Shaped up (steady state reached)

2010-02-09

Disclaimer: This post is about physical training and is not meant to explain the whys and hows of what I’m doing to those who aren’t already familiar with gymnastic strength training. If you aren’t, but would like to know what I’m talking about. YouTube searches will most often give you a good idea. The forums over at GymnasticBodies is a veritable gold mine of information, check it out! If you want to see some of my long-term goals, check out the Project page.

Ten weeks ago, I said that I would start what Coach Sommer at GymnasticBodies call a “steady state cycle”, which sounds fancy, but in reality simply means designing a strength program and sticking with it for eight weeks, without increasing any sets or reps. This means that after a while, a steady state is reached where the body has adjusted to the demands of the programme. I have now, with one exception, reached a state where I think the exercises I started doing ten weeks ago are quite easy (ten weeks rather than eight because of illness and final exams). This means that it’s time to start a new cycle, but before I can do that, I need to evaluate where I stand now.


There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad attitude.

In short, the programme (see the initial post for details) has two basic exercises which are present at all times, meaning four times a week: planche and front lever progressions. Regarding the planche, I have made progress, but very slowly. At the beginning of the cycle, I had to work really, really hard even to complete 6×10 seconds of advanced tucked planche, and then the hips where far below the shoulders. Now, I can hold the first three sets with really good form, but still feel the last three sets are killing me. Thus, I will probably keep this exercise exactly as it is, but will add the PPPU (pseudo planche push-ups) to the program to make it a little bit harder.

Front lever is a lot easier and I reached a steady state many weeks ago. To be honest, the biggest problem for the last set is my forearms, which tend to be tired after both planche and front lever workout. I will try to move forward here, either by going for the straddle front lever or for some variant with one leg still tucked, because straddle requires flexibility I don’t really have.

Monday and Thursday has meant upper-body workout, in addition to the exercises above. I have established some sort of basic strength for chin-ups, which means I will move on to continue work towards the one-arm chin-up I’ve worked towards before. The road is very, very long, but I’ll get there in the end, just you wait and see. The steady state for the chins was reached almost immediately, but yet again, grip strength was lacking. In addition to this, I’ve done handstand push-ups, 5×3, which have turned out to be really easy the last three weeks or so. I might replace these with other handstand-related exercises, but I might also keep it. Hm…

I’ve also done specific finger/hand strength by doing fingertip push-ups. I need this and will do the same thing next cycle, just ingrease the reps. It took a long time to reach the steady state here, which is expected since tendons take longer to strengthen. The last exercise is dips, which is a great exercise when done on parallel bars, but which will be difficult to do practically next semester. It will be replaced by the PPPU I mentioned above. This concludes the upper-body routine.


This is my advanced tucked planche as it looks right now.

On Tuesdays and Fridays, I planned to do legs and core (in addition to placnhe and front lever, of course), but most of the time I only did the general exercises. Why? Mostly because I didn’t have good exercises, but also because I was lazy. It took me around eight weeks to find good exercises I can do at home (I usually do all these exercises on the university campus, i.e. outdoors). This means I will stick to the exercises I’ve found and use the next cycle to reinforce them.

In short, this means two pairs of exercises. The first is L-sit, which will be 5×12 seconds or something like that. This will be paired with headstand leg raises (it’s a bit tricky to explain, but imagine standing on your head and then, with straight legs, lowering your feet to the ground and raise them up again), which target the lower back. The second pair is pistols or SLS (single-leg squats), probably 5×2 or 5×3 on each leg. together with ab wheel (oh, yeah!), but I haven’t been able to specify a certain number of sets or reps here.

In addition to all this, I plan to add some general handstand training. I’ve seen many people recommend extended static training here, so I will give it a try. I’m not sure exactly what to do, but it might be something like 10×1 minute with 30 seconds rest. Because of this, I also intend to reverse the order of the two routines. I should add the handstand to the upper-body days, otherwise the muscles won’t get time to rest, but that will make me more tired. I’d rather be exhausted on Wednesdays and Saturdays when I can rest, so I’ll simply switch days.

I will spend the two weeks still remaining to the start of the next semester experimenting with these exercises. I will also try to go all out on some of them to use as some kind of benchmark. When I’m done with all this, presumably in two weeks, I’m going to write a new post introducing the second cycle. It’s time to round this off now, and I’d like to do that by saying that even though it’s hard to compare ways of exercising, I’m very happy with this method so far and it feels great to be able to plan and start a new cycle!

