Names

Siew and I have remained old-fashioned about the sex of the baby. Since ultra-sound scans can be dangerous to a baby's ears, I requested that only the scans necessary to check on the baby be done. Nothing extra, including looking for the sex of the baby.

People have, for thousands and thousands of years, not known the sex of the baby. It is only a few months wait to find out. I think that it is better to not know and have a healthier child than to know to settle my own curiosity.

Siew and I have decided that we will name the child this way:

I pick the first name, she picks the middle name and the baby will have my surname.

The first name will be a western name and the middle name will be a Chinese name.

I looked around for awhile, and asked my parents for names of family members and suggestions that they like.

Debra and my father sent me a wonderful list of family member names. My mother and Marty sent me a list of bullshit names.

Debra wrote this e-mail that also includes some information she found online. She took it seriously, keep this in mind:


How fun....here you go I gathered a few generation of names off of my genealogy...if you need more I can give you sibling names...Have fun you two!!!! xoxoxo mom

Girl Family Names...
Popular girl names currently in the US: Ashlyn, Allison, Anamarie, Alondra, Amanda, Bella, Cassie, Haylee, Isabelle, Jessica, Kara, Laura, Michelle, Melissa, Mary, Sarah, Tessa, Vanessa, Cami
Debra Lee Travers, your stepmom
Crystal Maxine Travers, your grandma
Etta Elizabeth Travers, your great grandmother
Allie Christmas Kells, your great grandmother
Allie Jane Scott, your great grandmother
Millicent Mellissa Fuller, your great grandmother
Henrietta Jane Weathers, your great great grandmother
Amanda Ann Black, your great great grandmother
Della Ruth Brubaker, your great great grandmother
Elizabeth "Libby" Dean Crowl, your great great great grandmother

Boy Family Names...
Popular boy names currently in the US: Aaron, Brett, Brad, Caine, Colten, Darrin, Jackson, Kevin, Michael, Austin, Parker, Preston, Wesley, Zachary
Glen Eldon Travers, your dad
Harvey Harold Travers, your grandfather
William Wilber Travers, your great grandfather
Don R. Carroll, your great grandfather
James Gillman Carroll, your great grandfather
Samuel William Carroll, your great great grandfather
Robert Fulton Kells, your great grandfather
Joseph Scott Jr., your great great grandfather
John William Brubaker, your great great grandfather
Robert Crowl, your great great grandfather


My mother sent this e-mail, she did not show a serious attitude, in fact she didn't do as I requested at all and showed a VERY immature and insulting attitude:


Boys:
Worth
Caleb
Bam Bam (Marty's idea-lol)
David (Marty's)
Alistair
Avery
Burke
Dalton
Colorado (Marty's)
Derrick (Marty's)
Sage
Gabe
Sage
Whitney
Hunter
Jace-means healer
Jesse
Mikhail
Nelson
Marty fell asleep.....lol he just got back from lunch with Mema!

Girls:
Paige
Aubrey
Unice or Eunice
Tayla
Sadie
Saffron
Phoebe
April
May
June

Maggie Ann Fager
Josephine
Delbert Ray Klassy

There are some. I'm sure you will find the right name.

Love,

Mom


The nature of these e-mails shows, to me, how each person took this. Debra took this as something fun, interesting and serious. My mother took it as a joke and made it into an insult to me.

I was very angry when I read mom's list. I was very happy when I read Debra's list.

In the end I decided on 2 names, that Siew approves of. If the baby is a girl, her name will be Delfina. If the baby is a boy, his name will be Felix.

There are several reasons for these names. The first is that they are neutral names. They are not biblical names, they are Latin. Living in a country like Malaysia, this may be helpful to our child. As I am not Christian, there is no reason to specifically give a Christian name. The next reason is that these names sound nice, and are not too difficult for people in the West and East to say. I also like the meanings of these names, in Latin. Delfina means dolphin, which is a beautiful and intelligent creature. Felix means luck or lucky, I need not elaborate on that one.

Siew has picked out some Chinese names that she likes:


For Boy:

1. yu-peng 宇鹏 *yu - universe/world *peng - Roc/Large fabulous bird
2. yuan-tao 元涛 *yuan - primary/basic/first *tao - great waves/billow
3. song-ze 颂泽 *song - glorify/praise/celebrate *ze - benefit/lake/water/blessing
4. li-peng 礼鹏 *li - Ceremony/Gift/Ritual/Courtesy/Propriety/Rite/Proprieties/Manners *peng - Roc/Large fabulous bird
5. song-peng 颂鹏 *song - glorify/praise/celebrate *peng - Roc/Large fabulous bird


For Girl:

1. ying-shuang 樱双 *ying - cherry/sakura *shuang - double/pair/couple
2. qiao-shuang 乔双 *qiao - tall/to disguise *shuang - double/pair/couple
3. meng-shuang 梦双 *meng - dream *shuang - double/pair/couple
4. you-meng 优梦 *you - excellent/outstanding/brilliant/untouchable *meng - dream
5. yue-meng 悦梦 *yue - happy/pleased/delighted *meng - dream
6. yi-meng 艺梦 *yi - art/skill *meng - dream


I have not heard how these sound to give a ye or nay to these names yet though. :-)

Siew's mother suggested a name that I really had to veto. She suggested Jian Bang for a boy's name. She knows I like swords and suggested Jian because that is the Chinese word for sword. However, naming the boy something like that just doesn't "feel" right to me, so I said no to that part. Bang is horrible. It may be ok in Chinese, but we have to consider that our child is the product of many cultures. Bang, in English, is a sound to show an explosion or a loud noise. This is not something that I would want our child to have to carry around.

