I remember two years ago when Cici and I started on this journey through high school.  I had a feeling of utter helplessness then as I looked at the early test results in her classes.  In the wee hours of the morning I worked on a plan that I hoped would allow her to earn passing grades in each of her classes.

I set up an Excel spreadsheet based on how much each quiz was worth in each class, how much each test was worth, how much the homework was worth, how much each project was worth, and how much the final exam was worth.  Then I made some assumptions that helped me determine how she would have to perform in order to pass each class.  At that moment it didn't look like she could achieve even that minimalist goal.

Each semester since those dark days - in fact, in each six week period since then - I always watch the early grades closely for any signs of trouble.  Will she struggle with this class?  How much help will she need from me?  Is the teacher helping or are we pretty much on our own in particular classes?  I also watch the homework carefully for the same signs.

I just checked and the first returns are in for the junior year.  She has a solid slate of A's, with most of them being 100's or 99.  We should make sure Cici does her homework early this evening so she can go to sleep early, I told Ping before she left to pick Cici up at school.  You should tell her, Ping replied, because she listens to what you say.  I am just her Mama.  And so it has been.  Fortunately Cici accepted this as my role from the beginning, and now we don't even think about it.

I have been blogging here for many months now but the future is uncertain.  Today I paid a company to set up a blog for my law firm and it will require a good bit of my time to feed that blog because the new blog will play in the major leagues of blogging.  The new blog won't be ready for about six weeks, however, so it gives me time to think and plan for its launch.  The focus will be on family and business immigration.  My job will be to write the content.  I will have a team of techies and marketing gurus who will handle everything else.

The things I do to feed my baby chickens. 

On these early school mornings Cici and I sometimes stagger from the house to get to marching band practice on time.  Last night a physics lab report took a lot of time.  This morning when I got up I had to review Cici's work before we could leave.  We got to school on time but a little later than usual.  Tonight I need to go to sleep at 8:00, Cici told me when I woke her in the car when we arrived at school.  It can be tough, but there is a good side to these early days for me, which is having extra time at the office before the phone starts to ring.

One problem with blogging is that I sometimes can't remember whether I wrote about something or not.  For example:

Did I tell about how I was stuck on the elevator in the parking garage at the airport when I went to pick up Ping and Cici earlier this month, or did I forget to mention it in the excitement about having the girls back home?  I was afraid the girls would arrive and I would still be stuck on that elevator.  Ringing the alarm didn't attract anyone's attention.  There was no telephone in the elevator.  I finally figured out how to open a little door that had a button inside.  There were no instructions but I pressed the button and could hear a phone ringing. 

There was no concern in the voice of the lady who answered.  When I told her the elevator was stuck and I was trapped inside she didn't inquire about my health or safety.  It was only a hundred degrees that day.  She only asked if the doors just wouldn't open or if the elevator had dropped.  It dropped, I told her, then it got stuck and the doors won't open.  Okay, I will send someone, she said, and hung up.  She never asked or checked back to see if I was okay.  There wasn't even an apology when someone eventually rescued me from that very hot contraption.

Well, the story isn't very relevant to the blog anyway. 

Yesterday afternoon I saw Cici working diligently on something at the desk in her bedroom.  School work?  I asked as I approached her.  Yes, for art class, she said.  When I got closer I could see a three dimensional work of art sitting on her desk.  There was an object that looked somewhat like a snare drum, but taller, glued to a heavy sheet of paper.  Several inches away there was a silk rose, fully open, which had also been glued to the page, positioned so that the full head of the open rose could be seen from a side view, not from a top view.  In a slow, winding curl there was a round plastic or rubber "string" that was glued to the page.  It was maybe a 16th of an inch in diameter and probably a foot long if stretch in a straight line.

Did you make this?  I asked Cici.  Yes, we all had to choose from a large batch of objects and create a piece of artwork, she told me.  I looked at the paper she was working on at her desk.  She had drawn, in intricate detail, including the shadow effect among the rose petals, a 3D picture of her 3D art creation using a pencil.  She wasn't satisfied with her work but to my eyes I didn't see how she could make it any more perfect.  Do you even know how talented you are? I asked her.  I have seen her graphic art creations on the computer and I know she has an eye for detail and creativity, but this was pretty special.  I called Ping in to look at the two works of art because I wanted Cici to know I was seriously impressed with her work.  I hope her art teacher is just as impressed.