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The backside of perfectionism

2010-02-07

For some people, completing a certain task is not enough, it has to be done perfectly. Intuitively, I count myself to this perfectionist group, but intellectually, I’ve gradually come to realise that this a double-edged sword and that there are times (quite often, actually) when aiming for perfection is simply stupid. If you’re not a perfectionist yourself, the likelihood is that you will find this article fairly pointless, but for those of you who at least partly share this personality trait with me, I hope it will be more worthwhile.

I think it goes without saying that if you want to attain very high levels of ability for any given activity, perfectionism is a must (you don’t get to the top if you’re happy with anything but the best). However, I’m sure that this attitude can be inhibiting and slow progress in some cases, especially at more basic levels, and discussing this topic here might help to draw attention to this idea.

So, when is aiming for perfection a bad idea? I’m prepared to say it’s bad at any time, except for the situation described above, when ability already is lost in the clouds, but it’s especially true for skills where you have to add a lot (like learning languages, chemistry or something). There are exceptions, such as sports where a solid foundation is everything (gymnastics, diving). But why is perfectionism so bad sometimes? Because it is inefficient. Spending too much time on something might mean that you spend less time on widening your horizons and learning more, which would in the end lead to even higher ability. Let me take an example from language learning, in this case Chinese because it happens to be what I’m currently doing. If I had a fairly big test next week, covering several chapters and many hundreds of new words, I’m tempted to aim for 100%. I did that all the time for the first year of Chinese, and indeed it payed off, but I think that the price I paid was too high and today I’m much more careful.

The alternative would be to be satisfied with something like 85-95%, which indeed isn’t bad. In my experience, reaching this level might require lots of work, but increasing the score further takes a lot more time per percentage point. To be sure to nail an exam, you really need review a lot and you will end up reviewing lots of things you really don’t need to review, just to make sure you know every single part. Making sure you have good grasp of the material and then being a bit more relaxed and accepting the fact that you might forget minor parts on the exam takes significantly less time and energy, but the outcome is almost equivalent.

I think those of you who frequent this website know that I’m not doing this because I’m lazy. The point here is that if the idea is to get really good at something (like Chinese) as fast as possible, focusing on perfecting basic or intermediate stages will be a waste of time. That time could be spent talking with people, broadening vocabulary or reinforcing grammar. I’m sure this gives a lot more in return for the time invested. I don’t mean to say that a solid foundation isn’t important (nothing could be farther from the truth), but I’m saying that you won’t get very high if you spend years just laying the foundations. Again using language learning as a an example, I’d much rather learn 100 words and remember 80%, than learn 50 words in the same time and remember every single one. I guessed at the numbers here, of course, but it’s an educated guess.

Looking closer at it, I think there are only two major differences between having 95% and 100% on a test. Firstly, there is a sense of achievement if the score is really high, and second, the time required is, as stated above, significantly longer. The lacking 5% won’t really affect anything real, only the grade and the students sense of achievement. Is this trade worth it? I don’t think so, especially when considering that it might be more healthy not to focus too much on exams and grades, but that’s really another topic altogether.

I realise that I’m in a quite unique position here in Taiwan and that people who study usually do so because they need the grades for something (I’m only here because I want to learn the language). In some cases, the difference between 95% and 100% might be extremely important. However, I’m convinced perfectionism is usually bad anyway if long-term learning is the goal. Furthermore, this principle is applicable to any hobby project or anything you do for your own good or because of your interests.

So, to all you perfectionists out there, do as I’ve done recently, try to relax a bit and understand that there is a rational argument, not for being lazy, but for not being too narrow-minded about exams and grades. Look at what you need to learn and learn it, but don’t be obsessive about it. We will always forget some of the things we learn, but the idea is to learn more than we forget!

in Chinese, Education, In English | 4 comments

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Chinese regarded as a multi-layered web

2010-02-05

In my studies of the Chinese language, I’ve come across something which is at first not obvious, but in reality constitutes a huge difference between Chinese and any other language I know. If you haven’t studied the language yourself, Chinese writing and pronunciation are two separate, albeit related, things. In other words, you can’t look at a character you’ve never seen and know how to pronounce it. This leads many to the conclusion that it’s possible, as a foreigner, to learn to only speak Chinese and ignore the daunting task of learning to read or write characters. I think this impossible, or in the very least stupid and/or inefficient. In this article, I’ll write about this, in my experience, unique feature of Chinese and why it’s necessary to learn how to write if one hopes to attain any kind of advanced level.

