One Text Message at a Time
No, I have not done a very good job of maintaining this blog's momentum this past year. If I may offer my perfect list of excuses to whoever kindly reads my blog, I have had the busiest year
to counter the empty-nest phenomena. I have not purposely designed this past school year that way, but things literally fell on my lap each month! Aside from the monthly schedule that flies me into
Nashville for clinical days (which sometimes include teaching days for Neonatal Resuscitation Program or S.T.A.B.L.E course), I have flown more frequently than I had ever flown in my almost half-century-long life. I think, Since the start of the year 2016, I have passed through Atlanta Airport for making connections to go to or return from total of 16 times. Places I went to include Nashville x5, San Jose x1, Washington DC x1, Japan x1 (this was long, 2 weeks). But this year is not even half way through. I anticipate going through Atlanta maybe 20 more times before the end of the year (as long as I use Delta, almost always I have to go through Atlanta) because of the remainder of Nashville trips x 7, London in September x1, Vancouver in August x1, Cincinnati OH next week x1. But I think I may be making at least one trip to Japan in addition to this. Most of the trips are conferences, participation with meetings as a rep to my national neonatal association, but a few are personal trips like a wedding to San Jose. Instead of scrutinizing my schedule and calendar as I had done from 2009-2015 while Erik actively competed in various piano competitions (which required traveling), I had to use magnifying glasses on my agenda almost,,to make sure that I don't plan to travel to two different places at the same time! Sadly, I almost did that once. Thank goodness that I caught myself early enough.
I say this to describe how I managed to combat my empty nest tendencies or "helicopter mom" phenomenon that I tend to display. I think someone knew that I had to be manually pulled away, otherwise, I would be like a tick and moved into college with my son. Whoever's plan this was definitely worked and I have grown through this year of growing mentally away from being aware of what he is up to every moment every day to not knowing what is happening in his mind weeks at a time...all this, by trusting. I think back at my own college years when I left Japan to attend school far away in the US. How did my mother handle it? I did not see her for 4 years.
So, I will share that my son's first year at college is coming to close very soon. It has been a challenging year for him with all the time consuming and demanding courses, such as calculus and engineering which required very complex projects. And of course, English courses challenged him to the point of almost killing him. If you know him for a long time, you are certainly familiar with his very long history of struggles with writing or composing in sentences. So, please just imagine in your mind how Eirk ran into an ENG 102 professor (who is Eng PhD) who required students to read published papers (mostly by Eng PhD brains) and process the content surrounding subjects that Erik had no care for, whatsoever! Some of the topics that he dealt with were dark and they were often about a broken family full on human devastations. The fact that there was an element of brokenness between father and sons that led to suicide likely added to the 'yuk'ness factor. He purely did not enjoy it, but he never once complained about this tough professor or the course and he just simply decided to grit his teeth and tackle each project. He did this often by spending far more time than most would to finish the same task for. Some weekends, he spent over 10-15 hours only for English, which was longer than the time he spent on Calculus, Chemistry and Engineering all together. So, I hope this paints the grim picture and the pain that accompanied the Eng 102 experience for Erik. He pulled off B after his hard work with the help of intense tutoring, and he was quite relieved and also quite satisfied with himself. We were all immensely grateful for the assistance that our good friend provided for him and for us.
Even when he does not get the grades he is used to getting, he appears to really takes it as yet another challenge by not getting terribly down about it emotionally. The emotional stability definitely is one of his strengths.
He would say, that he would avoid with all his might the path of taking any more additional English courses. I don't blame him, most kids get to avoid taking the easiest Calculus. He has taken American Lit the second quarter and he survived with less stress. He is about to complete technical writing at this last quarter and he is likely going to survive it. I hope that he is gaining some level of confidence knowing that He is passing college English courses without a tutor now. In a way, he has been challenged at the level academically that he had never been challenged in both his favorite and no-so favorite courses. The difficulty levels of science and math appear to positively excite him with challenges.
For the second quarter, he selected, purposely, the hardest calculus teacher's section.....
He reported to us that he selected Dr. XX's section for his calculus because he heard that Dr. XX was the toughest of all. He told us this with a kind of excitement and even a genuine smile that tells you he was not kidding. Of course, he had to really sweat along that way for this professor....
I like his thinking process of challenging himself with tough teachers for classes he likes, even if he potentially risks his grades. Now, I think that this is not a courage I ever had in me.
But fortunately, for him, he did pull off an A in that particular class and said he really liked the tough and smart professor. I am not worried about A or B, I told him, as long as he is challenged and learning something new, his parents are more than happy and that is what college is all about. He appears to have been really learning what it is to be challenged for the first time in his life. Now, this is a good thing. He had to study for real, and he had to understand what it is to apply himself.
