Boring entry about Stanford football.

I've read a fair bit about how Stanford is overrated. And we are, but we aren't. In sports, there's a difference between ability and performance. I feel like this is relevant when people call Stanford's football team "overrated" based on being 4th in the polls. If rankings were based purely in terms of talent, yeah, Stanford is overrated. They're not the 4th best team in the country. Probably half the SEC is better. Oregon is better. I think USC is more talented. I don't really watch Big 12 football at all so I have no idea how good they are, but Oklahoma is probably better. No one in the Big 10 though. Big 10 sucks.

The thing is, postseason rewards aren't based on how good you are, but on how well you perform, and I do think Stanford "deserves" its position because it's maximized its potential. Its taken care of every team it should have and lost to a better team. That's more than can be said for any team but LSU and 'Bama.

There was this lame debate that popped up on Quora after the Oregon game about whether Shaw should be fired. The guy who asked that is an idiot. Stanford really has maximized its potential. The team has a number of handicaps because it isn't super-talented; I think we're almost certainly less talented than last year's team. It amazes me that the team has done as well as it has. Our receivers are just not that good. Last year we had Baldwin and Ryan Whalen. This year we have Owusu, who's been injured and not fantastic when on the field. Our secondary last year was better with Sherman. Everywhere, we're slow. And losing our kicker had a surprisingly big effect, and not just for field goals - I want to say USC's average starting field position against us was the 40 yard line. Huge disadvantage.

It's been interesting how we've accommodated the lack of talent at skill positions. Predictably, we started the season mostly running, since our line is good and our opponents sucked. But even against them, when we passed, we seemed off. I think I've said after almost every game this season, Luck seems off compared to last year. I realize now it's because our receivers this season are just too slow; they can't get any separation. So after a few games, Shaw switched up strategy and started going with 3 TE sets. Since we didn't have speed, he went with our other advantage - height. And to my eyes, it worked. So Ertz going down was a huge blow; it left us with no advantage for our receivers, primarily because Toilolo has hands of stone.

So I wasn't that upset about the Oregon loss. They're just a better team, and there's not much we could do strategically to counteract that, especially with the horrid turf conditions (which, for some reason, seemed to affect us more than Oregon. I blame Nike). I will say I disappointed by how poorly the OL dealt with Oregon's twists and stunts. USC did the same thing and it gave them trouble, but they seemed to deal with it better as the game went on, and I was pleased, thinking it would be good practice for Oregon. But for whatever reason, they just could not deal with Oregon's stunts, and it consistently generated pressure. So subpar line play, no receiver separation, TEs that don't catch well - pretty big handicap.

It was interesting again to see how Shaw decided to deal with that against Cal. Sloppy field continued to give our line trouble, so he went with the TE height advantage, throwing a ton to our TEs (and Hewitt) even though they kept dropping balls early on. No choice. In any case, I feel like Shaw's strategic moves on offensive have been right on, and we should be over the moon with our record.

There's been some Luck backlash also, about how he's overrated. Honestly? I have no way of knowing. I do know he was better last year - some games last year he was sublime and I totally understand how he got so much hype. But he hasn't been at the same level this year. Objectively speaking, I don't think he deserves the Heisman based on this season alone. But how do you evaluate a quarterback with sucky receivers? I have no clue. I do think he's a great quarterback. I don't have the football knowledge to assess that he's the best prospect in the country.

I'm still worried about the Notre Dame game. They're a talented (though young) team that's made some stupid mistakes this season. We could totally lose this game.

Maybe I'm just a pessimist, or it's the natural result of being a Niners fan for the last 10 years, but I'm not that confident about the 49ers either and aren't ready to call them a top-5 team in the NFL just yet. Like Stanford, I think they've maximized their potential through good coaching. They'll almost certainly lose to the Ravens on Thursday. I honestly don't feel like they've played a top-tier team yet, and so haven't proven that they're great.

The only team I feel super confident about is my high school alma mater, Bellarmine. They've dominated every game this season save nationally-ranked De La Salle, and they took them to overtime. Ridiculously, they were seeded 2nd in the CCS playoffs. Their league (West Catholic, although it includes one Evangelical Christian school) is basically the SEC of NorCal sports. So them going undefeated makes them the equivalent of LSU. Them being seeded 2nd is a joke. The 1 seed (Oak Grove) ended up losing to the 5th place team (out of 8) in the WCAL. 2 seed. Absurd.

I've said this before, but I love Chuck Klosterman. I violently agree with about 2/3 of what he writes, and violently disagree with the other 1/3, but either way, he's always thought-provoking and entertaining. Even when he writes about something trivial, like his second-by-second analysis of Edgar Winter Band's Monster.

Anyway, he recently wrote about music and nostalgia and it made me think a lot. I've written many times about how music is inextricably tied up with nostalgia, that a lot of the music I love I love because it's linked to a specific time in my life. But I've never thought about the nature of the link. Klosterman makes the claim that the link has nothing to do with quality; we don't necessarily feel nostalgic for the "best" songs of a given time. Rather, it's simply about repetition. The songs we happened to have listened to most during a time in our lives, that's what makes us nostalgic for that time.

When I think about it, I think it's true. There are certain songs that I do associate with specific events (have I written about this before? My family didn't turn on the car radio on when we drove. There's only a single time we did in my childhood - we had visited a family in the hospital whose child had died. When we left, none of us could talk, and the silence was so oppressive that we turned on the radio. George Michael's Careless Whisper came on. The mood of that song was stunningly appropriate, and to this day, whenever I hear that saxophone riff, I can't help but think of that car ride). And it's not completely divorced from quality - we tend to listen more to good songs.

