Rant of the Exiles

On Monday of last week, I had my nose moved. After introducing himself, the ear-nose-throat surgeon asked if I had a picture of myself prior to the injury. He wanted to know if I always looked like I did. It was a good question. My mom was asking herself the same thing when she saw me the week prior. I had to check pictures myself to confirm that indeed, my nose was straight before. He confirmed based on my driver's license picture that I had indeed been better (or worse) looking than before. He said there was no obstruction in my nose and it would heal fine so any further procedure would be considered "purely cosmetic". That made me feel like a shallow person. To defend against this implication, I told him my glasses no longer sat centered on my nose and it made me dizzy to have one lens close to my face and the other farther away. He didn't sound very convinced. He told me I had two options - have my nose moved while under a local anesthetic or have it...

The parent-child is a relationship paradigm not a metaphor. The parent-child dynamic is the most frequently used metaphor to describe the relationship in immigrant churches between the first and second generation. The immigrant generation is the parent and the next generation is the child. However the parent-child dynamic is not a metaphor. A metaphor compares two distinct entities whereas the parent-child dynamic describes a fundamental reality of immigrant churches. The children of the first generation make up the English-speaking congregation. Paternalism begins when the children of the immigrant congregation are born. As the kids grow, the paternalism hopefully fades. After a number of years, the Americanized congregation becomes less marginalized and matures into adult status. The husband-wife relationship is both a paradigm and metaphor. But there is a real metaphor present. It is of husband and wife. The husband-wife relationship describes both the fallen and ideal...

I broke my nose on Monday. I got hit in the face playing basketball but didn't know it was broken until I glanced in the mirror after the game. It didn't look the way I did before. My nose had a dent in it and the bridge was off center. Here are some reflections on the past week. Obsessing about my personal appearance: The funny thing is nobody noticed my nose was dented and crooked unless I mentioned it. I went to a church meeting on the same night of the injury and my parents were there. At one point, my dad looked straight at me for a couple seconds. I thought he could tell but when I asked him about it couple days later, he said he had no idea until I told him. Another lady I told said she noticed earlier but didn't want to say anything. She probably figured my nose had always been crooked. Either people don't play close attention to me or I'm uglier than I thought. Or both. Update: I found out that from the Monday meeting, my mom did notice m...