Am playing a bit more chess. I'm mostly dinking around and looking at tactical problems. I think what I'll do is split my time between playing over annotated games, solving tactical problems (alternating between easy ones for pattern recognition and hard ones for calculating), and playing slow games against the computer or humans. I'll start with annotations for stupid people and work up to annotations for people who know stuff.

In other sleeping news, I woke up around 3:30 today and couldn't get back to sleep, so I dicked around on the computer a bit, then got ready for work. I got to the office at 7. I've been productive, but I fear that I will crash in the afternoon. I think this might have happened because I slept in yesterday because I had the day off and a mild hangover.

I think the latest David Brooks essay is fluff BS.

I like these two responses to that stupid "Chinese Mother" article, both call out the narcissism of the author: http://skepticalob.blogspot.com/2011/01/battle-hymn-of-koala-mother.html http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/01/why_chinese_mothers_are_not_su.html Though I've heard elsewhere the article basically strung together the most controversial parts of the book, making it miss the narrative arc of the whole which paints a more sympathetic picture of the mother. Whatevs.

My textbook had better arrive today, otherwise I'll have to get creative in figuring out how to do my homework. There are 4 problems (out of 10) I need from the book. Okay, I found a preview that contains 2 of the 4 problems I need. That means I have a good start. 8/10 isn't bad.

I need to finish off this presentation. Or whatever. I'll go to lunch and then do it.