How I now memorize

I have had a lot of music to memorize in the past week and here’s how I’ve done it. The basic concept–teaching information to someone by making them say it, see it, read it, write it, hear it, do it–is called differential teaching. The specific suggestion to write out my parts was given by Maestro Tim Leon. Here is how I have been learning the words to my music lately:

• hear it (I bought copies of all of my music off of Amazon)
• read it (Out of my score the first time, then once it is accurately copied into my notebook I read the line I copied as I write the next line for the first three lines. Then put my hand over previous lines to force myself to write them from memory.)
• write it (In my little conference notebook–I fill a page per line I’m trying to memorize)
• say it (About half-way down the page I start reading what I am writing out loud)
• sing it (In the last quarter of the page I start singing the line and then saying it if I am missing syllables while singing)
• hear it (Once I am finished with the page, I listen through the line, to hear how the another singer did performed it)
• sing it (Now I sing it from memory)

I have found this technique anchors the words in my head faster than just reading or writing or listening or repeating. However I may have to redo bits of lines if I get them wrong. Now, to do this for Suor Angelica and Pagliacci Chorus bits!

Inspirational Quote:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away. - Philip K. Dick

Almost Published!

Hey All, I had the joy of being involved in the research for the current Newsweek’s article “Geek Girls: Revenge of the Nerdette” by Jessica Bennet and Jenni Yabroff. It mentions MAGIC (More Active Girls in Computing) which is one of my favorite programs working to fix the leaky pipeline in computing. Anyhoo, it’s late!

Inspirational Quote:

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. - Evelyn Waugh

Photo Project gone silly–Humanities Scholars Programs, Images of Modernity

These images are from our textbook (ok, their from Google Image Search, but their real home is our textbook):

John Szarkowski, et al. The Photographer’s Eye. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007. Paperback. ISBN 087070527X

Lilly and I chose these photos:

And asked our classmates to guess the context. We, with Leenie, are giving a presentation based around the question (which we came up with): does a photographer document or manipulate their subjects?

Then get got silly:

PS: the reason Lewis Pain’s demotivator is “Mentors” is that his lawyer used the defense that Pain had submitted his will to John Booth (the man who assassinated President Lincoln) while they plotted to throw the union into chaos. He was hanged for attempted murder of the Secretary of State under Lincoln.

PPS: the other photo is tiny because I couldn’t find a bigger version of it. It is a picture of a famous photographer of cathedrals standing near gargoyles while being photographed.

These are based on the famous demotivators:

from despair.com

Inspirational Quote:

He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit. -Sir Walter Scott

Explanation of my Blogroll

ok, so this is part of my learning experience as a blogger. I am slowly discovering how cool a lot of the WordPress interface is, and wanted mention one of its hidden uses: I use parts of my blog as my long term memory. An interesting article I enjoyed? If I write a post about it, I will forever be able to find that link again. Find out a friend has a blog? Add them to my blogroll and avoid having to coordinate clunkly “bookmark” lists across computers. But I’m not sure if connection between a given blog and its placement on my blogroll is obvious to the casual reader, so here’s my explanation:

• Brian’s blog

This is a friend from middle school’s blog. Go here for interesting insights into fabulous fanime costumes and Solaris installs.

• Eleanor Dickinson’s Blog

This is not really a blog, but my grandma’s website for which I am the webmonarch (for what a webmonarch is, see my post on the subject).

• Eric Allen’s Blog

This is another friend from middle school’s blog. He writes some pretty amazingly insightful sociology from a geeks point of view, or, how a thinking person programs.

• Katy’s Blog

This is my mom’s blog. I am constantly linking here for both her stories and her prolific pictures. We were the mother-daughter blogging team of the Grace Hopper Conference.

• Little Dead Girls–Sinead Toolis Byrd’s webcomic

This is my friend from high school’s webcomic. She is an incredible artist and I can always see her in her work–funny too!

I never actually feel bad about shamelessly plugging my friends’ blogs (which includes my family’s). I know people find my websites looking for recommendations and information and hopefully they know everything here is my opinion. I know I am missing some blogs but I just haven’t been linked to them yet–however, since I treat my blog as a non-static medium, I will quickly add them as I discover them.