But there are definitely songs that make me feel nostalgic that have nothing to do with being good. Like, there's a specific set of K-Pop songs (by Solid, DJ Doc, Noise) that instantly transport me to Korea in the summer of '95. The songs mostly suck. They're derivative (Solid), formulaic and repetitive (everything else). But Korea played the crap out of them that summer so whenever I hear it, I smile.

Same for certain songs from the summer of '94. I worked in a lab in Houston, and all summer the lab had a radio set to Houston's Mix 96.5, a station that believes in playing the same 20 songs over and over and over again. I nearly went mad. That's why I know the words to Ace of Base's The Sign intimately well. I learned how to play Richard Marx's Now and Forever on guitar and Elton John's Can You Feel The Love Tonight on piano note for note without ever sitting down at an instrument. Do I like those songs? Not particularly. Some of the songs from that summer (like John Mellencamp's version of Wild Night with Meshell Ndegeocello) I despised. But they still make me feel nostalgic.

So yeah, maybe music and nostalgia are linked simply by repetition. Interesting idea.

I've been a little troubled by some of my (Facebook) friends' reactions to Steve Jobs' death. I recognize that he was a great, accomplished man, and that he should be mourned. I do think he was a product genius. And in terms of life wisdom, his Stanford commencement speech is the best, most wise graduation speech I've ever heard. Furthermore, our family is fully on the Apple bandwagon. Counting stuff I've been given from work and old stuff we haven't gotten rid of yet, our household has an iPod Shuffle, 2 iPhones, an iPad, a MacBook Air, a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and Apple Extreme router. Borderline absurd. So I fully appreciate what he accomplished and produced, and I get that response, the appreciation.

What troubles me is that some people have gone beyond just appreciation to a sense of personal loss. Some of them expressed surprise at their own response, but that's what they felt. And the reason it troubles me is because I think it reflects how much of a consumer society we are. To feel a sense of personal loss at Jobs' passing can only happen if we identify so much with the stuff we have that losing the person who gave it to us makes us feel like we're losing a part of ourselves. And I think that's what it is. A lot of times, we identify ourselves by the things we have. We're Mac people or PC people. iPhone or Android or Blackberry people. Minivan people. Homeowners. We define who we are, sometimes even our progress in life, by the things we have. But none of that really defines us, or at least it shouldn't. It's just stuff.

And losing someone who just gave us stuff, while sad, doesn't make me feel personal loss. And I think that's ultimately what Steve Jobs was - a guy who gave us stuff. He wasn't personally warm or generous. As far as anyone knows, he didn't give anything to charity. He was single-mindedly driven in the pursuit of a single goal - better products - and wildly successful at it. But it's just stuff.

Not to say that stuff didn't make a positive impact or that I don't personally appreciate it. His accomplishments and wisdom should be recognized. But the sense of personal loss that some people have felt disturbs me a bit because of what I think it reflects about society. I talked about this with someone yesterday and they thought it was a stretch. Maybe. But I dunno. Our society seems to most deeply and personally mourn those public figures who give us stuff or entertain us. And that makes me a little sad.

Jieun doodles when she listens. To lectures, sermons, whatever. In the past, it used to bother me, because it felt to me like she was not fully paying attention. Because I can't do that, two things at once. I can't listen to music while I work. I can't have the TV on in the background while doing anything else. And I can't doodle while listening to something; my mind can only focus on one thing at a time. So I assumed the same of Jieun, that she wasn't really paying attention when she doodled. But she insisted that doodling actually helped her focus more.

Well lo and behold, a recent TED talk argues that doodling does in fact facilitate better comprehension. As happens a lot, Jieun is proved right by science. Who knew. So maybe my endless drawings of Wolverine and Batman during youth group sermons served a greater purpose after all.

The Economist has a fascinating article about the change in demographics in Asia, particularly as it relates to marriage. Eye-opening. In short, a bunch of people in Asia aren't going to get married and never will.

The article points to one of those reasons - in Asia (and probably most places in the world), women tend to marry up. The problem is that as Asia becomes more equal in terms of education and career between the sexes, it makes it difficult for two groups to get married - highly educated women and uneducated men. The article notes: "South Korean women seem to be no longer interested in marrying peasant farmers." It also notes how some uneducated men deal with it: foreign brides: "44% of farmers in South Jeolla province who married in 2009 took a foreign bride."

While in Korea, we watched this fascinating TV show about some Korean guy from the country who married a Nepalese girl. The show followed them as they went back to Nepal to visit her family after many years away. I was shocked, because I have known Korea to be a xenophobic and, frankly, racist country. I couldn't believe they would feature an interracial marriage. But my mother-in-law said that it's becoming more common, for country men to take foreign wives, and the Economist's stats bear this out. But still, that it's so common to be broadcast on Korean TV surprised me. I guess it helped that she was attractive and spoke impressively fluent Korean. But Korea is changing.

I wonder about what's going to happen to Korean society though, when there's a large demographic that can't get married and not by choice. I guess we'll see.

I also learned something else interesting while in Korea. I can't remember who told me this, so it may not be true, but it felt true. In America, we mingle groups all the time. When we have parties, say a birthday party or a housewarming, we think nothing of inviting people from all our circles. But in Korea, they don't do this, mix circles. They keep all their spheres separate, be it family, work, school, or whatever. If they're going to have a birthday party with different spheres, they have separate celebrations. They don't mix. And because of that, it's much more difficult than in America to meet new people - you generally stick to family and work. And that's why they have all these artificial dating constructs to meet people, like sogetting. They don't naturally meet new people so they need something forced to make it happen. Again, no idea if this is true or not, but it felt like there was at least a hint of truth to it, and seemed to explain a lot.