Which reminds me.  I need to look at her sketch book because she told me she has to draw three pictures each week.

At 3:30 this morning I could hear Cici in the shower.  Ping had just crawled back in bed with me after driving to school to pick Cici up when the band returned from the football game in Dallas.  At 4:30 this morning I heard Cici walking quietly into our room headed for our bathroom.  I sat up to ask what she needed.  My leg hurts, she told me, so I need the medicine.  It sounded like a mosquito, or maybe more than one, got to her legs at the ball game.

Cici called me from the bus enroute to Dallas yesterday afternoon.  Shortly after that, Ping took the mail to the post office and went to visit a friend who lives nearby.  She called me later to ask if I was going to Costco.  Call me if you decide to go, but I may stop to buy some plants instead, she said.  I can buy them now at a third of the price I paid earlier this year, she continued.  I called Ping when I left the office.  I will stop for gas at Costco, I told her, and will pick up a few things inside as well.  And we need more paper for the office.  Gas, I noticed, had dropped to $2.39 a gallon.  I paid $2.49 just a week ago.

Let me see, I thought as I walked through Costco.  The case of paper was already loaded in my cart.  Some romaine lettuce.  Some of these Asian Fusion wraps that tasted good when I sampled them at one of their demo stations.  I bet Ping is out of milk, so I put a gallon in the cart.  Better get some of these long sleeved t-shirts; just $11.

Ping arrived home after I got there.  She had some new plants in the car and went to set them out in the yard where the phone company had dug the big hole and left things in a mess while Ping was in China.  They had put grass sod on part of their mess but there was bare dirt closer to the street.  I noticed this morning when I got the newspaper that Ping had cleaned up the mess and used the new plants to make things look nice again.

Ping and I sat at the dining table and ate from a huge bowl of salad that she made.  At my suggestion she has started using purple cabbage and cucumber slices in her salads.  I need to suggest that she begin using pine nuts in her salads as well.  Cici called to let me know she was on the bus headed for Dallas, I told Ping as we ate.  I will pick her up from school, Ping said, because you will go to the office to meet clients tomorrow morning.

This morning I read the newspaper and then headed to the office.  The girls will sleep through the morning and then we will meet friends for a late lunch.  Cici will resume studying for the PSAT this afternoon while I try to get more work done.  Ping will probably go to Marshall's to see if they rearranged the merchandise since the last time she was there.

Wait a minute.  Our life is no different than that of a typical American family.

I dropped Cici at school at 6:30 this morning and she won't be ready to return home until 2:30 tomorrow morning.  She is going with the band to support their football team at a game in Dallas this evening.  It makes for a rather long day, and because she studied until after midnight last night she is already sleepy.

In the newspaper this morning there is an article about how schools are going to pay students and parents more than $1,000 just to give the students an incentive to study and make better scores in math, and to give the parents an incentive to help their children.  Now wait a minute, I thought.  Where is our money, and what kind of message does this send to students who are performing at or above grade level?  No one paid Cici to learn how to count to 100 in Spanish last night so she would be ready for a test today, then stay up to the wee hours of the morning studying for pre-calculus and history exams.

Cici was concerned about her pronunciation of Spanish words but I was amazed at how quickly she learned and how well she pronounced the words.  She was still concerned so I found a video on line and had her watch it.  It was a native Spanish speaking teacher who was teaching students how to count to 100 in Spanish.  Cici listened to him as he spoke each number slowly and clearly  and she repeated the words back to the screen to practice and perfect her Spanish.

Ping has been using her soy milk making machine to make different kinds of soup.  She made a black sesame seed soup and a mung bean soup and has been serving them to me for breakfast and dinner.  In a different pot she made a Chinese cabbage soup last night, using the broth from a pot of winter melon soup that she had made with small bits of pork ribs in it for added flavor.  When Chinese people eat ribs, they have the butcher cut the ribs with a saw so that each rib is only about an inch long.  Then they typically cook the ribs in water so that the meat comes off the bone and is very tender.

I don't know why but today has a feeling of fall to me.  Maybe it is because for the past two nights the temperature dropped below 80 degrees and the day time temperatures are only in the mid-90's with lower humidity than usual.  Traffic this morning also seems lighter than usual as I watch the cars on the highway near our office.  We must be getting close to labor day.