Picture a web

In order to explain what I’m talking about here, I’m going to use the analogy of a web in many layers, superimposed on one another. So far, I’m only certain about two layers, but it might be the case that there is a third one, but more about that later. The topmost level represents spoken Chinese and the next level down represents written Chinese. In most languages, this distinction is irrelevant, or at least not very important; learning to speak Swedish is very much the same thing as learning to write, the only difference being that you have to learn a ton of arbitrary spelling rules. In Chinese the levels appear separate, but I’m going to argue that it’s a misconception that they are entirely isolated and that speaking can be learnt on its own.

So, why use the structure of a web here? Language learning, like any learning, can be said to be made out of associations of ideas and concepts in the brain. These nodes are linked together, and learning then consists of enlarging and reinforcing the connections between the various points. There are two ways of doing this: First, a connection can be stronger (this is mainly achieved by reviewing and rote learning); and, second, more than one route between any two given points in the network can be constructed (this is learning be associating things to what you already know and studying the same thing from many angles rather than repeating the same process). If you are interested in learning more about this way of learning, I suggest you check out what Scott H. Young has written about holistic learning on his website (it’s basically the same thing).

Chinese 101

Before I can start talking about Chinese regarded as a multi-layered web, I need to explain one more thing about Chinese to those of you who don’t know the language. Chinese has extremely few phonemes, around four hundred unique sounds, excluding tones, and about three times as many including tones. There are numerous words which sound very similar or indeed identical. In order to make communication possible, modern Chinese seldom uses a single character to represent a concept, but rather combines to, greatly increasing the number of available words. Many characters share the same pronunciation, so hearing a single sound is almost never enough to carry meaning (for example, my dictionary lists almost one hundred characters all pronounced “shi”).

The first layers – spoken and written Chinese

Knowing all this, we can now look at the top level of spoken Chinese, or the first layer of the web. As a foreigner, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the similarities of words or characters that in reality means completely different things. Even with knowledge about the way a word is written, it’s hard to distinguish words from each other. My theory here is that the learning web for Chinese takes a lot more time to develop than for other languages I’ve learnt, simply because it’s so easy to confuse similar nodes (words) in the network. Using only spoken Chinese, the links between words seem arbitrary and obscure; more about that soon. i think the web is hard to develop because it’s not obvious what to connect with what, there is (seemingly) no logic behind the sounds.

To see the connections and the logic in Chinese, we need to dive down deeper, to the second layer of the web: written Chinese. Here, we find that many words that doesn’t seem to be related are in fact just that, and often in a very logical way. I will try to illustrate this from three different angles to make it understandable even if you’ve never studied Chinese.

Three examples

First, if a student approach Chinese like a Western language, let’s say French, it’s easy to learn vocabulary as translations from one’s own language: “Shikong” becomes “time and space”, “Kongjian” becomes “space” and “Shijian” becomes “time”. If these are studied as chunks, it will be hard to grasp the bigger picture. Looking at the characters for these words (時空, 空間 and 空間 respectively), we can see that 時 means “time”, 空 means “space or empty”, and 間 means “space” or “between”. Knowing the parts of the words make the words easier to remember.

Second, some characters might have different meanings if they are pronounced differently, let’s take 教 as an example. Read with a high, steady tone, it’s the verb “to teach”, but read in a short, falling tone, it is used in nouns, but still means something related to teaching. For śomeone who only can speak, these words, they will appear to be different words altogether. They aren’t. Learning how to read, one would only have to know this rule and then all words that include this character would be logical and easy to remember instead of separate cases. It’s the same root, but it’s not obvious from the pronunciation alone.

As the third and last example, I’ll say something about listening. Nowadays, I can sometimes guess the meaning of a two-syllable word I’ve never ever heard before. If I know the context and the pronunciation from what the other person says, which greatly narrows down the possible number of characters that can be involved. If I’m able to guess the characters, I might also be able to guess the meaning of the word and thus understand what’s being said. Without thorough knowledge of written Chinese, this would be very hard, if not impossible. it doesn’t happen very often now, but the frequency is increasing rapidly.

Efficiency and long-term perspective

Sadly, learning to read won’t save time in the beginning, but after a while, you will see that the characters appear all the time, and it will then be very easy to expand vocabulary, connecting new words to your growing, bilayered web. Simply speaking, words that seem to be completely different on the surface might actually be very close together in written form. Learning this written form will make it easier to reinforce your web, to connect the nodes using many different routes.

