“At that point in time in my life, I didn’t know what my track was scholastically. My mom worked in the public school system in my neighborhood—it was a good school system—but she felt like the young Black men were being tracked along the lowest common denominator, and she felt like she wanted more for me; the potential to be as fully realized as possible,” he said on the show.
I am fairly certain that Mr. Brown lived in Olivette (the city I live now), also attended Spoede Elementary School (where my kids attended). Mr. Brown went to MICDs for high school.
Quote: Deion and Demetrius, known as “Meechie,” were next-door neighbors. Both of their families moved in 2018 from Pagedale to the 9300 block of Rothwell Heights Lane.
My family experience in China when we (the 3 kids) were little
I think it’s fully understandable that all parents want their kids to be successful or do better than their parents when the kids grow up. Also many parents believe their kids are gifted.
My parents moved me from village school to town school in grade 5 and moved my big brother to a better middle school in 8th grade. Those moves were probably strategic helping us get into the Zhenhai Middle (High) School. The reason I said “probably” is my other bro just got into Zhenhai High School after graduating from our hometown middle school.
Some random thoughts
One thing from my own experience and observations is it’s very important for kids to have friendships during their adolescent age. As parents, we should all pay attention to that. No judgment, just to make sure they hang out with the right friends, don’t do drugs, solely focus on appearance or getting Lululemon, etc. You get the point.
Another thing, maybe more relevant in Ladue, is we have a diverse community in terms of economic conditions, and races. Try to integrate (from school, and parents’ point of view) and hang out with kids from all backgrounds, if possible. Some kids could really use some friendship. Remember Mr. B asked why we don’t let the kids pick roommates for the 6th-grade camp 🙂 Hint: don’t just hang out with the “cool” kids.
Our goal is we have one integrated school community.
Last but not least, this whole thing reminds me of 孟母三迁 story.
Equality
(Update 09-16-2023) Something I just recall. I thought of team sports. Note I don’t think my kids can make the Ladue varsity team, be it basketball or tennis, at this time. But a few years ago I did try to push my older daughter to the basketball, and we played a few leagues and games in the process. At one time, I think the girls wanted to get hold of one of their friends, but we could not because we didn’t have her mom’s (or dad)’s contact info. I tried to ask the school, but the school couldn’t give out the info. I recall the girls just passing out the info themselves. We didn’t get the specific girl to sign up for the team. A related thing I could think of, is we need to consider health insurance too, what if the girl didn’t have health insurance, what if she played basketball and got hurt? This is a uniquely American problem because in all the other developed economies in the world, there are universal healthcare.
For parents of the Ladue school bus riders: here is the SafeStop app (Android on Google Play, iOS, and the School Access Code is here). The app started working for me again (tracking and notifications, for the most part) on September 11, 2023 for the new school year.
I am on iPhone and I set up the bus routes (you can scroll down the web page to get to the route for each school ), added my kid (you may find your kid’s student ID either from the ParentSquare Android App, iOS App, website or the Infinite Campus), and added the bus to my kid, etc.
Here is a blog post that laid out all the common steps and screenshots, if needed.
If anyone needs help setting up the app, please let me know. I can do Zoom if needed . This app is not the most reliable app I personally used. But I also understand it gave some parents and caregivers peace of mind sometimes.
Yesterday, with the launch of Apple’s new iPhone 15, some people noticed that Apple released a new USB C to lightning adapter. And, it’s going to cost $29 dollars. Such a rip-off 🙂
USB C to Lightning adapter
However, few people touted that Apple kept the iPhone 15 price the same as iPhone 14, while at the same time slashing the iPhone 14 price. See the chart at the beginning of the post. And yours truly ran two survey on the interest in buying iPhone 15 last week too.
We all know the Fed is printing money like a drunk sailor, and with the pandemic relief in 2020, etc., there is much more money lying around. And it’s the major factor that’s responsible for the US inflation.
Reading Time: 2minutesPhoto taken at the Simmons Bank at Olive and Warson Roads, 09-11-2023
Today I saw the flag was lowered at a local bank, and I knew it’s the 22nd anniversary of Sept-11, 2001, and I still remember that day. That morning, I was watching TV before going off to work, and it appears to me something hit the twin tower, and there was helicopter responding to the accident. Note it was before both the towers came down. I went to work, and quickly saw all the coworkers glued their eyes to the TV, and I knew something real serious happened…
At the time, I lived in an apartment that was very close to the STL airport. And in the next few days all the airplanes were grounded, and I couldn’t hear the airplane sounds I used to hear before 9-11. That evening (9-11) was also a bit panicking as people started to line up to get gasoline (I didn’t join). Also, my company had a large layoff a month after 9-11 (that was a co-incident, as there was a layoff plan before 9-11, the attack just made the layoff worse due to the economic outlook).
I recall a lot of things after 9-11, Here is something from the History Channel. I recall President George W Bush said “Go shopping (and support the economy)”. The two wars (Afghanistan, which started in late 2001; and Iraq, which started spring of 2003). Also, the airport security was totally revamped. Came across the below tweet from President Obama and he ordered the assassination of the head of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden (On May 2[a], 2011).
Today we honor the memory of all the brave souls we lost 22 years ago. May we always remember their stories, the courage of our first responders, and the sacrifices our troops made to protect us in the years that followed. pic.twitter.com/z7BZSWBgRQ
We lost a lot good people that day, and there are lots of memorials for them, such as this one.
