Jia Tolentino writes in The New Yorker:

Part of the seeming strangeness of Shen Yun could be attributed to a latent Orientalism on the part of Western viewers—including those of us who are of Asian descent. But the real root of Shen Yun’s meme-friendly eeriness is that the ads brightly and aggressively broadcast nothing at all; this is why it’s so easy to imagine them popping up in Ebbing, Missouri, or in the extended Blade Runner universe, or on Mars. The ads have to be both ubiquitous and devoid of content so that they can convince more than a million people to pay good money to watch what is, essentially, religious-political propaganda—or, more generously, an extremely elaborate commercial for Falun Dafa’s spiritual teachings and its plight vis-à-vis the Chinese Communist regime.

Simply fascinating.

After dropping Xuân off at his daycare, I sat in the lobby reading and waiting to meet with his teachers for a brief conference. He spotted me when his class went outside or a morning walk. I tried to hide, but he already looked right at me. He didn’t cry or anything. I waved at him and pretended to continue to read. He didn’t spot me when they went back inside.

His teachers told me Xuân is calm and creative. He invents his own way of playing with blocks, cars, or magnet stiles. He gets along with his classmates and they respect him when he wanted to play by himself. He follows direction and listens to to his teachers. They would like him to speak up more in group activities.

I don’t worry much about Xuân. He is a sweet and bright kid. When he knew that I was not happy with his behavior, we would always asked, “Daddy, are you happy?” It melts my heart every time. I love this kid.

Stormy Daniels had a rough life. Her father left her, her mother neglected her, and her neighbor raped her all before she turned ten. At seventeen, she started stripping. In her twenties, she became a star, writer, and director in the adult film industry. I have tremendous respect for her. She is smart, funny, and resilient. The sex encounter with Trump, however, was so out of her characters. She fucked him even though she had no desire to. She did it for nothing—not even for money. Except for that three brief minutes, her story was so compelling. She made her husband had sex with her on camera when he wanted to have kid. The complication of giving birth to her daughter was also heart-wrecking. If she left out the Trump scandal, her memoir would be much more intriguing.

Hôm thứ bảy về thăm mẹ. Thế là mọi chuyện cũng qua. Vợ nói rất đúng. Mẹ chỉ nói thế nhưng hành động thì khác. Tôi rất may mắn được người vợ hiểu biết. Em đã khuyên tôi nên làm hòa với mẹ và động viên tôi về thăm bà. Thấy mấy thằng cháu nội nhất là thằng út nở một nụ cười là bà vui rồi.

Dù sao đi nữa cũng tình mẹ con. Có chạm tự ái đến đâu cũng bỏ qua được. Tình cảm mẹ dành cho tôi vẫn thế. Có lẽ tôi đã suy nghĩ quá xa xôi. Mấy tuần nay tôi sống như bị thiếu sót điều gì trong lòng. Khiến tôi không thể nào ăn tâm. Giờ thì mọi chuyện trở lại bình thường.

Mẹ con mà. Giận thì giận mà thương thì thương. Làm sao bỏ được. Làm sao không nghĩ tới được. Tôi vui và hạnh phúc có được những người thân yêu gần xa. Những tình cảm đó còn quý hơn cả tiền. Tôi sẽ không để tiền bạc chia rẽ người thân.

Claire Cain Miller and Jonah Engel Bromwich defines snowplow parenting in The New York Times:

[C]learing the way for their children to get in to college, while shielding them from any of the difficulty, risk and potential disappointment of the process.

In its less outrageous — and wholly legal — form, snowplowing (also known as lawn-mowing and bulldozing) has become the most brazen mode of parenting of the privileged children in the everyone-gets-a-trophy generation.

They also wrote about A Vietnamese student:

Cathy Tran, 22, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, is the daughter of people who immigrated from Vietnam who did not attend college. “They do give me a lot of emotional support, but they haven’t really been able to tell me about what I should be doing, like next steps,” she said.

Clearing her own path to college had some benefits, Ms. Tran said. “I actually think that I have a sense of independence and confidence in myself in a way that some of my friends whose parents attended college might not have,” she said. “I had some friends who didn’t even know how to do laundry. I guess in some ways I feel like I was forced to be an adult much earlier on.”

For parents, the entire article is worth-reading.

The weekend is here and the weather is beautiful, and yet I am conflicted about it. Weekends are supposed to be relaxed and to be with the kids, but I have so much chores to do. The guilt is depressing the hell out me.

Instead of riding bike or going to fun places with the boys, I need to do work around the house. The floor needed to be swept and mopped. The wrinkled carpet needed to be stretched out. The shed needed to be reorganized. The cracks on the driveway needed to be filled. The deck needed to be repainted. The basement needed to be decluttered.

Owning a house comes with so much responsibilities. I hate it. I want to do nothing on the weekend, except chilling with the family. When I used to rent, I did not have to worry about any of that mundane crap. I wanted to go back to living a minimal life, but I am no longer living alone and I can’t make all the decisions.

I wish I can throw away most of the things in our house. One of these days, I will. The conflict between cleaning the house and taking the kids out is killing me. The guilt of letting the house untidy is bad. The guilt of cleaning up the house and letting the kids glued the iPads is even worst. Either way, I am fucked. I might as well just take a week or two vacation time to do what I have to do around the house.

Petula Dvorak writes in The Washington Post:

George Mason is filled with strivers, not schemers. No one with money is struggling to get their kid into Mason. Yet it is a showcase of the American Dream, a haven for middle-class families seeking college degrees for their kids without taking out second mortgages or saddling their children with insane amounts of debt.

And this is a college for the children of immigrants, who are often the first in their families to get a degree.

I am proud to be part of the Mason Nation.

The day I decided to reactivate Facebook, it’s down. Oh well, I guess I shouldn’t log back in.

So what’s up? Neomi Rao has been confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Good for her.

I am still debating whether I should do a small website for someone who is connected to the a prominent Republican. Well, It’s all about the Benjamins, baby. Will see.

My MacBook Pro is dying. It takes forever to boot up. Microsoft Word fails to open. Adobe products take forever to open. I should hold off on upgrading to Creative Cloud until I get a new MacBook Pro. I am not looking forward to transfer everything over. I guess it is time to clean up everything.

I am reading Stormy Daniels’s memoir. I haven’t come yet. Just kidding. She has good story to tell. I’ll blurb it when I am done.

What else is there? Still stressing the fuck out about everything. I am about to head home soon for the day. This post is super random.

James Edmondson shares:

While logotypes can be simply typeset, it often makes sense to put another level of care and attention into how letters exist within their unchanging context. Type design is a compromise. Decisions are made about the structure of a drawing to excel best in the greatest possible number of contexts. This changes a lot for logotypes. When words are drawn as a single image, opportunities arise to get a little more own-able, without worrying about the letters jumbling up again.

Useful tips and examples.

Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky write in The Washington Post:

Authorities said the crimes date back to 2011, and the defendants used “bribery and other forms of fraud to facilitate their children’s admission” to numerous college and universities,” including Georgetown, Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California and UCLA, among others.

It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.