Saturday, February 21, 2004
"At long last, we have the technology."
As Jung observed in his seminal work Der Sechsmilliondeutchmarkmann, each of us has within our soul a desire to know what our name would stand for if we were a cyborg.
I am C.H.R.I.S.T.I.N.A.: Cybernetic Hydraulic Replicant Intended for Scientific Troubleshooting and Intensive Nocturnal Assassination. Which means I'd better get this paper on the economics of altruism out of the way.
Funny
(thanks to Rich and Kevin, who send good links)
FATMOUSE HAS NO PATIENCE BUT MUCH HUNGER.
Hierarchy of pagan snobbery
Hierarchy of geek snobbery
Student undresses in class on a dare; doesn't get the A the prof promised.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Wrong with the world?
Grash went to her local last night to watch England vs. Portugal. Apparently her local is also that of Jimi Mistry of EAST IS EAST. G is of course too cool to go up to him and ask him for his autograph: "that's how we are, we A-listers. We don't ask each other for autographs." I told her that, since I'm only a B-lister, I want her autograph. She graciously agreed, but do I have an autograph yet? I do not. What is wrong with the world?
I can't decide if A Week of Eating Dangerously, in which Neil Steinberg documents his consumption of beef, McDonald's, veal, Haitian rum and aerosol cheese, is something wrong with the world or the opposite. Personally, I reject his premise that vegetarians try "to mask a sneering disregard for humanity with a concern for animals so extreme it would look exaggerated in a silent movie", while very much enjoying the way he expresses it.
I don't eat meat because I don't want to eat dead animals. Humanity, though deeply flawed, is a group of which I'm proud to be a member. He's right that organic food is a luxury, though I wonder if it really needs to be, and that utter indifference to the welfare of animals that are going to become food might not be a consistent response for anyone who has pets. In any case, it's a fun read.
Less fun but still interesting (and also from Reason) is Off Your Feed, Cathy Young's critique of Dr. Laura's latest book along and Young's theory of why the whole idea of submissive wives seems to be regaining popularity (definitely something wrong with the world, in my books). I really liked this sentence, on Schlessinger: "There's also her irksome propensity to present grossly simplistic caricatures of the sexes as eternal verities."
One thing that is not wrong with the world: the LSE medical centre's osteopath Tim, who just straightened a bunch of my vertebrae and loosened up the muscles in my middle back. We talked about Vancouver and surfing and curry and the rugby trip he took in the early 90s to Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa.
Monday, February 16, 2004
Research methods and class divisions
A friend accused me of having unhealthy, umbilical-cord-like attachment to the internet as a source of information. To my critic I say Bite Me, and go read this: "In the beginning -- before Google -- a darkness was upon the land." (via The Perfect World). The discussion of agents is interesting.
These days, though, my research begins with JStor as often as it does with Google. I heart JStor, and a JStor agent would please me beyond belief if it worked. Except I'd need to find time to read the papers it returned along with everything else I'm reading.
Like this piece on class divisions in Britain. (via Casino Avenue) This bit jumped out at me :
Danny Dorling said New Labour's attempts to direct benefits to the poorest have had an effect at the margins, but 'if you were looking at the UK from Mars and all you had was the census data to go on, you wouldn't be able to spot that we had a change of government in 1997'.It tied in neatly with a professorial aside this morning in Planning Theory, on the problems with Incrementalism, two of which are that it favours the powerful and reinforces inertia. Someone asked if that meant it was convservative:"small-c conservative, yes, not necessarily the Conservative party. In my view Mr. Blair does quite a good job [of being conservative] without actually being in the Conservative party." Then we went on to discuss mistakes Thatcher made in use of planning methods, since it's politically safer to criticise her.
Friday, February 13, 2004
Why my brother rocks, one of many examples.
He put me on the guest list for Death Cab For Cutie at ULU, for which he was doing sound. I missed the support band because of dance practice, but arrived during the first song. DC4C make music that has nooks and spaces I can mentally crawl into; I was tired and it was packed and I was feeling too old for the crowd, but the music overcame that. Besides, I didn't have to pay. Somehow having no need to get my money's worth from something increases my enjoyment.
