Jump to content

Menu

Heather in Neverland

Members
  • Posts

    7,516
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Posts posted by Heather in Neverland

  1. I haven't seen my family and friends in two years and I am so happy that I get to spend a few weeks with them.

     

    BUT

     

    I am filled with anxiety. 

     

    I have been in Malaysia for five years and I am changed... a different person than when I left. My family back in the states does not accept this.

     

    They don't really want to hear much about my life here. They will politely look at pics but they don't really care. They just want me to come back and we all pick up where we left off and all of this never happened.

     

    Except that I am not the same person from five years ago. I think differently about LOTS of things now.

     

    In addition, the culture shock of going back always gets me. It's much stronger than when I came here. The last time I was home two years ago it shocked me how hard it was to adjust. Coming here, I expected everything to be weird, and fun and different and difficult. Going back there I thought it would be like putting on an old pair of jeans. But it wasn't.

     

    In my effort to blend in with the culture here, I had forgotten many things about the culture back home and I was overwhelmed. This time I know that's coming and instead of making it better it's made it worse.

     

    I am probably not making a lot of sense right now because I am a bundle of nerves.  :willy_nilly:

     

  2. I am half-way through The Golem and the Jinni and I am LOVING it so far!

     

    I also decided to look at the one challenge I set for myself this year (to buy less books and borrow more from the library) and I am a dismal failure thus far. I have borrowed 9 books and bought 17!!

     

    So I went and put 10 books on hold at the library.

     

    Now the PROBLEM is that many of the books I really want to read only come in audiobook form at the library (which I loathe).

     

    WHY??? :(

  3. No reason to share terrible things with the parents now! Only if they would think it was funny and is relatively mild, or if you know they've always secretly known there was more to the story than there was and it might be therapeutic. I wasn't too bad, overall, but there are definitely things my parents don't know about and don't need to know :)

    I could never tell my mother what was really going on when I was a teen. My mom lives in this blissful little world of denial where she was a perfect mother and I was the perfect child. If she found out the truth it would crush her. I can't do that to her.

  4. He's 16.

     

    I have found this to be very difficult to monitor. He does use the computer for some of his schoolwork, especially any written work, so it's hard to tell if he's getting schoolwork done or using the time to learn how to do Linux. He does have a part-time job and mostly he gets his chores done around the house quickly and without complaining. He thinks that as long as he's getting everything done, he shouldn't be limited with computer time especially if he's using it for learning purposes and not for gaming. I think that spending most of your spare time at the computer doesn't make you a very well-rounded person.

    But the key here is you said his schoolwork is suffering. That demands parameters.

     

    I have 16yo techie and I do not limit his computer time. However, he has to maintain a certain grade point, do his chores, and get off the computer immediately and without complaint when I ask him to for meals, to do things with the family, and he has a tech curfew (10:30 on school nights, midnight on the weekends). Other than that, he has free reign.

     

    As to whether he is well-rounded after spending so much time on computers? I think he is a very intelligent, mature young man. He has a part-time job, good friends, helps around the house. What more could I ask for? So he has one main hobby instead of five different ones... What's the big deal? I really only have one hobby, reading.

     

    Besides, I think well-rounded is over-rated. I'd rather see him get really good at one thing than be mediocre at several things. It's all in how you look at it.

  5. I was the worst type of teenager of all because I was a bad girl who had everyone convinced I was a good girl. I was the student council president, cheerleader captain, honor student, Christian girl ... Who was smoking, drinking and screwing my way through high school. My parents never knew. I was very adept at lying. Of course, they didn't really want to know either. They liked living in denial.

     

    Things are much different for my children. After the type of teen I was, and after teaching high school for over a decade, I know what teens do, how they get away with it, the lies they tell, etc. My teen gets away with nothing.