I left Korea thinking about how much of the society I wanted to fundamentally change, from its education, work culture, to dating, which is both naive and arrogant on my part. But there's so much about the society that I just don't understand or see as sustainable. It's an interesting place.

Most evangelicals agree that, as a general principle, Christians shouldn't marry non-Christians. But are there circumstances when this should be flexible?

There's a weird phenomenon going on in the church in Korea right now. Giwoong went to some young adult gathering and noticed that 80% of them were female. His cousin says that's generally true of the Korean Christian young adult population. 80% female. Why? Who knows.

One consequence of that is that it's really hard for single Christian women to meet single Christian men. So then, what's theologically correct here? Just say that 60% of young adult women should not get married? Encourage missionary dating? What?

There's other weird stuff happening here too. This is all second-hand, so I might be totally wrong about this. But in America, a lot of immigrant churches have gone through struggles where the next generation doesn't jive with the authoritarian, paternalistic style of the original immigrant church. The more authoritarian the style, the stronger the generational conflict. (I long ago abandoned the belief that immigrant churches and their English ministries can stay together long-term.) Well apparently the same conflict is playing out in Korea as well. But it seems like (again, maybe completely wrong) instead of leaving and starting their own churches like the younger Asian immigrant generations have done in the U.S, the younger generation in Korea is just abandoning the church. Especially the men.

I've also abandoned hope of Korea ever becoming unified. The younger generation doesn't even want it. They feel no sense of connection to North Korea at all, and think unification would be an undue burden on their economy. It's not just that North Korea doesn't want to come together; young South Koreans don't want them. And I suppose if there's no sense of familial binding, there's no real reason why they should unify.

I was talking with Jieun's mom about how stressful it is getting food in Korea and she mentioned that the same thing is stressful for immigrants in the U.S. I totally recognize that now. I frequently see people struggling to communicate at restaurants in America, and I remember that happening a lot when I worked in food service (Great America Farmer's Market food court). There's something particularly difficult about communication in regard to getting food in a foreign place. Maybe it's the fact that there are so many options? I'm not sure. But it's something.

In contrast, I've been driving a decent amount in Korea, and driving in Korea is completely stressless for me. Almost entirely because of Gini, the best GPS software I've ever used.

First an aside. I can't remember the details, but I think several of my ancestors visited America decades ago. One's visit is the reason we spell our name "Chai". Our last name is usually translated "Choi" in English, but when he visited, there was no standard spelling, so when asked how it should be spelled, he wrote "Chai", because in Korean, the name is pronounced like the English word "chair," but without the 'r'. As his descendants, we followed his lead (except for my uncle. When he was passing through immigration, the person there looked at the spelling of "Chai," thought it was wrong, and changed it to "Choi"). But we gave up on the "chair without the 'r'" pronunciation thing since no one does it.

Anyway, one of these descendants, not sure if it's the Chai one or someone else, wrote a book that included his experience visiting America. Years ago, my cousin who had a copy translated some excerpts from it for me. Really interesting. Like, during his visit he went to a Yankees game to see Babe Ruth play. But he writes that he was just as impressed by another player on the team, a fellow by the name of Lou Gehrig. That my great-grand-something-or-other saw Ruth and Gehrig play blows my mind.

One other thing he wrote stuck with me. He wrote about how much more civil American society is. As an example, he wrote how in America, people consistently follow the traffic lights, even when there aren't other cars around. That impressed him, because Korea was decidedly unlike that.

Ever since reading that, and based on my experiences elsewhere, I've had a working theory that how people drive somewhat reflects how advanced a society is. I have no idea what my criteria for "advanced" is, and it's probably a really small correlation, but I'm sticking with it. For example, looking at videos of driving in India, it seems like it's absolutely nuts there, no rules whatsoever. This says to me that it's got a ways to go in terms of development. China has more organization, but the rules (e.g. traffic lights) still feel largely optional there. Must like the country itself. Korea is interesting to me, because I feel like the driving has changed since I first visited in '95. Back then, it was crazier; cars regularly ran red lights, and the lane markings seemed extraneous; I'd regularly see 6 cars driving side by side on a 4-lane road. But that doesn't happen anymore. Cars stay in their lanes. I don't see cars just blatantly disregarding lights (except for jumping the gun on red lights that are about to turn green, which I think is weird, but everyone seems to do it). Korea's developed as a society.

Anyway, like I said, driving in Korea is stress-free because of Gini, this incredible GPS software that everyone seems to have. It uses a huge screen, probably twice the diagonal length of typical GPS devices in the U.S, and the detail on it is incredible, probably because Korea is so small and they can fit a lot of info on it. Like, it reports the speed limits everywhere, has diagrams of every on/off-ramp, and even indicates where speed bumps are. Amazing detail.

So it's an interesting experience driving here. I never know where I am. I don't know in what direction I'm traveling. I don't know the name of the street I'm on. I don't know the name of the street I need to take next. I never know exactly where I'm going. I don't think I could even if I wanted to, because I read Korean so slowly; by the time I've fully decoded a sign, it's passed. But it's totally fine. Gini's so good, all I need to do is see the zoomed map that says the next turn I need to make, and I get to where I need to go. I don't feel stressed about it at all.