Our baby is due May 26th. I am excited, nervous, anxious and a whole host of other things about that.

Siew and I are about to really begin the journey of becoming a family.

N.E.S. (Nintendo Entertainment Soda)

I found something interesting today.

N.E.S. the drink.

For those of you who do not know please read this to learn about the wonderful Nintendo Entertainment System.

I drank a drink today that had this on the tab:



As you can see, NES is a drink as well as an old-school video gaming system!

Who would have thought that Nintendo the game company would want to also get into the soda market?!










Writer's note:

This is a joke. This is a tab from a can of Nescafé coffee. But it is entertaining to people who know what the NES was, to see this sort of label on a can drink.

Adjusting

I still have not gotten the hang of settling things on my own here.

I am still trying to adjust to being alone. Siew has always been such a fixture in my life, I tried not to take her for granted, but I still managed to do so. Now that she is in Penang I am having a hard time of things, but I am getting adjusted, slowly.

For example:

Sleeping alone is really strange. I tend to roll all over the bed. I have not rolled around so much since I was in Kentucky, where, even with Siew, I would wake up in some very strange positions. Usually ending up on the floor with a small part of my body on the bed.

Lunch. Siew always prepares my lunch for me to take to work. Recenly I have been eating quite poorly because I do not have time to settle lunch before going to work.

Dinner. Again, Siew usually prepares dinner. This makes it easier for me to come home, eat, relax and spend time with her. Now that I have to prepare everything for my own dinner I have been leaning towards laziness.

Depressed. I feel a bit depressed sometimes. That is normal for me. But, I feel like I am much more easily depressed when she is not here.

Hopefully the baby comes out on the expected due date! I am taking some time off during that duration so that I can TRY to be there when she has to deliver the baby. I would really hate it if I can not be there when that happens.

He's ok!!!

I attended class tonight. I was a bit late.

On my way in Sensei James was on his way out. I met him in the parking lot. He had some function he had to attend, he was dressed up for the occasion.

Sensei Peter was leading the class with the lower level people, like me. Peter's head is fine, it has some scabbing, but very little bruising and he was in high-spirits. This is something that makes me happy. I would have hated if I had hurt him severely.

When I walked in they were already working on breakfalls (ukemi) so I joined in. They were working on side ukemi and then changed to backward ukemi. My backward ukemi is apparently perfect so I received very little correction, and was used as an example of how to do the fall correctly.

Then we changed over to the ukemi I hate. Forward ukemi. You have to land on your palms first and then use your arm muscles to stop your elbows from smashing into the ground. This is done with the arms under the body, so that if you fail to stop yourself, your arms will absorb the shock before your body does. At the end of the ukemi your forearms, hands and toes are the only thing on the ground. The idea being that you keep your body off the floor so that if there were spikes or something you would not impale yourself.

Again, I was used as an example. However, this type of ukemi is painful for me. I have a rather nasty welt on my forearm from falling too many times.

We followed that up with exercises to strengthen our arms for the forward ukemi. Again, the welt was in the way so I did not do the exercises.

Then we started doing knife work in a circle. Everyone had a chance to slash each other up with a rubber weapon.

On my first go I went against a guy who has been there for about a year. Apparently, I was a lot "better" than him at this. He is a very strong guy. I have had a lot of bruises from him in the past. :-)

Anyway, on my next turn I was pitted against a blackbelt. That was fun. He was good, and is younger than me, but I did well against him. Actually, both of the blackbelts there were impressed with my knife fighting. . but I have never done any knife fighting training.

There was one point where the blackbelt against me and I tangled up and I threw him, hip tossed really, to the floor.

After class they were commenting on the things I did during the knife fighting. . . I have no recollection at all of doing what they said I did. They mentioned that I spun quite a bit. If I was blocked in one direction I would spin in the opposite direction in order to put the knife into a soft spot. I really do not recall doing that at all.

I have a few more bruises from this weekend, but it has been very fun, despite throwing Peter face-first into the floor. I am still learning a lot and enjoying the classes.

Peter also advised me to start practicing, and briefly showed me, more advanced ukemi.

I ended up with a bruised up shin, forearm and a little split on the inside of my mouth from knife-fighting with the blackbelt. Fun!

Look ma! No control!

Today in class we did some sparring.

During the last spar, I was sparring against one of the blackbelts. He had injured his right hand and was avoiding using it.

We tangled up and I ended up throwing him. . . face-first into the floor. When I saw his head bounce my first thoughts were "Oh, shit! I've really hurt him!"

After that he tried to get up, but I told him to stay, not to move. I was worried about a concussion. After a few minutes he seemed to be ok so we helped him up.

His head and his mouth were bleeding. He hit his forehead, which must have hurt, but luckily that is a very hard part of the skull.

I feel really bad. I do not want to hurt anyone. Even more so while practicing.

We were practicing on the hardwood floor again. What is ironic is that we start the session outside and moved inside only when the rain started. If we had stayed outside then if the same thing had happened he would not have been hurt nearly as bad.

I hope he will be ok. I will see how it looks tomorrow when I attend the Sunday class.

What the Monkey?!

I got up this morning and decided to straight away sweep the floors of the house. I have been too busy and/or tired to clean after or before work. But I am free now as it is the weekend.

So I came out to start adjusting things so I could sweep and what did I see? A monkey. I saw a monkey on the rail of my balcony. As soon as it saw me it fled. I called my brother-in-law and then went to look, but I could not see it anywhere.

I live on the fifth floor of a place with no trees that touch the building, so I have to wonder how it managed to get up here!

It was a strange experience.

On a side note, the floors feel so much better now after having been swept and mopped. I swept and Jiang mopped. Thanks for helping, Jiang!