So I might be able to swing back to Detroit in February for a seminar/taikai, but I guess I'm thinking too much of these things and really ought to be more focused on the present, somehow. Tomorrow is the beginning of the much-vaunted algebra unit which uses a new graphical approach to all this, which of course I'm not doing much to actually put into life, or somesuch... But this is the usual post-vacation slump, though I feel no dread going into tomorrow, somehow. Time to be an expert on rulers.

So I am watching NightLine and it is all about people who have had their houses burned down by trying and failing to deepfry turkeys. That's just American.

So the turnout last night was rather surprising for Thanksgiving evening--about six others in bogu showed up, though all familiar faces, and afterwards all suspicions were confirmed--the shady but thoroughly friendly character who reminds me of a gay Paul Giamatti did indeed confirm that he is indeed gay. But these are all respectable but geeky characters, and four beers later I made it home and managed not to vomit the greasy Chinese until after about forty minutes of lying down and doing my best to not throw up. I had to pass off my emergency $20, which was so old and so be-stuck with stamp-gluing that I could not manage to pass it off at the hickbar, but rather had to give it away at the Chinese greasy spoon, where the waiters were all overjoyed to see an actual Chinaman in their establishment, and a teacher at that. So long to Andrew Jackson's tiny head.

So my bogu finally arrived, and it is quite passable: I am thoroughly pleased, excited, and a little intimidated all at the same time--the stitching, the quality, the softness, the hardness and the fit are all pitch-perfect, and but for the possibility of gaining too much weight or growing much taller, I should be set, though I suppose the Titanium men is still in the bloody mails. Can't win 'em all.

So at least Rob Chin is posting again at my sister blog, but somehow this is just depressing, as he's just being depressed and obsessing over a girl. When did girls ever like guys who pine? But I shouldn't judge, as I'm probably just peeved that he's abandoned me and the kendo he dragged me into in the first place, though for that I have no regrets, even if I am promised dire punishments by Highbridge Sensei if I still am too tai/ashi as opposed to my slower ki-ken, which is far from ichi. What's the worst you can do to me? Kirikaeshi to fainting? Plum Sensei, the one who is so fond of touching Rob's tanden, was trying to show us how to put on hakama today, which is necessary, as there was indeed a new twist I have not quite seen before, but it was hardly necessary to do this in the middle of the dojo with the bogus practicing, and it was extremely hard not to laugh when he turned his back to us in his freedom mode with the horizontal bowtie knot in the back and his butt poking out of his kendogi cleft, asking us, "Do you see it? Do you see it?"

So I think the time has come for me to throw in the towel on the novel, though there is still time, I suppose, I have just been too sidetracked by regression and other such topics which get me too excited in my girly delight in mathematics, which I do need to work on some more, as I feel it slipping... I am not looking forward to these next two days, as I feel tired with myself and what I've been teaching, for I have not been structuring my time and my classroom and so on adequately... I have become a slob yet again, somehow... I was made more to be a staff developer than a day-to-day trencher.

So this sort of accounting is a pain and boggles even math teachers like me--I paid some 950$ odd in advance for tuition and fees this semester, for which I anticipated to be reimbursed by AmeriCorps, but then there came 400$ in support from the University, so that came to me in the mail, which means that somehow I will need to let AmeriCorps know so that they will not be down the full 950$, even though it's tempting to think that I have somehow swung a cash withdrawal, but the point is that I should only be down 550$ in my AmeriCorps accoutn, which might not be possible if the 400$ is the wrong kind of thing--a fellowship, say, in which case that's 400$ lost somehow, even though it's been given me.

So it is just three days of school this week, and I think I feel this even more than my students do, somehow, as I am just looking forward to a special Thanksgiving day keiko. Beyond that, I find myself horribly materilistic these days, if only for bogu, which is funny because there are so many bogus bogus out there, mostly Korean, though actually i point of fact the Chinese which are made of carboard. Joephet thinks I'm incurably boring, unfortunately, which is a horrible thing for your wifey to think about you, and you without a mortgage, but what can do you, unless it involves flip relatives and lechon. Mmmm... Lechon and cute cousins who are most likely gay.

Hrmm... meanwhile Rob Chin has mysteriously disappeared, and now that I've gone back to my cellphone less days, I will just have to catch him at some practice or aanother.

So please excuse my last post. The bios are Asian female bios. It's shocking how much math people think math people can cure the problems of people who aren't even math people. Ah, well.

In any case, you knew this was inevitable. One wonders, though given how long this has been going on why they have not found anyone with the least bit of prose-spark, much less any non-content understanding of genres. It's sad, really, that people would need these didactic pieces of fluff of uncosmopolitan "I don't understand" shit, and it makes me wonder where Alric is in all this. This would be a fine resurgence.

Or at least a resurgence.

Meanwhiles, I'm getting fat on Joephet's cooking, his Beef Tinaktak.

