life in a nice home. Apparently he’d been just a little too aggressive for adoption, and it’s the San Jose Animal Shelter’s policy to “rid of” those that aren’t fit for living because of budget problems. I wish they’d do a spay/neuter and release instead though… I don’t believe a government agency of any type should have a say in what/who lives and dies.

I have a hunch this must be what he was feeling…
Sniper cat

Image via [Gizmodo]