How to Punish?

Last night I played Jeremy, 3d, taking black. I played the Kobayashi opening.



He approached at 1, which is not supposed to be a good move, but when I pincered at 2, he attached at 3. I'm quite sure I've seen an explanation of why this move is not good for White, but I couldn't remember. Perhaps it was in one of my lessons from Guo Juan, because it was not in the Korean Fuseki Dictionary or Go Seigen's Way of Play for the 21st Century (the other two likely sources).

I totally botched it. I failed even to play a basic joseki, and then my corner group which was helping to split White's two groups got killed. It seemed an easy win for White and I wasn't exactly coming back, but, needing to leave weaknesses in an attempt to get more points, he killed another group of mine later. That's when I resigned.

Mosh

With the mid-term elections nearly upon us, perhaps it's time to revisit Eminem & Ian Inaba's powerful music video:

http://www.gnn.tv/videos/27/Eminem_s_Mosh

If you've read Tolstoy's War and Peace, you know that we're all individually responsible for leaving in power the people who believe they can "interpret" the Geneva conventions and distinguish between "coercive interrogation" and "torture".

Here in England, the people are finally fed up enough with Tony Blair for supporting Bush's "war on terror" (which is conveniently only classified as a "war" when Bush wants it to be classified as such) that they're demanding he step down, and soon. When will we Americans do the same?

Does anyone know whether I am allowed to vote (and if so, where) while I'm living in England?

Meetings

I meet with Fred, my advisor, every Thursday at noon. This week, in addition to the usual temporary release from the stress of feeling like I've not accomplished anything in the intervening week, I received some disconcerting news. The other student of Fred's who came here from Brandeis is returning to Boston.

I haven't talked to him, so I don't know his reasons for going back. I imagine the financial strain of living in London on a Brandeis stipend (in U.S. dollars) might suffice, but trying to finish your thesis when your advisor resides in another country must be at least equally difficult.

Meanwhile, the fire alarm in our building went off last night at 2 am. I never appreciated this particular undergraduate prank even when I was in their position of usually being awake at that time. Now that I am normally asleep at that hour, and planning on getting up not so very many hours later, it's downright obnoxious.

On a brighter note, I'll go to the Nippon Club for Go night tonight. Hopefully I'll get some more good games to send to Guo Juan for my lesson on Tuesday.

My roommates seem to be a good bunch of people. Imram (from Pakistan) cracks me up. I guess the Chinese guys had suggested that he should learn how to use chopsticks. He said he doesn't even know how to do his own laundry. While Hao uses his £400 German pot to concoct elaborate Chinese soups, Imram ravenously devours his undercooked frozen pizza. I commiserated with him about boring inductions--if you can't navigate the web page on your own, what are you doing in a postgraduate program at King's College? Then I helped Yiassin (from Greece) download the program he needed to install his new Greek-English dictionary.

Squam Go

Right about now I'm supposed to be on my way to the 9th Annual Cooashauke Invitational, the annual Vermont Go Club weekend event which takes place in New Hampshire, on Squam Lake.



It's one of my favorite events of the year, maybe even edging out Thanksgiving--it's that good.



This is what Go is all about.



This year is the first year that I've missed it since I started playing Go. I even went when I barely knew the rules and had only been playing for a few weeks. It has served as a benchmark for me, to measure my progress every year.










Saturday night is always reserved for team Go. Two teams face off. On each team, the members take turns playing moves, rotating through all the team members. You're not allowed to talk to each other about the game while playing, so the goal is to remember that you have to use your teammates' moves and not just play where you want to play. We've gotten better over the years, so the games are actually not so bad now.



Plus the food is great, the beer is homebrewed to perfection, the wine is top notch and there's always some hiking or time out on the lake to get some exercise and enjoy the views.

