December 2, 2023

by Dr. Plastic Picker

I have many beautiful photos of the little one in her speech dress and heels from last night. She was practicing her Original Prose and Poetry piece and she looked beautiful. She’s upstairs right now and it’s 5:46am, getting ready for the Winter Classic Invitational Speech Tournament. This is her life at 15-years-of-age, and she’s been prepping all week for the tournament. She had a nightmare last night regarding the Japanese occupation of Korea, but that is the weird advocacy world that she lives in. She’s writing poetry and thinking about the world, but wants to look pretty for herself and for the future-husband that at some point will come into her life. But she’s more focused on school and high-school academic competitions than boys, for which I’m forever grateful.

As for our oldest? He sent us a picture of an alpaca that is on the grounds at UC Berkeley! I have no idea why there is an alpaca on the grounds of UC Berkeley – but there it is. It’s “dead week” where the kids there have finished classes and are studying for finals. Two more weeks until he is home for a good stretch for Christmas/Holiday break.

I’m trying mostly to give the little one her privacy. I’m exerting self control and not sharing her little stories and her most beautiful pictures on Instagram. It’s her life and her image, and she’s right that it’s time for me to step back. She started her ceramics instagram account, as she’s been studying ceramics now for now almost 5 years. But the reason why the stories of my two are woven into the climate work, is that they are my why. Just like likely your children are your why. It’s hard for me to explain what’s happening with the climate work without talking about the children, because it’s so interwoven that it’s almost impossible to separate the threads from each other.

The most important thing I’m working on right now is helping students in the Riverside area try to start and push forward a school electrification proposal. It had been done in San Diego, and I had a bit part. But most importantly I know a lot of people and connected some key high school student leaders, UC Berkeley and Riverside premedical students, and experienced policy experts from San Diego that can help the Riverside students. Kian Chou who our premedical student up at Berkeley has put out a WhenToMeet poll and I’m hopefully that next week we can meet, and I’ve secured a speaking spot at Kaiser Riverside pediatrics to talk up this issue.

I mostly need to put our our newsletter, as there has been so many developments that I haven’t been able to update our 60+ pediatrician/premedical student listserv. We are mostly focused on legislative priorities this year and have our pediatrician, medical student and premedical student teams. I just need to explain that in the newsletter. And then I have to finish a draft of the American Climate Leadership award application and send it to our co-authors so we can submit it, and try to get some money to expand the H3SD San Diego’s Heat and Human Health Summit idea. We are awaiting word regarding the first abstract we submitted regarding extreme heat and youth sports, and hoping to gets accepted as a work in progress at the region 9 Pediatric Academic Societies meeting.

But mostly this weekend I’m going to worry about my son up at college, and hope he continues to make good choices. He calls home most nights and checks in with us. We are proud that he’s been taking his classes seriously and doing well on his exams. He’s looking into lab /research positions for next semester, so we’ll see how his next semester goes. And mostly I’m be judging other high school speech competitors both today and tomorrow. And thinking how beautiful our daughter looks in her dress that she’s worn before. But honestly, her confidence level in herself and her accomplishments has grown so much in just one year. The 15-year-old is very different than the 14-year-old last year, and I’m so grateful that as much as one is able to – it’s been such a slow year. I’ve lived every moment and enjoyed every day, mostly because I write to you the blog readership and to some friends via email about how she changes day to day.

Wishing the blog readership and my real friends a wonderful and slow and intentional and sustainable weekend. Okay, got to sneak in a pretty picture for you! But just for you and not Instagram. Instagram was getting a bit too exposed for sure.