Afterwards Jas got me the drummer's set list (which I value primarily because others wanted it more than I did but ha ha, my brother is better than theirs, I win) and saved me from the coat check queue. And gave me excellent belated birthday reading material (including Wim Wenders pictures) I don't really have time to read but when does that ever stop me?
For Jason, and for many other people I love, a non-romantic valentine: "if they made a cartoon of you".
Monday, February 09, 2004
More cynicism, from one of my classmates
"We're worried about our friend. She doesn't answer the phone and she doesn't come to class. She's either in love or ill... of course in essence, they're the same thing..." I suppose I'm hoping for the former, though as he said, the latter can be cured.
"This year, say it with bile."
Send an Anti-Valentine. The Consumerist one is the closest representation of my long-held feelings about Vomitslime Day, whatever permutation of (happy, giddy, bitter, miserable) x (coupled, single) I happen to be. Apparently others agree.
Somewhat relatedly, I was eavesdropping yesterday in Queensway tube station.
Him: He's gone to Dublin for the weekend
Her: He goes a bit mad when he thinks he's in love, doesn't he?
Him: Yeah.
Her: Or are all guys like that?
Him: ... em, no. Well, not like th... not exactly.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
Learning
A couple of weeks ago, after spending half an hour hounding me to stop over-turning and just actually follow his lead, Dance Partner mentioned, "you might have noticed I'm a bit of an asshole when we're dancing." And he is. As we were leaving the YMCA I told him I’d rather be needled into improvement than affirmed into mediocrity. (Actually, I was too tired to express myself that clearly. What I really said was, "I'd rather be good than half-assed," he leered and said that wasn't a problem, I accused him of insulting the size of my ass. No no, he said, he's a scientist, he means what he says, and even someone with half an ass could in fact have a large ass, while someone could have a whole tiny ass. Whatever, I said, for I had no decent comeback. This is how we interact when we're not nitpicking each other's form/missteps.)
Anyway, Dance Partner's more of a perfectionist and a control freak than I am. It's the reason I think we'll do well at SUDA and IVDA, or at least not totally make fools of ourselves. We're not going to Sheffield this weekend because he's been called in to work Saturday. I'm relieved both to be able to get started on some essays instead, and to have our routines more cemented before we compete.
Today Gillian was working on my "outward projection", which basically involves stretching my left side, and rolling my pelvis forward. I used to think waltz and other ballroom dances were all chaste, but no. It's all very dirrrty, with three rs, it just looks elegant. After an hour or so, I was getting better but she'd still make us stop every few steps and fix my alignment. She said, "you're going to start to hate me," but really, quite the contrary. I'm very grateful she's fixing my form. Apparently dancing with me now approaches driving a sports car. An MG, not a Ferrari, so there's still room for improvement. I had no reply at all to that.
Two things struck me in the past week or so about how I learn, not just while dancing. First, regardless of subject matter I learn better from people who teach well and who really care about what they're teaching -- to quote City Comforts Blog, "I [have] seized like a dog on the convenient bone that it is better to take the teacher, not the subject." Second, I much prefer teachers who are exacting and expect those being taught to learn quickly, and it doesn't matter if that also means they seem to others to be patronising assholes. Someone with as high expectations for me as those I have for myself is more likely to push me beyond any stupid limits of laziness or inertia.
Lost in Translation
After class yesterday I met up for tea with PhD Novelist. She signed my passport photos and British passport application, asserting I was me, and kindly refraining from writing "I certify this is a true likeness of Sylvia Plath." I did look a bit glum in the shot from a headache I'd had all day. I was much cheerier over dinner at wagamama with PhD Novelist and her very funny husband.
Our waitron was not the sharpest tack in the box, bringing us double orders of sparkling water and juice after clearly asking (and being told no) if we wanted them. My headache might have been dehydration-related; as a result of the dim waitron I should be headache-free for the next month. We left a monetary tip, though Novelist's Husband was tempted to instead write "don't quit your day job." If the headache was caused by a lack of laughter, I should also be cured for a month.
