Not quite like seventeen syllables, No. 1

Here's a popular song that just happens to fit into a haiku. I suspect that there are more out there:

Tears in my eyes burn,
Tears in my eyes burn while I'm
Waiting... for my turn.

The song? Bob Marley, "Waiting in Vain."

Seventeen syllables, No. 11

The waves batter the
Sand under my foot like the
Sharp knife inside it.

Two rounds

I got through one week of doing some walking every night, and I am well on the way to establish a nightly routine. The standard route is twice around Colleague, and usually I am able to coerce participation from a subset of the Bohemians. It's not perfect, though; sometimes I get lucky, and I walk down Tumon after my time at the Staircase, but sometimes I am left with no one to walk with and I walk around the Mall.

Now if I can just work on my diet. Part of the problem is that I'm usually very hungry after the walk. Perhaps a solution would be to take the walk after I have already eaten. It's a possible fix...

It would be nice to have someone to walk with.

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, "Face Down".

Battlefield squared, No. 1

[Event "Computer chess game"]
[Site "TERMINAL-1"]
[Date "2007.05.18"]
[Round "-"]
[White "The Math Wizard"]
[Black "GNU Chess 5.07"]
[Result "0-1"]
[TimeControl "40/300"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6
5. O-O Ne7 6. Nc3 Bg4 7. b4 Ng6 8. a4 Nh4 
9. d4 Bxf3 10. Qd3 Bxg2 11. Re1 Nf3+ 12. Kxg2 Nxe1+ 
13. Kf1 Nxd3 14. cxd3 Qxd4 15. Bg5 Qxc3 16. Rd1 Qc2
17. Re1 Bxb4 18. Re3 Bd2 19. Rh3 Bxg5 20. f4 Qc1+ 
21. Kf2 Qxf4+ 22. Kg2 Qd2+ 23. Kg3 Qxd3+ 24. Kf2 Qxh3 
25. Kg1 Be3+ 26. Kh1 Qf3# {computer wins as black} 0-1

Hey, we've got to start somewhere! My opponent, GNU Chess, came with the WinBoard program that I am using to hone my chess skills (which, as we see here, are clearly wanting!). We can see that Black, by Move 10, has been able to send a Bishop within cutting distance of my King; castling on Move 5 did not seem to do me much good. The computer continues to be brutal, delivering its first check by Move 12.

Near the end of the game (from about Move 19) I just got carried away trying to save the material I had on hand, and the computer put me on the defensive from there on, delivering the gory checkmate with a Queen and Bishop on Move 26:

In contrast to the above carnage, look at this endgame between Paul Keres and Bobby Fischer in the 1959. Now I understand what it means to have a beautiful checkmate. If I were Keres, I wouldn't have minded losing in order to witness this divine position...^_^ Well, then again maybe not; it's still pretty brutal:

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Justin Timberlake, "Lovestoned".

P.S. The above formatted text is in the format of a PGN file, which can be read by the program I am using, WinBoard. If you would like, download WinBoard from Tim Mann's website and paste in the text of the above game, if you would like to see the carnage being replayed. ^_^

A tribute to Euclid

Today I saw my Geometry students for the last time. After having answered the worksheets I have given them and helping them with the confusing parts, they up and left, and went to a nearby coffee shop, just as they might have done any other day.

You know, if somewhere down the road, it is revealed to me that what I actually taught them was not Geometry, but the doctrine of staying cool--through the impossible-to-read proofs, the intently difficult teacher (not a typo), the tests that did not get an A, and the weird tutor who thinks that Geometry is one of the pillars of the foundation of human society,--and if they were able to use this power to stay cool in their future classes, I would be satisfied with the outcome. In fact, I think I would prefer it that way. ^_^

And, if you really think about it, junior year is hard, but not harder than sophomore year. Junior year is hard when you're a sophomore. But it won't be hard when you're a junior.

So take heart, everyone.

I'm thinking that maybe I should thank my Math students at the Stairwell this semester for giving me back the faith in the numbers that I thought I lost. I hope Fall 2007 finally sees me crawl out of the rut in my Math classes.

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Queen, "We Are the Champions". Heard on the radio while driving.

Chess--what about you?

Can you beat the Rozerem beaver in chess? I did--and much to my surprise, I might add. ^_^ I have never considered myself to be any good in chess, but I guess I can surmount a beaver in the beginner level.

I feel another diversion coming along... play a few hundred games with a progressively stronger computer, and post the results here. ^_^

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: The Beatles, "You're Gonna Lose That Girl".

Seventeen syllables, No. 10

The grain of rice sticks
Vehemently to my spoon
And won't let it go.

Seventeen syllables, No. 9

She frees her hair from
Their bonds, and they dance outwards
In jubilation.

That's so cherry

I laugh when I remember that six or seven years ago, I dreamt about a time when I would know what it would be like to sleep in. Now I find myself longing for that time when I could wake up at 5:30 am on a good day. ^_^

Things change real quick nowadays.

