###Tennis and Exercises
Until now, I’ve played three matches in this round of 3.0 league, lost twice (6-3, 6-3; and another was 7-5 for two hours and left unfinished), and won once (6-4, 1-6, 10-5). My improvements are quite obvious, but still not big enough for me to turn previous loses towards the same opponents to landslide victories. To the maximum extent, I would not lose a set 4 points straight, but stuck in “deuce…add-in…deuce..add-out…” loops.
These are some aspects I should pay attention to
- Do NOT make decisions before hitting the balls. They should depend on how good my response is, as well as the position and momentum of my opponent.
- During the point building, keep percentage shots as long as I can.
- And DISTINGUISH it from capitalizing.
- Do NOT be afraid of volley, and do NOT rush it.
- For current level, attacking the back-hand side is almost always a good choice.
In general, I don’t have any blank left for any tech. aspect, but almost everything needs to be further improved: adding more top spin for both forehand and backhand ground stroke, being more consistent of back spin in half-volley, splitting timely and positioning myself more appropriate as approaching to the net, and better serving.
###Trip
It was great to see the awesome grand canyon, as well as the horseshoe bend and the antelope valley, and it sucked as I recalled the trip of yellowstone every minute in every day. I thought I had got over of the devastation after seven months. But this trip just proved that I was wrong in a hard way.
I will not rush myself to the conclusion of “feeling well” again, and will not do another trip in the near future.
###Programming and Online Courses
“Know how to solve every problem that has been solved.” – Richard Feynman
There are many things that I need to prepare before the graduate and really job-hunting. Actually, there are more things in my mind than I could complete. So I should choose wisely.
Currently, I am enrolled in the course “Principle of Computing” offered by Rice University in Coursera. It’s easy in general, but interesting to re-think those small games mathematically with the “programming” point of view. Besides, I also continue reading SICP and solving the problems in each chapter. I also go on reading books for Haskell, and watching a course about artificial intelligent in edX. Combining with what I have learned in machine learning and algorithm, I should have a better grasp about what to do and how to do in this field of study. On the other hand, I’ve also dropped off several courses for too much overlapping with what I have already known, or for tedious pedagogy and far-fetched implementations.
I have extensively used Emacs for this summer. Sometimes, I even appreciate its methodology more than I do for Vim, though I would still prefer Vim for 90% of occasions. After tried and failed several times to customize it from scratch, I started beginning with Prelude, and then piling other stuff on it. Despite in favor of most its adds-on, I disable the Viper mode. The logic behind is that if I want to use a Vim, I will use the Vim. Before I fully appreciate its advantages and disadvantages, I would like to keep Emacs as it is. Currently, I use Haskell and Racket in it. It does do a better job than Vim for Haskell, and DrRacket for Racket. Besides, I have tried twice of adopting R in current work, but still cannot find a scenario exclusively using it. It’s not really good at modeling (LISP or Haskell), visualization (matplotlib in Python, JavaScript, or Mathematica), computational efficiency (C++, or Haskell), or just for fun (LISP, ML, or Ruby). Given it is THE favorite language of some of my very smart friends, I will give it another try whenever possible.
###Miscellaneous
Doing some experiments on myself is fun and worthwhile. For example, I have tried several days to go to bed earlier than I usually do. My feeling is more or less the same as what said in “Sleep as a Competitive Advantage”, and I will stick to it.
Because I need to toss the tennis ball better, I use my left hand as often as I can, such as drawing diagrams or doing all kinds of doodle/calculations. It’s too soon to tell if I have any progress. I am also trying different ways to brew coffee. Pour-over versus press pot seems like another version of Emacs versus Vim.