Wednesday, October 19, 2011

nothing is really new except I moved

hello blog readers! I've moved. Jonathan and I bought a house. I never thought I would own a house. It's 5 minutes walk from school, part of my "never commute" life strategy. We are in the middle of painting, actually Jonathan is in the middle of painting and I am in the middle of unpacking. We have a marital strategy of dividing all household tasks into "his" and "mine" rather than sharing them-- eliminates any disagreements about whose turn it is and allows us to specialize-- working very well so far.

      The school year is going pretty well. Teaching takes so much energy, it's unbelievable. It's like you against their collective inertia. Also you vs their collective preference to forming meaningful social relationships through conversation rather than listen to you. and every year you start again, explaining why they shouldn't trade bishops for knights and how they should slow down and bring out their pieces and all the same things you've been saying for the last, wow, 13 years. I don't know how much longer I can do this.

      I'm intending to play chess again at thanksgiving. I hope I actually will. It's been months. I can tell I'm getting worse as an analyst because I'm not playing.
      I was happy to be mentioned in Steve Goldberg's latest chess cafe article, but thought it was pretty funny that his first criterion was
•How frequently is the blog updated? Daily is great, monthly is boring.
and he awarded me 2nd place anyway. good motivation, I guess.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think your better off trading collateralized debt obligations

Mariah said...

This Year is gonna be a great one. Working on mostly not messing up on my notation and openings!

Elizabeth Vicary said...

You inspire me, Mariah, thank you!

Maya said...

Same with Mariah but I'm going to try to keep my 1704 rating this time!

Anonymous said...

You just mentioned that you bought a house near school and in the same blog you say that you are not sure how long you can continue your teaching job?

Anonymous said...

Congratulations with the house, maybe the stork will visit it!

Teaching is hard, but look forward to the rewarding moments, I'm sure they will come again and it will all be worth it. You affect so many lives positively.

Hugs, Phil