Geek in Heels - Page 135

Jul 16, 2010 • In Parenting, Personal, Relationships

Parents Who Invest in Their Children…Literally

Lately it has come to my attention that many parents see their children as a means of retirement. I am not talking about those near (or at) retirement age who have lost their retirement funds due to the bad economy. Rather, I am referring to those who “invest” in their children from the beginning so that the children can support them in their old age.

From talking to my friends — especially those of Asian descent — I have found that this phenomenon is more common than I thought. The parents make many sacrifices while pressuring their kids to go to good schools and get good jobs in hopes that one day, the children will realize just how much their parents have given up for them and willingly invite them into their homes and provide and care for them as soon as possible.

I know of families whose parents quit their jobs as soon as the children finish school and start working, assuming that the kids will provide for them.

I also know of families whose parents pressure the kids to pay for their vacations and demand lavish gifts.

Do your parents see you as a means of retirement?

Will you expect your kids to care for you in your old age?

I have personally never dealt with this kind of pressure from my parents. My parents have sacrificed everything for me and my sister. However, they do not expect us to care for them. They are building a retirement fund that will allow them to live independently from us so that they will not be a financial burden to their daughters.

This isn’t to say that I plan on cutting off my parents as they grow older. I will definitely give them money if needed and provide assistance as I see fit. I even give (and will continue to give) lavish gifts once in a while as signs of my love and appreciation. At the same time, I know that they really expect nothing but intangible love, not money or gifts.

I fully plan on doing the same for my children because I do not believe that having children should be a selfish act. Having said that, I can understand how some people would feel differently. Because at the end of the day, having kids is practically a surefire drain on your finances; why not expect them to return the favor?

Model Kit Business Cards

I wish I knew someone who works at Tamiya, the Japanese model-kit company, so they’d give me one of their business cards!

At first glance the “cards” look like fancy stencilwork. However, once you break the letters from the frame and snap them together, you can either end up with a Formula One car, a warship, or a fighter-plane.

The downside? Once the recipient has disassembled your card to make the model, he/she will no longer have your contact details. Oops.

These cards sure bring me down memory lane, as I loved toy model kits as a child. I never even bothered with the expensive kits, because to me, the joy was in the assembly. Once the robot/aircraft/ship/car was assembled, I usually just ended up discarding them.

The same with paper dolls. I would spend hours meticulously cutting out each figure, clothing, and accessory…only to throw them all away once I was finished.

Yeah, I was a weird (and wasteful) kid.

Via Wired Gadget Lab.

Blink [Android App of the Day]

Ever since I got my first Android phone I had been wondering if there is a way (outside of hacking the phone) for me to customize the color of the blinking LED notification light depending on the type of notification.

Well, as they say, there’s an app for that. Blink, released last week, allows you to customize the LED — from a choice of twelve colors — for SMS/MMS, Incoming Call/Missed Call, and Low Battery/Memory. What’s more, you can also customize the frequency of the flashing light.

The only thing missing is that you can’t customize the LED settings for email. However, the team behind this awesome app assures us that the option will be available in a future update.

Blink is a FREE app that is publicly available on the Android Market. If you are reading this post from your Android device, you can use this direct download link: http://downloadandroid.info/download/Blink.apk

Or you can be cool and use this QR code:

Now excuse me while I change my text notification light to a pretty purple.

P.S. — Thanks to my geeky husband for giving me the heads-up on this app!

First Full-Length Trailer for ‘The Social Network’

I have to admit that one of the main reasons I was intrigued by the upcoming movie The Social Network is due to the fact that the campus scenes were filmed at my old alma mater.

Although two trailers had been released previously, they barely showed any scenes from the actual movie. So imagine my delight when it was announced that the first full-length trailer was released today! While it was fun identifying each building (it’s not difficult, as the JHU Homewood Campus is tiny), I was also surprised to find that the movie really seems like one I would pay $10 to watch.

I also love the haunting cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” playing in the background.

What about you? Would you watch The Social Network?

Minimalist ‘Mad Men’ Posters

With the season premier of Mad Men just 1.5 weeks away, I am loving these posters by Christina Perry.

Can’t get enough of Mad Men? Head on over to Mad Men Unbuttoned for all things inspired by the hit show. Pre-order their book and email them a copy of the receipt to receive a free copy of the Don Draper poster!