Goldilocks

My bed in Wuhan may have been too hard, but my "bed" (really more like a cot) here is too soft. Well, I can't really say "soft" because the springs poke through unmercilessly, but it definitely is not firm enough. Now I wake up with upper back pain instead of lower back pain. Upper back pain is a change of pace for me, but it still hurts and makes sleeping difficult. My plan is to talk to the good people at the health center and see if they can procure a better mattress for me, since I'm living in campus housing and can't exactly replace the bed myself. Unfortunately, I think too hard is much easier to rectify than too soft, and I'm afraid they might just try to give me a newer but essentially the same mattress. I'm not holding out much hope for something that is just right.

Of the five people in my flat, I'm the only girl. There's a guy from Greece (Yiassin) studying music theory, a guy from Pakistan (Imram) studying law, and two guys from China, one (Alex) studying financial math and the other (Hao) studying biochemistry (I think). Neither of the guys from China play Weiqi, but I plan to use them to help me practice Chinese when my class starts. Hao has already been here for a year and has learned how to cook for himself, in quite an elaborate way. Alex just got here and made noodles for the first time tonight. He had watched his mother do it once. When he finished, he declared it was just like home and took a picture with his cell phone to post online.

slowly sipping tea
chrysanthemums fully bloom
below the surface

Go Club #2

Last night I went to the Nippon Club Igo Kai to play with the Go club that meets there on Friday evenings. This club seems to be a subset of the Central London Go Club that meets on Saturdays. I wonder whether the same people populate the other Go clubs that meet in London as well.

I played Tanaka-san, taking 3 stones, and won by resignation. I had a terrible result right off the bat, but then killed a group later on. In the diagram below, I played the keima at F16 because I learned all these fun variations this summer in China when someone played it against me. The variations I learned all follow from White responding at A though. Tanaka-san played F17. I left the situation early in order to pincer, but leaving my stones with bad shape, which he promptly used to his advantage.



After I got back last night, I joined a few people from the 6th floor (I'm on the 4th) for a beer at the pub across the street. It was nice to meet some more people in the building. Most of them were from the U.S and Canada, which was a change: pretty much everyone else I've met is from anywhere but North America. I'm constantly impressed by how well all these people speak English, particularly those who have never left their home countries before.

There was a girl from D.C. (actually from Bethesda), so we reminisced about Flanagan's and complained about all those overly driven people who clog D.C. and the gentrification uprooting the natives.

Congestion

Today I attended the maths postgraduate "induction". Fortunately, there was no formal ceremony involved, just lunch, some "housekeeping" details, assignment of offices and wine. I met a girl from Mexico who is starting her PhD in theoretical physics (categorized under "applied math" and thus in our department). It must be even harder for her to explain to people that the only practical applications of her work are to other aspects of mathematics.


When returning from our field trip to our new offices in Drury Lane (the PhD students' offices are not in the same building as the rest of the maths department--the pink boxes on the map to the right are the maths dept and the PhD students' offices), I got a chance to ask Rebecca (administrative staff in charge of the PhD program) about the congestion charge in London. Basically, there's a ring around central London which you are charged a fee for entering if you cross into it during the hours of 7 am to 6:30 pm, Monday through Friday. The charge is currently £8! Rebecca said she thinks it has really worked (and, at that price, I'm not surprised). She said you're supposed to pay ahead of time (you can do this online) and apparently you get charged a lot more if you don't. They use cameras to check.

Here's a map with various King's College campuses and buildings labelled. I live in Great Dover St Apartments and the maths department is on the Strand Campus.


This is a map of the current congestion charge region.


There are plans to expand the congestion charge region, though Rebecca says that it has met with stiff resistance and even protests from the wealthier regions, like Kensington. She also mentioned that the U.S. embassy is not happy about it and has been dodging the fees. Typical, huh?


Above is a map of the extended congestion charge region, effective February, 2007.

My life, illustrated.

For those who would like to know what my life as a grad student is like, spend a few hours procrastinating at phdcomics.com. Here are a few of my favorites.