So I have pledged to resume work on the novel, my pace having degenerated due to a week of idleness to 1k wds/day from a previous average of 2k (well, almost), which is discouraging, but I think that there will be more momentum, though I duubt that DAllas will get laid and I need more supporting characters fleshed out as well as this thing plot, though come to think of it there are constant embarassing Asiannesses, some of them not even necessarily related to practice. I do not know what Thanksgiving will bring, as there are several options now, but the most appealing would hafta include a Lee Sensei practice, kote-men-do the whole way down, wobbling like an Asian dreidle, or something.

I feel old these days, when I think about my goofy little kids, who while more social and slightly better adjusted, are slow-ish on the uptake. I also find myself more impatient with them than others.

Meanwhile, this shit is tempting, even though it's more of the beat-Sputnik nonsense, which has not a thing to say about working the worst and neediest schools. Still, it would be kinda hard to pass up a cool 50k. It's just odd to be taking hedge-fund money, but I guess I haven't even laid that egg yet. Hrmmm... It's too tempting to go and look at these white bios...

So I have been grumpy at work and I suspect not very popular, but what can do you: I am amused at the distinction between numeral-systems and number-systems and the possibility of reinforcing algebra in those other ways. Whew. But no--today was more kata than perhaps necessary, but it was still amusing enough, in my offness. The novel will soon get a kick in the pants, from my readings of Magellan's adventures on Guam and the Philipines and other readings from Chinese revolutionary history, or whatnot. THe next piece though will be great, I think.

So I have lost track almost completely of my savings, and seem to be short $500, but that's probably one of my pre-programmed debits I've forgotten about. Today was somehow very much hurried, and yet amazingly productive in all those minor interstices, spitting out a paper, a graphing calculator workshop, and two hours of teaching. The only shame is the novel, stalled at 19k. What am I to do?

So today was a good practice, even though Rob Chin was still mysteriously absent. I made my first passable doh cuts, and though I was very grumpy in class today (I hate Tuesdays), overall I was pretty pleased, even if students are secretly complaining that my class is still too slow (which is probably true, if only in some sense), and now I am even happy about the paper I have managed to poop out--the only real issue is that lack of cellphone service, I think, due to the merger of AT&T WS with Cingular. It's pretty happy, and it's just a matter of time before I feel even better--there is soemthing to be said for showing up. Or, as Sensei checked today, is your kendogi sweaty enough? Well, mine isn't that sweaty, but it sure is smelly!

So I am deeply boneweary these days, sleeping like a mo-fo, with sleeping-sickness, and now probably hopelessly behind on the novel, a full 11,000 words behind, but I think tht tide will turn after I finish this damned paper on ELL's in the City system.

Today I got up superearly to inventory books and to snoop on my corridor teacher for his "project" which did not materialize amid tens of minutes of manipulative gook. And then it was a bouncy journey and introduction to algebra amid much tiredness and self-doubt, and just a desire for thanksgiving to come, and for my bogu and more kihon-keiko, of which I think far too much, I think, but it was a relatively good day, though I do not like how rambunctious the one block has become, but this is par for the course, and I have been spending quite a lot of time thinking about the future and planning science labs with my chums and so on.

I was so tired when I dropped in on Joephet for a bonus visit, and have been refreshingly productive, more than meeting my evening's goal, while feasting on wifey's cryptic Guamanian cookery, which I have eaten far too much of. I think I need to do more suburi, or something, but I don't want to muck up my technique, but then again I have been misusing the school's color printer for the purpose of Bokuto Ni Yoru Kendo Kihon-waza Keiko-ho. Boo-yah!

So I really do not know why I am so tired, as I've slept so much and today was a relative breeze, the kids consumed by a bad Sean Connery verhicle and Microsoft Excel. And I'm roughly about 6,000 words beneath my 2,000-word a day pace.

Funnily enough, I was preaching on how Nazi-fascism is the logical conclusion of capitalism today in the teacher's lounge when I was duly informed that I should have a blog.

So I tried today, I really did. I tried to get some reading, to get some writing done, to get some lifting done, but I just slept, slept from lunchtime at the usual Chinese place all the way until my cellphone alarm at five, dragging myself only to practice, where Sensei had the bright idea of videotaping our performances. So now there is a video of me kote-men-do-ing my way across the entire dojo. And I don't look terrible at it, though I lift back too far, I'm told, and I need to make better contact generally speaking.

Tomorrow is back to school, and I'm currently 6,000 words down, and a paper draft due next week re: ESL. But life is good, but for the tardy bogu.

So this I feel is misunderstanding a key word. If he can do it, so can I. But of course not--the more I think about it, the more skeptical I am of actually accomplishing the deep socio-politico-economic changes I really wish to. Revolve my ass!

So I have been unproductive novelwise, but blowing it out of the water as far as the mathematics is concerned, even if that means that I have rediscovering the same finite integral/sequential calculus I first started investigating now fully seven years ago. The breadth of that time is truly scary, as I am still very much young, and that was way back in 1997 or 1998, and I could easily just try and look at stuff up. Rather, i will be preparing a manuscript on "Calculus Without Limits," a bunch of calculus applications or analogues accomplished without the definition of the difference quotient and any such things. Ah, to return to TeX.

I was also told today by my old professor that Confucius believed in certain axioms of S5: that Kp->KKp, or so he said to Yu. Ah, to find such other schema would be such fun!