This (well yesterday, technically, at least in this time zone) afternoon I joined John and Grash at Grash's place, after they'd been to Borough Market. They ate pancakes and bacon, I ate pita and various dippy things and olives, and then we semi-productively worked on a System Dynamics assignment (about abortion rates in Ceausescu's Romania) and downloaded movie trailers. I really want to see Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. It looks just as dumb as the first one, and I will be just as willing to ignore that for the dancing. The music sounds better, too. Plus risque dance costumes, joy! Just don't try to learn to dance from the website. They don't even tell you that you're not allowed to transfer weight during beat 1 in rumba, which is very important. Trust me on this.
John and I were sadly unable to convince Grash to join us at Lost in Translation. I loved it, unsurprisingly. From the trailers I learned I also want to see Les Invasions Barbares and possibly Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Marketing wins again!
I had a mildly Bill Murray moment in the Covent Garden tube station on the way home. The lift was full of drunken chattering Brits and some men singing in some not-English, not-Romance language. It sounded like a combination of a dirge and a very slow drinking song. It was only as we arrived at the platform I realised they were singing Yellow Submarine.
This (Sunday) evening after dance class I'm joining the LSE Canadian Society at a pub, and am looking forward to it. I don't feel out of place or homesick, it's just nice to hear accents that sound like home.
Bill Murray's character has a great line that I agree with (today at least): "The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” Someone who knows me very well thinks I came to London to find myself and what I want. So far I disagree. I'd already found those, but in moving to another country and making a conscious break from my life in Vancouver, I feel freer to make decisions that are in line with who I am and what I want.
A few years ago Yacob wrote, "you have the deep-seated trait of not really knowing (or thinking you know) why you want what you want. I'd say you should be grateful for this, because it makes you unpredictable, which is not only entertaining but increases your power in your dealings with people, which you like." At the time I disagreed, but no longer. The whys don't matter so much as long as I pay attention to what I really want. So of course I'm studying a field that's largely about quantifying and trading-off and investigating the whys, and enjoying the hell out of it.
Sorry, you must be tired of looking at my navel. Instead go look at my new favourite comic: a softer world. I asked Kevin, who pointed me to it, where a softer world has been all my life. I am full to the brim of love for it, especially this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and hell, just go through all the archives. That's an order, if I have any power in my dealings with you.
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Japan
My Official Best Friend since grade 8 or 9 was in Japan last fall teaching English. She sent some entertaining email then, and told me today I could publish snippets:
I had a lovely vacation in the resort town of Hakone where my friend Yuji lives. Hakone is probably one of the most touristy places in Japan, as it's very famous for its hot springs. Fortunately where Yuji lives and works, it's just very beautiful, set in high in the lush mountains. I truly wished I knew something about trees and nature because I see a lot of beautiful foliage and just say, oh that looks very Japanese. The highlight of my vacation was when I took a funicular (sp?) up the side of a volcano, which was fun enough, but then it got better when there all of a sudden in the distance was Mt. Fuji! It was glorious.
The top of the volcano is all stinky and sulphurous, and you can buy stinky black eggs which have been cooked in sulphur. I bought some to take down and share with Yuji, since I couldn't bring myself to eat eggs in an environment which, albeit very good for the skin and spirits, smelled of rotten eggs. Legend has it that eating these sulphur eggs adds 7 years to your life. I had a few, so I guess I'd really better get going on those RRSPs.
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Here, my life is really coming together as I have started to slate little activities into my days to make a routine (as you may know, I like activties and routines). Now after work on Wednesdays and Thursdays I have a Japanese class at two different community centres.
...
The best thing of all, though, is the discovery I made the other day that we have a community gym with aerobics on Friday nights ten minutes away from our house! Liz and I had given up on the gym idea, as we had only found expensive fancy ones until now, but this one is super and cheap. Aerobics instructors are always pretty spunky, but this one is without a doubt the spunkiest I have ever seen. In fact, she's a little psychotic, but her class was great.