He was excited to be registered for the fall and told me that Statics (not statistics, but it is engineering course) and Thermodynamics will whip him 'good', but he would give them his best. My son never texts me unless he is very happy about something, upset or rather concerned about something, or he has an urgent question. He does not chat with you about anything so he texts are usually very short messages and some of our conversation just consists of Yes, No, Maybe, True, Yes, No, Thank you. .... Get it?
But he texted me out of the blue one day while I was driving to go visit my elderly friend. His one line was, "Just Registered"
I responded, "Ready for your second yr?".
This was immediately followed by, "Fall qtr (quarter) will be lots of math".
"No English!" came next
We were happy to see this excitement in his short messages that spoke a volume. I will enjoy these short texts that I often have to interpret between the lines, well, more like between the words. I could see him smiling behind these words and grinning ear to ear feeling relieved and happy to have a schedule full of math/engineering/science related subjects. I wrote back 15 lines using siri and told him he does not have to write back, but just E mail with more updates when he has time later. A few minutes later, I received this message.
"Statics, thermodynamics, engr materials, and materials lab." to give me the peek at his other classes besides his 4 th calculus.
Certainly, no English (he would have to write reports but it appears that it uses different parts of his brain so he is doing it OK) anywhere in this schedule and all sound foreign to me. He is definitely growing and maturing into a person that I never knew existed with new interest and new excitement. I will always cherish any moments he thinks of me while he walks through his campus and takes a moment to send me a short text. I received the news, I feel the connection, but more than anything, I see his growth. As I type this, I just received a text that says,
"Yes"
in response to a question I wrote a few hours ago!
"Yes", is good and I will continue to look for messages from him that sends us the news that he feels are exciting or important that he wants to share with us.
I will always enjoy even the shortest three letter messages like "yes", because it all carries his thoughts for home. So keep it coming, I will read it no matter how short ...... one text at a time.
A photo from our visit to Woodstock, VT last summer (Congregational Church with their original Paul Revere Bell!).
to counter the empty-nest phenomena. I have not purposely designed this past school year that way, but things literally fell on my lap each month! Aside from the monthly schedule that flies me into
Nashville for clinical days (which sometimes include teaching days for Neonatal Resuscitation Program or S.T.A.B.L.E course), I have flown more frequently than I had ever flown in my almost half-century-long life. I think, Since the start of the year 2016, I have passed through Atlanta Airport for making connections to go to or return from total of 16 times. Places I went to include Nashville x5, San Jose x1, Washington DC x1, Japan x1 (this was long, 2 weeks). But this year is not even half way through. I anticipate going through Atlanta maybe 20 more times before the end of the year (as long as I use Delta, almost always I have to go through Atlanta) because of the remainder of Nashville trips x 7, London in September x1, Vancouver in August x1, Cincinnati OH next week x1. But I think I may be making at least one trip to Japan in addition to this. Most of the trips are conferences, participation with meetings as a rep to my national neonatal association, but a few are personal trips like a wedding to San Jose. Instead of scrutinizing my schedule and calendar as I had done from 2009-2015 while Erik actively competed in various piano competitions (which required traveling), I had to use magnifying glasses on my agenda almost,,to make sure that I don't plan to travel to two different places at the same time! Sadly, I almost did that once. Thank goodness that I caught myself early enough.
I say this to describe how I managed to combat my empty nest tendencies or "helicopter mom" phenomenon that I tend to display. I think someone knew that I had to be manually pulled away, otherwise, I would be like a tick and moved into college with my son. Whoever's plan this was definitely worked and I have grown through this year of growing mentally away from being aware of what he is up to every moment every day to not knowing what is happening in his mind weeks at a time...all this, by trusting. I think back at my own college years when I left Japan to attend school far away in the US. How did my mother handle it? I did not see her for 4 years.
So, I will share that my son's first year at college is coming to close very soon. It has been a challenging year for him with all the time consuming and demanding courses, such as calculus and engineering which required very complex projects. And of course, English courses challenged him to the point of almost killing him. If you know him for a long time, you are certainly familiar with his very long history of struggles with writing or composing in sentences. So, please just imagine in your mind how Eirk ran into an ENG 102 professor (who is Eng PhD) who required students to read published papers (mostly by Eng PhD brains) and process the content surrounding subjects that Erik had no care for, whatsoever! Some of the topics that he dealt with were dark and they were often about a broken family full on human devastations. The fact that there was an element of brokenness between father and sons that led to suicide likely added to the 'yuk'ness factor. He purely did not enjoy it, but he never once complained about this tough professor or the course and he just simply decided to grit his teeth and tackle each project. He did this often by spending far more time than most would to finish the same task for. Some weekends, he spent over 10-15 hours only for English, which was longer than the time he spent on Calculus, Chemistry and Engineering all together. So, I hope this paints the grim picture and the pain that accompanied the Eng 102 experience for Erik. He pulled off B after his hard work with the help of intense tutoring, and he was quite relieved and also quite satisfied with himself. We were all immensely grateful for the assistance that our good friend provided for him and for us.
