Absence

Dear Readers,

I will return shortly after giving my talk in the London Number Theory Study Group, which has temporarily commandeered my life.

In the meantime, I highly recommend watching (or at least listening to) Democracy Now's coverage of the antiwar demonstrations this past weekend.

Thank you for your patience.

Becci

Snow!

I woke up this morning to (a dusting of) snow!! Everyone here is complaining about how cold it is, but I'm delighted. I'll take the snow over the rain any day. It's beautiful and peaceful (even this tiny little bit). It's not enough to grumble about digging out your car, but it's just enough for the kids to scrape together a snowball or two from the top of a car or the ledge of a low wall.

This is the view from our kitchen window. Of course, it was all gone by the time I got to work, but there's some chance we might get some more tonight. Of course, forecasting weather for this tiny island country seems to be more of a high stakes gamble than a science, so who knows?

"Sheí xiǎng dǎ lánqiú?"

"Who wants to play basketball?"

I learned to say this while in China this summer. We've finally gotten to all of these words in class, so now I can write it too (well, 'basketball' is hard to write, but, theoretically...).

I don't play basketball here in London, but upon resuming Chinese classes with the start of the term last week, we have finally gotten to some really useful words: "would like to", "say" (or "speak"), "can" (or "may"), "like" (as in "I like studying Chinese"), "why?" and "because". So now we can start to actually converse a bit and express some (simple) opinions. Of course, our vocabulary is terribly limited, so when I informed Brenda of this exciting new development, she asked me to say "I like sums". "Sums?!? I can't say that!" "OK, how about 'I like maths'?" "Hmm... 'mathematician' was one of our old extra words, but I don't remember it."

I really enjoy the dialogues in our book, because each time we get to a new chapter, we're struggling with the new characters but when we finally figure out what they're saying, we realize that the dialogues are funny. For example:

What subject do you study?
I study Chinese... and you?
I study English literature. What are you doing tonight?
I'm writing Chinese characters.
What are you doing tomorrow night?
I'm writing Chinese characters.
Do you write Chinese characters every night?
Yes. What do you do in the evenings?
I read books, watch TV and surf the internet.

or:

Wang Jing, you're English, why do you want to learn Chinese?
I like to learn foreign languages. I speak French and I also speak a little Japanese.
You speak Japanese!? Do you recognize Chinese characters?
No, I don't.
I can speak a little Chinese, but I don't recognize Chinese characters either.
Do you like to study Chinese characters?
My teacher says I should study, but I don't like to.
Why?
I like Chinese characters, but Chinese characters don't like me.

Cut and Fight!

When Black has stones around on the outside and White approaches at 1, Black should play 2, securing the corner and not allowing White to settle easily. I've learned in the past from Guo Juan that when White attaches at 3, Black should make a good empty triangle with 4 and then cut at 6. Since Black has stones on the outside to help, the ensuing fight should be good for Black.


In one of my games in the London Open, my opponent played 3 here, instead of attaching. In the game, I played 4 at 7, but Black should still cut. The idea is the same: don't allow White to settle, and use your outside stones to gain the advantage in the fight. If White plays 7, Black simply extends to 8.


If White plays 7 here, Black makes a different empty triangle.


Even if White plays 3 as far away as N4, Black should still cut.