Tag Archives: Paul

September 4, 2010 · 7:19 pm

Home from China

I flew into San Francisco late last night from Hong Kong, after ten days working in China. Our takeoff was delayed two hours because of a typhoon – as the cycling winds changed direction, we had to change runways four times. Finally, the jet had to return to the hub to top off fuel before take off. I did not sleep much, so I watched movies: Prince of Persia, The Last Airbender, The A-Team, Letters to Juliet, Nanny McPhee and others, courtesy of Singapore Air. In Singapore Air Economy Class, movies are unlimited, the seats are big, there is a foot rest and a place to put my glasses, and the food is good but fourteen hours on a plane is still not much fun.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, with much honoring of Deng Xiaoping. There were balloons, flags, and illuminated red lanterns on the main streets in celebration. I think my Huawei business trip went well but I am glad to have this long weekend to rejoin my home time zone before starting work again.

I was happy to eat western breakfast food today – the food in Shenzhen is excellent and interesting but I would rather have food I am used to when I wake up. We went to Bill’s Cafe in Willow Glen – our favorite brunch spot. I am even happier to be with my family (John and Paul met me at the airport) and able to drink water from the tap. “Boiled-bottled-or-alcoholic” is the requirement for drinking in China.

I gave John and Paul some of their presents last night. Paul got some carved jade charms and I gave John a small bottle delightfully painted inside with two scenes of birds. The Chinese art of painting a tiny image on the inside of a bottle is delightful. I bought John’s bottle at a store called “Chinese Arts and Craft” in Hong Kong, which offered better quality artists than other locations. I also brought home tea (of course), sesame candy, and moon cakes. I was assured by my Chinese friends that the simple red bean moon cakes I prefer are not as good as those with an egg inside; however, when I came through SFO customs last night and saw the FDA agents confiscating all moon cakes with egg, I was even happier with my choice.

Here are some photos from my trip to Shenzhen and Hong Kong:

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July 23, 2010 · 11:06 pm

Comparing College Costs

Yesterday, I paid $193 for my son Paul’s first Freshman quarter at Foothill College (Los Altos, California). Foothill is a community college where Paul will be taking a light load for his first term and living at home. Today, my daughter Jessica in her organized way sent us a detailed breakdown of the costs for the first semester of her senior year at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Tuition at CMU is $20,590 and other expenses (food, housing, books, travel) come to $4,525 for a half-year total of $25,115. I think that works out to CMU costing about 100 times what Foothill College does. CMU is a great school and Jessica has done very well there (she is on the Dean’s List again, with High Honors!). It is worth the cost.

Here are the kids having fun together during Spring Break in Egypt:

My son is going to college!

OK, you would think that all of the graduation-from-high-school stuff last month would have tipped me off but I was still very excited today when my soon-to-be 18-year-old son Paul finally registered for his Fall classes at Foothill College today! Foothill is a 53-year-old community college set on 122 wooded acres in Los Altos Hills, California (south of San Francisco). Their web-based registration system is still messed up so Paul finally gave up and went to the school to register in person but it is done at last. He will take Intermediate Algebra (lecture and lab), Ceramics, and a study skills class. He met with a college counselor at the Disability Resource Center who recommended this light load his first quarter so he could get used to being in college.

I am so proud! When your kid has disabilities, you take every little progress as a triumph!

Images Copyright Katy Dickinson 2010

Together in Washington D.C.

As of tomorrow morning, my kids will be together in Washington D.C. Jessica and her fiance Matt are working there this summer as interns (for different organizations). She bravely and kindly invited her younger brother Paul to fly from California to visit her for ten days. This is Paul’s first time traveling by himself, so he is being brave too.

We visited the capitol as a family two years ago when Jessica was singing in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, so Paul knows something about the place. He has been researching what he wants to see and adding his ideas to our family calendar: the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum, the mall, the National Zoo, Colonial Williamsburg (near where his to-be-brother-in-law Matt goes to college), and other sites.

I am pleased that my kids have such a good relationship and I hope that their adventure will go well.

