Health Diary 1

Today I began my first official class in Dahn yoga. Dahn yoga is from Korea.

I needed to take care of my body, and I could really tell my body needed some healing after the first week and a half from school. Major fatigue and stress. I didn't want to do weight training and cardio because it just hasn't been sticking.

So I did my first individual session this past Saturday and knew right away this was for me. Now I have a 3 month membership. Yes, it is pricey, but I needed the discipline and the incentive to go. It's similar pricing to going to Gold's Gym with a personal trainer. But Gold's obviously offers more for the same price. But, I wanted to do something holistic and A LOT closer to home.

After the first day, I am already feeling a change. My core is warmer and my head feels cooler (related to yin and yang in Chinese). Your core should be warm and through your blood stream it goes up to your cool head and that's how energy is given to it.

Ya, there is a lot of energy language, ki (chi in Chinese) and chakra, which many would see as weird magicalness. But I can relate science and these yoga principals well. Yoga helps put science at a spiritual level. Yes, I am putting science and spirituality at a similar level. If you want to have a science over spirit or spirit over science question we can discuss it in person. But as a Christian I believe science is God's way of us understanding our surroundings at a concrete level.

After yoga I had myself an epsom salt bath, highly recommended by Cecilia sabumnim (assistant manager) and other dowoonim (companion or a friend on the same path).

I'll let you all know how Tai Chi is tomorrow.

Math Diary Entry 1

This December I will be participating in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. To put it shortly, the Putnam Competition. It's an extremely difficult competition. The average is 0/120. Yes, 0.

I have been working on a question from last year's competition, question B3. You can read it in the pdf. My professor and I sat in almost complete silence for about 30 minutes doing this question. All I have to say is that it's not as weird as you would think, mostly because you are thinking real hard. About every 5 minutes we would say something about the problem, then realize something else and sit again thinking.

Now in the competition, we have 6 hours, 2 3 hour sessions, to answer 12 questions. So you have about 30 minutes each problem, but in each round the questions get progressively harder.

So my goal is to answer at least one question.

Also, in contemplating this problem, I laid in bed this morning for about 40 minutes thinking about the question. I came up with something that I hope will help lead to a proof for question B3. If two teams won their only game on the same day, it would be impossible for both teams to only win one game, since they have to compete against each other, and thus someone ends up winning two games instead of just one. So I'm hoping when I tell my professor this it will help get to some answer.

I really want to solve this problem because it was like 1 of 2 problems that I fully understood on the 2012 Putnam competition.

"Every Major's Terrible"

School's been busy along with working 18-30 hours a week. Yes, it varies that much because I work as a tutor and a babysitter, so things either cancel or jobs come up all the time.

But, a friend of mine posted this youtube video. I suggest you listen to it as you read the original comic by xkcd.com - Every Major's Terrible

I for one find great hilarity in this since I have switched majors like 8 times. From nursing, to engineering, to education, to computer science, back to education with mathematics underlying almost all of them. So I'm just sticking with Math for the rest of my undergrad career.

From the poem "Geometry"

I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.

This is excerpt is found in my Fundamental Ideas of Real Analysis textbook. It is from the poem "Geometry" by Rita Dove. I still have no idea what it means.

Here is the full poem

I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh. 

As the walls clear themselves of everything
but transparency, the scent of carnations
leaves with them. I am out in the open. 

And above the windows have hinged into butterflies,
sunlight glinting where they've intersected.
They are going to some point true and unproven. 

Mathematical Proofs

Proofs, it'll make most people cringe, especially when you phrase it "mathematical proofs" for the non-math people.

But to me, I Love Proofs! The best way I can describe what proofs do to me is how my geometry teacher in high school explained his thrill for proofs. Writing a proof is like a game of chess. It can start slow or fast, but at one point you get stuck and you really have to think ahead. You have to think what the proof can throw at you to further take you away from QED. But there comes a point where you see the play that will get you to that check mate. You are then able to quickly run your plays against your opponent and BAM! Check Mate!

For me, I love the check mate moment after writing a proof. Write now, I'm in the process of rewriting the proofs for absolute value propositions, to be specific |xy| = |x||y|. I got stuck on proving if one value is negative and the other is non-negative. I haven't gotten to check mate yet, but I feel like I took down a queen and that is a relieving feeling.

FYI: My intro to real analysis class does not introduce new ideas in math. I have seen everything, but now I'm rigorously proving them from the 9 arithmetic properties of addition and multiplication.

Links 8/26/13

Mike Tyson Plays His Game Punch-Out For the First Time via (Nerd Approved) - This is a few days old, but I had to link to it because I think it's delightful.

Sony Just Won’t Let ‘The Last Guardian’ Go via (Uproxx) - A friend of mine from school told me about the game "The Last Guardian". The trailer was released at the 2009 E3. The game still has not been released nor has it been taking off the to do list.

Quality Parenting: "My Daughter Had A Nightmare About Me Getting Sucked Into The Computer, After She Watched TRON. This Is What She Will Wake Up To" via (Geekologie) - Wow, this is messed up, yet so awesome! Gotta keep note for my future parenting practical jokes.

Clueless Gamer: Splinter Cell: Blacklist via (Team Coco) - I love the Clueless Gamer series! Here is Conan O'Brien's latest review.

Elementary Season 1 Review

This week I did marathon of the TV show Elementary, on CBS.

In the beginning, the depth of the crimes were much like the TV show Sherlock, on BBC. In my opinion, the cases swayed from being predictable to slightly unpredictable. For example, I counted three episodes where the culprit was not a suspect but appeared in the episode twice as either a comic relief or someone who was far off the suspect list. But, I only tested that theory in the middle of the season. Near the end of the season, plot twists obviously happened, though they were not easy to predict.

But, the cases are not the reason I enjoy the show. I enjoy the relationship between Holmes and Watson. No, there is not apparent romantic relationship between the two, as much as I would like one because I'm into sappy crap like that. At first Watson was Holmes' sobriety partner, after Holmes' became a drug addict and escaped to New York. Eventually Watson moves pass sobriety companionship and moves on to a new predictable career path. I mean come on, Holmes and Watson are a team!

As I have mentioned before, there is no romantic relationship between the two during the first season. But like many Holmes and Watson companionship in Sherlock Holmes stories, you see a very caring relationship the two share. I like that this US produced show changes it up using Lucy Liu as Watson. I have only seen Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels and I really enjoyed her on it. She was the reason I began the show. And I am by far loving her as Watson. I'm glad the US version has this spin on the show, especially now that there are two renditions of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Jonny Lee Miller, I believe, is portray Sherlock Holmes very well. I was hesitant first to accept him as Holmes, because of Robert Downey Jr.'s and Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Holmes. But who's to say that more than one person can play an exquisite character. We see this done in Dr. Who. Unfortunately, I have only seen the new series of Dr. Who, but David Tennant and Matt Smith did excellent work as the Doctor.

I can't wait til the new season starts back up on September 26. But if it's me we are talking about, I probably will forget and watch it in November when my brain just wants school to end and I find whatever to distract myself from doing the right thing. We shall see what my demise ends up being.