I realized that Jesse's final paper for the Literature class crystallized for me my sudden interest in haiku. He essentially says that poetry is a way to unwrap our raw thoughts, separating them from our own and our society's metaphors and modes of thought, in which our thoughts are usually packaged. I am beginning to realize that the large majority of my thoughts are overpackaged; I then see my haiku as an exercise in unpacking my thoughts so that I can test whether they can stand on their own.

So here's to a long Summer, a walk a day, a haiku per two days. ^_^

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Dirty Vegas, "Days Go By".

P.S. Props go out to Kim, who looked something up in the Urban Dictionary and is exploring verse. ^_^

Seventeen syllables, No. 8

Only the keyboards
Don't sweat as the fingers dance
On them busily.

Seventeen syllables, No. 7

One black slipper lies
Along the road, Sun-crackled,
Stepping towards shade.

--From an inspiration from Kim.

How many steps

I have a crazy idea for this Summer. I think that in addition to my many projects, I should determine the step distances between the many places I frequent. I think the values would figure into the tens of thousands or even the hundreds of thousands. ^_^ The route (not continuous! ^_^) would be as follows:

• The Plantation to Bohemia
• Bohemia to Colleague
• Colleague to the Staircase
• The Staircase to the Vestibule
• The Vestibule back to the Plantation

Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Sheena Easton, "Morning Train". Heard it today; brought to mind those four days with Serenity. I remember pretending to sing along. I remember being amazed at her knowing it. ^_^

Piano in the dark

Being a hotel lobby pianist is a job, but it's only barely one. It'd be a dream job.

Maybe this summer.

I guess a part of me was glad to be holed up in a hospital room in St. Luke's Hospital in the Philippines. I hadn't been sick in such a long time. There's something... reflective, peaceful in a hospital room, no matter how busy the ward actually was. I remember thinking the clearest when I was there. Had I stayed any longer, my comparative solitude would've generated more than the one song I wrote there.

Or maybe it's actually visiting someone who's sick. I can remember the last time I visited someone in the ward at the GMH. Even though I knew that he's been visited profusely--he had a large family--I got the sense that he was glad I was there. I would've been the last person he expected to drop in. (The fact is I go out so rarely that I'm the last person anybody expects to drop by anywhere.) So we took a walk around the grounds, just to get away from the hospital smell. I'm sure that that spelled just a little bit of regeneration for the both of us.

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: James Taylor, "Caroline I See You".

Seventeen syllables, No. 6

"Good night!" "Good night." "Drive
Safely!" "You two have a good
Night." "OK, 'bye!" "'Bye."

A Louisianan pragmatic and a Congolese Mass

Overheard on the History Channel:

Louisiana was not bought for four cents an acre; it was bought for four cents a gallon.

They were, of course, referring to the Mississippi River, whose mouth the Americans would now control. Bonus: Confusing War Name number 1: The French and Indian War. So, who fought? And who won? ^_^

I saw the University Singers perform the Missa Luba yesterday. It was a particularly pretty set of music. The one that made me tear up and cry was the fifth movement, "Agnus Dei". Some of it had to be the words, but I think that a large part of it had to be the intricate, "quilted" harmony that I never had the good fortune to replicate.

Well, you can't win them all. At least I wrote the best melody ever--for a little-heard responsorial psalm. ^_^

Song in my head: Earth, Wind, and Fire, "September". And also the rousing rendition from the UOG Jazz Ensemble.

Seventeen syllables, No. 5

I sit, playing the
Note over and over, like
A song without words.

Seventeen syllables, No. 4

The kitten outside
Feels the tiny drops of rain,
Meowing, shivering.

Walk the walk

My doctor read a recent X-ray film of my leg, and pronounced that I can now walk regularly without my orthopedic. Now that's a relief, because it was slowly but surely wearing down my pair of rubber shoes. ^_^

Now the frequency of FFFFF should increase. ^_^

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Justin Timberlake, "Sexyback".

Seventeen syllables, No. 3

The open letter's
Pages rustle in my hands.
I hear you laughing.

Seventeen syllables, No. 2

The sandwich last night
Had the exact amount of
Yucky mayonnaise.

One down

This morning I finished To Kill a Mockingbird. I have completed my spatialization of the novel, which, my Literature professor says, is what you do the first time you read a book. You basically toil through the book to reach the end and to find out what happens. The way to find the great books, I deduced, is to look for those books which survive spatialization--the ones who bear a second read. That means that this semester saw me with three great books, then.

Now the rest of my reading list awaits.

Jesse gave me great advice today, applicable to life as well as math problems: if you don't know what to do, do something and quick. Chances are that the things you know how to do are the things you are supposed to do.

Thanks for reading.

Song in my head: Busta Rhymes feat. Mariah Carey, "I Know What You Want". It's been ages since I heard this one.