Test again

Magic Bear is working hard for next week's test:

•    Sonata Op.49, No.2 by Beethoven
•    Invention No. 1 in C Major by Bach (BWV 772)
•    Nocturne Op. Post. by Chopin
•    Alla Tarantella (Op. 39, No.2) by Edward MacDowell
•    April by Tchaikovsky
•    Musikalisches Bella Music Picture
•    Blockparty by Eugenie R. Rocherolle

Go Magic Bear!

Magic Bear likes Poirot

It has been a long time since Magic Bear is weaned off television series such as "Magic's Biggest Secrets Revealed". But recently, he fell in love with Poirot.

The PBS masterpiece series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" is indeed a very good one for a child to watch:

- The episodes are elegant theatric plays in the British movie tradition.

- Each one is a complicated detective story challenging a child's understanding.

- Although the content is about solving crimes, the scenes are usually not too scary or violent.

- Actor David Suchet portraits the character with great style.
- There is always a sense of humor.  (In the episode "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim", Poirot studies how to play some magic.)

- It is on PBS, so no time wasting advertisements during the show.

The whole series is listed here on wikipedia or imdb. You may read about some episodes on Poirot Investigates as well.

Magic Bear, the writer

Magic Bear likes to write.

I don't recall when it started but he likes to put his scribbles on paper. And he likes to do this on his own.  There are some many bits and pieces, everywhere: Pooh stories in a notebook, draws of various inventions in a binder, newspaper and puzzles he posted on the walls of every room ...

During his first grade, he wrote a letter to a TV station to inquire about the schedule of his favorite show ("Magic's biggest secrets revealed"). Now the copy and the reply from the station manager stay in a laminated page inside a ring binder.  The binder also hosts his collection of inventions, many inspired by A Geisert's "Lights Out" book which has been one of his favorites since Kindergarten.  Recently he is drawn into poems; you will find his Halloween series on his blog. Now there will be Pooh stories on his blog too.

Magic Bear, the Pianist

Magic Bear has been practicing the following pieces for more than four months now: 

• Prelude No. 5 of first twelve short preludes in "J.S Bach's 18 Short Preludes"
• Sonatina No. 2 by Clementi
• No. 10 Tender Flower, No. 17 The Chatterbox of "Burgmuller 25 Progressive Pieces"

He still needs improvement in the most difficult passages. I get the feeling that he is too romantic and soft on the keys; some of the comments I recently heard from the teacher are:

• No. 5: "... the whole section needs to be forte".  
• No. 2: "Do not sing. Try a little bit faster."  "loud! louder!", "do not shy to be strong".  "Practice at 108 tempo. Work super slow on all sixteenth notes".
• No. 10: "emphasizing the talk notes."  "Be bright!  Be loud on the loud notes!"

Although he won't be in the competition this weekend, Magic Bear has improved a lot since beginning lessons one and half year ago. To hear him playing is really enjoyable. I hope he would practice more and make progress everyday.  It is just like swimming. The technique won't come without patience and practice. Sometimes there is a lot of struggle. But once it is learned, it seems so effortless.

Go Magic Bear!

Today at Chabot College, Magic Bear had his second swim meet.

The sky was cloudy but fortunately the it showered only after we came out of restaurant after the meet. 

This time, Magic Bear had to make turns in two of the four events: 50 breast and 100 free.  Although he was not flipping, his side turn was not too bad.  In his last event of 100 free, he was able to stay very close to his peers who did good flips. He was getting very close to B time for his age group.

His current order of favorites are: breast, free, back and fly. He has good endurance and does better with longer courses.

Go Magic Bear!

Magic Bear's first swim meet

Last Saturday Magic Bear had the first swim meet. 

Magic Bear tend to drag his feet at any firsts; he didn't want to put on his swim trunk in the morning of the meet at home. His mom and I had to use some extra coaxing to get him onto the car.

Once we get there, the meet was already under way. I got anxious and went straight to the registration desk.  I found his name on the list. Magic Bear initialized on it, and cycled the three events we registered him for: 25 Breast, 25 Fly, 25 Free.

I paid close attention to how the event is run:  'ready - set - go' appears to be 'long whistle - on your mark - beep'.  Magic Bear got ready after a few laps in the small warm up pool.

For the first event, Magic Bear was in the 3rd heat. During the first two heats, I noticed that one child was standing on the deck instead of on the starting block.  I told Magic Bear that if he is not used to the starting block, jumping from the deck would be OK too. But he appears not afraid of the jump. So there he goes.

And he was all right.  The posting appears to show him getting an 8th place ribbon for the C group for this event.

The second event was well after lunch.

His goggle was still on top of his head when he stepped on the block.  I had to call him many times trying to get his attention.  Finally he realized, put on his goggle, adjusted it.  The buzz sounds and off he jumps.

Finally, the "25 Free" event came.  I knew he is more than ready for it.  Although he could have jumped a bit further, he was crawling fast, doing the 3 stroke breath left and right just as I had trained him, catching up on the leader of the pack. Right after reaching the wall, he turned slightly and looked at the clock on this side of the pool. A picture perfect moment I wished I had a camera ready for.

Switching to MBP

Finally I decided to give a try on the mac.  Man, it turns out way easier than I expected.

I have been a PC/Unix user for so many years.  iPhone 4 opened my eyes on how intuitive a good user interface could be.  Since I have been using PC mainly for web browsing and running linux virtual machines, I thought there is nothing to loose with a mac. And I have so much to gain by trying my hands on writing iPhone programs.

I made up my mind to get an early 2009 unibody 17 inch MBP (macbook pro) from craigslist. This is because I always wanted high pixel counts for a notebook. And the unibody MBP is the one with the latest multi touchpad.

After booting up mac OS X snow leopard, it took me a while to find out the touchpad default needs a heavy 'click' to register a button click.  Once I configured it for 'tap' click, it feels so nice that I don't miss the touch stick on my Thinkpad at all.  I am glad that I bite the bullet for the 17in MBP instead of one with smaller screens.  Although it is a bit heavy, nothing compares to being able to use such an intuitive user interface with a big beautiful screen.

The good:
- Trackpad: generations ahead of any windows including seven. That is one of the two main reasons I am switching to a mac.
- 17in screen: 1920x1200.  I could use a 15 in MBP but it would be a 'downgrade' on resolution from my 15.4in Thinkpad.
- mac OS X 10.6.4: everything feels so well integrated, instead of many pieces in Windows. Also the shell is of native unix.
- design: the unibody case, keyboard touch, tight seam, all makes this machine one class above the best PC notebooks.  Even the packaging gives one the feeling that it belongs to Tiffany's instead of Fry's.

The bad:
- Some learning curve.  (getting around configuring trackpad click, finding the app to download iphone photo, etc)
- Higher price.  A similarly equipped Thinkpad is only half of a MBP. But once you get used to MBP, you will forget about how much it costs.  So, the luxury is to be enjoyed.

I have set up xcode and iPhone SDK.  I will see how long I can stay away from MS Office by keeping things online through Google docs.