All in all, blogging is a great way to keep track of people and ideas.

Inspirational Quote:

“Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.” -George Bernard Shaw

Family Lol “I wants teh bird”

My Mom made a Lol! Go “I Can Has Cheezbuger”!

moar funny pictures

Inspirational Quote

Would those of you in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.
- John Lennon

CMU Repertory Chorus and Choncert Choir, Carnegie Music Hall (April 13, 2008)

We (Carnegie Mellon Repertory Chorus) will be performing at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, tomorrow April 13th 2008. The concert will include Bruckner’s “Mass in E Minor” for eight-part chorus and wind orchestra as well as Rutter’s “Gloria” for mixed voices with brass, percussion, and organ or orchestra (it will be orchestra). More on that later!

Inspirational Quote:

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.
- Enrico Fermi

Confused on the concept

I was watching videos on YouTube and discovered these contrasting interpretations of “El Tango de Roxanne” (a re-imaginition of The Policy’s “Roxanne” for the movie Moulin Rouge). Here is the scene where “El Tango de Roxanne” is performed in the movie:

Then I found this:

Called “El Tango de Tohru”, this video is unintentionally hilarious. The song itself is a painful and memorable warning against falling in love with a woman who sells herself. Tohru, the object of the second video, is the protagonist of the charming and sweet Anime “Fruits Basket”. She is in no way a prostitute. One of the major themes of “Fruits Basket” is how innocent and thoughtful Tohru is, and how virginal. There is no true sexual tension. The story follows her and her new friends–the Soma family, whose members are cursed to transform into animals of the Zodiac when embraced by members of the opposite sex (one of the many reasons there is no sexual tension in the series). The orange haired boy seen in the video above (Kyo) turns into a cat when hugged. He is not a member of the zodiac, because the rat made his ancestral animal the cat miss the dinner where all of the other animals divvied who would represent which years. The other boy, Yuki, turns into a rat. Kyo and Yuki have been fighting for their entire lives and it is only with Tohru they find a common cause.

This Anime is unbelievably cute and sweet and has nothing to do with the kinds of crises dealt with in Moulin Rouge or the song “Roxanne”–which is why the juxtaposition is so funny.

Inspirational Quote:

The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won’t get much sleep. - Woody Allen

Top ten words I have trouble translating into English

Hey all,

I’m experimenting with included a little bit of blogging into the TKD@CMU website. Here is a post I thought might go well here.

So I’ve written before about the feeling of using English as my second Karate language. Well, here are the top culprits. I only speak Karate Japanese (like restaurant Spanish or opera Italian) with a little Sushi Japanese mixed in, but there are some concepts which are much better (and more succinctly) explained with Japanese words. In no particular order:

1. Bunkai
   1. The application of a kata
2. Oyo
   1. The advanced application of a kata, includes a throw
3. Zanchin
   1. Watchfulness/awareness. Say you’re in a fight. You know the guy down. Bad zanchin is turning your back on her to walk away. Good zanchin is keeping her in your line of sight until you are safely sure she is not getting up.
4. Kime
   1. Intent. No matter how fast the combination, no matter how hurried your mind, if every move does not have kime, you are not doing Shito-Ryu right. Kime is the pause between punches in the first diagonal move of Jeon; its the definition of the technique practiced in tachikata dai son; its what gets your punches scored in a kumite match.
5. Skidome
   1. This is a block. In this block, you take your extended arm and lower your elbow until your fist is even with your shoulder (where an uchi uke (inward block) or yoko uke (outward block) leave it). This is a block to a chudan (belly) punch. It is seen in Pinan (Heian for Shotokan people) Shodan when you first turn to the back of the room.
6. Sanchin dachi
   1. Place one foot forward. Place your back foot with big toe hips width away from your front heel. Kick out the heel of your back foot and bend yuor knees. Twisting against the floor straighten your knees so you feel tension in yor thighs. This protects well against groin kicks.
7. Zenkuts dachi
   1. Long Front stance. Feet hip width apart, back foot two hip widths behind front foot. Weight forward until front knee is over your big toe. I have discovered so many different kinds of front stances I desperately want to use the Japanese word just to distinguish my style’s from others’.
8. Block Types (Rolling Rocks Hate Tenacious Kittens)
   1. Rysui
   2. Raka
   3. Hangeki waza
   4. Tenin
   5. Kushin
      1. Maybe I’ll explain these later.
9. Kata
   1. A formal sequence of movements which teach responses to attacks, new moves and self-discipline.
10. Kumite
    1. Refereed, controlled and disciplined fighting. Just saying fighting can lead to many kinds of confusion. In most cases a scoring technique stops the match until the referee has awarded points.