Lessons

I had my first lesson with Guo Juan today since before I went to China. She's wonderful. If you have the means, I highly recommend taking lessons with her. If you don't know how to play Go, you should learn just so that you can benefit from her lessons.

I learned a new joseki today. When Black jumps into the corner under the 5-4 and White plays 2, Black can play at A or B.












If Black plays A:













If Black plays B:

Shopping Lists

Yesterday I went back to Borough Market. Here's what I got:

• salad leaf
  
• 1 each: red, yellow and green pepper
  
• 1/2 dozen fresh eggs
  
• 250 g fresh butter
  
• 1 wedge handmade mature cheshire cheese ("Cheeeeese, Grommit!")
  
• 1 large scoop cherry tomatoes
  
• 4 peaches
  
• spring onions
  
• oyster mushrooms
  
• 1 large round loaf of roasted potato and rosemary bread
  
• 100 g mixed nuts
  

All for under £15. On my way to the Go club, I stopped at a store in Chinatown and spent another £10:

• soy sauce
  
• vinegar
  
• pickled vegetable
  
• chili oil
  
• sesame paste
  
• two packets of different soup bases
  
• 4 packages of different kinds of noodles
  

At the Go club, there was a team tournament taking place. One team was from the Nippon club, which, to my knowledge, was the only basis for the tournament being advertised as "international". It was suggested that I should enter a "rest of the world" team next time. I'm hoping to bring in a couple of ringers from the Netherlands (Guo Juan? Siu? Are you up for it?).

I have yet to meet my new flatmates, but the arrival of the exuberant undergraduates has brought to my attention the downside of having my room face the courtyard instead of the outside world.

Morning at the Window

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

-T. S. Eliot

counting

The British (or maybe just the folks at King's College) seem to have a funny idea of how to count. The maths department is on level 9 of its building. Level 9 is on the 5th floor. Apparently there are some basement levels, so I guess this works itself out eventually and I didn't think too much of it. But today I went to register with the health centre (where they screened me for rubella even though I had my MMR shots as a kid--I love the National Health Service). I knew they were on the third floor of this building, so I walked up enough stairs to put me at what I reckoned would be the 4th floor (figuring if I went to the 3rd I'd probably be wrong). Well, I was right: I was wrong. I had found myself on the first floor and needed to negotiate two more flights of stairs before I found the third floor.

And now for something completely different:

If anyone is interested in investing £2000 (about $3700) in a run of the mill bank account in England, I'd be glad to help you out. The only option left to those who are unable or unwilling to maintain a £2000 minimum in their bank account is this rather less than run of the mill cash card account. I was perfectly willing to settle for this option (even though the woman helping me at the bank advised against it), but for this I needed proof of my U.K. address. The list of documents that would prove my U.K. address included my original letter of admission from my educational institution. I brought this with me, but was not aware that this letter had to have been sent to my U.K. address. Of course, being an international student, when they admitted me, I didn't live in the U.K.. Where's Douglas Adams with his Somebody Else's Problem field when I need him?

permanence

Yesterday I finally moved into my "permanent" room (I'll be here until the middle of June). Though the other students won't move in until this weekend, I already feel like I've regressed 10 years and have returned to dorm life. I have my own bathroom, but my refridgerator is miniscule and I have to carry my food down the hall to the kitchen to cook.

It's rather degrading to be demoted in this fashion, but it's a relief to finally settle in a bit. My books (the few I brought with me plus a few more I've purchased since arriving) are out on my bookshelf, my map of Wuhan is on the wall and now that my suitcase is in the closet, the room seems a little less small.

I'm afraid my life here is considerably less eventful than in China. My mathematical progress is so slow that movement is often indiscernible. I'm reading a paper coauthored by my advisor. The paper is only about 20 pages long, but behind each sentence lies volumes of work. I stand still, unheeded by the busy London world racing past.

a gift of e. e. cummings

you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young, whatever life you wear


it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love


whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on; and his mind take off time


that you should ever think, may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies, the foetal grave
called progress, and negation's dead undoom.