  6. Started reading:

    The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

     

    Still reading:

    Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

     

    Finished reading:

    1. The Curiosity by Stephen Kiernan (AVERAGE)

    2. The Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynn Sheene (GOOD)

    3. Unwind by Neal Shusterman (EXCELLENT)

    4. The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty (EXCELLENT)

    5. The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith by Peter Hitchens (AMAZING)

    6. Champion by Marie Lu (PRETTY GOOD)

    7. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink (INCREDIBLE)

    8. Cultivating Christian Character by Michael Zigarelli (HO-HUM)

    9. Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff (um...WOW. So amazing and sad)

    10. Pressure Points: Twelve Global Issues Shaping the Face of the Church by JD Payne (SO-SO)

    11. The Happiness Project: Or Why I spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. by Gretchen Rubin (GOOD)

    12. Reading and Writing Across Content Areas by Roberta Sejnost (SO-SO)

    13. Winter of the World by Ken Follet (PRETTY GOOD)

    14. The School Revolution: A New Answer for our Broken Education System by Ron Paul (GREAT)

    15. Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen (LOVED IT)

    16. Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning by Sugata Mitra (GOOD)

    17. Can Computers Keep Secrets? - How a Six-Year-Old's Curiosity Could Change the World by Tom Barrett (GOOD)

    18. You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself by David McRaney (GOOD)

    19. Hollow City by Ransom Riggs (OK)

    20. Follow Me by David Platt (GOOD)

    21. The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman (SO-SO)

    22. Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman (OK)

    23. A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home by Jason Helopoulos (GOOD)

    24. The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan (DEPRESSING)

    25. No Place Like Oz by Danielle Paige (SO-SO)

    26. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff (DELIGHTFUL)

    27. The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman (WORST ENDING EVER)

    28. Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor (SO-SO)

    29. Mere Christianity by CS Lewis (BRILLIANT)

  7. I'm ashamed at how judgmental I am in regards to comic sans. I recently told my DH that while I liked our kids' piano teacher "she does use comic sans, so..."

     

    A friend once worked as an assistant in an advertising agency, back in the late 90s. His job was to look through font books to find specific fonts - so, for example, his employer would find a font in another ad or copy that he liked, and my friend had to figure out what that font was by comparing it to hundreds of choices. I'm sure the Internet has rendered this job obsolete, but it just shows how important a good font is.

     

    I am not going to admit what I think when I receive a resume from a job-seeker that is all in Comic Sans. You will think I am a horrid person.  :leaving:

  8. Actually not at all. I have one cat who is very independent. At night she will come and let me pet her for about 10 minutes. Other than that I rarely see her. I can leave big bowls of food and water out for her then go on vacation for several days and she takes care of herself. She is the best cat ever! :)

  9. never, ever, ever. 

     

    We have been battling bedbugs in our rental home for over a year and it is a NIGHTMARE. Just when you think you have it whipped, they come back. We have had to replace all of our mattresses. It has been truly awful. I would never take that chance.

     

    eBooks are my friend. :)

     

  10. We always turn off ceiling fans if no one is the room, much less in the house. Ceiling fans cool people, not rooms, so there's no reason to waste the electricity. We turn off the lights when no one is in the room (or the house) for the same reason.

    Exactly and electricity is brutally expensive here so I can't afford to cool a house no one is in.

  11. "Let's not allow all of the talk about sexism, gun control and mental illness to distract from one simple fact: this man chose to do what he did. Selfishness lies at the root of his crime, just as it lies at the root of all evil...

     

    He was not delusional. He understood what he was doing. He knew it was wrong, which is why he made efforts to conceal his plans. This was a coldly calculated mission to slaughter innocent people and gain worldwide fame. Nothing about its planning or execution leads me to believe that he should be let off the hook by these assumptions that he was somehow too “ill†to comprehend his own actions.

     

    It makes us feel better to reject the existence of evil and consider all maliciousness and brutality to be mere symptoms of mental diseases. This way, tragic events like these become easier to manage, easier to understand, and easier to cure. But the truth is more difficult. The truth is that, sometimes, perfectly sane and rational people do terribly violent and sickening things...

     

    So I don’t think this guy was insane in the sense of being the victim of some unfortunate psychological phenomenon. I think he was a rational human being committing evil acts because he chose to commit evil acts...

     

    But that does not make The Coward a “product†of anything. Not of society, not of misogyny, not of mental illness, nor video games, nor Hollywood. He is (was) a human being, and humans are dynamic, powerful creatures with free will and the ability to choose right over wrong. We are not products. We are not puppets. We’ve done what we’ve done because that is the path we have chosen."

     

    http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/05/25/t/#7JJwDoyr5yMRevzi.99

  12. In Malaysia you don't tip for anything and the deplorable service we have here is the result.

     

    When I am in the US I tip about 20% for good service (more for great service) but less for less than good service. 

     

     

×
×
  • Create New...