Interestingly, this is in contrast to Jieun's mom. She usually only drives from her place in Yangpyeong to Giwoong's apartment in Suseo when she comes to Seoul, taking the subway from there to anywhere else she needs to go. We've been driving to all these other places she's not familiar with, and it's stressed her out a little. She's constantly trying to get her bearings, figure out where we are, where we're going, reading all the signs to figure things out. It's taxing.

There's a spiritual lesson there, I think. When you know you can trust what's guiding you, not knowing where you are and where you're going doesn't have to be stressful. In fact, it's harder when you try to figure out where you're going. When you just trust that consistently following the next turn you've been shown will get you where you're supposed to go, it can be a peaceful experience.

And that's what driving in Korea is like.

I love the food in Korea. All the Korean foods I like in America are universally better here (like, I had this incredible naeng-myun at a random place in the countryside, the best I've had in years at a nameless place), and they have all these delicious things you can't get in the states (like, for lunch today I had a Cordon Bleu Chicken Katsu. Delicious).

That said, because I can't speak the language well, getting food in Korea by myself is by far the most stressful part of being here for me. Everything else, I can get by. I can manage the subway (and now the bus!) by myself fine. Other places, also OK. But restaurants induce incredible anxiety.

I mean, I have problems ordering Korean food even in America. I remember one time in college, my drawgroup went to Korea Palace. I got there first, I think with Charlie and Irwin (both Chinese). I remember thinking beforehand how I need to limit how much Korean I speak to minimize the mistakes, preferably speaking none, but when the waitress asked in Korean how many more people are coming, I panicked, and responded in Korean with "two more". There are 2 methods of counts in Korea, one that refers to people, and one that refers to everything else, and I used the wrong one, so I basically said "2 things more". She tried to hide it, but laughed out loud. My Korean is so poor that 3 syllables is all it takes to get even nice people to laugh at it. Usually though, at Korean restaurants, when I speak Korean they just respond in English, as we both realize that their (usually broken) English is superior to my Korean. One time at a place in Cerritos, the waitress responded to my Korean with a 5 minute sermon on how I need to speak it better. So yeah, there are some scars there. And this is in America.

In Korea, there are difficulties in every part of the process. Like ordering. Sometimes there's no English and I'm not totally sure what the menu items mean. Sometimes there is English and it's gibberish. Other times, the item is a Korean transliteration of a foreign phrase. I've written about this before, but for the life of me, I can't pronounce these the Korean way. Like, you can get a "chicken burger set" at Burger King. But in Korean, it's pronounced more like "chee-keen buh-guh seh-tuh". I just can't do it. Not sure why. My officemates weren't around today so I had lunch alone and had to get said Cordon Bleu item myself. Very difficult. But worth stumbling around for, since it's delicious.

After ordering, I'd say 2 out of 3 times, the cashier responds with something I can't understand at all. One time, I eventually realized that she was asking whether I want my sandwich warmed up. But usually, I have no clue and just respond yes, hoping it's something about getting the receipt or if it's for takeout. I did that this morning, and the cashier gave me an odd look. Possibly she hadn't asked a question. I have no clue. I can't understand.

Then there's the etiquette. I have no idea what it is. I vaguely recall a friend saying it's weird to eat alone in Korea. Is that true? So what do I do on days like today when I'm alone? I'm not even totally sure how to order for takeout. I checked out a bunch of restaurants today to see if anyone was eating alone. It was unclear. There were a handful of people sitting by themselves, but it wasn't obvious whether they were truly alone or waiting for someone. One time, I ordered takeout jjajjangmyun for the family, then wasn't sure where to wait. I just kind of stood around, but the help kept looking at me funny. So I sat down, and a waitress kind of physically hinted that I shouldn't be taking up a seat. So where do you wait for a takeout order? I don't know. Other things too, like how you know when your order is ready, what to do with your tray when you're done, where to get napkins, it's all kind of mysterious. And stressful.

I used to resolve that I was going to learn Korean, because I'm impressed at how capable Jieun is here. (Actually, I told Dave this, but I was also really impressed by his Chinese skills. It's not that he's fluent. But he knows enough, both reading and conversing, that if you dropped him anywhere in China, he could get around. And being able to get around by yourself in a foreign country is, to me, an amazing skill.) She pulls out these Korean phrases that to me, seem almost creative. But the truth is, I never will. There's not just enough incentive to. I never have to speak it at home. And if I don't have to, I won't, because there are other, better uses of my time. Oh well.

Abby's entering kindergarten next year. Maybe I was just oblivious to it up until now (highly likely - I'm the clueless type), but the intensity I see in her peers' parents now that their kids are on the cusp of school age is extreme. Until recently, I was completely unworried about where she'd go to school, thinking our neighborhood school was perfectly fine, until I accompanied Abby to one of her preschool classmates' birthday parties, and not a single parent there planned to send their kids to that school (her preschool meets on the same grounds as the elementary school she would attend) because the class size next year for K will be 30 students, and they all think that's insane.

Parents express their intensity in different ways, but I feel like the basic attitude behind it is the same - the decisions we make will have permanent effects on our children. In some sense, our actions determine the types of people they will be.

Which is weird, because most research nowadays indicates the opposite, that to a surprising extent, parenting doesn't have much effect on the outcomes of their children. In the end, nature trumps nurture. That idea is expressed in this Freaonomics post. And the idea isn't limited to the secular world. There was a really interesting (and controversial) Christianity Today article some time back that argued much the same thing.