I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

Looking for a Go club in London

I arrived in London two weeks ago. My first week here was devoured by a math workshop, which distracted me from my jet lag. I'm not sure what happened to last week. Yesterday was my first Go day in London.


In the morning I went to the borough market, which is practically around the corner from my apartment and is absolutely wonderful--lots of great cheese and bread and produce. I stopped to gaze longingly at some Japanese teapots set up in a little stall. The proprietor offered a free sample of some Japanese green tea. While sipping my little taste of tea, I admired some beautiful old Japanese teapots in a catalog he had open on the table. He said it was from an exhibit at the Gordon Reece Gallery in Clifford St.

I returned to my apartment to drop off the few things I bought (I'm switching rooms again tomorrow, so I didn't buy much) and then left around noon to head towards the Go club. The club wasn't meeting until 2, but it was a long walk and I had a few stops to make.

First I took a detour through Chinatown. I found a bookstore which had disappointingly few Weiqi books, but was cozy and delightful nonetheless. There were several grocery stores where I can buy noodles and the various other ingredients I need to make ru ga mian (hot and dry noodles--one of my favorite recipes from Wuhan). They also had fish balls and quail eggs, so I can attempt to make another one of my favorite dishes.


I then visited the Gordon Reece Gallery. It consisted of two medium-sized well-lit quiet rooms. The current exhibit is of Japanese antiques. I had the place to myself, and wandered about, entranced by the beauty in the workmanship of these various objects. Of course the teapots and a couple of stunning tea cups were among my favorites, but I also loved the calligraphy, the simple beauty of the lanterns and some of the exquisite furniture: a simple low table, and the chests of drawers with sliding lattice screen doors. The sake pitchers were mouth-watering.

The teapots were so beautiful (the pictures online don't do them justice). I was able to see what modern Japanese teapots are imitating or maybe striving for. The modern ones are lovely too, but they don't quite achieve that same effect. It's funny because it seems that, in the old ones, you can see how the person making it tries so hard to get it symmetrical and absolutely perfect, but it's a tiny bit off. The new ones are easily made symmetrical and perfect and therfore lose that intangible quality that comes from someone putting all that hard work and love into it.

It was time to head to the Go club. I got to the street it was on (Great Portland Street) and realized that I had failed to bring the specific address or precise directions with me. I didn't think it would be a problem. I knew it was in the International Student House; it couldn't be too hard to find. I walked the whole length of the street, back and forth, a couple of times, but there was no International Student House. Despair started to set in--I walked all this way and I can't find it?!? How embarrassing. I asked a cop, who said it was on Great Titchfield Street, one block over. He said I should turn left and it would be on the right. So, I walked up and down Great Titchfield Street. Still no International Student House. I asked at a little newstand, but they just gave me strange looks. I asked at another (back on Great Portland Street) and was told that it was across from the Great Portland Street tube stop. By this point, I didn't really believe them anymore, but I walked up there anyway. I looked around and didn't see it anywhere. Giving up, I turned around and there it was, hidden behind another building.

By now I was sweaty and tired and had already given up hope. So instead of heading straight in, I went down the street to a Starbucks to recover some composure. I had some juice and did a couple of Go problems. I headed back up to the International Student House.

The Central London Go Club meets in, appropriately, the "club room". They charge a £3 "board fee". The room has big windows. There were about 10 or 15 people there. I played Tanaka. He said on a good day he was a 5 dan, but usually a 5 kyu. I took three stones, but unfortunately we didn't finish the game because he left to attend a committee meeting. I then gave 9 stones to Peter, a 16 kyu.

I left absolutely delighted with my new Go club. There are several other clubs in London, which meet in different places and on different days of the week. I'm not sure yet which I'll go to. On the way home, I walked by Chinatown again and found a "Nippon and Korea" store, so I now have a place to get my rice and pickles too.

(The photos here are filched from other websites.)