There are three problems I keep on coming upon with these words: 1) their English equivalents have style specific variations (6-7, 10) they sound way to spiritual/mushy-gushy in English (3 and 4), 3) their English translations need too many words to be effective (1-2, 4-7). I find it is much easier for me to use the Japanese words so I know I am saying exactly what I mean, rather than a rough translation that my students will find confusion or will misinterpret. Anyway, I love Shito-Ryu!

Inspirational Quote:

“I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.” Old theme, new content on Shadowmere forum board “If I were an evil overlord” or “When I rule the world”. I grew up with this on my mom’s work wall.

Pancake Supper Update

So the information in my post on How To Run A Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper was used by my wonderful parents to, well, Run A Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper at St Andrews. Here are the pictures they took. Here are the notes from how that went:

While it is still fresh in my mind, here are some notes on the first annual St. Andrew’s Saratoga Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper and Races. About 80 people attended. We made $485 ($585 before expenses) in donations to the Youth Group mission trip fund.

1) Division of labor worked well:

• Youth group handled shopping, cooking, cleanup
  (and volunteer forms)
• Katy & John & Laura handled announcements, decorations, and the race
• St. Andrew’s Saratoga facilities support set up tables and chairs - event attendees put them away

2) 5 - 7:30 pm was a good event time span: 5-6:30 pm for supper, 6:30-7:30 pm for racing. Most people arrived around 4 pm to help set up and cook.

3) Twelve long rectangular tables were set up herringbone. Tablecloth and place setting colors alternated between purple, dark green, and yellow. Lots of kinds/sizes of sugarbeads were the main table decorations. Rev. Jim Thomas donated several bags of old beads he had collected over many years. We bought more at Diddam’s party store.

4) John marked the race course in blue painter’s tape on the floor - where to Start/Stop, where to Flip, where to turn. Racers ran between the lines of tables. Little kids ran a short race.

5) We ran about 20 races - some little kids, some teens, some parents/kids, other mixed races. Two runners per race with John and Laura at each end to help and advise. Every racer got a special sugar bead neacklace from Katy. Run off races at the end for 3 fancy bottles of maple syrup. Rev. Jim Thomas ran a race against the teen winner (J.R.) and Rev. Kate Atkinson ran a race against her young daughter, Georgia. Grudge matches were encouraged!

6) Only salt/pepper, napkins, flatware, decorations on tables. Plates were filled from kitchen window hot food stands, condiments (syrup, apple sauce, butter, sprinkles, M&Ms, gummy bears, whipped cream, etc.) on a big table near the serving window.

7) Advertising: John had made announcements in church for the 3 prior Sundays. There were also written announcements in “The Weekly E” (St. Andrew’s Email update). Sample:
Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper with Pancake Racing
Tuesday, February 5th from 5:00 to 7:30 pm
5-6:30 pm pancake supper &
6:30-7:30 pm all-age racing in the Hall.

Lent is right around the corner, so plan to come! We will have stacks of pancakes, bacon, and sausage for all. A basket will be available at the supper for your donation to cover the cost of the supper. After filling up on delicious food there will be pancake races so wear your running shoes! We will have races for different age levels. See who is the fastest racer and best pancake flipper. Contact Katie Machemer or Katy Dickinson if you have any questions. (The Shrove Tuesday Pancake Race custom was started in Olney, UK, in the 15th Century. You can Google “pancake race” on the internet to find funny photos of pancake races from around the world.) Teens staffed the welcome/money table - 2 to 4 at a time.

To do better next time -
- get coffee ready in advance
- get better room decorations and figure out how to attach them to walls without tape or pins

Inspirational Quote:

“In Heaven all the interesting people are missing.” Friedrich Nietzsche

How to plan a party fast (3 of 3 How Tos)

Implicit here are a few assumptions.