As the CT article points out, Christian parents today tend toward the anxiety side, that how we parent forms our children, and that if we parent "right," our children will turn out to be good Christians. The thought that this might not be true, I think, doesn't sit right with most Christian parents. For a couple reasons. One, it seems to be contrary to certain parts of Scripture. The majority of children's ministries I've been involved with have made Proverbs 22:6 their motto: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." It suggests that how we parent has a big influence on how our children turn out. And when listing qualifications for church overseers in 1 Timothy 3, Paul says "He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)" That also suggests that parents' character affects how their children turn out, and that we have a responsibility to raise them well.

I think the idea that parenting doesn't determine kids' outcomes as much as we think also feels wrong because it doesn't jive with our personal experience. We can all think of numerous ways in which the things our parents did formed us, for good and bad. I don't think I'm the only one that has wished that my parents did certain things with me differently, thinking that if they had, I'd a better person. There's some part of us that attributes how we are to what our parents did. If we believe that, we have to believe that the same must be true for us with our children.

I don't believe that anymore. I believe the research. I think a lot of the specific experiences in our childhood that we believe indelibly formed us were actually incidental things that moved us along a path we were already on. I don't think parents have as much control over their children's outcomes as we believe. I also don't think that idea is scriptural.

I was reminded of this while doing our church's reading through Chronicles and Kings. For whatever reason, godly men frequently (even usually) made piss-poor parents, if that's based on how their kids turned out. Most of the kings of Israel and Judah sucked. Every once in a while, you'll get a good king, and think the tide has turned. But no, their kids end up sucking too. I would wager that if you listed all the godly parents in the Bible, you'd find that most of their kids ended up not so well. Solomon's kids weren't great. Eli's sons weren't great, so Samuel succeeded him. Then 1 Sam. 8 tells us that Samuel's sons were bad also. I can't see any reliable pattern at all of godly men producing godly children.

I think this jives with what we see in real life also. The truth is, godly people often produce screwed up children. It's well known that Billy Graham was pretty bad father, and his son went through quite a wandering phase. He ended up great, but it would be hard to say it was because of Graham's parenting. And maybe this is only when I was growing up, but in general, there was a perception that many pastor's kids had issues. Obviously not universal. But common enough that there was a negative connotation with PKs.

I buy the conclusions of the CT article. The problem with thinking that we determine our children's outcomes is twofold. One, it perverts our understanding of who is in control of our children. We don't own their outcomes; God does. We are called to be faithful, not determine how they turn out. We can't. Our responsibility is in the process, not the outcome, and judging either ourselves or others based on the latter is misguided. Two, it causes us to equate how our children are with how we are as parents, making it about us, not them, and becoming fuel for judging others.

Ever since reading that article, I've been reminding myself from time to time: be faithful, but God owns the outcome. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in the Freakonomics post as well. Instead of trying to push them toward something, the most valuable thing we can do for our kids is enjoy our time together.

As always, I'm still thinking things through. But that's kind of how I've been thinking about parenting lately.

Abby has a Bacon number of 3: Abby appears in Triangle along with Paul Juhn who was in Salt with Frank Harts who appeared in In The Cut, which has an uncredited appearance by Kevin Bacon. However, unlike Natalie Portman, Abby only has a Bacon number, not an Erdős–Bacon number. Yet.

Amy Chua, who wrote that controversial book about Tiger Mothers came to speak at work. It was extremely thought-provoking.

Based on excerpts she read from the book and what she said during the talk, I think she's been misrepresented in the media. The book wasn't meant to be a defense of extreme Chinese-style parenting. In her mind, she imagined it as a David Sedaris-type memoir, intended to be humorous more than anything else. In fact, the book describes how (and why) she ultimately abandons the Chinese parenting style. What she realizes is that every child is different, and the same style doesn't work on everyone. Her Tiger Mom style worked on her older daughter, but not on her younger. And interestingly, one person who helps her realize that is her own mother. Despite being a Tiger Mother herself, she warned Chua against using that style on her younger daughter, pointing to Chua's father as a warning of what can happen when that style is applied to the wrong person. Chua's father completely despised the Chinese parenting style that was used on him, and it caused so much conflict that he was basically estranged from his family. What Chua realizes in the end is that the Tiger Mom style doesn't even work on all Chinese, so it can't be the only way. And no matter what, the most important thing is to maintain love in the family.

Which gets to an interesting point about why she chose to initially adopt the Tiger Mom style: she was raised on that style and she felt like it "worked". And by worked, she means it caused her to love her parents; she's extremely close to them, and her family travels together regularly. Her ultimate motivation in being a Tiger Mom wasn't "success," but familial love. That same motivation is what caused her to abandon it.

And she really did abandon it. Both her daughters were at the talk with her, and the older daughter (a high school senior) noted that her mom is now so hands-off that she didn't know what classes she was currently taking, and didn't even know which colleges she was applying to. I thought that was very interesting. She also voiced the opinion that the extreme achievement culture in American education today that leaves kids exhausted and overwhelmed (cf. Race to Nowhere) is insane. I don't think she's nearly the Chinese mom that she's been made out to be. Additionally, she seemed to be close to both of her daughters.

I bought what she was saying. Every child is different, and you can't use the same style on everyone. And her main motivation, wanting to further closeness - I find it hard to quibble with that.

But the most interesting part of the talk to me was a question someone in the audience asked. She wondered if some of the techniques that worked on Chua but failed on her daughters did so simply because times are different.

