Friday the 20th, in the morning, my wife Jenny & I drove to Tony's school for Parent Teacher Meetings, or what they called PTCs. We meet with 12 teachers in two hours, so it was all a bit of a dizzy whirl for me, as the three of us went from building to building to building and back again and then back again, to see all his teachers. (I booked the meetings but paid no regard to their location.) I took in a lot in those two hours, and it would be best if I just rattle off thoughts and observations in no particular order:
- Most of Tony's teachers spoke with UK accents. One of his teachers was American. One of his teachers from was Croatia.
- Most of the teachers said Tony was a nice enough kid, very easy-going, but too shy to tell anyone that he has problems.
- I confirmed my suspicions that Tony needs to read more. While he can understand a lot of English, he doesn't have much experience writing it, and so some of his tests have been embarrassingly bad, filled with blank responses to questions.
- One of the teachers says that Tony takes a lot of notes.
- One of the teachers says that Tony's got neat handwriting.
- Tony doesn't talk about his problems with his parents.
- Tony can't write English for beans. (I am trying to get him to communicate with me via email.)
- Tony has had to deal with being a new kid at his school.
- Tony is in his own world (like his blogger father who is a Latvian introvert).
- Tony always says he understands, always gives a "yeah!" whenever he is told something, leaving everyone with the suspicion that he doesn't understand. I have long suspected this.
- Tony is always hanging with other kids. He never seems alone.
- The P.E. teacher said that Tony lacks stamina. I have told Tony this on so many occasions. One time, I told him that in the NBA, which he says he would like to play in, the players aren't given drives up and down the court.
- None of what the teachers told me was a surprise.
Sunday, November 22nd, I did a lot of driving. In the morning, I first drove Tony to his drumming class, which was downtown, about thirty minutes from Compound Kaulins. On the way, Tony said something about forgetting his book for a music class which I didn't know he was to have after the drumming class. So, after the drumming class, I had to drive back to Casa Kaulins so Tony could pick up the book. I then drove him downtown again for this music class. When he finished this class, I saw that my phone run out of money so I couldn't use the GPS to get back to Casa Kaulins. I had to drive back by memory. I was going to take the Taihu Avenue Tunnel but there was a lineup of cars waiting to enter it. i decided to take another route through downtown Wuxi that was much slower. I spent an extra fifty minutes on the road and was annoyed as all heck. Finally, in the evening, I drove him to his school Dorm and back which about an hour or so all told, I spent three hours on the road.
When I am dealing with my Chinese wife, I feel like I am dealing with someone coming from a universe where 2 + 2 = 5. Now, it could very well be that I am the one who is living in the 2 + 2 = 5 universe, but I don't think my wife is aware that we are in the midst of two universes, and a lot of what she expects of me seems, to me, to be as if she is expecting me to believe that 2 + 2 actually equals 5.
Thought experiment: who is more likely to bang their head against the wall: the person who thinks 2 + 2 = 4 or the person who thinks 2 + 2 = 5, when they are dealing with each other?
And if my Chinese wife is in fact in a 2 + 2 = 4 universe, she seems to be unaware that 1 + 3 = 4 also. That is, that there are different ways to try to come up with the same result.
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