Another way of looking at it is using English as an example. If you want to expand your English vocabulary, a good way is to learn what different roots, suffixes and prefixes mean. For instance, if you know that “post” means “after”, “pre” means “before” and you know what “industrial” means, it’s very easy to guess what “post-industrial” or “pre-industrial” mean, even if you’ve never seen the words before. If you don’t know what the prefixes mean, you’re completely in the dark. It goes without saying that words like this appear in English frequently. Chinese is like this, all the time, for almost every part of every word! There are words for which the explanations are lost in time or sometimes they simply don’t make sense (at least not to me), but combinations of characters into words often follow a pattern that can be understood. Provided you understand what the parts mean separately, that is.

So, what would you rather do, learn thousands of thousands of various combinations and not really understand how they fit together at deeper level, or learn all the parts and thus create a densely interconnected web? I think learning to read is essential to learning advanced Chinese. It’s probably possible to reach intermediate levels only looking at the spoken language, but I’m sure it will be problematic as the total number of words increases. The reason I can distinguish between so many words in Chinese is because I know what characters they are made out of and thus can remember the difference, which otherwise would be arbitrary or non-existent.

This being said, there are of course lots of people who are native speakers without being able to write it, but if you consider that most people take quite a long time to learn a language that way, I don’t consider this very efficient and not an option for most foreigners. In addition, I would hazard a guess that native speakers who can’t write seldom have a very good grasp of the language, definitely not enough to teach it properly. I’m not saying this is cause and effect, but I do think that the two are related.

A possible third layer – classical Chinese

In the introduction, I mentioned the possible existence of a third level, even deeper than written Chinese, and I’ll discuss it briefly now. This level would represent classical Chinese, i.e. the old form of written Chinese that was used up until roughly one hundred years ago as the standard of writing, but is very different from modern, spoken Chinese, sometimes with different grammar and different meanings of characters (a native speaker of Chinese who can read well cannot simply pick up a text in classical Chinese and understand it; our teachers repeatedly say that it’s almost like a foreign language for them). I’m not sure how closely interrelated this third web is to the second one, but I’m starting to think that in order to learn to write and read well, it might be very helpful to at least study some classical Chinese, because I have already found that formal or literary Chinese borrows lots of grammar patterns and more advanced words from classic Chinese. I’ll probably return to this subject later when I’m more familiar with it myself.

So, what to do then? Focus on the top two layers simultaneously, of course. If you really don’t like spending time learning to write, do at least learn to read. It won’t pay off very quickly, but it will definitely do so in the long run (and if you’re aiming to learn Chinese properly, along time is what you need to spend). I have changed opinion over the years about how important writing is compared to reading, but that ought to be the topic of a separate article.

Conclusion

By way of rounding off this article, I think that ignoring reading and writing is a very tempting option, but I also think it’s dangerous and might hamper development, especially after the beginner stage. Learning all those characters is a daunting task, I know, but it will make both speaking and listening a lot easier. I’ve only now started to appreciate the benefits of a multi-layered, integrated web, but I’m sure that I still have many more benefits to discover down the road, because even though lots of reviewing is good, many links will always beat a few.

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Chinese proficiency report 9

2010-01-31

Another semester in Taiwan has come to a close and it’s time to yet again evaluate where I stand at the moment (see my page about studying Chinese or follow this link to see older reports). I do feel that I’m in the middle of things, such as learning the 3000 most common characters, but since I’m always in the middle of something, this is as good a time as any to stop for a while and think. First, these are the grades from last semester, although they should mean nothing to an outsider. In short, most grades are what I expected them to be and I’m satisfied with that.

Speaking: Speaking is a gradual development and I think that’s the way it’s likely to be in the future as well. The time when I experienced quantum leaps now and then is over and it’s now mostly a question of improving vocabulary, more complicated grammar and pronunciation. Since conversation is seldom a problem nowadays, I’m going to focus on pronunciation instead.

I think that I have pinpointed a few problems with my pronunciation, although some of them have been with me for a while. I do believe my third tones have improved a lot during this semester (I have focused on that a lot), but recently I’ve found out that the fourth tone might pose an even bigger challenge. It’s not that people don’t understand what I’m saying, but I need to make these tones more distinct. The fourth tone in Mandarin is very hard for westerners, because it sounds so aggressive. We think that we’re pronouncing it correctly, while in fact we aren’t doing it enough. I’ll write more about my plans for next semester later, because I regard correcting this as one of the more important goals for the coming months.