The stack grows higher.  Rather than putting the books away, I have just stacked them beside the recliner where i read them in our home office.  I place each book in turn at an angle from the books beneath them in order to add stability to the stack.  It is at least three feet tall now.  These are the books I have read since you went back to China this summer, I told Cici last night when I finished reading one more.  Many books that I want to read are not available on Kindle, so I have continued to acquire books in the traditional way.

The most recent completion was Dragon Seed, by Pearl Buck.  It tells the story through the eyes of a Chinese farmer of when the Japanese invaded and occupied China.  While Cici studies American history in school I am studying Chinese history at home.  She studied for a test two nights ago with my help, and now she knows how the U.S. Constitution came to be, and the great debate between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. 

After we talked about this part of American history we talked about the cultural revolution in China.  We talked about the cultural revolution that isn't taught in schools in China; the cultural revolution that is exposed in books that are banned in China.  All of my knowledge about the cultural revolution comes from Chinese authors who lived through it.  They each have a story to tell and by reading many such stories I have begun to form my own perspective about what really happened during the cultural revolution.

China may have 5,000 years of recorded history, and America only 200+ years, but the American constitution has stood tall during many years of turmoil and conflict in China, as Cici just learned.

At the same time, we are having small conversations in Spanish and learning to count to 100 in Spanish.  My little senorita is learning the language of love.

She never stops.  There is the cooking and the cleaning, the organizing and reorganizing, the plants and the flowers, not to mention the weeds that spring up from time to time.  I am talking about Ping.  She is non-stop action at home and at the office.  In her spare time she helps clients, especially clients in China or from China, with their documents and translations.  Before leaving to pick Cici up at school each day she prepares thick slices of purple sweet potatoes for the three of us to eat as a healthy snack, roasting them in the little table top oven at the office.

Of course Cici goes pretty much non-stop during the school year as well.  I dropped her off at 6:30 this morning for marching band practice.  She studies from the time she finishes at school until lights out at night.

One might think from what I have described that we never see each other or have any meaningful interaction as a family, but that isn't true.  We actually have a lot of things that we do together, helping each other, talking and planning, shopping, plus eating together, just to mention a few.

Cici has quickly settled back into life in America, happy to be home, and not complaining about school.  I think she is secretly happy to be back in school here.  Ping I know is happy to be home again and she also enjoys her time at the office with me.  Many of our clients know her and she has made new friends this way.

I just put a new registration sticker on Ping's car.  Can it be a year already since we bought it for her?  This car is her pride and joy, not to mention her freedom.  She loves being able to pick Cici up at school, shop for groceries when she wants, go visit a friend, or run errands.  She missed having a car in China when she was there.  Traffic in Guangzhou has gotten so bad that they have instituted the type of traffic controls that are used in Beijing.  Odd numbered plates and even numbered plates have designated days when they can be on the road.  This has had a ripple effect.  Now it is much more difficult to hail a taxi because many more people are using them.

We need not be concerned with traffic in Guangzhou right now, though, because we have years of education ahead for Cici to think about first.  She also needs to prepare for and take her driver's test.  So many things to do, so little time. 

In China they use something called "cupping" to help relieve tension and pain in a person's body.  They use a candle to remove the oxygen from a small container called a cup.  They come in various sizes but a typical cup might be about two inches in diameter.  The use of the candle creates a vacuum which causes the cup to grip the body tightly where the cup is placed.  It actually sucks the skin within the mouth of the cup up into the cup along with whatever blood or poisons might be lurking beneath the skin.  The cups are typically used on the back and shoulders of the body.

If a cup is placed on a healthy part of the body it leaves a healthy looking red circle when it is removed.  If the place where the cup is placed in unhealthy, the cup leaves an angry looking black circle when the cup is removed.

This weekend I learned that there is another way to place the cups on the body.  Ping found a kit in Chinatown about the size of a briefcase that has multiple cups in two sizes and some kind of vacuum pump that creates the suction to firmly attach a cup to the body.  She cupped me as she experimented to learn how to use the vacuum pump.  Very strange, she remarked.  The cups left healthy looking circles on the right side of my back but ugly black circles on the left side of my back.

Ping believes in this cupping technique so it is my job to learn how to cup her back from time to time.  Look out!

Yesterday Cici and I got serious about preparing for the PSAT that she will take on October 13.  We need a baseline, I told her; something against which to measure your progress.  She didn't object; she was ready to get started.  She sat at my desk in our home office and took the test under actual test conditions.  Well, almost.  I timed each section of the test and gave her only two minute breaks between each section, and she used the same kind of answer sheet to record her answers.  One hundred thirty minutes of testing.