“Stop crying,” he told her. “I have to get these people out safely. If something should happen to me, I want you to know I’ve never been happier. You made my life.” https://t.co/IYWLraN7zO
There is an error in the Chinese translation above, Rick works for Morgan Stanley not JP Morgan (摩根斯坦利，不是摩根大通）。Also this Rick’s action just reminds me of the movie Titanic: during extreme time, there are usually heroes (put other people’s life 1st), and there are also people who just care for themselves.
PS: I talked about the 9-11 at the Monday class at Webster U. And many students were very young when it happened. But they were aware of it and similar attacks in their home country (India).
I put the double quotes around because looking back I don’t think I would die. Probably “scared to death” is more appropriate. But at the time I was really scared. It was probably in my 1st grade or 2nd grade, I cannot remember exactly. Maybe my parents or siblings or the aunt who helped me can verify.
It was on the way from the village school to home, and for some reason the strongest boy in my class decided to throw stone at me. I could not recall if I provoked him. But the stone hit my forehead, and blood started bleeding from there. That’s the time I thought I was going to die, because I never encountered something like this in my life. Obviously I started crying, and the other school kids that were walking home probably noticed too. And it just happened an aunt who is a good friend of my mom (she is the accountant for the village and sits in the same office as my mom, if I am correct) happened to be nearby, so she put me on her back. And walked to the doctor’s office, which is next to where my mom’s office is. Note at that time, it was the “barefoot doctors （赤脚医生）”, because China then doesn’t have formal medical schools for at least 10 years (due to culture revolution). I asked the aunt whether I would die, and she said No. I probably asked this question more than once. Btw, he was throwing from a distance of probably 75 to 100 yards (meters) so it was not too bad in terms of the hit. I don’t know if the teacher gave him a warning or not. I would not think too much about it personally. A few years later, I made a similar mistake myself, I played too rough with a boy in the class, and his mom talked to my parents. A few years later, I recall seeing him in the Zhenhai Middle School too.
I think in year 2016, I walked to the renovated village office, and I saw one of the doctors picture still there. He probably worked all these years from 1980 until 2016. He is one of the doctors who gave us vaccines when I grew up in the village, as well as treating us very much like the urgent care does in the USA nowadays. Before elementary school the barefoot doctors would actually walk to every home and gave out vaccines to the little kids. And I would close the door, hide behind my grandma and tried to get away from the shots. That usually didn’t work. I probably said cursing words at the time too. When I started attending elementary schools, I could no longer act out, because I was the class president and had to lead by example. Nowadays I can see some of that from my younger daughter – she doesn’t like getting the shots at doctor’s office, usually the vaccine shots. And I saw little kiddos crying at the Covid shots place (Christian Hospital to be specific), I recall one of the Washing U doctor was trying to comfort the kids. And I talked about my “shot scare” in twitter a while ago. Such as this one:
I was that kid before I attended elementary school back in China (1970s). I would hide behind my grandma's back or ask my grandma lock all the doors to the "barefoot doctors" who came to give vaccines. My effort is in vain because the doctors know my parents (esp my mom) well. https://t.co/GVosjJmoEK
Just booked the vaccination 💉 appointment for my 11 year old. Still need to persuade my wife re: our 7 year old’s vaccine 💉 shot. I recall things were easier when I grew up: the “barefoot” doctor would come to my home or school to give shots. /1
Another time, I was almost drowning. Note I didn’t know how to swim when I grew up. I think one reason is our parents didn’t want us to swim (or learn to swim) at a big (water) reservoir (it was man-made). And we heard the stories of two guys (young healthy men) who died years ago when they swam there after work. Now I am guessing they were probably exhausted, and somehow their bodies or legs had some issue then. Because it’s a reservoir it’s static water and there should not be any danger from under current etc. Anyway, back to the topic, I recall when I was probably completing 3rd grade, and in the summer sometimes my parents would send me to my maternal grandma’s house, living with my uncle’s (my mom’s brother) family including my grandma. Once my grandma asked me to bathe in the pond, the pond was not big or anything, but it was quite deep, I could stand up at the edge but that’s probably it. So that day for some reason I slipped off the edge, and I probably screamed (again I couldn’t swim), and someone quickly picked me up. I recall running back naked to my grandma’s house, and the reason I was naked was my grandma didn’t bring any new clothes for me, and she took my old clothes and was washing it in the pond. Again washing clothes in the pond is quite normal as at that time the villages didn’t have faucet water. So the drinking water was usually from a well or from collecting rainwater. And for washing stuff etc. a pond, a brook or a river is common then.
Got Lost: another time, when I was with my maternal grandma at Chai’qiao 柴桥老街 street, I got lost because I didn’t follow her close enough, and probably she walked too fast without looking back (I may have gotten distracted by something). I think that day, a neighbor who probably knew my grandma, sent me back to my uncle’s home. In those days (before 1983), I don’t think there were human smugglers like today, so in theory, I was still pretty safe.
Probably a year later also in the summer, I was probably finishing the 4th or 5th grade. I was joining my elder brothers to 割稻 （cutting down the rice staunch before getting the rice kernel), and I barely cut probably a few yards, before my cut into my finger. So there goes my rice-cutting job for that summer. I still have scars from that episode. Talking about getting the rice kernels 打稻 (threshing rice), it’s actually quite dangerous, I heard people got hurt as the machine pulled in their hands or arms.
