Copies of The Economist are scattered on the window sill. CDs are stashed in a corner with sheets of notes from lessons. The online edition of the South China Morning Post appears on the computer screen. Japanese manga fills the bookshelves. A giant Webster's College Dictionary sits next to my temporarily forgotten homework. My parents complain about the state of my room and, like any other self-respecting adolescent, I tell them that it's my life, my room, and please get out before I scream. This perfectly reasonable request is usually met with a stony glare and an unspoken threat. Then I half-heartedly begin to shift paper from one folder to the other while muttering about how I was willing to bet that Albert Einstein never had to clean his room. A few hours later my parents are back. 'I thought I told you to tidy your room.' This sentence is an example of many common mistakes that parents make. First, they are unsure of themselves, as revealed by the use of 'I thought'. A parent must be confident when confronting a savvy teenager. Second, they assume you will do what they tell you to. A parent must never assume. Third, they believe that their definition of 'tidy' is a universal definition and is morally correct. In this particular case, the third mistake was most noticeable. I had tidied my room, carefully filing all my primary school work into separate folders, one for each year with a special sub-section for each subject. The issues of The Economist and my Japanese manga were arranged in chronological order. My homework was nowhere to be seen. Perfect. The next day I discover that a sacrilege had been committed. Copies of The Economist, arranged in chronological order, are carefully stacked on the window sill. My prized manga are sealed away in a storage box. CDs are in the CD rack. The dictionary is restored to the bookshelf. Letters are neatly piled on the desk. The computer is off. Where did I put my homework again? Cynthia is a Sunday Young Post columnist from West Island School