So what wasn't like real test conditions?  Well, Ping won't be at the real test cleaning the floor, dusting everything, moving things around.  Little gong sounds and swooshing sounds and other distractions won't be happening at the real test.  Cici didn't complain, though, she just worked right through the background noise.

I was pleased, even excited, about the results of the baseline test.  With no preparation for the test at all, Cici still made respectable scores.  She measures everything against an impossibly high standard because she compares her scores to my son's scores.  He was a National Merit Scholar who scored at the highest level nationwide.  He is one of the few students nationwide who was awarded a scholarship because of his 99th percentile composite score combined with his unbeatable g.p.a.  Nevertheless, his scores set the bar for Cici and she wants to reach it.

In the 9th grade students take a standardized test called the SCORE.  Cici had only been in America for a few months when she took that test.  Her composite score nevertheless placed her in the 37th percentile nationally.  In the 10th grade students take a standardized test called the PLAN.  Cici made a quantum leap in the percentiles with her composite score placing her in the 54th percentile nationally.  Her baseline PSAT composite score yesterday placed her in the 71st percentile nationally, another giant leap in the percentile standing.

Well that isn't so good, you say.  Let's break it down a bit and you will understand why I am excited.  She only missed four questions in the entire mathematics section, which placed her in the 93rd percentile nationally.  We will study the questions she missed and I am convinced that she can ace that part of the PSAT.  It is the Critical Reading and the Writing parts of the test that pulled down her composite score. 

The Writing score (this isn't an essay, it is selecting the best way to write sentences on a multiple choice type of test) is largely a function of vocabulary, so yesterday we began to study the 250 most frequently used "big" words that appear on the PSAT with regularity.  Seven words per day on average, studied on a cumulative basis, will complete the list and make a marked difference in her writing score.

The Critical Reading section is also something that can be improved through studying the techniques that help the test taker save time, avoid the traps, narrow the choices, and thereby significantly improve their score.

Today while I am at the office Cici will review the explanations in the book about each question that she missed yesterday.  Then she will begin working through the preparation tips, section by section, in the book.  When that is completed there are many drills in the book and we will drill drill drill before taking another practice exam in two weeks.  We agreed that she will learn seven new words daily and that she will spend Friday evenings and a good part of Saturdays and Sundays preparing for the test.  She should study all day on weekends, Ping said.  No, I disagreed, she needs down time or she will burn out from studying too much.  Then I quoted what Ping always says to me about Cici's education.  This is Papa's job. 

A few months ago I was contemplating buying a new watch because after 25 years, my Rolex would sometimes stop running at night and I would have to reset it in the  morning.  What more can I ask of a watch?I thought. It served me well for 25 years and I certainly got my money's worth out of it. 

But someone mentioned that I was wearing a family heirloom and that I should be thinking of having my watch serviced and repaired rather than replacing it.  That got me thinking in a different way, and a new client who owns a jewelry store that is an authorized Rolex repair shop made it easy for me to have my watch serviced.  He took it to his store with him when he left my office about two weeks ago and I picked it up from his store yesterday afternoon.

My watch looks brand new.  I showed it to Ping and Cici and they couldn't believe it.  To their eyes, it is a new watch.  The store owner had given my watch top priority on their service list so the man who did the service work came out to visit with me when he heard I was there picking up my watch.  It doesn't just look like a new watch from the outside, he told me.  It is like a new watch on the inside as well. The only reason I had to replace a couple of things is because even the very expensive oil that is used inside a Rolex watch will break down over time and when the oil breaks down, some of the parts will wear out and have to be replaced.

So you are saying I shouldn't wait another 25 years before I have it serviced again? I joked with the man.  Just bring it in for service every 5 years or so, he said, and then we won't have to replace any parts.  Basically we will clean it and put new oil inside and your watch will keep on ticking.

I have done some on line research and found that there is quite a market for vintage Rolex watches.  I saw one just like mine that dates from 1961 and it looks brand new and is advertised as running like new.  It is a nice feeling to see that something that I have used for 25 years has a higher market value now than the price I paid for it.  I should take better care of my watch these next 25 years, I told the girls.  You take care of your watch and we will take care of you, they joked.

Deal.