I recall the aunt’s son (the aunt who carried me when I was hurt), once got his legs either into another machine 水车 (water wheel) for some reason, and he had to amputated both his legs.
水车 (water wheel)
Mental Health
I don’t recall there was much consideration of that when I grew up. One of my cousin died from suicide when she heard her younger brother (not her) would take over the job from her dad, also she may have some other issues (I heard one of her eye may have some problem), she was probably a bit over 20. At my high school or college, I heard from my mom one of the girls in my village died from suicide, after her parents scolded her for dating a carpenter or something. She was one year senior than me. We went to the same village school (the elementary school).
(Update 11-03-2025) Come across this Chinese blog post 被裁员是祸是福 -没准是柳岸花明又一村 and I agree. In English it’s called blessings disguised as curse 🙂
(Original) A touchy topic. I have been in the tech industry for almost 23 years, and I have seen my share of the layoffs. I saw the layoff very early in my career, and the most recent ones in last year or so amid the big tech post pandemic layoffs.
Layoffs are usually not pleasant. But putting emotions aside, I recall an older wise gentleman once told me: it’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives an opportunity for someone to look beyond the daily grinding, to reflect, to pivot or reposition and hopefully find something better or more suitable for someone (not exactly words, here someone is actually yours truly back in the early 2019).
Also sometimes the old timers (the good old employers) will ask in the employment history section during a job app: have you ever being involuntarily terminated from an employer? While I am not a lawyer (my wife is), but my legal advice here is: this is somewhat like the situation when I was in the US Consulate in Shanghai back in 1997, when the visa officer asked: what’s your plan after the graduate school? One thing I was 100% sure is: I was not going to say that I planned to stay in the US for good 🙂 I think an honest answer then is probably “I don’t know” or “I am not sure”. Remember in 1997 although the Hong Kong was returning to China, at the time the US was still way ahead of China, with the exception of the Chinese food here. There were a lots more economy developments in China compared to the US since then.
Two traumatic layoffs that left me impression
It was Oct 11, 2001, a month after the Sept 11, 2001. We knew the layoff is coming, after our company bought a rival company. The day came and it was not the 1st time I saw layoff, I think I saw a smaller layoff shortly after I joined the company in fall 2000. But Oct 11, 2021 is probably by far the worst in my career, we had 3 coworkers being let go on that morning. I worked closely with one of them, and the coworker cried or sobbed when the news broke. Her husband also worked at our team. Later the department manager rallied or tried to console the people who being left (we had about 30+ people, mostly devs). And we also learned the overlapping dev team at the acquired company were all let go. I recall there were quite a few ethnic Chinese people, who probably had similar background with me, but they may have came to the US a few years earlier than me. A side note amid all this is a QA engineer (test engineer) was laid off, and a few weeks ago during a townhall he asked question to the CEO about layoff 🙁 That day the company laid off about 18% of the people, and that’s probably 1,300 people.
Another case, while at the Mercy Health, we also knew the layoff was coming. And this time around we lost our QA engineer again (see the pattern here?), as well as an old engineer who cried / sobbed quite loud. I vowed to myself: never put myself into this kind of position when I reach his age (which is getting closer and closer, btw 🙂
My own share of layoffs
I had experienced 2 layoffs myself so far. Both times I was a bit surprised. But I think the second time it worked out for me better as my severance package is better, also due to the timing, it helped us bought our single family house at the right time before pandemic in summer 2019 (so here is another side benefit in addition to the career pivot).
The 1st time it was a bit sour taste. But I was not totally caught off guard either. I know one or two project leaders (they are more like team lead, not managers) didn’t like me. And I couldn’t do much to change the situation (the dynamics). The layoff came, the admin assistant was really nice actually. Looking back I think she is one of the few people who probably knew a few days in advance. I calmed down and negotiated a calm exit before my China trip then (year 2011, I had to email recruiters when I was in China, which is not ideal). I got a contractor position quickly after I came back from China. In this particular case, I actually learned that individual who said bad things about me before my manager(s) once got into a fist fight with another coworker there. I think looking from another angle, avoid toxic people at work place is a good idea 🙂 I do recall the evening in which I just lost my job, and I went to the Bread Co, thinking I would probably spend say $15 off my $40k savings: I may have seen a friend there, but I forgot exact who etc. I did couple interviews before the China trip, and no offer before my flight 🙁
Technically there was another case that I was laid off, in Nov 2013, very briefly. My contract job ended and they gave me 2 weeks notice via my recruiter. And I recall I saw a “Lord’s Prayer” in the weekend I learned the news, while at a friend’ friend home attending the 1st friend’ baby shower. That “layoff” left me a sour taste as well. But luckily I was interviewing before this and was able to quickly secure a new job offer in a few days.
Strategies
I think the most important thing to remember is never assume your job is there tomorrow. Because we have very little control. CEOs came and go, and little guys (or girls) like us can be let go really at any time. Never assume your work is so important that your boss or your company will keep you forever.
