寒かったら、お茶が温め、暑かったら、冷やし、鬱なら元気にし、しんどかったら、落ち着かせる。

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Overview + cooking

So here I am with my second post. First of all a few general things about my progress, then I'll give a short overview about all probable locations to study Baduk intensivly and as vey last my latest mishap in cooking. :)

Good news for me are that I 1,5 weeks ago made the Oro 3dan to which makes me happy , additionally I have a 3dan Tygem account to and I like that server very much. If you can cope with brutal fighting over the board Tygem is the best server around, sooo many strong users there 24/7 to! Have fun there.
The not so good side at the moment is that what I describe as "suiciding my way up on Oro". It means basically I am quite a big bit stronger than most adversaries from 2-4dan there, however I keep killing myself so often these days again. Crucial groups die not due to brilliant move of my opponent but to my own faults. That is so annoying as I should be easily 4-5dan there by now and that probably is the problem... Obsession with rank was it called? I need to play the stones not my opponent my teacher says but that is so hard to do...

Currently I have begun studying shapes, slowly but surely it should become better. Even my teacher commented that my game made a sudden leap upwards compared to the usual games I played with her. (To those who wonder who my teacher is, it is Shen Jing, Jennie on KGS. She is very good and nice, go and check her teaching out!) Shapes now seem so very important, the game feels much lighter when you are able to make good shape. It becomes so much more fun.

To study shapes I use the "Making good shape" book from the Mastering the basics series and the audio lessions from Guo Juan on her website about shape.


So now to the things I found out about studying Baduk abroad.

Basically I now know of 2 (maybe 3) possibilities to study Baduk longterm in Korea. Which would be accordingly the "International Baduk Academy" from Lee Kibong and the "Master of Education" course at the Myongji University.

In China there are 3 possibilties from which one is dead I believe. First of all a longterm oppostunity the offer from Guo Juans Go school to study Weiqi in Wuhan. Then there are two projects for 2 months organized by two well known chinese high-dans. First EXPERIENCE GO IN CHINA by Jeff Chang and the second was gongames or so by Will Zhang but from that project I have not heard in a long time.

Sadly I have no idea about Japan and Taiwan currently. If I get a hold of it I will let you know.


So now I must tell you something. Going abroad to study Baduk certainl requires more skills than to play Baduk and one of the essentials is cooking which I cannot seem to do right. Yesterday I had two pizzas. Followed the instuctions on the packaging and shoved them into the oven for 12 minutes. Later I come down and see half a success! I managed to make one pizza! Yay! However I do not know why the second one was burned so badly. :( (Note to myslef take cooking classes soon...)

- adorable plum


Sunday, December 7, 2008

A step into the right direction

Today I am starting this blog. A journey I would like to share with you on which I have been for on for exactly three years now. I'll show you how it is going to some place far away and struggling around all obstacles that are on the way to that very destination.

My current plan is to visit Korea in order to study Baduk for several years there. At the moment I am thinking of staying at least four years or longer depending on how my Baduk will develop. The passing time you can see on the right side where the estimated time resides.

However from what I experienced and foresee it will not get so easy and there are still a lot things to do before I actually can go to Korea. For that I still need to improve my game, find good offers and opportunities to stay in Korea and of course save a lot of money so I can freely study as long as I wish to.

Today I could take a step into the right direction, not only one more day has passed so that Korea is nearer, but also I ascended to 2dan on Cyberoro. If you know my rank on other online servers it may seem a little strange to be still 2dan there but somehow it took long to make a breakthrough in Cyberoro's ranks however now I am quite fast in improving my rank there. It looks as if I found my personal trick on beating many of the players there. I am so happy now, I could dance. ^^

If you have questions regarding going abroad for studying Baduk you can feel free to ask me as I have been gathering more an more information about various possibilities to do so. Also if you have informations on programs and possibilities please share them with me I would like to post the information and share it with others so the path for all of us could become a little easier.

- adorable plum