Erwaman's Personal Journal - July 2007

Anyways, one evening we were walking back to the dorms from an assembly - just the two of us (Everyone sort of just randomly meandered back.). It's raining slightly and it's also thundering. Mostly, it's all dark out except during those intermittent lightning flashes. So we're scurrying back at a very moderate pace. The pavement is clearly wet. You can still see the outlines of the paths, but you can't really see all the details of its composition.

Some time during our journey back, Jeff just stoops down and picks something up. It turns out to be a quarter. I'm like, "Dude, how'd you see that?!" He responds, "I don't know. I just sort of see these things." He then generously offered me the quarter, probably sensing my poorly masked greed and selfishness, but I declined. Of course my ego kicked in and I decided I was going to find my own moolah. The next day, we were walking together again, and this time it's me who stoops down and finds a penny. Now I'm twenty-four cents behind Jeff. So thus we start a competition to see who can find the most money during the rest of Boys' State.

The next discovery was my loot. A dime and a nickel. I'm up to sixteen cents, but still nine cents short of Jeff's quarter. But then Jeff finds a dime and jumps ahead to thirty-five cents, a seventeen-cent lead. Eventually, I find two quarters and another dime-nickel combo. I end up with eighty-one cents. The only further progress Jeff made was a penny. So the final score: my $.81 versus Jeff's $.36.

This competition inspired me to keep track of my earnings at NJGSET as well. Though I only found seventy cents in a 28-day period, I also found a comb on the second day which I used for the rest of the program, so I figure if you throw in the monetary and utility value of the comb, I easily found more money at GSET than Boys' State. After I got back from GSET, I decided to start a monetary findings log.

Anyways, I really didn't feel any shock or major disappointment when I discovered that the WR was broken. Maybe it was because I had just gotten out of bed and was half-asleep when I read the announcement. But any case, my WR - then co-WR - had stood for over a year already. I knew eventually it had to be broken. And when I set the WR, it was by luck. For one thing, I skipped a step in my solve - R2 U2 R' R' U' R U' R' U2 R U2 (Do the inverse to set it up.). Also, I hadn't even practiced specifically or intensively for the 2x2x2 event. I had mostly been practicing 3x3x3 and just used my 3x3x3 method adapted for the 2x2x2. So it wasn't even as if my WR was a result of hard work, dedication, and training. It kind of just happened. It was kind of amusing that at the competition, no one knew that it was a WR. Nobody had Internet access and nobody had a list of current WRs. People knew it was a fast time, but no one knew if it was a WR time. At the awards ceremony of that competition - Trumbull Spring 2006 - they announced that I had set a North American record for 2x2x2 average, but they didn't mention any WRs. So it was a little amusing to discover I had the WR the following day (after the results of a San Diego competition on the same day had come out).

You know, it's good to be beaten, because it spurs you to improve, to better yourself, to catch up. It's motivation. I know sometimes people do things for personal satisfaction or because of a personal drive, but I think most people also need outside motivation. Incentives. They talk about this kind of thing all the time in the business world. And sometimes I think it's true.

This update has ignited a fuse within me to revamp my learning. I know where my weaknesses fall, and it's time for me to focus on them. To be more pro-active and disciplined. I feel as if I've reached a plateau for 3x3x3 speedsolving, but there's definitely room for improvement in both one-handed and blindfolded. Then, I want to learn how to solve both a 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 blindfolded. Next, I'd like to improve my times for both 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 speedsolving and get into the top 50 for both single solve and average for both events. For those cubes, I've been pretty lazy. I basically learned a method to solve it and learned nothing else. No optimized or extra move sequences. Just a few core move sequences so that I could solve the puzzles. Of course, since the way I solve those puzzles is to transform them into a 3x3x3 and them solve them like a 3x3x3, my 3x3x3 training did help a little. However, the majority of the solving time for the 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 is spent in transforming them into a 3x3x3, so I should be spending more time on that. Finally, to break out of the 3x3x3 plateau I feel I've reached, I want to learn all of COLL, which I've started learning. I also could improve my F2L, but it's very difficult to break out of many-year-old habits. But it's not too late to change. So I've been inspired and revitalized again and hope to do some serious cube training again.

Just so you know, Mátyás Kuti truly is a cubing prodigy. He really is in his own class. In addition to breaking both 2x2x2 WRs, he also broke five other WRs at the Czech Open 2007. That's to add on to three still-standing WRs he has. So currently, he holds 10 WRs, and at one time or another, he's held 15 different WRs. I believe he's only 14, and he's only been competing since September 2006. He is truly an incredible and inspiring person. One thing that's really remarkable is that he's among the top in essentially every event. Most cubers have to focus their efforts on one or two events, but he somehow manages to be in the top for all events. See his stats here.

One other thing before I go to sleep. I was having a debate with another Gov. School student about whether there should be one or two spaces after a full stop or other sentence enders. I always believed the standard was two, but she claimed it was one. We did some research and there are mixed views. It seems that the standard is slowly changing to one, in part due to electronic data. In HTML, for example, two spaces only shows up as one, and in order to insert two spaces, the second space has to be typed as " ". Also, blogging/networking sites mostly use one space. I looked in a textbook and it seemed to be single-spaced. I asked another Gov. School student and she said she was taught two spaces in school, just as I remember being taught/learning. Anyways, that's all. Good night and happy cubing. P.S.: I've been playing a lot of StarCraft here recently :-).