Along those lines, make sure you have the urgent savings account, which should at least cover 6 month of living cost: thinking mortgage / rent, grocery, gas, car payment (if applicable), and health insurance (remember if you pay out of your own pocket, it will not be cheap, as companies usually subsidize some cost aa a part of the benefit). This part is important because it gives you a peace of mind when you got the layoff. Note not every company offers generous severance package. The money you have will also help you have some breeze room when looking for new jobs.
Also get prepared. Always get your resume or LinkedIn profile updated. Test the market once a while. For coders (programmers, developers, software engineers), make sure you do some coding every day / week etc., don’t just sit there and do nothing. Learn something new if there is not much coding work. Nowadays there are so many online free resources for one to learn. In face, in terms of job market, for developers (software development engineers), the job market is usually pretty good. So as long as the developer knows something and can contribute, he/she usually won’t be in the job market for too long. I cannot say that for other positions in the IT job market, e.g., recruiter jobs are very much business (econ) cycle, so there is this famine and feast kind of situation. Similar can be said for the Quality Assurance (test engineer) and manager positions. I saw a director at the credit card got laid off, initially that individual worked for a contractor position as project manager, until eventually going back to similar position as before: took couple years.
But again here we need to be mindful that we are the ones who are responsible for our own careers: e.g., there is a manager position opening up at a software company or an IT shop, and someone hinted that you jumping at the opportunity. Remember what I just said: in terms of the job opportunities disparity between devs and managers, or architects for that matter. At one time of my career, I did become an architect as well, but I decided that was not for me longer term. I like to be closer to the coding.
Tips
Remember try not to be emotional. Also you are entitled to ask “why the layoff on me”? Although the answer is usually “the position is eliminated” or something similar. Remember the employer usually has better resources in terms of legal expertise or lawyered-up. In reality just like in the situation of “being dumped by your significant other”, there is usually signs or legit reasons whey it happened. Ideally you should know and not be caught totally off guard. And hopefully you were waiting for the severance package. For that my advice is not to sign anything on the spot. Just like an offer letter, you may want to bring it home, cool down, talk to someone, before signing anything official.
Also sometimes looking back the writing is on the wall or the hints are usually there. Like the two traumatic (large) layoffs I mentioned above. Get prepared before the actual layoff happens (again refer to the strategies above). No need to overly worry about the look the admin assistant gave you though, just be prepared when you work for someone or a company, you know in the USA the employment is at-will: meaning people can let you know anytime. This is quite different from the families. And don’t got tricked into thinking company’s sometimes misleading “we are families” kind of talk. We are in a employee / employer relationship, for now. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Last but not least, don’t use your company device for anything that’s in your private life. An example, your kids pictures, your family pictures, if you have company iPhone, try not to use it for those sort of things. And if you do, as a minimum try to make copies and delete the pictures on the phone before turning it in. You know the iPhone has settings that allow you to do that, and do it as needed. You never know what other people are going to do to the company devices that you turn in.
Psychological Impact
I don’t think this is trivial. I believe just like being dumped by your first significant other (boy friend/girl friend, husband/wife), this “being rejected by someone” feeling is usually hard, but at the same time it’s also quite common and normal. If you always got what you wanted, and were never rejected by someone, congrats 🙂 I think some of the websites will use the first name or name of your 1st boy friend or girl friend as an option (btw, this does not work very well in the Muslim countries, from what I heard). The reason for that is simple: people would almost never forget that name 🙂
Over the time though, we can overcome this “being rejected” feeling. It never goes away. But it can be controlled, and hopefully we can direct to something or some endeavor that we can use our passion there.
Another potential side effect, is the stigma associated with layoff, which is totally unnecessary – and I touched those good old companies’s specific question “have you ever involuntarily terminated from your job”? Again not legal advice just ignore those. Things don’t always work out as we liked. As long as we learn something and try not to make same mistake (again and again), we are making progress 🙂
Job Search
Last but not least, some job search observations / tips. Related to that, some may point out that although in the US, the employers cannot discriminate against applicants’ age, in reality though, this is still a factor and most employers in fact have preferences on employees’ age. I recall in the company I worked for 8 years, and I know a coworker worked there for 40+ years, and I heard he was laid off after I left (I resigned from that company in Nov 2008, yes it was during the financial crisis :-(. His layoff has nothing to do with my leaving, and I believe there is age factor there.
(Update 09-10-2023) Came across this video “One peril facing job-hunters? Being ghosted” at CBS Sunday Morning. This is actually quite common during a job search, from my experience. Don’t take it personally and move on.
(Update 09-20-2023)How Virtual Layoffs Became The New Normal For Workplaces. Btw, I just learned another contractor got laid off at my work place (my impression is current work place is pretty bad towards contractors, as I was at the other end of the table about 10 years ago, they did give me 2 weeks notice, so it softens the blow a bit). Talking about contractors or contingency workers in the IT and software industry, this is a very common way for an employers to add more people when needed, and get rid of them when not needed. Quite brutal in the sense of “job security” or “provide for family”. Something to keep in mind when jumping ships. || Also from SubStack: Layoff lessons: Four things I wish I knew.
(Update 12-18-2023) Came across this blog post from a former colleague, looks good. From my personal experience, healthcare is a tough industry to work.
At the same time, in recent years, I saw quite a few new apartments development along the Olive road, and all those apartments fall inside the School District Boundary. I think I even saw a sign for the townhouse project at Dielman and Olive road, and I quote: ……boundaries of the award-winning Ladue School District and its new $65 million high school & and current $126 million dollars of improvements to the elementary schools……
Naturally there is some anxiety among some current residents and some administrators (and school board members too?) regarding the potential crowding of the schools.
