Workload Picking Up

It's now the 4th week of school, and as expected, the workload is picking up. I have a 4-5 page essay due on Thursday for the Early Middle Ages- I will be writing on the Rule of St. Benedict, which is quite an interesting read- I know I could never have been a Coenobitic (monastic) monk! Way too many rules, getting up at 2 AM every night, a vegetarian diet, rarely leaving the monastery, and worst of all, strict obedience to the abbot and rejection of one's own will....

Fortunately, this week my math homework has been much easier than last week- I have only 2 problems left, which should be the hardest ones of the set, but none of the previous problems have been hard. Shockingly, I managed to complete all but 2 problems before the last day before it is due! That's....well....I don't remember the last time I've done that- certainly not in college- maybe never! I suppose it's because Probability is actually quite fun, so it feels good to complete the problems.

I had a 5-day hiatus on KGS, which I ended today with a loss. I feel I was winning, but I blundered towards the end of the mid-game, making it close, and then I blundered again in the endgame, giving my opponent the win by resignation.

I'm doing well (relatively speaking) in the contest with 16 out of 20 points as of now, good enough to put me in a tie for 204th place with 716 other people, out of a total of 40,000+ brackets. I'm getting 4 more points today with Bowser > Phoenix, and I'm guessing Phoenix wasn't too popular a pick outside the Contest Board, although he was the overwhelming favorite to get second on the board. Hopefully this means I'll be in a tie for a position within the top 100 or even top 50 tomorrow- with maybe 100-200 people- hopefully. In the Guru Contest, I'll be tied for 1st with 12 other people.

Tomorrow's match is Mario vs. Zelda vs. Knuckles vs. Fei. There are a lot of differing opinions on this one- Zelda is stronger than Knuckles, but should be hurt worse by SFF from Mario, since they are both Nintendo characters. I had Knuckles for a long time, but changed to Zelda towards the end of the bracket-making period, because she's quite a bit stronger than Knux normally, and I don't think she'll suffer much more than he will from SFF. I'm feeling pretty good about this, because Knux only managed 27% last year against Yoshi, Rikku, and Vaan- with Mario here, Knux should go to 20% or lower, and I think Zelda can take in more than that. Of the other 12 gurus who will have 20 points after today, only 3 have Mario > Zelda for tomorrow, so I'll be in a 4-way tie for first if Zelda comes through. There's an outside chance I might be able to get onto the site-wide leaderboard on Thursday also- if a lot of people chose Knuckles.

Edit/Update: I'm done with this week's math homework! Those two problems only took about half an hour.