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.