Pre-mature Worry?
From our recent past experience, though. This worry may be pre-mature. Two new apartments developments, the Vanguard Heights, and the Vue, did not bring as many new students as the school district initially feared. Spoede Elementary School made room for the apartments residents, but the apartment residents didn’t come to the party, for the most part. I don’t know about the Oliver apartment and Old Bonhomme Elementary, but it seems it’s similar to the Vanguard Heights and the Vue, from my casual observation.
Next up, it’s going to be the Olive Crossing: look we are going to have 181 new apartment units. Start panicking, people 🙂
And then there is this massive development at the former Bayer Lindbergh west campus: that one is planned to open in year 2025. Note the Olive Crossing project didn’t complete at the beginning of school year (2023 to 2024) as their banner said, so we may assume similar slack for the Bayer campus project.
One may ask why so many apartment developments. One reason I think is the soaring home prices (this is a national trend after the pandemic, btw. I used an example in Jackson Hole, WY in the recent CBS Sunday Morning video), rising mortgage rates, and the affordability and availability of single-family houses in the school district. Another reason is peace of mind in terms of not worrying about the home maintenance work (apartments) and yard work. Note for the condo or townhouses, the owner still has to be responsible or maintain something (AC, furnace came to mind). Anyway in St. Louis County, some of the houses in the city of Ladue, and Frontenac (both are located in the LSD) are expensive, along with the Town and Country.
My priority on school district
I think this is probably interesting to some new people coming to the district. I do believe most parents want the best of their kids when they grow up, in terms of education and career (or business) opportunity. I have lived in the district since year 2005. And in last 8 years or so, I have 2 kids going to the school here.
For the parents, I think the number 1 thing in the America (this is true across the world, I think), is the safety of the kids. When I say America I think people would understand the unique America problem.
Back at the end of the day, we do what we can, and we have to take some risks in life. As old Chinese saying goes – 因噎废食，we cannot stop eating food for the fear of choking. That way we will stave (to death).
Back to school it’s important to know the kids feel safe at school. Sometimes it’s small things, or small gestures, e.g., the other evening, my 13 year old suddenly realized she likely left the school iPad at library. Mom was worried, my 13 year old wasn’t. She said, she will likely get it back in the morning. So this is opposite to what I talked about the other day. Another time I learned from my younger one saying she fell during the recess, there maybe some push when the kids went off to the playground. But it’s really minor and I don’t think the kids were doing it intentional, if any. Middle school may be a bit more challenging though, from what I heard. And there is high school.
“Los Altos High School culture pushes students to participate in a college applications rat race, piling on taxing course loads and extracurriculars in an effort to stand out from their classmates in college admissions.”
I think this is a thread probably worth its own post, and I will write more as my older one going to high school next school year 🙂
I think of one reason that the developers build more apartments in the St. Louis area (both city and county) than single families houses is due to “perceived lack of demand” for single family houses, and I just noticed other booming cities have more housing development, as shown in this YT video.
Other apartments developments I saw/heard recently: Kirkwood downtown, Westport, Grand Ave (near SLU) and Manchester (near Sam’s Club).
Agent brown is the name my girls gave to the AirTag I used to attached to the car key (it has a brown holder) and later my older daughter attached it to her brown wallet. We lost agent brown. Saturday, to be more precise, 8/19 evening, at about 6:42 pm I got a text message when I was driving my girls to the premium outlet. The text message is from Amex, and it said “fraud alert” and someone tries to use S8’s Gold Card at a place called “City Gear” for about $280 worth of merchandise. The store declined it and thus the text alert from Amex.
Basically an hour ago my 13 year old lost her purse at the JCreve Coeur girls locker room. She said there is no lock but I cannot verify. We didn’t know then, until the thief started to use the Amex card in her purse and thus triggered the alert from the credit card company.
We were already very close to the Premium Outlet. And I started to call Amex shortly after I get there. To make the card is marked as lost, and also found out two pending transactions at QT. Those 2 transactions will be disputed. After we talked more, it appears someone took S8’s wallet from the girls (kiddos) locker room. S8 said the locker is not lockable. And because she put one of my airtags in her wallet, and I can see at one point the wallet location was at the City Gear (Gravois plaza, or City Gear, 3519 Bamberger Ave, St. Louis, MO 63116). I can even see the location of this person’s home (which I won’t post, I enabled the lost mode and the last location seems to be at someone’s home, at 7:08 pm), as well as QT location (which can be seen from the Amex website from the pending transaction).
A while later after we got home, we found there is even a text message with a time of 7:25 PM saying “I found your wallet” on S8’s phone (she left a number on the wallet).
After some discussions, we decided not to reply back to that text.
This whole episode seems added some excitement to an otherwise uneventful Saturday evening.
I recall when I was in college, my wallet was picked by a thief when I was at a crowded bus (I realized quickly after I got off the bus), another time my drawer in the dorm got broken into and money was lost. In the US, I recall when I was a graduate student, once I lost a digital camera which I left in my office.
I guess this can turn into a good lesson in safety and security (privacy) for our older daughter as the material loss is fairly small.