We were also pleased that a little gaggle of aerobics people gathered around us after class and showed interest in getting to know us, so maybe we'll pick up some new friends from there. They told us where there was a public bath only a couple of stations away from our house, so we went on Saturday. It was great fun, and I did finally get to check out the electric pool (small jolts of electricity go through the water to help your muscles contract). It was a pretty strange sensation. I was impressed that the sauna had a t.v. in it.
We also went to Liz's friend Kumiko's house for lunch last Thursday, and it was great getting invited to a real Japanese home. Kumiko is very nice-- she found Liz one day trying to investigate cell phone prices and has helped us out ever since. Although the lunch was excellent, the highlight of the visit was getting to use Kumiko's fancy toilet, which was heated and had some other interesting functions.
So now we have lots to do, and soon I'll probably start complaining that my life is too busy. Ahh, sweet routine...
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I'm always amazed by the fashions here. My students, who are for the most part, 18 and 19-year olds, come in the most extravagant outfits. You'd never think that what they're wearing could possibly go together, but they somehow make it work. I don't know about the schoolgirls, though. Apparently, their uniform pleated skirts have been getting shorter and shorter every year. This, with the cold weather, causes Liz and I to sit on the train clucking to ourselves about how, my goodness, those girls are going to catch pneumonia one of these days....
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I haven't gotten to see too much of Japan in terms of geography, but I have certainly gotten a glimpse of some interesting sites. As my colleague, Glenn, repeatedly says, "We've only just scratched the surface." In fact, he has said it so much that Liz and I have a running joke now in which one of us will manage to slip it into a conversation in the teachers' lounge at some point during the day. The best part is when he agrees: "Yeah, that's the truth isn't it?" We've decided that we're both going to write it in a card to him before we leave and see if he gets it. But he's right-- I hope I get to come back soon. I've just started to get really used to everything.
Monday, February 02, 2004
I = a huge dork
The weather's a bit warmer these days so my outerwear of choice is my new, red
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
DANCESPORT TEAM
fleece. It's spelled out like that (except centred) on the back and everything. On the front is the University of London crest and my name. Is there anything dorkier than the phrase DANCESPORT TEAM? No, there is not. I love it a lot.
This morning I was dozing after my alarm went off, running over in my head the new quickstep, cha, foxtrot and samba routines DancePartner and I learned yesterday. As I was mentally rounding the corners of the room, I kept finding myself think-dancing the cha cha turns instead of the quickstep ones. OH, THE INSANITY.
I can't really see that being interesting to anyone but me, so I may not be posting much for the next while; it's all dorking out on O.R. and dance, all the time in ChristinaWorld these days. I'm enjoying it, too. Agenda for tonight: more reading, more dancing, a lot more sleeping.
Oh, the other thing I'm up to is trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I have a tentative one-year plan, generated by a half-assed application of multicriteria decision analysis, but it depends on the validity of my five-year plan, generated by nothing so systematic. I would be going to the replay of the video of the George Soros debate I missed on Thursday, but am instead meeting up for coffee in an hour to network. No, not in a "if you know what I mean and I think you do" way. I seem to be surprisingly free of shyness and social anxiety of late, so I am battre-ing le fer quand il est chaud, comme il faut.
Go look at my pictures of Barthelona and the Lord Mayor's show. I mean, if you're into that sort of thing. If you feel like it. I'm not telling you how to run your life or anything, but I put them there so that you can look at them. Don't you know how hard I work to make you happy? Can't we all just get along?
Yes, more sleep tonight. I promise.
Chain yankage
I've got five minutes before Strategy & OR or whatever it's called starts, so I checked my e-mail. Ran into John in the lab, he's finishing up the essay for the course I switched out of. He's not going to strategy, had already emailed me to that effect and asked me to pick up a copy of handouts. The post-request portion of his e-mail:
"You = the bomb. And a huge slacker. But I'm over it."
Which yanked my chain as intended; I read so many articles about ethics in OR this weekend for the debate we're presenting (with others) in a few weeks, and ran a huge number of errands, and then danced for four and a half hours yesterday. I don't feel very slack at all. I feel highly productive, very busy, and rather tired. But hey, I = the bomb.