Even when he does not get the grades he is used to getting, he appears to really takes it as yet another challenge by not getting terribly down about it emotionally. The emotional stability definitely is one of his strengths.
He would say, that he would avoid with all his might the path of taking any more additional English courses. I don't blame him, most kids get to avoid taking the easiest Calculus. He has taken American Lit the second quarter and he survived with less stress. He is about to complete technical writing at this last quarter and he is likely going to survive it. I hope that he is gaining some level of confidence knowing that He is passing college English courses without a tutor now. In a way, he has been challenged at the level academically that he had never been challenged in both his favorite and no-so favorite courses. The difficulty levels of science and math appear to positively excite him with challenges.
For the second quarter, he selected, purposely, the hardest calculus teacher's section.....
He reported to us that he selected Dr. XX's section for his calculus because he heard that Dr. XX was the toughest of all. He told us this with a kind of excitement and even a genuine smile that tells you he was not kidding. Of course, he had to really sweat along that way for this professor....
I like his thinking process of challenging himself with tough teachers for classes he likes, even if he potentially risks his grades. Now, I think that this is not a courage I ever had in me.
But fortunately, for him, he did pull off an A in that particular class and said he really liked the tough and smart professor. I am not worried about A or B, I told him, as long as he is challenged and learning something new, his parents are more than happy and that is what college is all about. He appears to have been really learning what it is to be challenged for the first time in his life. Now, this is a good thing. He had to study for real, and he had to understand what it is to apply himself.
He was excited to be registered for the fall and told me that Statics (not statistics, but it is engineering course) and Thermodynamics will whip him 'good', but he would give them his best. My son never texts me unless he is very happy about something, upset or rather concerned about something, or he has an urgent question. He does not chat with you about anything so he texts are usually very short messages and some of our conversation just consists of Yes, No, Maybe, True, Yes, No, Thank you. .... Get it?
But he texted me out of the blue one day while I was driving to go visit my elderly friend. His one line was, "Just Registered"
I responded, "Ready for your second yr?".
This was immediately followed by, "Fall qtr (quarter) will be lots of math".
"No English!" came next
We were happy to see this excitement in his short messages that spoke a volume. I will enjoy these short texts that I often have to interpret between the lines, well, more like between the words. I could see him smiling behind these words and grinning ear to ear feeling relieved and happy to have a schedule full of math/engineering/science related subjects. I wrote back 15 lines using siri and told him he does not have to write back, but just E mail with more updates when he has time later. A few minutes later, I received this message.
"Statics, thermodynamics, engr materials, and materials lab." to give me the peek at his other classes besides his 4 th calculus.
Certainly, no English (he would have to write reports but it appears that it uses different parts of his brain so he is doing it OK) anywhere in this schedule and all sound foreign to me. He is definitely growing and maturing into a person that I never knew existed with new interest and new excitement. I will always cherish any moments he thinks of me while he walks through his campus and takes a moment to send me a short text. I received the news, I feel the connection, but more than anything, I see his growth. As I type this, I just received a text that says,
"Yes"
in response to a question I wrote a few hours ago!
"Yes", is good and I will continue to look for messages from him that sends us the news that he feels are exciting or important that he wants to share with us.
I will always enjoy even the shortest three letter messages like "yes", because it all carries his thoughts for home. So keep it coming, I will read it no matter how short ...... one text at a time.
A photo from our visit to Woodstock, VT last summer (Congregational Church with their original Paul Revere Bell!).
My Doctorate Graduation photo that just popped up from December 2013. I know it won't be long before I attend his college graduation. Only three years to go. This is a scary thought but each mile stone is to be enjoyed and to be remembered. We had taken so few photos, since my Erik is away in college. I realized that I had not taken many photos. 
Christmas 2015. We had our eve with our dear friends Roseline and Noel Clary and other few friends.
Eriks' favorite friend, Miss Lori. She has been a kind support to Erik.
Erik misses Miss Lori's mom, Mrs. Butcher who also was such a supportive
presence in his life.
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