他很懒。

In Chinese class last night, we had to pair up and describe a family member to our partner, who would then tell the class about this family member. I chose my brother David because we had learned how to say "David" in Chinese. Here's what I told them:

我弟弟叫大为。 他十九岁。 他是大学生。 他很懒。 他不做作业。 他认为他很帥， 可是他还没有女朋友呢。

I'm afraid it's not a very flattering portrait, but it got a few laughs. Actually, I'm not sure if it's accurate. Is David 19? Does he not have a girlfriend?

(I just figured out that I have to enter "nv" to get the "nü" in "nü peng you".)

We learned last night that "computer" is 电脑 (dian nao) which means "electric brain". We also learned the terms for single and married and our teacher told us that in China, November 11th (11/11) is called "singles' day".

Embedded games!

This is what I wanted this summer while we were in China! I saw on Karen's blog that she had found an applet to display games in her blog, so that people don't have to download them and open them with a separate sgf editor. Of course, they look much nicer in CGoban, but I guess one can't have everything.

Here's a recent game posted on Go4Go.net:



















On Guo Juan's recommendation, I've been studying old Lee Sedol games lately, with the aim of improving my fighting skills. Nowadays, Lee Sedol has calmed down a bit and doesn't aggressively overplay the way he used to. I'm happy to study any games (not just Lee Sedol) with a lot of fighting in them.

Since I have a tendency to be a relatively calm player, I'm interested in how to start fights and also in how to play good shape during the fights. It's also fascinating to see how these guys walk this tightrope, playing chicken. There's a balance to maintain--leaving your weak groups to play bigger points, but coming back just in time (or, if you're off, too late) to save them. One also has to weigh the option of abandoning your weak group to kill (or threaten to kill) something bigger on the other side.

As a smaller side note, I don't understand (in the above embedded game) why White plays moves 168 (B15) and 172 (C13). It seems to me that this is just wasting ko threats, and inciting Black to play moves like 175 (L13) and 177 (N13), which take away White's liberties.

Katrina

Dad, Mark and Kate recently went down to Mississippi with a group from Dad's church to help with post-Katrina reconstruction. Yes, a year and a half later, they still need every ounce of assistance they can get. In a CounterPunch.org article, they said, "Locals call it 'the Grand Canyon effect' - you know about it, you have seen it on TV, but when you see it in person it can take your breath away." My impression from Kate was the same. She said it looks like the hurricane happened last week instead of last year. There are huge piles of garbage everywhere and those homes still standing remain gutted out from all the water damage.

In a departure from his usual policy (he allegedly doesn't want his entourage to get in the way of recovery efforts), Bush actually is planning to visit Alabama after the tornadoes did so much damage the other day. What he doesn't seem to understand is that if he continues to effectively ignore the people affected by these disasters, then there is no recovery effort for him to hinder.

Mailing Lists

I have my Brandeis email forwarded to my King's College account, which provides me with a few extra irrelevant emails to delete each day. Some of them are mildly entertaining, however, like the time I read that all classes had been cancelled and buildings closed for the afternoon due to the storm, which confused me for a moment before I realized that the email was from Brandeis and not King's.

There have been a couple of announcements over the past few days that I've also found amusing, like the following statement from a description of an upcoming conference:

We are lucky to have as our key note speakers Professor Mary Baine Campbell (English Department, Brandeis University), and Professor Marina Leslie (Northeastern University), both of whom are doing wonderful work in the field of Utopian studies.

"wonderful work in the field of Utopian studies"... :) Even better, they sent out an email this morning warning of the commencement of construction on a new science complex. The subject of the email was "Blasting and Excavation for Science Project to Begin March 12", providing delightful images of lab slaves (chemistry grad students) with rather heavier equipment than usual.