That really sparked my thinking. First an aside. For me, the most interesting observation Dave made the first year he was in Korea was that the Korean culture us 2nd generation Korean-Americans were raised in wasn't Korean culture at all, but 70s Korean culture. That's when our parents immigrated, and they kept living that lifestyle in America, like a frozen time capsule. Things we 2nd gens we experienced in our families and assumed to be Korean culture didn't exist in actual Korean culture anymore. A lot of it's superficial, like the blankets we used or certain words we said. But regardless, it was a little different.

I think that frozen in time aspect happens in general with parents. The one thing parents depend on more than anything else is their own experience. They try to avoid mistakes they perceive their parents as making, and try to reproduce things that worked on them.

The thing is, just like our parents' sense of Korean culture was frozen in time, parents' experiences are also frozen in time, the time in which they were raised. And in the same way, they may not reflect how life is anymore.

For example, I can see how a lot of what my parents pushed for me was based on their own experience. Like with academic performance. I'm pretty sure that in 60s Korea, the single greatest determinant of life success was academic achievement. And that's why our parents pushed it so much for us. The thing is, we all realize now (well most of us) that in America today, while education still matters a lot, its relationship to "success" is not nearly as direct as it was in Korea. It's not the be-all-end-all in life that our parents thought it was. And I think many of realize that the relationship between going to a "top" school and being happy is even more tenuous. So we recognize that what they knew from their experience to be true, the overwhelming importance of education, isn't so true today.

But here's the epiphany I had: the same is true for me. Although I knew that some of the things my parents thought to be "right," especially in terms of education, weren't anymore, I just assumed that my understanding was better. And maybe it was, for my time. But what I realized is that what was true for me might not apply anymore in my children's time. Like, I've come to believe that thinking creatively is a hugely important skill in education, much more so than the rote memorization style our parents tended to reinforce in us. But times keep changing, and maybe nowadays that creativity isn't as important anymore. Maybe it is. The point is, I can't just assume it; to do so would follow the same fallacy that our parents held in pushing their ways.

That applies to everything, the role of music, sports, free time, peer relationships, whatever. Maybe it's just a 2nd generation immigrant thing, or maybe it's just me, but I thought I knew better than my parents what the right role of all of these things were. I now realize that I don't necessarily, and for the same reason when I thought my parents were off. Times change.

In a way, that's kind of terrifying, realizing that nothing I think I know is right about parenting based on my own experience is, necessarily. But I think that's true. I came away from Chua's talk with 2 big parenting reminders. One, every child is different, and you can't force a single parenting style on every child. Two, we have to realize that times change, so we can't assume that was true in our day will be true and work for our own kids. Kind of humbling. I like that.

Don't know if you've read Jeopardy Ken Jennings' interviews, but the man is hilarious. See his interview in the Washington Post and his Reddit interview. He went to school in South Korea! Seoul Foreign School! And he loves Wits and Wagers! Some interesting quotations:

Q: When growing up in Korea, did you bedroom have a ceiling fan?

A: Obviously not, since I survived.

A Korean fan death reference. Good times.

Q: In the sixth season episode "See You in September" of the TV show "Perfect Strangers", it is revealed that Balki is a licensed nupitiki doctoruthiki, a Myposian marriage counselor. He administers the Myposian marriage test to Larry and Jennifer, to help them get over their fear of getting married. However, no mention was made of this in the second season episode "Since I Lost my Baby", when Balki and Larry attempt to save the Twinkacettis' marriage.

Was this a continuity error? Or did Balki receive this certification through some sort of correspondence course from Mypos at a later date?

A: I've thought a lot about this over the years, and have decided that Balki didn't feel right using his Myposian certification in his adopted country, due to the licensing issues, both legal and ethical, that even he would recognized.

And now we do the dance of joy!

Mormon trivia:

1. Christian Aguilera was born Mormon. Not our finest effort. The original proposed name for Utah, "Deseret," isn't related to "desert." It's a Book of Mormon word (and therefore etymologically iffy to nonbelievers) meaning "honeybee."
2. Mormon congregations are called "wards," and dioceses are called "stakes." Some of our houses of worship used to therefore be called "stake houses," but this turned out to be too confusing. (Especially because there was no salad bar.)
3. Mormon scripture strongly implies that the apostle John, as well as three Book of Mormon disciples, never actually died but are still kicking around someplace. Awesomely, this leads some Mormons to repeat urban legends about "the three Nephites" miraculously appearing to help little old ladies, repair the cars of stranded travelers, etc.
4. My Sunday school teacher, when I was a Mormon teen, once memorably advised us that "There's nothing more overrated than sex, and nothing more underrated than a good bowel movement." It totally worked...I don't remember a single other sermon from when I was a kid, but I think about this guy exactly once a day, and then again once a week.

Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) both called me back personally in 2004 to try to get me to run for Orrin Hatch's Senate seat. I am not making this up. Win on a game show and you can apparently run for the US Senate. That was when I realized the Democratic Party was f@#$ed in '04.

There's a lot more. Maybe not interesting to you, but I was entertained.

Loved the series finale for Friday Night Lights. Thinking about it, I think it's the best series finale I've ever seen. Every character ended up where they should. It had emotional resonance and resolution. It's pretty much exactly what you want in a series finale. They nailed it.

It's really hard to get a series finale right. I realized that while compiling my list of favorite and least favorite series finales. Most are either straight out bad or forgettable. Even more I never catch because once I drop out of a series, I never bother getting back in. Anyway, here's my list.

