Pretty boring week around here. Betty has been out of town, and Carolyn went on a 3 day school camping trip to a place called, what else, Camp Taiwan. You know how some people are just plain lucky and how much you hate them for it. It's been raining constantly here for the last 2+ weeks, but the morning she leaves for camp, it stops and is sunny in the high 70's for the entire trip. Literally as their bus is pulling back into school yesterday, it starts raining again. I have got to remember to let her pick my exacta box at the track from now on.
Carolyn came home last night, and this morning, Paul left for a 5 day trip with school to Kuala Lumpur. He is on the 8th grade Model United Nations team representing Israel. The team has 14 members and will be working with international schools from all over Asia (Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, etc.) How cool is that? To his credit, he has been working very hard on his position paper/proposal about ways to discourage "brain drain" from lesser developed countries. He has to present his position in front of the entire group, defend it from questions from the floor.and then work on the sides to get the votes for it while negotiating giving his vote to other proposals. So wish I could be a fly on the wall.
As this is his first real trip away from home alone, it was interesting watching him prepare, both physically and mentally. The other day, Carolyn and I are sitting on the couch watching some TV, and Paul is in the other room playing some X-box shooting game while talking to one of his UN teammates about her project. From the one sided part of the conversation we could hear, sounded like she was spitballing her presentation and he was giving her some input. At one point, she must not liked his advice and then we here him say, "look, just using my big brain here." Like the confidence, but later I heard him telling his friend how dumb he feels when working with some of the other kids that are more experienced and prepared.
Physically, I realized I need to stop doing everything for the kid. Am talking about stuff like making sure his PE clothes come home and are ready for school, doing his dishes, all the Mom stuff, so when it came time to get his clothes out and pack, it was as if he had never seen a suitcase before. Heard questions like, "How many pairs of underpants do I need?" At the same time, they have to wear suits and such, so I had to teach him how to tie a necktie, which he was able to learn pretty well. What I'm saying is that he is in that age range where he is equally grown up and still a baby, and it is making me recall some awkward moments of my own. A dance at the end of Junior High School in particular is coming to mind. How painfully awkward was I? In retrospect, everyone was, but it seemed like it was only me at the time. At the same time, I remember how awesome it was dancing with Joanne Reilly to Van Halen's Runnin' With The Devil.
Anyhoo...good luck Buddy.
As I'm on the topic of kids, was forwarded me this article on Third Culture Kids from the local ex-pat magazine. In short, first culture are kids that have lived in one culture only, while second culture are kids that have migrated from one into another culture permanently and have assimilated into it. This article is a recap of a study of kids that have grown up in different cultures and ultimately don't claim one as their own. The pros are what you'd expect, but it is the cons that we need to be diligent about making sure our kids are able to adapt as adults. I've talked about how much of a bummer it is to see people you just start to get to know leave, but the TCK's can later keep a distance with people in fear they are going to disappear on them so they don't get hurt. Feelings of rootlessness, a prolonged adolescence and frequently moving as adults. It goes on to say that they found that only 1 in 10 ever feel attuned to life in the US once they return and that 90 percent feel disassociated with their own age group throughout their lives. Am thinking that the Internet may dilute that cultural disassociation (I was out of the States for 6 months in 1986 and had no idea what a Twin Peak was and felt totally left out...).
No comments:
Post a Comment