To Stab at the Face

["Michael McGeachie" <mmcgeach@>]

By way of a GSB announcement, I thought I'd mention a tidbit from my recent
personal experience this week.  This past week, I traveled to Minnesota for
a wedding of old friends.  Minnesota's pastoral lands, resplendent with
vernal foliage, cradled the lakeside ceremony.  The afternoon sun graced the
smiling faces of so many gathered friends; each of my old acquaintances now
engaged to be married themselves, paired like speaker wires on my VCR.  In
the company of so much light and happiness, my thoughts wandered, as they
often used to do, to the words of Musashi and his Way:

"To Stab at the Face"

To stab at the face means, when you are in confrontation with the enemy,
that your spirit is intent on stabbing at his face, following the line of
the blades with the point of your long sword. If you are intent on stabbing
at his face, his face and body will become rideable. When the enemy becomes
rideable, there are various opportunities for winning. You must concentrate
on this. When fighting and the enemy's body becomes as if rideable, you can
win quickly, so you ought not to forget to stab at the face. You must pursue
the value of this technique through training."From - Fri Jun 09 10:24:28 2006
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Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 10:21:23 -0400
From: Michael Oltmans <moltmans@>
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Subject: [csail-related] gsb: tonight at 5:30pm in 9G
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Stars align with planets, estranged lovers reunite, people travel across
the globe only to meet people from across the street from their
apartments, the US squad is ranked 5th according to the current
FIFA/Coca-Cola World ranking system, and some people actually finish
their PhD's and graduate.  These are just some of the reasons that you
should be happy today.  If you just got a PhD, good for you.  If you
just got a Master's good for you too.  If you didn't, well, maybe you
can meet the person across the street from you in Bangkok, the
possibilities are out there, it's a very tiny world embedded on the
surface of a very large sphere all careening through space and time
together.

If none of that impresses you, at least enjoy the fact that for the next
month you can watch more soccer than you can shake a stick at.  And now
we present the main reasons that graduating from MIT with a PhD is just
like the World Cup:

1) You can't negotiate your salary, it's all for the glory, and
promotional rights
2) Referees misinterpret your intentions and lash out according to their
biases.  Complaining about it gets you nowhere.
3) You get to be on TV, whether its high def ESPN or a web simulcast,
you're there in the spot light
4) They both usually end in a shootout
5) Quals are long and brutal and if you don't perform, you don't get to
go on to the big dance
6) The screaming adoring fans of the opposite sex that throw their
underwear at you
7) You get a cap for playing and have to show up in uniform
8) For the big event, you march in, everyone gets excited, you get your
picture taken, run around in circles for a bit (often with a few boring
interludes), everyone cheers, and you go home

And the biggest similarity of all:
9) It requires a lifetime of studying, diligence, and hard work and in
the end only takes a month and ends in just 2 hours.

Come celebrate the world's most beautiful game and all those PhD's and
Master's degrees by raising your glass at tonight's...

            +-                                                  -+
              girl scout benefit -+-  5:30 pm  -+- 32-G9 lounge
            +-                                                  -+

               For those coming from elsewhere: Building 32 is
                <http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection2>
           Once you are in 32, just take the G-elevator to the 9th
       floor and we will be in the lounge that you will be looking at
                     <http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb>



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