Bullying

I hope my daughter does not get bullied. I will try my best to make sure it doesn't happen, but sometimes there's only so much a parent can do; most of the bullying that happened to me was done specifically without parents around, just kids being kids. The thing about kids, they're not babies: babies are innocent, they're just trying to survive and grow with the world, there's no ill intent (except maybe Damien the Demon Kid from the Omen movie). Kids, unfortunately like many humans, develop cognitive abilities and bad intentions; they can be some of the nastiest people because they can't empathize yet with other people or know what it's like to be on the other side of bullying, they just do it to make themselves feel safe. As an overweight Chinese kid who wore glasses and FOB-by clothing as a kid, I was the prime target. Getting made fun of on the bus, not having anyone to eat with at lunch, being called four-eyes at school, and a whole host of racial stereotypes sometimes crossing over to outright slurs (Ching Chong was the flavor of the month back in my day). I wasn't always the victim, as I also retaliated sometimes by making fun of other kids and resorting to the same bad behavior that was being done to me; I'd like to think I gave a lot less than I received, mostly because I knew what it felt like and didn't want to do that to other people. The outright bullying was pretty standard, but what really felt like a betrayal is if someone I thought was a friend saw other friends and an opportunity to be in the "cool crowd," they'd just cross over and sacrifice me to be with the cooler people. That really hurt, and maybe a part of that still sticks with me today, maybe I'm messed up because of it and get oversensitive if it happens to me. It just hurts when you think you know someone, you're on their team and they're on your team, but then they turn out not to be, at the most crucial time when you need them. The point, of course, is to prevent it from happening to my child. I hear from other parents that their anxities become not necessarily worrying about themselves but about how their kids are doing, and not wanting their kid to be bullied, or worse, be THE bully. Weight issues can be contained hopefully, and hopefully diet restrictions will help along with baby's powerful legs (she kicked her mother while in the womb and is continuing to kick hard now) making her exercise and get out on her feet. Unfortunately she will look at least a little like me, with an Asian countenance and un-telegenic appearance, so any hope of getting "pretty privilege" may be inheriting genes from her mother. Unlike my parents I will have the advantage of telling my child what school is like and how to deal with bullies in America, what kind of things might happen and to get mentally prepared for them. The best way, of course, is to have good social skills: be friendly to everyone, but also not get too bothered when you hear something and show that you're bothered by it. Also, try to find a friend or friends early. Elementary school unfortunately is like prison: you need to group up early or others notice that you're alone and can team up on you, Mean Girls style. Don't be arrogant, don't be weird, don't be too loud....these are all probably things I suffered from but didn't realize until now. So many things to know as a child, it's hard to remember them all much less know that they're things you have to watch out for! Nowadays, more than the 1990s when I was growing up, there's this thing called "cyberbullying" where people just go online to bully their classmates, yet another hurdle to cross and figure out, and other thing social media has betrayed us on. (Social media's that friend that you think is on your team and helping you make more friends, but it actually betrays you because other people have more followers or "friends" or are doing cooler things than you, and you actually feel more lonely after being with it). Or maybe AI will be able to stop bullying when Baby Girl is old enough to start going to school. Abolish bullying! Defund bullying! No Bullies' Day!

Cyclospora

One of the most obvious new terms that will be a trivia question soon is the onset of cyclospora, the parasite that's sweeping the nation that's causing consumers of lettuce to poop themselves. This development would not have been a big deal in my twenties as I did not eat salads, but my diet nowadays consists of a heavy dose of leafy greens, and I am now concerned about eating at Chipotle and Subway, 2 of the closest restaurants (literally downstairs from my building) and affecting my daily lettuce intake. Trivia writers, or Jeopardy clue writers specifically, love to ask about: 1) new top 40 albums, 2.) new blockbuster movies, 3.) new records being set, 4.) new viral moments on social media, and 5.) outbreaks of disease. Jeopardy has specifically shied away from politics and the news in the last few years (understandably), but diseases and nonpartisan news is still very much fair game. Science news is excellent: the next space shuttle launch, astronauts arriving home from the ISS on the SpaceX Dragon, and fun cat/ dog stories like Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippo at a Thailand zoo. Unfortunately for the new blockbuster summer movies, I'm out of the loop. I didn't attend the 2023 Barbenheimer event of the summer, last year was Deadpool and Wolverine, and this year appears to be the back-to-back weekends of The Odyssey (by Christopher Nolan) and the newest Spiderman: Brand New Day. Admittedly I would have LOVED Spiderman Brand New Day as a kid because it goes into territory the cartoon show didn't cover: Spiderman used Dr. Strange's potion to make everyone forget about his identity as Peter Parker, even his girlfriend MJ and other best friends, so he's totally alone in the universe. Kind of the opposite of what I did for Jeopardy, with less favorable results: went from no one knowing who I was to.....practically no one still knowing who I am and after a few weeks of my episode airing, those people by now have forgotten. If Spiderman's every boy's dream and harnesses all of those desires of heroism and getting the girl and fighting crime and flying through the air above Manhattan, then the Odyssey really plays into a different aspect of those boyish dreams: setting off on a long journey to get back home. Really, the Odysssey is like the prototype for one of the most typical heroic tropes: protagonist takes a heroic journey, and even better with monsters (Cyclops), sea creatures (Scylla), gods (Poseidon), and attractice members of the opposite sex (Circe and Calypso). It's fitting that the movie came out in summer, when a lot of Americans are out on road trips maybe across the United States (my law school buddy is going from Boston to Seattle to L.A.) living out the dream of hitting the open road, very close to the aesthetic of hitting the open seas, living in different places every night, finding the next hill to climb and the next challenge to conquer. In an ideal world, that is my dream as well, fresh new adventures with no jeopardy of actually dying or failing, just enough danger to feel accomplished for having survived and lived to tell about it. At least I can watch the movies to simulate those feelings! (later on a plane something and at 1.5x speed since I hear they're both pushing 3 hours long, which are odyssey-length movies in this day and age).