Listening: Listening keeps being the main problem, mostly for the same reasons as before. I haven’t practiced nearly enough as I should have, although I have started listening to radio a lot. Listening comprehension requires extreme quantities of practice and I seem to be unable to focus enough on this. I wrote about leaving the surface a while ago, but I still have a secure connection to the world of English and Swedish. Perhaps this is bad for language acquisition, but it’s good for my mental health. For those of you who are familiar with Chinesepod, I can quite easily follow the advanced lessons, although there are still a fair amount of new words in there.

Writing: As with speaking, writing keeps improving at a steady pace. The biggest difference between now and at the beginning of last semester is that I can now write fairly complicated texts relatively quickly. I had some assignment I missed doing in time and so had to complete extremely fast, but it still worked okay, a feat which would have been impossible half a year ago. The main problem with writing is word usage (i.e. I can make people understand, but they might think it sounds weird). That’s okay, it’s part of my learning strategy and something that will go away with time and practice.

Reading: I think reading is where I make the quickest progress right now. I keep on adding substantial amounts of new characters and words, leading to an increased ability to guess or feel what words mean, even though I haven’t seen them before. I’m not yet at the level where I can comfortably read newspapers, but I can usually understand the general meaning. The textbook in Chinese for the Taiwanese junior high-school still contain difficult parts, but it isn’t as intimidating as it was at first.

In pure numbers, I have 8500 vocabulary items in my ZDT lists now, which is 900 more than last time. I expect to add anotehr thousand or so from the dictionary, but I think the learning curve will level out around ten thousand words. At that point, I will probably stop focusing on vocabulary and just learn words I happen to come across and focus more on mastering what I already know. Knowing 10 000 words and roughly 3500 individual characters is of course far from a native speaker, but it’s enough to read most printed media and enough to be able to handle all kinds of situations. Expect me to write more about this when I’m done with the dictionary, which hopefully means before the start of next semester!

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The magic coffee shop

2010-01-28

Writing this, I’m sitting in the magic coffee shop I’ve discovered close to where I live. I suspect that in ancient times, there might have been a shrine in the vicinity where people sacrificed beautiful shells or precious pearls to the gods of plenty and productivity. Then, as the sprawl of the modern city of Taipei expanded and building in the suburbs increased, this long-forgotten holy site was buried under resident buildings, roads and supermarkets. And a coffee shop. Although the secret of this shrine is lost in the mists of time, its ability to enchant and inspire still lingers, enabling me to be more productive than anywhere else in the world. Welcome to the magic coffee shop!

On a more serious note, I’ve recently explored the well-known productivity trick to simply change environment when productivity is running low. Although this is not entirely new, I haven’t fully realised the potential of different environments before (if you are in any way interested in increasing productive output, I would be very surprised if this post contains anything new, its simply a personal account of a fortunate discovery). Leaving home for a coffee shop seems to enable me to keep on going with whatever I want to do (working, studying, creative writing) for at least as long as my battery lasts, which is at least four hours. Four hours of close to 100% productivity constitutes a significant impetus to any project.

Why is this true, then? Ignoring explanations involving shrines and magic, my pseudo-psychological explanation is that we tend to associate different behavioural patterns and habits with certain places, which would mean that if you usually do something in a certain environment, you would be prone to do that again later in the same environment. Following this line of reasoning, home is a very bad place to be productive, because at least I do all sorts of different things at home (surfing, playing games, chatting), whereas the coffee shop was a tabula rasa the first time I went there. Since then, I’ve only inscribed the patterns of studying and working on that blank slate, meaning that when i go there now, it’s not that difficult to continue doing what I’ve always done there.

However, it might be tempting to focus too much on this explanation, although I’m sure it has some merits. For instance, it’s also true that usually have no internet access when I’m at the magic coffee shop, which makes it easier to focus. On the other hand, this cannot be the main explanation, because the few times I’ve been able to connect to someone else’s wireless network, productivity has still been close to 100%. Another contributing factor might be that it feels more serious to go somewhere else. Even if I don’t think other people really care what I’m doing, i still feel a bit more exposed in public and it heightens my motivation, although perhaps not by very much.

