A Mixed First Day

Well, my first day of Graduate School is behind me. I have water boiling to make the celebratory pasta dinner, and a few thoughts on the day. Overall, it's been a positive day.

I had my entrance meeting with the Director of Graduate Studies, where my path to quals and onward to comps was outlined. I also arranged a meeting on Wednesday with my faculty mentor to discuss how I will perform the necessary mentored research function of my fellowship.

Before my only class of the day, I checked my email to find that a small poetry magazine I sent some work to about a week and a half ago has decided they would like to make me their featured poet in their upcoming issue. A good pick-me-up if there ever was one.

The first day of Elementary Old English was largely concerned with letting us know about the class and finding out where we all stand on the front of language acquisition. I don't have much reading left for Wednesday's meeting, which is nice. I turned in my health and dental care paperwork, so I can have insurance again, and then walked home after class.

Not ten minutes after I get home do I receive an email telling me that one of my classes, which would have started tomorrow, has been canceled for the semester. So now I have to pick a different class, get a sheet signed by my faculty mentor and the instructor of the course, and then turn it in. Preferably tomorrow, to ensure that it is filed properly by Friday, so I can avoid getting charged $12 for registering for a class late. 

Unfortunately, this makes Tuesdays and Thursdays pretty lame for me, as it means I get to see my partner briefly before going to class again, if I come home during the interim time. So two days a week our dinners will likely not be together. I might be able to figure out a system where I cook dinner, eat some, leave some in the fridge to heat up for my partner, and take the car back to campus for my late class.

Eh, something had to go wrong, didn't it?

And so It Begins

Monday is the day that I begin Grad school. The day should be pretty light. I'll be meeting with the Grad program director to work out a prospective course of action leading up to quals at the end of my second year and doing one class: Introductory Old English. I am going to love that class.
After class I'll be meeting with the professor, my faculty mentor, to discuss my joining the Old English reading group this semester. It's something I'd like to get started with right away to help build familiarity and facility with the language, but I can understand why it might not be so good to start right off.
Other news of the weekend. The apartment is nearly completely unpacked and sorted, with only a small mess in the living room yet to be cleared up. I now have a provisional paper driver's license that's good until my little brother's birthday while the state makes and mails me my permanent license.
I will likely have many more posts as I get started with school. This will be something of a log of my journey through the PhD for the next six years, so I shan't be long in coming to my next update.

The Olympic Women's Epee semifinal

between Shin A Lam of South Korea and Britta Heidemann of Germany ended in scandal.

Here's what happened.

The match was tied at 5-5 with one second left on the clock in overtime. Per the rules, in overtime the first non-simultaneous touch wins. Should the score be tied at the end of overtime the winner of a coin toss (tossed before overtime and in this case Shin) would win the bout.

During the final second of overtime, two simultaneous hits were recorded, and Shin was seconds from victory. Then, the third attack occurred. Heidermann's attack was ruled a touch despite the timer malfunctioning by either starting late, not starting until after the point had registered, or somehow totaling longer than one second between the three attacks that had occurred in that second.

Allow me to explain the first of the many failures here.

When the timer was seen to be faulty, the correct action would be to have the fencers resume their en garde stance and try again, this time with the timer issue resolved. This was not done. Instead, Shin was made to wait on the piste for forty-five minutes while the judges evaluated her appeal, ultimately deciding that nothing was to change. While all this happened, an understandably emotional Shin cried on the piste.

This video shows that the total length of time covered by the final second amounted to roughly 1.57 seconds. (the 17 is frames at 32 fps

Ultimately, Heidemann was given the fractional time necessary to execute an attack that was declared a good touch, and the appeal went nowhere, sending Heidemann to the Gold medal match where she took Silver.

Very shortly after the appeal, Shin was made to appear in the Bronze medal match. Not being psychologically or physically prepared for the bout, having had much of her prep time eaten by sobbing on the piste with no idea what her last bout's final result would be, Shin lost, coming in fourth place in London.

None of this even begins to address the ways Heidemann tried to edge her way into advantage against Shin. For those, read prototoast's post below. Overall, the match will undoubtedly become one of those matches where it becomes well-known for all of the wrong reasons.

Whatever happened here, it is definitely the most bollocksed up situation of the 2012 Olympic Games thus far. I echo prototoast's opinion of the match. If you have never watched fencing before, I hope that this was not the day you chose to start.

Unemployed

Well, I no longer work in a warehouse. My last day was just under a week ago and it feels great to be done. I'm not up at what, to my nocturnal senses, feels like an unearthly early hour to go do unrewarding physical labor for a multibillion dollar corporation. Instead, I get to sleep and read, relax with my fiancee, and get ready for the upcoming move. Only three weeks to go and we'll be in a new state. I'm out of town this week housesitting for a friend of my fiancee's. We spent today getting the birds inside the house because of the heat and then taking a nap with the owl. Moving can't happen soon enough. I'm ready for the change.

Busy Busy

I don't like that during the summer I try to get back on this blogging thing and try to get into the habit of doing it regularly I manage to fail at it. I'm not sure exactly why I'm finding the time hard to get, but there you have it. In positive news, though, I have a reason for the past few days. I've been frantically working on finishing my story for submission to Coming Together: Arm in Arm in Arm, an anthology of tentacle erotica with proceeds going to ocean conservation. I initially took to the task of writing my entry for the challenge: I've never written anything remotely like what the call for submissions requests but I figured it would be worth a try. I don't quite know how I'll feel if my story winds up published. It's a bit weird. I'll try to get back to this more often.

Feminist Frequency: a Kickstarter Project I can get behind

Anita Sarkeesian has a Kickstarter Project going to raise money to fund the production of a large video series on sexism in video games. This is a discussion that needs to happen. Part of my reason for backing this project relates to a torrent of hate so large that it makes Noah's flood look like a leaky faucet. For daring to turn a critical eye toward their hobby, the community of gamers has cried foul in their foulest words. This response is all the proof the world needs that Anita is doing the right thing. The casual racism, homophobia, and sexism pervading the comments as well as the higher level harassment she has received all serve to demonstrate that the gaming community does have some very deeply rooted problems with those who are not straight white males. Anyone who is Other is an invader, an unwelcome presence, who must be shamed for daring to enter the hobby. This response demonstrates that the issues Anita will discuss in her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games and those she has discussed in her other videos do make a difference. These issues help perpetuate a system in which women, gays, and minorities are put down and denigrated merely for existing. I don't really know right now how to put into words everything I feel about this. I can hardly fathom how anybody would find it acceptable to do what has been done to Anita here. I can't understand the people who make excuses for the people doing this. Anita has far surpassed her funding goal. She had far surpassed it by the time I found out about the project. That should not matter. Pledging should be a matter of principle at this point. So if you read this, please consider making a pledge to show your support of Anita's efforts to engage gamers in a rational and level-headed manner about a very important subject. The project concludes on Saturday Jun 16, 3:09 A.M. EDT.

And I slip on the posting

Looks like I have slipped my schedule a bit. I have a good reason, though, I swear. I've finally settled in from spending much of the past month working on moving out of my place in my college town. We are now living with my fiancee's uncle until we can move down to my shiny new university. I don't have very much to report about this time. Other than moving, I've been working and doing my part in planning the wedding. We've got much of the planning set, which is good. Not so good is the having money part of things. Still need to work on that part. I've acquired a number of new coins which are making me very happy. I've also been mulling over thoughts about aspects of Dune, Foundation, and Don Quixote that mesh well together and might make for an interesting paper. I will leave you for now and return soon with something of actual substance.