一期一會

싱가포르의 흰두교 축일 디파발리인 10월 23일 이었다. 아이와 둘이서 놀고 있는데 그림을 그리겠다면서 '인디안 데코레이션'을 뭐라고 하냐고 묻는다. 미국 물이 안 빠진 아빠는 '아~ 드림 캐쳐?'라고 대답했더니 그게 아니란다.

문간에 福자를 뒤집어 붙여놓듯이 디파발리와 관련된 문양이 있는 것이었다.

수학 학원이 끝나고 오늘의 성적표를 보니 숫자를 2배, 절반으로 만들기를 했단다. 그런데 가끔 2배와 1/2배를 헷가린다고 가정통신문에서 그런다. 뭐, 곱하기랑 나누기는 서로 대칭되는 연산이니까 헷갈릴 수 있다고 생각했다. 그러면서 초대칭(SUper SYmmetry, SUSY)가 생각나서 수지라는 이름으로 "똑똑, 누구십니까"를 하나 지었다.

Journal of JY 20221023

#1 This morning, my little girl asked me "what is the Indian decoration on the door?" An Americentric daddy answered, "a dream-catcher?" But the little girl said, "No. Not that one"

She was referring a decoration for Hindi's holiday Deepavali or Diwali. To the Americentric daddy, 'Indian' means 'native American' while the Singaporean girl says Indian for India!

Anyways, I googled images of Deepavali decorations and she started her drawing. When I was taking this photo, she says "Don't copy mine!"

#2. After drawing Deepavali decoration & Chinese lesson, JY took a math class  at Mathnasium, who give out a daily progress report. Today JY learned doubling and halving cents - the report says, she sometimes has hard time in choosing between doubling and halving. I think it is alright. Doubling and halving are symmetric, or mirror images to the other! Children are confused by symmetry. They don't distinguish their left hands and right hands. Doubling and halving are algebraically symmetric operations, so, it is so natural for a kid to get confused. Symmetry is an amazing feature with which we can abstract things and extract simple scientific formulas. JY might have a physicist's spirit! 

So, upon reading the daily report, I made up my knock-knock joke for JY.

      Knock, knock

      Who's there?

      Suzy!

      Suzy who?

      Super Symmetry, SUSY!

Q.E.D.