In the future, I will try to explore, expand and exploit this phenomenon, try to see how far I can push this and if I might learn more about environment’s effect on productivity. For instance, would it be possible to create specific places for specific tasks like studying or creative writing? Would it be advantageous to keep different productive activities apart? Would it be possible to create a miniature version of this phenomenon at home, without leaving the apartment? If I find anything interesting, I’ll be back later to tell you about it. In the meantime, I’d be interested in hearing what other people think about this. What are your experiences? What questions would you like to have answered?

in In English | 6 comments

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馮凌慧 (施耐庵) – 水滸傳

2010-01-20

Title: 水滸傳
Translated title: Water Margin
Language: Chinese
Adaptation: 馮凌慧
Original: 施耐庵
Year: 2000

Water Margin is the second of the four great Chinese classical novels that I read in Windmill’s adaptation for children, the previous one being the Journey to the West. It tells the story of 108 outlaws and their various adventures during the  Song dynasty, but because of the extreme number of characters involved and the hurried plot, this book feels too much like the abridged version it really is.

My reading ability has improved a lot since I read the Journey to the West, which supposedly should be at the same level, but I still feel that this is almost too hard. This is strange, because sometimes I find this kind of reading harder than Chinese in textbooks I know for a fact should be more difficult. I think the main problem is that the story is a lot longer in the original form and the author who made the adaptation hasn’t done a very good job. For instance, the pages are virtually littered with names of people and places (a random check showed that three sentences contained over twenty names, which is far from uncommon). This makes it very hard to follow and remember who’s who.

Furthermore, the confusing style also doesn’t encourage me to read on, so i took almost a month to finish Water Margin meaning that I can hardly recall anything that happened at the beginning. I think I might read the other books in this adaptation series later, but only when I’m sure that I can handle this amount of names in Chinese more comfortably. I might even re-read this book, but let’s just say that I wasn’t very impressed the first time. If you’re looking for suitable books to improve your Chinese reading ability at the same time as picking up some knowledge about literature and culture (this was my goal), look elsewhere.

in Chinese, In English, Literature, Reviews | 2 comments

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Don’t stop, I can sleep when I’m dead

2010-01-17

Those of you who already know me fairly well can pretty much guess what I’ll do as soon as any vacation starts.Those of you who aren’t very familiar with me yet, well, this is a chance to get to know me better. In my life, I try to match what I want to do and what I have to do for some reason, a goal which has been almost fully accomplished since I started studying Chinese. This means that I’m not studying because of tests, homework or anything, I’m studying because that’s what I want to do. The same goes for most things I do.

Then it naturally follows that just because there is a vacation (such as the winter vacation that started a couple of days ago), it doesn’t mean that my situation becomes radically different. Sure, it does mean that the pressure decreases and I gain more control of what I’m doing (something which has been sadly lacking lately), but remember, I’m already doing what I want to do! Why change? Instead of sleeping ten hours a day, eating and drinking nothing but cookies and pearl tea, and spending the rest of the time idling online, I have some things I really want to do (this post only covers productive and study related topics, so don’t thin that I’ll be staying at home for five weeks):

- Finish Magneter och mirakel
- Novel and/or short fiction writing
- Finish going through the Far Eastern 3000 Character Dictionary
- Read up on study efficiency (Study Hacks and Scott H. Young would be a good start)
- Fight down my Chinese character revision queue to zero again
- Read and write more extensively in Chinese
- Complete the first eight-week cycle of my exercise program and plan the next step

As you can see, at least some of these are no clear-cut goals that can be ticked off, but that’s okay, because this isn’t a to-do list; I simply want to make clear what I’m doing at the moment. Some of these projects have been abandoned for too long, others deserve completion for other reasons. A five-week winter vacation is not a time to start hibernating, it’s the time to, in a wakeful state, continue pursuing my dreams.

in Blog, In English, Taiwan | 5 comments

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Winter vacation and Chinese new year

2010-01-11

As most of you probably know, the Chinese new year takes place during the winter vacation, which starts on January 15th this year and lasts until February 22nd (this year, the actual new year occurs very late, in mid February). In practice, this means that five days and four final exams from now, I have a five week vacation. Not bad.

At first, I thought that I would go home to Sweden for a month or so, relaxing, recharging batteries and making sure that I’m ready to launch myself into another semester at the end of February. Things have changed a bit, and now I don’t think I will go home at all during the winter vacation.

