So today we had to do our 1,000 suburi, which wasn't so bad, as long as you looked at something else and just focused, and relaxed, it was just another thirty minutes, and perhaps something I want to work into my daily routine. Sensei made a big speech today about the deep metaphorical rituals that accompany the beginning of the new year and the new opportunities that this brings, a freshness to one's practice. Then he said that it's all bullshit--every year should be the same, once you get to a certain point. I'm at the point where I vaguely agree.

I've been visited by Skaren Hargey who was, I think, adequately entertained by the multiple foods available and by charming Joephet and Greek wine and hospitality. I have been reading a gay recasting of Neoptolemus' courting of Philoctetes for his arrows to complete the conquest of Troy. This they left out of the Brad Pitt version--I don't even rightly recall Patroclus in the movie, but I could just be mistaken.

My brother also made his way into town, we rushing back from being floored by Million Dollar Baby, merely three blocks away and Asahi liters in hand when the din from even the Astorian houses informed us that we were in a new year, whatever that might mean. Joephet says that my New Year's resolution ought to focus primarily on being nicer to people, primarily him. I agree, especially since I find myself missing him after more than a few hours, which is odd.

I am annoyed thoroughly by the shortness of the break--tomorrow I go back, and I will be bringing up the usual slate of topics in logic and counting (Venn style), while recalling that the various things you can do with a conditional (converse, inverse, contrapositive) actually have correlates when you are dealing with the <= symbol (which is deliciously backwards)--for example, the "converse" of '3<=5' is '5<=3', the "inverse" is '-3<=-5', and the contrapositive is '-5<=-3'. The (material) conditional then viewed only as a truth-function is really just an ordering of the truth values (which we usually let be just 0 and 1, with the negative function actually being the 1-x function), and now it is clear that the conditional and converse are true just in case just in case--namely when the truth values are identical--p<=q, and q<=p iff p=q, where here we are referring not the propositions themselves but their truth values.