1) You have people to invite. My rule of thumb is every person I invite should know at least 2 other people who I am inviting. Therefore I don’t spend my entire party taking care of someone, and if one person they know is having a snit, no one person is left by themselves.

2) You have a space to have a party in. This is serious. Though parks may work during the summer, a space for the party should fit the people. My parties are always more like LAN parties than American Pie Parties. But since my friends are a mix of tech geeks and other kinds of geeks, if there is going to be gaming I have a separate non-gaming room. I am in my parent’s house and use the kitchen to make popcorn and the fridge to keep sodas cold. The gaming room is also a TV room for movie watching. If it is a sleepover (ie, for New Years) you must have a quiet room for people to go to sleep in if they want. Depending on the ownership of your space (ie, if you have parents who like sleep) you should discuss *at least a week before hand* the hours of the party, the hours people will be awake, and the acceptable behavior of guests.

3) You have a day. If you have the set up and 1) own your own house or 2) have very accommodating parents and 3) friends who don’t schedule things far in advance you can do a nice party with only a day or two’s notice.

Understanding these assumptions, here’s your time line and shopping list for a fictional birthday party.

A day or two before the party:

Set up an Evite. You can do a version of this using Ruby on Rails or any other scheduling website, but I have Evite to be unobtrusive and low maintenance. You will need all of your invitees emails (note, keep these for future parties. Having one central list will save you time next party around). Use the map option on the Evite; also, take some time to figure out how to get to your house/space by public transit and with a car. It may be obvious to you, but if your friends don’t come over often, help them out.

Ask a friend to co-host. Having a friend to bounce ideas off of will help (also s/he can show up and help 1) keep you calm 2) help you finish setting up food before the party starts.

Buying supplies.

First check out what you have at home–however never underestimate how much your friends will eat. This time of year there should be cookies, fruit cake and candy. Put them out in decorative bowls when the time comes and voila! pretty food.

Shopping list:

Cake: (bake at home or buy in grocery store)Chips: (1-2 big bags)Salsa: 2 jars, 1 spicy and 1 mild

Vegi or fruit platter: (they sell the entire thing at the grocery. Just buy it. Chopping carrots as the guests come in is a bore.)

Soda: I figure 1-1.5 sodas per person. So for a party with 20 people coming, get 4 six-packs of soda and 1 six-pack of root beer.

Popcorn (buy the bottles full of kernals and pop them on the stove if you have time. If I remember right, 2 tablespoons of butter or oil per 1/4 cup unpopped kernals. You can also shake up 1 tsp of cayenne pepper or 1 tsp of cinnamon with the popped popcorn to make it more interesting).

Ice cream. Buy about 2 quarts. If you have toppings at home (chocolate sauce, honey, Maraschino cherries) use them. They are extremely optional.

Pack everything into the fridge. All sodas do not need to go in now, you can do 2 six packs at a time to always have cold sodas on hand.

The night before the party.

Double check with co-host and space owner (if that’s you, check with yourself). See who rsvped, call people you really want to attend who have not, answer last minute questions from intivees. If you have any messages (ie, can someone please bring a Wii, mine is in China) send them out before about 7pm the night before. Friends will answer a call late, but try to avoid imposing (this one’s hard because sometimes issues are only discovered late. That’s why being flexible is important).

Figure out where you’re ordering pizza from. They should deliver and you should like their pizza. NOTE: if you have any celiac, dieting or diabetic friends take this into account. For celiacs (no wheat orother gluten grains) offer to make them a great salad, or if some canned soup would be ok. Dieting, maybe order salad with the pizza or make the party a potluck (this works less well with teenagers). For diabetics, check with them, but make sure you have a supply of diet and caffeine-free soda.

Before you go to sleep, pick out your outfit of the party. It’s easy to get over stressed about how you will visually present yourself at a party and it’s better to plan it out before hand.

The day of the party (party goes from 5pm-11pm).

9am.

Clean your space and decorate. Move furniture (more chairs where you think they’ll be needed). Move things with a eye to how you want patterns of movement to exist. If you want everyone to sit around a room, place the chairs in the circle. If you want a few people to game, put a few chairs in the room near the console/tv and more around the edges of the room. If you are doing any cooking, so it in the morning so you can be clean for the party.