Why? As usual, there are a number of reasons. Going home is expensive, takes a lot of time and contributes to global warming. All these can be motivated if the cause is good (except perhaps the last one), but I feel that I don’t have any really good reason for going home. I’m sure I will go back to Sweden this summer, so why go back now? It feels wasteful to leave Taiwan for a month, then return only for four months and then leave again. Better then to take the opportunity to learn more Chinese and spend more time with people here.

My original reason for going home, except for the chance to cool down a bit, was also that it would be exceptionally boring staying here, since most friends are either going home or will be otherwise engaged. That is, if not a misconception, then at least an exaggeration. I’m pretty sure I can keep myself occupied, partly on my own with studying, writing and exercising, but primarily with friends, Taiwanese and foreign. This means that I’m up for almost anything anybody (yes, that means you) might suggest, within reasonable limits. Staying in Taiwan also means that I save a lot of money, so spending some of it making the winter vacation worthwhile by travelling is also an option.

To my friends and family in Sweden: I miss you a lot and I’ve come to realise that more and more, especially during this semester. There are many things in Sweden that make me feel I can never truly live somewhere else permanently, and you are one important factor (I’ll write more about this shortly, as soon as I have time to write something seriously again). Don’t worry, I’ll return to Sweden this summer.

To my friends in Taiwan: Staying here means that I’ve a lot of free time on my hands (and I mean a lot). I hope this will be an opportunity to get to know you as well as your country and culture better. Don’t hesitate if you feel you have any idea on how to make this winter vacation more memorable. Wish me luck for the final exams and see you again when the finals are over!

in Blog, Education, In English, Taiwan | 5 comments

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Rubik’s Cube

2010-01-09

Having a wide variety of more or less obscure hobbies seems to be an integral part of who I am. Some of these hobbies only remain in vogue for a short period of time and are then left fallow, perhaps indefinitely. I thought that Rubik’s cube (henceforth cubing or speedcubing) might be such a transient pastime. I was wrong. It has come back more than once, and since I want to keep track of what I’m doing and also post some updates, I thought that creating a page for the cube would be a good idea, so here it is. The structure is based on the various kinds of puzzles related to Rubik’s cube, with a list of all related posts at the very bottom.

Why Rubik’s cube?
Rubik’s 3×3
Rubik’s 3×3 blindfolded
Rubik’s 4×4
Megaminx
List of related posts
Interesting or useful links

Why Rubik’s Cube?

The most common question I hear when cubing is: Have you solved it? The correct answer is, yes, probably thousands of times (including blindfolded, backwards and in my sleep), but I never say that. Most people don’t realise that the challenge is not gone just because the cube has been solved once. It can be solved in many ways (such as few moves, quickly or blindfolded), all which require a different way of thinking and deeper understanding of the puzzle. To be frank, I’m not extremely talented at this (no, I’m not being modest here), but I can understand what others have developed and learn. Striving for ever more elegant or quicker solves is like any sport (compare attaining high scores in a computer game or perfecting a golf swing). Trying bigger and/or harder puzzles (such as the 4×4 or Megaminx) is of course also a challenge I enjoy overcoming.

In addition to this, cubing fills a completely different function: it occupies my hands while my brain is doing something else. This phenomenon should be familiar to anyone who likes knitting or spinning pens using their fingers. Some algorithms and moves are so well-rooted that I need no conscious effort to execute them, which means that I can listen to a lecture with full concentration and solve the cube simultaneously, although not very quickly. Sitting on the bus, I find it boring to only listen to audio books, but if I cube at the same time, it’s suddenly a lot more interesting. Thus, most of the time, the cube itself is only a sideshow. That being said, let’s move on to some details.

3×3 Rubik’s

This is the original cube and by far the puzzle I’ve spent the most time on, although I only started “seriously” during the summer of 2009. I use Lars Petrus’ method, even though I’ve been looking at the Friedrich method, at least for the last layer. I have written about the 3×3 before, please refer to the following posts: Speed cubing, My first solve (Swedish), Christmas puzzles. Related categories: See below.

Current record (single solve): 0:33
Current record (ten average): 0:44

3×3 Rubik’s blindfolded

As soon as I started achieving times below one minute for the 3×3, I started looking at blindfolded cubing. I’m using a 3-cycle orientation permutation method (3OP). Blindfolded cubing is a two stage problem: the cuber first has to memorise the state of the cube and then, while not looking, solve it.posts Although this is a lot harder than ordinary cubing, it’s not superhuman in the way it might look to an outsider. I still can’t be sure of solving the cube and I usually need more than ten minutes in all. I’ve written about blindfolded cubing in more detail here: Solving Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. Related categories: Blindfolded cubing.