Favorite TV series finales

• Friday Night Lights - Like I said, the storyline followed the logical consequences of who the characters were, so to the very end, it felt real and not forced. I also loved how the ending was a celebration of relationship, community, and work. There's wisdom in that.
• The Wonder Years - Honestly, only the first couple seasons were good, but the first session wasn't just good, it was incredible - in my opinion, still the single best season of TV ever. The rest of the seasons were just whatever. But the last episode focused the poignancy of the series, and the last line of dialogue in the last episode is great, probably the best last line of a series ever. I'm going to quote it:

  Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house like a lot of other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back, with wonder.

  Then you hear a kid calling, and the narrator says he'll be right there. So perfect. That was exactly the series. Nostalgia for a universal experience. Looking back but moving forward. A fantastic ending.
• The Wire - like the rest of the series, it was completely cynical and somewhat depressing, but it felt right. Everyone ended up where there should be, and there was poetry in that.

That's my complete list of series enders I liked. Just 3.

Least Favorite Series Finales

• Battlestar Galactica - I think the ending ruined the entire experience of the series for me. Fundamentally, this was a show that had the courage to ask questions about why. But in the end, they left almost every why question unresolved and just dealt with what, the plot issues. I didn't think it was bad at the time, but looking back now, I find I care about the series very little, and it's because of how the ending resolved things (or failed to). The whole series, you kind of assumed the meaning of everything would be revealed, and it wasn't, so it sucked.
• Veronica Mars - A total bummer of an ending for one of my all-time favorite series. It was unclear whether there was going to be another season, so it makes sense, but there are season endings that had more resolution that this had. It's especially disappointing because Veronica Mars was one of those rare series where the details in every episode mattered in the end. It's sad that it didn't work out that way as a series.
• Seinfeld - Cynical, slightly depressing, and worst of all, boring.
• Alias - So bad. It "resolved", but only by being completely ludicrous. The series was ludicrous to begin with, but the rule of sci-fi is that you can make whatever rules you want, but then you have to live within it to work. The Alias last seasons was ludicrous even within the rules it set out for itself, and rendered much of the behavior of the characters in previous seasons nonsensical. The ending made David Crowder angry, and with good reason. It was so, so bad.
• Friends - Ross and Rachel got together. That took 10 years to resolve? Really? Plus the whole dialogue at the end, where Ross asks "Did she get off the plane? Did she get off the plane?" and she comes in and says "I got off the plane" just completely annoyed me. Just so predictable, trite, and lazy. I completely biased on this; I've seen very few Friends episodes and aren't invested in the characters at all. For that reason, the few episodes and clips I've seen, I just get annoyed, because their actions don't make sense as people; they only make pseudo-sense if you value them as characters. I don't. So for someone like me, looking at the people with no investment, is how the series resolved, with 2 people taking 10 years to figure out they want to be together, and the process by which they figured it out, compelling at all? Nope. Boring.
• Saved By The Bell: The College Years - This may sound absurd, but the whole time I watched Saved By The Bell, I didn't realize what it was about. Until the finale. After the last episode, they brought out the characters to be cheered by the live studio audience, and the way they did it, saving Mark-Paul Gosselaar for last to the screams of adoring teenage girls, I realized the show is about Zack Morris. That sounds so obvious in retrospect, and it is, since he's the main character, but it wasn't why I watched the show (that reason would be Kelly Kapowski). Zack was a cipher for me, but the finale made me realize that for other people (mostly girls), he was the sole reason for watching. I'd been watching chick TV. The last show wasn't particularly worse than any other episode, but I was traumatized.

There are other finales I remember, notably Cheers, The West Wing, Lost, and The Sopranos, but they left no lasting impression on me, just that it ended. 3 finales I liked, the rest I either disliked or was just meh. It's hard to do well.

I finally went to Una Pizza Napoletana. The proprietor originally had a place in Manhattan, and people I trust - namely Paul, Tina, and Eugene - said it was the best pizza in New York. Which, to most pizza snobs, made it the best pizza in America. And he moved his place to San Francisco. I was stoked. I went, expecting a life-changing experience.

It was great. If I really think about it, I'd say it's the best pizza I've had. Having said that, it wasn't life changing, so honestly, I was a little disappointed. I've been trying to figure out why, and I think part of it has to do with the philosophy behind the pizza.

Quick Plato lesson for people who don't know (and probably don't care). Plato believed in ideals, and that things in nature only approximated those ideals. For example, we see lots of circles in real life. Frisbees, tires, drawings, whatever. We know that none of these things are true, perfect, flawless circles. But we know that there is concept of an ideal, perfect circle, even if we can never see one in reality. We call things in reality "circles" if they approximate the ideal circle. If something deviates from that ideal enough, we can't call it a circle anymore. We'd call it an oval, or something else. The basic idea is that we categorize things based on their similarity to Platonic ideals.

His famous allegory of the cave describes people who have been chained up in a cave their entire lives, such that all they can see is a blank wall of the cave. There are things passing by in front of a fire behind them, but all they can see are the shadows cast onto the blank wall. Plato argues that life is like this - we see but imitative shadows of the true reality. The philosopher realizes the true reality exists, even though it cannot be seen.

If this sounds vaguely Christian to you, I feel the same way. Paul in particular seems to echo this idea in places, about life being just a glimpse of what is to come, e.g. in 1 Corinthians 13:12 - "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." If you believe that there's such thing as "true" love, or "true" justice or "true" peace, you're in some sense a Platonist. I am.