Peace of Mind
A side note of all this is the Amex and Apple AirTags seem both gave us peace of mind, they provided more transparency than a traditional wallet loss (such as my loss when I was in college in Wuhan). At the same time, I don’t too much curiosity is a good thing. || (update 08-21-2023) it appears the two fraudulent transactions at QT got posted, I opened dispute in the Amex website.
PS– be vigilant: I recall when I was working for the credit card company, on the loyalty and rewards platform, I was tasked to investigate the “fraudulent redemptions for airline tickets and hotel reservations”. It appears the thief (or thieves) got hold of the victim’s personal email and password: the same email and password are used in the rewards redemption website which was operated by the credit card co. Let’s just say the email provider is Yahoo. So from the victim’s point of view, it’s really not a good security practice. At the time though, it was also the 1st time I encountered a sophisticated thief like that and I started to doubt the “evilness” of some criminals. My daughter is 13 and was more thinking about the “goodness” of the people, e.g., she would try to find an excuse why someone would steal her wallet (maybe someone needs the money for food). I don’t know, I would not say she was “woke”. But at the same time, I think we should all be vigilant.
PS 2: handle of loss. 旧的不去，新的不来 (Out with the old, in with the new)。I understand many people want things back, and my daughter is no exception. Recently I started to realized and reconfirm sometimes we just have too much junk (which I discussed below). As a parent I am certainly quite protective of my kids’ feeling got hurt etc. But again we live in a real world. And this sort of thing does happen.
(Update 04-03-2025) Received a return request for a laptop bag. It appears the user didn’t use it properly. But I issued the refund anyway. That’s one downside of selling on eBay or drive for Uber: that is the customer service or customer satisfaction. My impression is some customers will never be happy.
(Update 02-13-2025) In general, I hate throwing away useful things into the trash/landfill. Yesterday I was able to fix an old Wi-Fi router. For a while I suspected the power adapter is the reason it didn’t work. Because when I plug in the power adapter the router’s light didn’t come up. Yesterday I looked around and found an OEM power adapter whose output meets the broken power adapter, and I tested it out – it works – and I listed it on eBay right away.
(Update 05-29-2024) Some packing and shipping tips: make sure we get a good, also decent sized packaging, otherwise the item may get lost during USPS shipping. I noticed two recent items (one is a buy from China, via eBay), another is a small item shipped from Springfield, MO (education sector, probably want to save on cost, used a very small box). Both got lost in the process for a while – it was put in the “moving through network“, before eventually showing up. USPS informed delivery helps, but we are mostly in a holding pattern in this case.
This also reminds me of a short video I saw recently: it seems the workers in the video was processing or sorting mountains of packages in China: not sure if this is domestic or International shipping. The number of packages are enormous. Also this is how a Temu warehouse looks like (I 1st saw it on Twitter/X, but can no longer see it).
Btw, “search” on X/Twitter is horrendous, I was able to find it via google search. On the result page, I click on the camera icon to go to other sources.
(Update 04-01-24) I sold a few surprising items last few days, things I didn’t expect to sell.
A Whirlpool fridge tag: this is my 1st shipment to Puerto Rico, last year I made the sale for another item via auction but the buy didn’t pay. I also experimented the volume listing (2nd and more item off).
(Update 03-03-2024)I sold one item for the multi-quantity with variations listings below. Also I noticed one minor issue: it seems eBay does not offer the USPS 1st class mail now. So I had to pay extra $2.00 or $3.00 to get their ground advantage service. In order to avoid extra cost on my side, I changed the shipping to the USPS Ground Advantage in my listings. I still have 15 items left. Those are free items for me (10+ years ago, Courtney of Subaru America), so overall I am still okay as long as I don’t lose money over shipping and eBay fees 🙂
The reason I want to buy shipping from eBay is it has better integration with eBay payment and so on. I am willing to pay a bit extra to get this. Somewhat like what I do with Turbo Tax (better integration with IRS and the state tax authority, here in the show me state, it’s the depart of revenue).
Fixed price (buy it now) vs Auction: I gave it some more thought. One of the fairly common thing happened to me at least, is with an auction starting price of 99 cents, plus shipping. Some buyers don’t pay after bidding for it. This is usually not the case for the “buy it now” buyers. I assume the latter group is more committed buyer: they will need pay for the item when they bought it via “buy it now”. So in the future I will explore this format instead of my earlier experiment which is mostly auction.
I created my 1st multiple quantities listing with variations on eBay – Genuine Subaru Badge of Ownership you pick Medallions many Discontinued – NEW https://t.co/Vt8sQ75PA9#eBay via @eBay /1
(Update 02-26-2024) It seems eBay doesn’t like I listing Helmet there, it automatically cancelled the listing a few hours before the bid closes. Below is the email I received from eBay.
email from eBay
I just deleted the “Crutches” listing there too – as earlier I got a similar message from FB Marketplace. I still leave my crutches listing at local CraigsList. Below is the FB Market place rule regarding medical device etc.