Via kottke.org.

Twitter Wall Decals

Yiying Lu, the designer behind the iconic “Fail Whale” graphic, has just released a beautiful new series of repositionable wall graphics produced by LTL Prints.

I think these would make a wonderful geeky addition to a child’s room — don’t you agree? Unfortunately, they would clash horribly with the current decor of our home. Maybe next time.

Be sure to check out the site, because there are plenty more adorable decals available for purchase!

Via Laughing Squid.

The Weaponry of Predators

J and I caught Predators last weekend and it was awesomely bad as expected. I won’t give away any details, but I will say that there is one fantastic death scene that seemed to cause the entire theater to gasp.

I’ve always been a sucker for scifi b-movies and the Predator films are no exception (yes, even the AVP movies). Unsurprisingly, I’ve found this chart to be right up my alley and I’m sure my fellow Predator fans will enjoy it too.

(Click to view large.)

Via GeekTyrant.

Is Your Brain East or West?

Studies have long shown that people of different cultures act differently, but a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology indicates that culture even affects our cognition.

Take a look at the images above and try to interpret the overall emotion of the picture. Do your eyes linger on the center man in the foreground? Or do you consider the people in the background more?

“North Americans try to identify the single important thing that is key to making a decision,” explains Dr. Takahiko Masuda, the study’s author, over the phone from his office at the University of Alberta. “In East Asia they really care about the context.” He studied the eye movement of Americans and Japanese when analyzing a picture of a group of cartoon people. When asked to interpret the emotion of the person in the center, the Japanese looked at the person for about one second before moving on to the people in the background. They needed to know how the group was feeling before understanding the emotion of the individual. The Americans (and Canadians in subsequent studies) focused 95% of their attention on the person in the center. Only 5% of their attention was focused on the background, and this, Dr. Masuda points out, didn’t influence their interpretation of the central figure’s emotion. For North Americans the foreground is all-important.

Dr. Masuda is quick to point out that Americans and Japanese are physiologically the same. The difference in eye movement is tied to the roots of our respective cultures. When trying to explain the natural world, the Ancient Greeks – the founders of Western civilization – tended to focus on central objects and sought to explain their rules of behavior. Funnily enough, Aristotle thought a rock had the property of “gravity.” It didn’t occur to him that a system was working its powers on the rock. The Chinese on the other hand took a more holistic approach. They believed that everything occurred within a context, or a field of forces, and thus they unraveled the relationship between the moon and the tides.

Western cultures have placed importance on unique and strong individuals since the days of the ancient Greeks. In contrast, Eastern Asians place emphasis on the community and the big picture.

I’m not sure about other Eastern Asian languages, but even the Korean language reflects the priority of the community. For example, the word “my” is rarely used in familial context. Instead, you are more likely to hear things like “our father,” “our mother,” and even “our baby” (even when the speaker is not the parent).

So what do I see when I look at the image above? Although I consider myself pretty Americanized (and I have lived in the U.S. for 23 years vs the 7 in Korea), I caught myself considering the background almost immediately.

I wouldn’t say one viewpoint is superior to the other, as the author suggests at the end of this Adbuster article. The Western stress on rugged individualism has churned out some of the best leaders, thinkers, and innovations in history. At the same time, such a “me me me” attitude can be detrimental to the needs of the minority and personal relationships.

What do you see? Is your brain east or west?

Via Neatorama.

I Write Like Stephen King

I Write Like is a nifty tool that tells you which famous writer you write like based on your word choice and writing style.

All you need to do is enter into a text field a sample of your writing (at least a few paragraphs are recommended for the best results) and voila!

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I entered more than a few samples of my writing (via blog posts, essays, etc) and the author that popped up the most was Stephen King. I was really flattered, because I love Stephen King — not only for the horror novels that he is most well-known for, but also for his imaginative, full-of-life fantasy tales. The Eyes of the Dragon is one book that I always recommend to friends, as it is an example of King’s early work that unexpectedly delights and makes a name for itself in the medieval fantasy genre.

What about you? What famous author do you most write like?

28 Weeks (And My Waxing Experience at Bliss)

Where did the 27 Weeks update go? Yeah…um…about that…

There was no 27th Week… *waves hand in an attempt to Jedi mind-trick my readers*

Did that work? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Just blame it on the fact that I can be a moron and completely forgot to take a picture, nevermind write an update, last week. Sorry about that.