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Tagged as Jessica, Matthew, Paul

June 30, 2010 · 10:36 pm

Weaving in Harrania, Egypt

Because our daughter Jessica is a weaver, John and Paul and Jessica and I made a point to visit the amazing Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre in Harrania, near Giza, during our recent trip to Egypt. We had to insist that our guide take us there (Wissa Wassef does not give the guides kickbacks) but it was well worth making a fuss to see. We went back a second time later! Here is a description of how Ramses Wissa Wassef started this impressive craft center:

Ramses’ interest in tapestry weaving began in 1941 when he was asked by a social welfare organisation to design a small centre in Cairo. While designing the building he asked permission to teach a small group of the children to weave, thus beginning his “experiment in creativity.” Weaving seemed the perfect medium to bring together his appreciation for traditional craftsmanship with the innate creativity of children, which he believed was damaged by routine and formalised education. After apprenticing himself to a weaver to master the basic techniques and exploring natural dyes Ramses began to pass on these skills to a small group of the schoolchildren. Using a high-warp loom, similar to those found millenia before in Ancient Egypt, the children began to weave in local wool dyed with natural dyes such as indigo, cochineal, madder, and reseda. Encouraged by the success of these experiments in 1951 Ramses and his wife Sophie began building a workshop near the small village of Harrania, ten miles from Cairo. At that time no weaving was done in the area, although since the success of the Centre imitations have become widespread. [From About the Art Centre]

We bought two books, some postcards, a ceramic sheep and a bowl, and a delightful small woven tapestry at Wissa Wassef. The larger statues in the gardens were remarkable but there was no way we could get one home. The weaving is so tight on our tapestry that I cannot put my fingernail between the threads. Most of the tapestries in the Wissa Wassef museum were very large; I am pleased to have a small but lovely sample of this work. The books are:

Egyptian Landscapes: 50 Years of Tapestry Weaving at the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre, Cairo by Hilary Weir, Suzanne Wissa Wassef, Yoanna Wissa Wassef, Opus Publishing Ltd (2006)
Threads of Life: A Journey in Creativity by E. A. De Stefano, Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center (1991)

We also toured two commercial rug factories while we were in Harrania. One place was producing some very good work – the El Harrania Factory. The owner generously gave my daughter some of his wool as a souvenir and said he trained at Wissa Wassef. The second factory we went to was unremarkable for either quality or creativity (but the prices were very high) – that was the one our guide wanted us to go to!

Wissa Wassef Art Centre

El Harrania Factory

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Tagged as Egypt, Jessica, John, Middle East, Paul

June 30, 2010 · 4:27 pm

Paul Graduates High School!

After much struggle, my son graduated from High School! Hooray! Paul graduated with his Palo Alto High School class of 2010 in a ceremony attended by his parents and grandparents. His sister Jessica listened by cell phone to Paul’s name being announced as he walked to receive his diploma. Jessica is in Washington DC, where she is working as a summer intern for the Polaris Project (“For a World Without Slavery”).

Paul made his way through High School despite his social-cognitive learning disability, dyslexia, dysgraphia, brain surgery, and debilitating headaches. He stubbornly continued to do six or more hours of homework every day (including weekends) up until the week of finals – catching up after we were Stranded in Egypt over Spring Break. He took a CPR Saturday class just before finals after a last-minute note from the school said he needed that training to graduate. Other kids in Paul’s class were honored for their academic, sports, and musical achievements. Paul won through to the end, and that was good enough. We are so proud! This week, Paul is going to visit Jessica in Washington DC (his first solo trip). He starts at Foothill College in August.

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Tagged as Disabilities, Egypt, Foothill College, Jessica, Paul

June 3, 2010 · 11:03 pm

CMU-Q in Doha, Qatar

John and Paul and I visited my daughter Jessica in Doha while she was a student at CMU-Q (Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar) last semester. She had an excellent experience studing Arabic, history, and politics at CMU-Q and Georgetown. Qatar has a very conservative Islamic culture, similar to that of its neighbor Saudi Arabia. It was fascinating to watch guys in traditional white dress adjust their head scarves the way western women fiddle with their long hair. I have heard that between the expat business people and the guest workers, less than a third of the people in Qatar are citizens. So, we did not feel too out of place being westerners.

We were delighted to hear Jessica sing several roles in the Qatar Foundation’s annual musical, which this year was Oliver!. We went for a long walk on the Cornish and took a pearl boat ride across the bay to the very impressive Museum of Islamic Art in its I. M. Pei building. We toured the markets: Souq Wakif (including its depressing pets for sale), the falcon souq, and the gold souq. And we visited the huge Vegas-like Villagio mall, complete with its Venetian canal and gondolas. We played board games one night with some of Jessica’s faculty friends. She even made us dinner – we brought it from the kitchen in the women’s dorm to where John and Paul were in the park near by. We admired the many new and under-construction modern office buildings downtown but after a few days we ran out of things to do and were happy to move on to Egypt for some world-class sightseeing.