FB Marketplace rule re: medical and healthcare products
(Update 02-19-2024) For eBay, when selling old and sometimes not so appealing items, the “unsold” rate could be quite high, one has to have a thick skin, as well as lots of patience and a big heart to continue. On 02-18-2024 Unsold 132 – Sold 10 – (2 unpaid; 8 paid and shipped) Active 25 – (the main concern is not to have a distress kind of feeling)
Last but not least, it seems we lost the money made ($6 or so) from the above shoes in another pair of shoes my 13 year old bought and tried to make some money on eBay. In Chinese we say that as “偷鸡不成蚀把米” 🙂
Back to declutter, I think there are a few other ways to give away things, rather than throw them away, again one man’s trash could be another man’s treasure. They include, local buy nothing sell nothing FB groups, and charities such as Helping Hand Me Downs. The latter direct items to the families in need.
(Update 02-04-2024) Recently I realized I can sell item at 99 cents, plus the USPS Ground Advantage shipping (buyer pay), and I can make about 99 cents from the sale. The buyer’s payment for shipment covers the shipping cost plus the eBay seller fee (transaction fee). One of such items is – 4-Pack Repair Parts to fix Crocs Shoes Rivet Strap Replacement Button Fastener Do you want to guess where I got this item, or how I got started selling those? Hint: I am selling the surplus items I bought from Amazon or other places. Again: reuse, reduce and recycle.
(Original 08-09-2023) This would be my 18th year since I started to sell on eBay in the year 2005. I recall the year because that’s the year one of my nieces was born, and I visited her when she was a newborn in the southwest USA. It’s one of the few times I got to hold a newborn baby. At that time I was single and I didn’t have much chance to hold a baby. Later on, I had more chances to hold babies because my wife and I have 2 girls. I recall in late 2014, I put my baby girl (our 2nd) on my left shoulder, while I typed on my computer (laptop) working. Those are some of the highlights of my life for sure.
Back to selling on eBay topic. I understand nowadays some people would say eBay is slowly dying (here is an article I recently came across). But back in the day, 20 years ago, I recall Dick Cheney (the W’s VP), touted that “Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.” Note he gave that remark in the presidential re-election season of 2004: the economy then was not very good including the employment, note in year 2003 the US invade Iraq. I think eBay’s position then is like today’s Etsy, Uber / Lyft, and Doordash combined in terms of the number of freelance jobs being created. I know we call it gig economy now, a much fancier word.
Recently I came across James Sinclair’s YouTube video and he probably mentioned that “selling on eBay” is a hard business. I tend to agree.
Back in the days
I recall in those early days, I would buy and sell, monitors, digital camcorders, digital cameras, etc from websites such as dell.com, and using some discount codes. Then sell them on eBay. I sold quite a few. Again if you look at my eBay profile, I sold 215 items in all time. I believe most of the sales were done between the years between 2005 and 2007. I don’t think I made a meaningful profit from those (this again sorta confirms Jame’s assertion above). Once I had a complaint filed against me because the item got lost from the US to either Afghanistan or Iraq, which I have zero control. Note the USPS insurance also only covers shipping inside the US. I know this sucks but this is just life, and I think that’s probably another reason I decided to not continue selling on eBay, in addition to low or no profit, as well as in the next few years, iPhone and other smartphones got more popular and gradually replaced many camcorders and digital cameras (24 things that the mobile phone has replaced). I still remember the excitement I had when I got my 1st blackberry, and back in 2009 my coworker really hoped for the iPhone (note it was the early days of iPhone, and it was not available as the company device yet, but it was coming soon).
Different purpose: declutter
But nowadays, my main goal is to sell unused stuff, from a “reduce, reuse, recycle” point of view (refer to the picture at the way bottom to say the point). One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That’s also why I don’t care much about profitability etc. of all this. It’s not my main goal. I know from time to time I really need to be more organized and reduce the things I keep at home. Until recently I watch Holy Schmidt’s video on the topic, I was not serious enough though. That day I got a bit unhappy about my own mess or the not-well-organization of my desk. So I decided to do a little cleanup. During that, I found out that I forgot to open the mail and quite a few checks from the dental insurance company. Some checks are over one year old and I can no longer deposit them 🙁
Schmidt’s example in his video is more extreme, per se. But I can see I am coming down this path if I don’t clean up the garage, the basement, and other rooms at home quickly. So there is my incentive. I don’t think it’s realistic to sell everything on eBay. I would probably give some large items away, or throw some away eventually.
Last but not least, something left an impression, is this YouTube TedX video, To be different is good, by Jon Jandai. I think I have a lot to chew on about the video in terms of living a simple life.
(Picture above Hilary Hahn, who plays the violin for Suzuki book 1; the piano was played by Natalie Chen)
(Update 12-14-2023) I realized my daughter’s violin teacher also knows how best to keep the kids engaged and interested. Couple things: 1) The practice sheet, he has a worksheet which looks like a printed out Excel spreadsheet and kids feel accomplishment after completing each task. He also plans to do a pizza party for the “most continuously practice” for celebrations. 2) Along similar lines, I saw during group class, yesterday it was probably holiday themed, he gave out candies for small quiz or games, or challenges.
(Original) My younger one started the Suzuki violin lesson recently. I heard about the Suzuki violin lesson a long time ago (more than 10 years ago), when my older one was little. But we didn’t pick violin lessons for her. Like many Chinese parents, we picked piano lessons. We started piano lessons for our younger one a few years ago as well, and kept it through the pandemic (for the most part, the main exception is the shutdown period between March 2020 and May 2020).