So last night I dragged myself out to Kenka with Rob Chin, mostly because I was ina good mood and could afford it, but then after dropping in on D who is actually moving out of the neighborhood now and picking up a copy of Lads which I am now happily reading alongside The Best Little Boy In the World as examples of memoirs which might have some insight lendable to Jaundice, which while quantitywise nearly on pace, is extremely extremely uneven in terms of tone. Either way, I missed a post yesterday, and was generally subdued.

Today, thanks to a canceled meeting, was much more upbeat, another one of these days where nothing happens until 1 pm, and then I go and teach for three hours straight.

Practice today was good, though this one Sensei has a penchant for making our wrists hurt. I am still awaiting my bogu, though some conversation indicates that my measurements were not completely off, and a bigger men is always easier to fix than a too-small one. Then again, I've only been at this for a month and three weeks, which is hardly very much time at all, and so there is plenty of time yet--the first ten years, as they say, is the hardest.

So it is a little creepy goingn through your ex-roommate many months-delinquent-on-his-rent-and-long-since-gone's things, in another landlord motivated cleaning drive that has emptied our the closet fully, at least. For you find such random things, which you look at curiously, then throw out summarily. Things like love notes, valentine's day cards, old photos from childhood, and the same apology speech written out several times on several index cards. I was more concerned with his cash deficiencies than his emotional ones. All in all, a disappointing lack of any incriminating paraphernalia or literature. And now there is little let to salvage.

So there is very little to report today, beyond the slow and pleasing push that I am making on the novel, now at 11,000 words, which is a little under pace, though. Alric suggests that I introduce more plot, perhaps through a road trip or something like that, but I am skeptical. The problem is that I do not know what the real-life resolution for Lostin would be. But I think that the new character of Gunter is promising indeed, and that it can well take up a good chunk of the novel, and more and more Gunter feels like he ought to be the protagonist, though the word count does not yet reveal that. The sad thing... I'm not making any of this up.

So in the first grade there was this girl she was a model but only in Sunday paper circulars and there was some odd friendship supervening on parental friendship which involved the exchange of "farmfresh" brown eggs now seeming much less a novelty and the odd construction out of cornflakes boxes of paper effigies of myself left on doorsteps and other such foolery leading up to my declaration clearly having channeled too much of the Archie comics that I had a crush on said girl but feeling forced to backtrack when questioned closely on this count by my teacher saying, "No, I meant that I would crush her bones to make my bread."

So not only does it take longer for them to ship bogu from Japan, pretty as it might be, it turns out that my head (72 cm x 60 cm) is so large that they will have to custom make a men for me. I can hear my Wifey now, "You have such a big head, but a scrunched face." With any luck, they'll ship the other stuff first, or else I'll have to take some special measures to make sure that my head is the right size. (That sounds very stranger than it iser).

So Bush won, but all my funds are up 2-3% in two days, so I guess this is what they mean by hedging.

I strained my throat today in class, but somehow keiko made me feel better, as it usually does, and now I should be fine. I've been very much off my game ever since the New Hampshire trip which was so disequilibriating. My in-school time has been focused more on curriculum development with others than other stuff. But I've been losing patience too. It's not been a good thing, and this has meant that I have made no progress on the novel today, meaning a 2,400 word deficit, which is now all the way up to 30% gap. But that's the sort of thing I can make up tomorrow with a little pressure.

Oh, yeah, Kerry lost, but I've been really tempted to say to all the moaning teachers at school, "Well, at least you're still white." It's annoying this Northeastern "liberal" elitism, which cannot comprehend morality--the answer to most of our problems might well be decentralization. The problem is when you take parochial elites a hotline into this federal world superpower arsenal. It's hard to believe in democracy and still complain--in some ways one could go further (in a much later post, probably more of a link) that the incompleteness of the Civil Rights movement, its co-opting by LBJ and so on has sealed the fate of this country, thanks to the vast southern political heft. I don't know about all that, but in practice we learned to always follow through, and the follow up with zanshin.

So it's strange, hacking away at this novel so steadily. I have no plot and no direction, but that still feels ok--the moments at least have the feeling that they could be organic, at least.

So it's official. Shrimp Sensei said today, "When you move forward, your dick moves first. Not your stomach, your dick. You cannot explain this to women."

So it's official. The National Missile Defense shield system is soon to be in place. It's odd, these legacies, and how the SNL Presidential special completed avoided any appearance from former President Reagan. Tomorrow I will hafta rise from this bonus visit with Joephet to cast my vote back in my neighborhood for Ralph Nader.

Meanwhile, this link is just one reason why I love kendo. I do hope that my doh opening will one day be slightly smaller than the current 41 cm.

So Joephet has been overusing the term "OA" which is a guamism, I'm told, which is supposed to be something like "over-acting," used in phrases such as, "You're so OA!"

I yelled at my kids too much today, but it was probably because I was unprepared and unsympathetic to their cross-multiplication, which I find a war-crime against true mathematical understanding when there is no intervening mathematical grounding. But I hate cross-multiplication. I loathe it so.