Things you wanted to say......

Hi Moony!

We were writing at the same time!

Are you walking your dog today?

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We were writing at the same time again!

Julia is pestering me to look at Scooby Doo DS games on amazon. I buy her a gift at the end of Chinese school as a reward for her hard work and she is researching what she wants. She got back her quiz yesterday--91% and 95% on her homework.Elisabeth gets 90s and 80s and Madeleine gets 70s.

I forgot it is night where you are.

I just read an article in the Times about a 71 year old Chinese man who lives in Harlem who took a garbage-strewn abandoned lot and turned it into a sumptuous garden, filled with beans, all kinds of vegetables including Chinese vegetables, medicinal herbs, and 100 pounds of melons

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Nice to hear about your girls, Moonie.

Back from the piano lesson. Reading the NY Times. I called Cindy and invited her and Chu Chen to dinner. I said "I have pasta and ham and vegetables to make a salad and baguette on the side and you and Chu Chen should come over for dinner." Cindy said Chu Chen was grounded and had to write a research paper for English that she hadn't started and that was due tomorrow. She said that Chu Chen can't do anything till after June 22, the last day of school. Cindy said "I just want her to pass even if it means getting Ds. Otherwise she will have to repeat 11th grade and she is already 18." Chu Chen is a year behind because after she came here from China she had an extra year of preschool to get more comfortable in the language.

hello constance and Moonie

sorry i have not been here, family life at home is captivating.


constance, cindy is very correct in feeling she is getting everything wrong, that is normal
and she might get things wrongs..... she should not give up, she should keep trying

yes, Chu Chen will tell her to back of and that she is interfering and so forth
if someone was telling you that everything you are believing in ... is wrong, you would rebel also


routine will be important
cindy must make chu chen continue with her studies, the fallout if she has to repeat the year will be worse

just be constant, and patient
keep her motivated


she probably has depression. check to see if it is there regularly or if it is just occasional
either chroonic and ongoing, or acute....
it is possible she has an environmental type,,, caused by her present situation.


i can only give advice based on my experiences with family and friends


yes, she will tell you all to leave her alone, she has found a comfort zone, a cave where she is contented and feels safe
in her mind,


conxtance, this is the link to a story that is true
i have met the lady who produced the film
please watch it, and maybe even let your friends watch it
it is about the suicide of a young australian girl, who is exactly the same age as chu chen.
what i want to take notice of is ... not what is troubling the girl in this story, she has different troubles to chu chen , but how fast a young person can decide to suicide
people have no idea of how quickly they decide to do these things, and how they misunderstand their own mental health.
notice how she is overloaded with family issues, she was the strong person, she was the girl who was least likely to take her own life
take note when hannah says ... 'she thought depression was weakness not an illness'.


please watch it. maybe more than once, there is always something else in this story that you hear, or notice
please take care
with love and best wishes from lyn.

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/leastlikely/default.htm

Hi Lyn/Tatiana,

Thanks again for input. Yes CC has been chronically depressed for over 18 months, before the Facebook incident by some months. She manifests it in sleeping, deep negativity, and irritability. She's been on and off various anti-depressants, giving up on one or another because of side-effects. She only weighs 90 lbs. so evidently the side effects get to her. She is managing with Lamictal, a mood-stabilizer, but a very low dose, hardly therapeutic, and Cindy said she is taking a stimulant called Vivodin or something like that. It is like ritalin but not as strong. But I agree with you that the current therapist is a ditz and that CC should be seeing a psychiatrist, an MD.

I started watching the video and got about five minutes through but the volume on this computer doesn't go up high enough and Elisabeth is drowning it out playing the guzheng. I will watch it tomorrow morning on the better computer that Tom is using now.

I might email Cindy now. I know she told me that CC had carved a date on her arm but it sounds so unreal that I wonder if I made it up. I wonder if I can bring it up or if that would be intrusive.

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This is my eldest daughter 30 years ago (I took her to sea for a year).

...here she is in melbourne a decade later.

...and here she is last week


I'm posting these by way of compensation for not being able to offer any advice, only support for your kind intention to help your friend and her troubled daughter.

I just want to share something with you.

...and here's my baby

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What great pictures! First daughter She is windsome and full of gleeful personality and is a doll. Nice looking guy, too.

Second daughter: dark and confident and sophisticated and maybe intense. Beatiful. The mysterious drummer somehow reminds me of a figure in a Blake illustration.

I just emailed Cindy. The text:

Hi Cindy,

I hope that CC got her paper done and that she has a good week. If it's not due for a few days, mayby suggest she email it to me and I can critique it.

Next Saturday after Chinese school we are going to the big Chinese store in White Plains and stocking up on baby bok choy, chinese eggplant, sticky-rice in lotus leaves and dumplings. I had the idea that we could come over with our booty and cook it all up. We could have a Chinese feast. See what Chu Chen thinks.

Or maybe we can do that at my house after the 22nd when school pressure is off.

Either way or later at the pool with a barbeque it would be nice to get together with the two of you.

Connie
-----------
(I could critique her paper becuse I used to teach freshman english as an adjunct instructor at New York University Paid almost nothing but I got my degrees for free.)

If/when I see them I can ask about the carving or simply ask Cindy on the phone after a resting interval.

I wish I lived somewhere we could meet for a cup of tea...I really wouldn't mind being there for the Chinese feast

At the Byron Bay Bluesfest a few years ago. i'm in the middle.

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wow ......

Moonie, you are beautiful in both pictures and so are your girls. The crew look nice.

I have pictures of Chu Chen when she was growing up. I'll see if I can find one in all the disorganization. I'll have to scan it and get Elisabeth to show me how to post it. I used to know but I've forgotten. She is a beautiful girl with thick dark glossy hair--darker than most Chinese. It really looks black.

Thanks ladies. I'm going to delete the photos now because it seems rude to put otherpeople's pics in a public place. I've seen lovely pictures of you and your family constance, and a picture of you, tatiana, under a hat, so I've a strong image of who I'm posring to.

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blue moon wrote:Thanks ladies. I'm going to delete the photos now because it seems rude to put otherpeople's pics in a public place. I've seen lovely pictures of you and your family constance, and a picture of you, tatiana, under a hat, so I've a strong image of who I'm posring to.

Hmmm. Good thinking. So I better not post a picture of Chu Chen.

It crosses my mind that it might have been an invasion of privacy to post about C and CC here. In fact I've stayed friends with other mothers from our old playgroup (Cindy hasn't) and I have not said a word to them about CCs problems. I have been completely protective of Cindy, telling no one but my husband and I haven't told Madeleine. I guess ironically, this public space feels very private to me and contained to a very few observant and insightful people.

constance, i hope they are all still okay

i am still here , just busy

I wanted to say something BUt forgot what it was !