In contrast, Aristotle didn't believe in ethereal ideals. Honestly, I'm not sure what he believed, because his writing is boring, confusing, and contradictory. But as I understand parts of it (which might be completely wrong), he believed the essence of categories is learned when we group things together. We figure out what a circle is when we call a bunch of things "circles." We know what red is when we call a bunch of things "red." SN: ancient writings contain almost no descriptions colors. Because of this, there is a serious theory out there ancient man could only recognize three colors.

What on earth does any of this have to do with pizza? The current hot trend in pizza basically espouses Plato: there exists a perfect form of pizza (Neapolitan), and the goal is to achieve that perfection. All these places popping up in the Bay Area (e.g. UPN, Tony's Pizza Napoletana in SF, Napoletana Pizzeria in Mountain View) reflect that. UPN comes closest to that ideal. The pizza geeks will rattle off why: the texture and taste of the dough, the imported Italian sea salt, San Marzano tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, the temperature of the oven, etc. And I enjoy this style a lot.

But here's the thing - in the end, there's a cap on how mind-blowing that kind of pizza can be, because it's attempting to approach an ideal that it can't exceed. And even though it's an ideal, it's not that unfamiliar. UPN maximally fulfilled that style. But I knew what that style was already.

In contrast, the most mind-blowing pizza I ever had was at Chez Panisse Cafe, years ago when I was in high school, with my mom, Nick, and his mom. I had a goat cheese pizza that completely changed the way I thought about pizza and, frankly, about food in general. Because it wasn't trying to match an ideal, but to expand my horizons.

The traditional debate about the best pizzas are usually between Chicago-style and New York-style, but I don't think California-style gets enough respect. Being a purist of any style inherently imposes a limit on how much it can change you. California-style pushes the edge of what pizza can be, and I enjoy that a lot. In the end, I'm not a pure pizza Platonist. I like purity. But I also like creativity.

I'm changing my answer. Chez Panisse is still the site of the best pizza I ever had. Here are my pizza rankings:

• Chez Panisse Cafe
• Una Pizza Napoletana
• Grimaldi's - I feel like some New Yorkers look down on me when I say this. But I like what I like.
• Zachary's - this angers Chicagoans, but honestly, I like Zachary's more than the Chicago places I've been to. Since I'm not a purist, the true Chicago places are a bit too piggy for me (e.g. a solid layer of sausage on top - it's a bit much).
• Pizza Antica
• A Slice Of NY - My favorite NY-style place in the South Bay. Now open in Sunnyvale.
• Patxi's - Not as good as Zachary's, the texture of the sauce is not quite right, but still pretty good.
• Pizza Chicago - Also not "pure", which is what I like about it. The California-influenced toppings work really well with the deep dish.
• Giovanni's - My second favorite NY-style in the South Bay. Doesn't get enough respect.

Almost all parents of school-age kids know this already, so I guess this is for everyone else.

There's this weird phenomenon going on with parents in the Bay Area, which has long had an oversupply of insane parents. Back in my day, the thing to do was skip grades. If your kid was smart, it was a goal and source of pride for them to skip a grade (or two). I'm actually somewhat curious why I never did, since my mom pushed me to be above grade level even from first grade. But even at the time, skipping grades didn't make a lot of sense to me, and now looking back, it still doesn't. What's the point exactly? Why the rush to finish school earlier? What does it accomplish? I don't know the answers to those questions. I just know that skipping grades was seen as "good".

So the weird thing that's started to happen in the past few years is that now, all the crazy parents are holding their kids back. I'm not 100% certain, but I strongly suspect it's the influence of Outliers. In that book, Gladwell notes that there are more Canadian NHL players who were born in the first 3 months of the year than any other months. The reason? The cutoff for junior league hockey in Canada is Jan. 1. Canada takes hockey really seriously, and starts training the best players in elite programs really young. But at that young age, the oldest players, the ones born closest to the cutoff, will tend to be better - the 11 months age difference between them and the youngest players means a lot in terms of physical maturity and skill. So from the beginning, they get more attention and are encouraged more. It's not that players born in Jan-Mar are inherently better. It's just that they tend to be better than their teammates when they're young because they're older, and that extra attention from the beginning perpetuates.

The takeaway is that in Canadian hockey, you get more encouragement and an advantage in life simply by being born at the right time, being the oldest on your team. And I think parents are applying that to education as well (it may be in the book - I read so much about it I didn't bother to actually read it). As in hockey, they think that if they're kids are older in their class, they'll tend to perform better, get more attention and encouragement, and ultimately an advantage in life. And to be honest, I do think there's something to that.

The problem is, if schools don't have hard, firm age-cutoff dates, and enough parents ascribe to the kids have an advantage if they're older in their class mentality, you end up having an arms race. And that's exactly what's happening around here. Now Kindergartens have all these 6-year-old kids turning 7 during the school year. 7-year-old Kindergartners! It's gotten to the point that parents who send their kids to school at the normal time are being told by their teachers to hold their kids back. Because it's absurd, 7-year-olds and 5-year-olds trying to play together on the playgrounds.

Joshua will be near the borderline of the cutoff date when he enters Kindergarten, and the dates are changing such that we can kind of choose which year to send him. I had most recently been thinking eh, just stick him in school as a younger kid. I figure he'll be smart enough. But now, based on what we've heard from other parents, we may have no choice, as he might be in class with kids 2 years older than him. The teachers might not even let him enroll.

Bay Area, man. It's crazy. I don't know why it has to go to such extremes. Here's a novel thought, crazy parents - how about instead of having kids skip grades or be intentionally held back to gain an advantage, just putting kids in the grades they're supposed to be in?