A very sunny day today. Our room became hot. Reason to
open a window. Suddenly, the sun disappeared and some white
things came falling down. Was it snow? A little to small.
Then the wind started to blow, and we saw it fly by.
It really was snow. Wet snow.
We haven't had much snow this winter, and it doesn't look
like will get some more. Maybe this was the last snow of
this winter.
Yuji's farewell party
This evening we went to Japanese restaurant to celebrate
Yuji's farewell party. At the end of the month he will go
back to Japan, after having been here for about three years.
The dinner consisted of the following dishes:
Starters:
Deep fried pieces of paprika and large shrimp
Soup with sea weed and tofu
First cook:
Fried vegatables: a union slice, a slice of courgette and a mushroom
Fried fish
Fried lamb meat
Fried shrimps
Second cook:
Fried rice with egg and small pieces of vegatable
Fried beef meet
Fried tauge
The two cooks prepared the dishes before our eyes.
The whole evening it had snowed, and when we came outside
there was about one inch of snow. I still had to drive about
30 km home through the snow. On the highway I did not dare
to drive faster than 80 km/h, because of the snow.
Today, I read a
story about the Go prodigy
Liao Xingwen,
who will become six this month, but he already plays at
an astonisching high level. He would wipe me off the
board completely, if I would ever play against him.
This made me think about my attempts
to play the game of Go with
Annabel. It was last
November that I started
teaching her the game. We play it about once a week,
and she only likes it when I let her win. She has some
basic understanding of life-and-death, and she does not
like it when she sees some group of mine which is alife.
She wants me fill the eyes, so she can kill it. Often
she put down stones that I can beat immediately. In order
not to discourage her too much, I refrain from beating
them immediately. One thing is for sure, she is
definitely not a Go prodigy. Isn't it true that all
parents dream that there child will be some kind of
prodigy. How difficult it can be to discover that your
child is less than average.
Less then one mile from my home, suddenly, the engine stopped.
I tried to restart it, but it did not start again.
Then I noticed that the petrol indicator said that there was
no petrol anymore. I could not believe this, as I always get
some petrol on Saturday morning. But then I realized I must
have forgotten it, because last Saturday we had to run to a
G.P. because Andy was having some
fever.
At first, I did not know what I should do. I phoned
Li-Xia
to inform her about what happened. Then I remembered I was
not far from some gas station. I was happy, I hadn't run out
of petrol on the highway. First I pushed the car backwards,
because the car had stopped just before road crossing. And then
Annabel and I set out to the gas station. At the gas station
I could borrow a jerry can, and I bought some petrol. There
was a taxi driver who offered us a lift, which I gladly
accepted. But just before he wanted to drop us of, he asked
if I did have a funnel. No, I did not. But I felt I would
find some way to get the petrol in.
So there we were, standing besides our car, with some petrol
but without a funnel. I looked for something I could use,
and found some bread bags, bags in which a loaf of bread is
packed when you buy them, and which I reuse for taking bread
to my work. I took one of the bags, and cut some part of, to
make it into a tube. Then I fixed it inside the petrol tank,
and I started pouring the petrol inside. It did work except
that I spilled some petrol, because I poured too fast. Only
later I released that there was a small lid on the inside
of the tank opening, which is only opened when you put in the
hose.
After I did some cleaning, we could finally drive home. We arrived
about three quaters of an hour later than planned.
This evening, when I played a game of Go
with Annabel, after the game
was finished she said: "You win when you have the biggest
garden, not when you beat the most stones". Yes,
the goal of the game is to get the largest terrotrium,
which I explain as "garden" to her. It is not easy
to teach a child a complicated game. If I do not let
her win, she loses interest. I have to careful not to
play too strong, but at the same time, I have to teach
her all the little tricks. Often I feel like balancing
on a wire.
An exception on an exception on an exception of the rule
The rule is that February has 28 days. A leap year is an exception
to this rule. An exception to this rule is that each
last year of a centrury is not a
leap year, but the exception to that rule, is that each multiply
of 400 is a leap year again.
So this is a very exceptional day. Suprisingly, there are not
many people celebrating it.
Discussing this fact, we talked about how often a leap seconds
occurs.