Current record (single solve): 10:07 (including 4:57 memo)
Current record (success rate): 1/4

4×4 Rubik’s

I bought my first 4×4 in the autumn of 2009. I haven’t spent that much time with this one, but I think its quite interesting. It combines all the tricks of the 3×3 solve with some new ones (I use centres first, two edge-pair swap and then Petrus’). In a way, this puzzle is more interesting than the 3×3, because it adds two fairly creative steps to the process (though I suppose bigger cubes do this to an even higher extent). I haven’t written anything detailed about the 4×4, but I did write briefly about it here: Christmas puzzles. Related categories: See below.

Current record (single solve): 2:47
Current record (ten average): N/A
posts

Megaminx

I first solved the Megaminx on Christmas Day, 2009, after borrowing it from a friend. I’m not sure what I think of the puzzle in terms of speedcubing (speeddodecahedroning is not a very pleasant word neither to write nor to say), I might need an new megaminx. As it is now, I can finish it in about ten minutes, but most of that time consists of looking for pieces and trying to remember which side is supposed to be up. My current colour scheme must have been designed by an idiot, because even I (with normal colour vision) think it’s really hard to tell some of the colours apart quickly. I wrote about the Megaminx and my first solve in this post: Christmas puzzles. Related categories: Megaminx.

Posts


Useful or interesting links

Speedcubing on Wikipedia
The Petrus method
CFOP tutorial Erik Akkersdijk
Bob Burton’s CubeWhiz.com (my favourite)
3OP blindfold method by Shotaro Makisumi
Speedsolving.com (forum)
World Cube Association (competitions, official site)

in In English | 2 comments

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Shaping up (not yet)

2010-01-07

It’s now six weeks since I said that it’s time to shape up. Since then, I have followed the schedule I devised, at least in general, except for one week I rested because of a troubling pain in my back. I said I would write something about how it’s going later, when I actually have something to say, and that would be now.

First, a general observation. This exercise regimen (see the previous post) is extremely demanding for the forearms and hands, something I anticipated, but didn’t really understand until I had tried it properly. Even now, after six weeks, I still feel that my forearms are not strong enough (or in other words, for some of the exercises, the limiting factor is not strength or endurance in the target muscles, but rather in the forearms and hands). Each session starts with one minute planche progressions and one minute front lever progressions, which perhaps don’t sound that stressful for the forearms. They aren’t, except perhaps at the very end of the last front lever when my grip starts feeling weak. However, I don’t regard this focus on hands and forearms as something bad, because it’s useful for almost any other kind of practice and probably prevents injuries later.

Moving over to the the first of the two routines, the arm/shoulder part of the program has worked very well so far, both regarding self-discipline and actual progress. There were some parts I had difficulties completing the sets (advanced tucked planche and handstand push-ups come to mind), which I can finish more or less easily now. At last, I feel that my planche is progressing, something I haven’t felt for a long time. For the earlier sets, I feel strong and can strive for better posture and raising the hips, whereas at the beginning of this period, I had to struggle even to complete the sets. The planche workout is still exhausting and I still find the latter sets almost hopelessly difficult at times.

Regarding the core/leg program, I’ve had some problems, partly for practical reasons, but also due to lack of self-discipline. I have recently begun playing around with different exercises here, modifying some, removing others. I think I’m homing in on something I like, but it’s too early to be sure. My main problem is finding good core exercises which work well with leg exercises, but perhaps the key is to separate these parts entirely. The only truly good exercise I’ve found apart from L-sit (not really new), is back arches, which for some reason make my lower back feel a lot better (even though my old back problem is mostly gone, it still haunts me, and back arches seem to make it better).

Looking ahead, I plan to finish the eight weeks of the program (three weeks left) and then spend one or two weeks just playing around with various exercises, testing new limits and trying to assess how far I’ve come. I’ll advance some of the progressions, but I’m afraid I still have a very long way to go both for planche and front lever, but these sections will definitely remain on the program in roughly the same manner as before. Other things might change, for instance I might start focusing on the one-arm chin-up again or focus more on handstands. To round this article of, I do feel a lot more in shape than six weeks ago, but I think I need to complete these eight weeks and then forage further ahead before I feel that I’m firmly on the road towards accomplishing some of my long sought-after goals.

in In English, Physical | No comments

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