Choose the Right Teacher
I picked the violin teacher after doing some research. Mainly following friends and my own gut feeling. Now looking back I feel I am a bit lucky: I think this Suzuki method is probably the way to go here. Note this is the 1st Suzuki violin book – Suzuki Violin School, Vol 1: Violin Part. The book no longer has an attached CD, I believe. So I went to the Apple iTunes store to get the music and searching “Suzuki violin book 1” seems to bring me the wrong music for the book. It brings up Takako Nishizaki’s Suzuki Evergreens and you bet I bought it. It took me to a while to find out the one album matching the book (again it should look something like the photo at the top).
Our younger daughter recently passed the twinkle test. It’s the first level of the test, I would not discount it though. The teacher said the average time to pass it is a bit over one year (I should add the average kid’s age to start violin lesson is probably much younger than our 9 year old too). The start age for kids to learn something is interesting. I think in general, it gets easier for a kid to learn something when he/she gets older, another good example is swimming. But at the same time, if we start something on a kid too late, most likely he/she will do okay but not able to complete in today’s competitive world – that’s the dilemma. I know some kids who have potential to play soccer in college or in the national team down the road, and they worked real hard from a very young age, and the parents are shuttling them to practice/games like a full time job. Similar for mind sports such as Chess. So in other words, we should not just looked at how well a kid did on something, we also should look at how many miles the parent put on her car, or his frequent flyer miles 🙂
Back to the topic: the violin lesson. As I was the parent who drove her to class, as well as help her practice in the early days. I do the bow for her as she was not ready to use the bow yet (the teacher doesn’t want her to build bad habit). She is on her 2nd and 3rd song now. The music (violin) thing seems hard to me for two reasons:
The master of the music, reading notes etc.
The coordination and movement of two hands, in the case of violin, one hand (fingers) need to move and push down the strings, while the other one does the bow. The “bow” part is actually hard, as it was not natural, as I saw from one YouTube video a while ago. Took a while for Sophia to get familiar to it.
To overcome this, I think her violin teacher did a few things right.
He has a spreadsheet-like worksheet for the kid, this way the kid could mark every day’s practice. Talking about the organization.
Rigors with a sense of humor. I think most American-born kids or parents in America can sympathize, maybe I can extrapolate it to the world too, basically, nobody would like to be criticized. In the piano teachers/kids community, I heard horrendous stories such as the teacher would scold the parents if the kids didn’t do the work or practice.
Group lessons and encouragement to the kids to participate in an ensemble (namely, the SE and higher at CMS at Webster U). We just started the group lesson. I think this will be quite helpful as kids like to learn in a social environment too.
Use of computer and modern tech. I think the teacher is probably about 70 years old. He was previously a music teacher at Kirkwood and a violin teacher at CMS (Webster U). He does email communication, word doc, Zoom etc. very well – which is probably standout among his peers. He also encourages me to take video on iPhone for Sophia to learn at home, for music and posture, and hand (finger) gesture.
Violin Kids
In our school district the kids have the options to learn violin at 4th grade. I understand some other school districts offer that too. Our main motivation for Sophia is to have some confidence when the violin lesson starts this school year, and she may have a bit “1st mover advantage”. I know at least one other kid at her grade does violin too (already). Again this is mostly help our younger daughter to find her niche (or calling), something she can feel good about (after doing some work). We have absolutely no expectation for her to play professionally down the road. We respect all the professional musicians. But we know that’s not easy and it’s not for everyone. In fact, the step daughter of Sophia’s teacher is a pro, and she plays for SLSO. The teacher said she played 4 hours a day when she was young, and we saw her video when she was 8 and she looked already like a pro (being 8 years old).
Learning music in general (kids version)
We started piano lesson for our older daughter when she was in kindergarten (she was 5 and a half). She had a pretty rigorous teacher to start. After a while, things became harder for her and she kinda slacked off. And we also stepped back too as we don’t want to be berated by the teacher when our daughter didn’t do her work. Later we switch her to an easier piano teacher. She did other things such as SLCCSing (St. Louis Children’s Choirs), from 1st grade until 7th. This coming year we planned to have her take a break on choir. She started percussion 2 years ago when she was in the 6th grade (middle school), and we will continue her on that. She seems like music in general, as a hobby and a relaxation tool. She sings and occasionally plays ukuleles at home, and sometimes plays piano too now that she doesn’t have piano lessons (more or more willingly compared to the days she has the piano lessons). She doesn’t have plan to major in music so far, but may consider it as a minor in college. She is not talented in piano as some other Chinese kids. She only won one medal from piano (the sonatina thing when she was 6 or 7, at the Lindenwood U).
For our younger daughter we were more laid back, also due to the pandemic, we started her on piano with the “nicer” teacher. And she did the chorus at her school in last school year. And in this April we started her on violin. We hope she can continue this path (a bit like her big sister does percussion for now).
Again like many parents here, we like our kids to learn music (reading notes etc.) as well as mastering one instrument. I understand for percussion, this is a bit hard to identify a particular instrument, marimba is a common one, but drums are also common.
Also, last but not least, a while ago I heard playing piano (maybe easier to start than violin for older people), could have potential benefit of prevent dementia, so that’s something I need to get more serious about.
PS: again please note I am not doing any victory lap here. I am just sharing what I know (and don’t know). And I welcome any feedback, comments or questions.
. This app is not the most reliable app I personally used. But I also understand it gave some parents and caregivers peace of mind sometimes.