There is some debate on when the third trimester officially starts — some say at the 27th week and others say the 28th. Whatever the correct answer may be, I am now officially in my third trimester and have started my seventh month of pregnancy. And as you can see below, my tummy has grown considerably in just two weeks. (Holy mirror spots, Batman! Remind me to wipe the mirror clean before taking next week’s picture!)

I managed to take a measurement of my waist and…it’s not pretty. Before pregnancy I usually hovered between 26″-27″. My waist is a whooping 40 inches now. Seeing the actual number made me feel like crap because I know women whose waists were 40″ right before delivery.

My weight gain is now at 30 lbs too. With 2.5 months left to go, I have a feeling that my total weight gain will hover around 45 lbs. Not good. However, I made a promise to myself that I will not stress too much about my weight gain and start exercising as soon as possible after birth. I’ll be returning to my trusty Jillian Michaels and will join J on the P90x.

Last Friday we had our monthly checkup and the doc reassured me that the baby is doing perfectly fine. This was also the day I took my 1-hour glucose test (the sugar drink wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be…it tasted like flat orange Fanta), and I’m assuming that I passed because they said they would call me if anything was wrong.

The best part about last week’s appointment? We found out that the baby had moved head-down! Both my mother and I had been praying that she would flip around ever since we found out she was in breech position, so we were both overjoyed at the news.

Baby girl remains very active. Sometime starting in the last week, I have been able to feel her slow movements as opposed to just her kicks and jabs. It’s a funny feeling whenever she presses up against my belly and rolls around…I’ve been starting to play the “which body part?” game in my head every day since. This is probably my favorite part about being pregnant: being able to feel my baby moving inside of me. I’m really going to miss it once she is born.

New York is having one of the hottest summers in almost a decade. As a result, I try my best to keep indoors in the A/C as much as possible. The heat certainly isn’t helping with the swelling either. I now wear flip-flops if I’ll be out during the night (when my feet swell the most and I can no longer fit comfortably into my regular shoes), and my wedding ring JUST barely fits.

Grooming myself is starting to become a hassle as well. I had stated earlier that I’m already having trouble wiping after taking a deuce. Shaving my legs is also starting to get difficult. Luckily, J has agreed to start doing that for me when the time comes. However, shaving my bikini line has become a complete freak show. And I refuse to let J shave me down there.

So I decided to get a wax.

I have never gotten a bikini wax before (I was always content with a razor), so I was a bit nervous to say the least. In addition, everyone says that it is at least 3 times as painful when you are pregnant, so I really had to question myself if I were being crazy.

However, I just didn’t feel clean anymore and it was really bugging me.

I had heard that the special strip-free wax that Bliss uses is one of the best and least painful, so I booked an appointment at Bliss Hoboken and went in today. I had explained to the receptionist that not only is it my first time, I am also pregnant so she booked me with one of their most popular waxing specialists: Jenna.

Let me just tell you — Jenna was THE BOMB. I don’t know what possessed me, but I had decided to go for the full monty and chose the brazilian…but then started to freak out about it right before we got started. However, Jenna helped me relax, kept the conversation going to keep me distracted, and really made this first-time waxer feel comfortable. As for the pain? Sure, there was some. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected and I wondered to myself several times why I had never done this before. The wax was THE perfect temperature, and what they tout is really true: their special wax only sticks to your hair (not your skin) so I barely even felt the “do-overs” that were done to catch the stubborn strays.

Jenna told me that she has pregnant women come in all the time for brazilians, up to just days before their due dates (one even came in the morning of the day she was to be induced!). I am loving the waxed feeling so much that I plan on doing the same. Seriously…why haven’t I ever done this before?

Parents Who Invest in Their Children…Literally

You may also like:

Model Kit Business Cards

You may also like:

Blink [Android App of the Day]

You may also like:

First Full-Length Trailer for ‘The Social Network’

You may also like:

Minimalist ‘Mad Men’ Posters

You may also like:

Twitter Wall Decals

You may also like:

The Weaponry of Predators

You may also like:

Is Your Brain East or West?

You may also like:

I Write Like Stephen King

You may also like:

28 Weeks (And My Waxing Experience at Bliss)

You may also like:

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