12pm.

Eat lunch. This is your party and you will need all of your strength to be a kind, courteous and graceful host.

1pm.

Co-host comes over, helps final clean-up and decorating.
With or without co-host. Get an idea of what kinds of games and movies you would like to have going on at the party–however remember to be flexible. Just because your dream date is watching Firefly, doesn’t mean all of your friends don’t want to watch Family Guy. By putting some thought into what you want to watch before hand, you avoid watching something you don’t like. How does a successful dictator stay in power? If democracy cannot be avoided, only allow those candidates on the ballot who you like. Same goes for party planning.

4pm.

Everything for the party should be done by now. Take a quick shower (if more relaxing is needed, start at 3 or 3:30pm with a bath or a good novel) to get all of the cleaning and cooking feeling off of your skin. Get dressed in the outfit you picked out the night before.

4:30pm.

Get out dishes for popcorn, chips and salsa. Fill them up with snacks. Place them in your snack area (where pets do not have access to it). Make sure your sodas are chillin’ and your tv/gaming console plugged in. You can take vegis out of the plastic container if you want them to be pretty (my family has a large supply of serving container. Feel free to leave things in plastics and bags if that’s not your style).

NOTE: here’s some social engineering advice. If a bowl looks over flowing people will eat more out of it. If cookies are perfectly arranged no one will want to disturb them. People eat more out of large serving utensils. Any be green conscious: soda cans can be recycles but the plastic cups you will use with large soda bottles cannot. Use real plastic plates and cups instead of disposable ones. Bike to the store. Whatever it takes.

5pm.

Guests arrive. I’m always a little off schedule so I’ve developed a great ice-breaker/social save. The penalty for guests who show up early or exactly on time is they get to help me finish setting up. This gives us all something to do with our hands while we talk and makes guests feel part of the party. This is also a good way to get help with cleanup, because a guest who knows your kitchen will come in handy when it’s time to serve food.

6pm.

Most every body should be there (they will straggle in with regularity for about an hour and a half after the official starting time of the party). Round everyone up and ask them about pizza preferences and order the pizza (for 20 people I would plan 3 larges. This is a good size because it allows for 1 all vegi, 1 all meat and 2 1/2s whatever random combos my friends will like this time).

7pm.

Start a movie and eat pizza. This can be tv episodes and fairly short, or feature length. Leave it up to the guests–be flexible. If guests don’t want to watch, make sure there are cartoon books or other coffee table books in another room to keep them occupied.

NOTE: instead of a movie you can play games, Risk, Cranium or Wheel and Deal (a family favorite) or video games. I think it’s generally good to not force everyone into conversation for the entire 6 hours. Movies let people rest a bit in between socializing.

9pm.

Movie’s over, time for cake and presents (if its a birthday party). If not, time for ice cream. There’s time for another movie or for people to break into smaller gaming and non-gaming groups. Let the guests dictate how it goes from here.

10-11pm.

People will start getting picked up by their parents or driving off. Have a movie or something non-committal (ie, not Lord of the Rings Risk) going on if possible. See everyone to the door and make sure they are getting picked up by the right people.

11-12pm.

Last stragglers are leaving, co-host will help start cleanup. Finish cleanup before you go to bed–it won’t be any prettier in the morning. Let any locked up pets out.

The biggest rule to party planning is Be Flexible. If all of the food went bad because of a power outage, well, you will have popcorn. Ask a few select unaffected friends to bring unspoilt goodies and have a party by candle-light. If an ex-shows up who you can’t deal with, tell your cohost and s/he will keep him/her occupied and out of your hair.

The only thing a party cannot recover from is a stressed out host. It makes the party no fun for anyone, least of all you. If you’re getting stressed, take a break. Go to the bathroom, go get a cold drink of water, even lie down for five minutes. Just stay cool and everything will be fine.

For more party stuff, see How to be a party girl by Pat Montandon. I read it in middle school and it has shaped how I run my parties. Great advice from a cool lady.

And have fun!

Inspirational Quote:

When Solomon said there was a time and a place for everything he had not encountered the problem of parking his automobile. - Bob Edwards