Before I die at the end of the week from my stress, I wanted to update really quickly.
GP is getting stressful the closer we get to the presentation. The presentation has been created in its simplest form and will be beautified over the next 1.5 weeks. The paper itself has taken a slightly back seat till the presentation is over because we are going to need to take into account their critiques and see if we need to update the paper in some way anyway. February 18th will be coming very quickly for the draft due date. I also realized that March 18th (the Friday of finals week and the week before Spring Break) will be dedicated to finalizing the paper. We have to all sign the final paper and that's due March 18th. So I have to be back on the 18th to sign it or just not leave. Oh well. I will be finished the week before finals week, but not quite finished.
My other classes are going okay. I've got a lot of minor assignments to turn in starting February 1st and a lot of them are after the defense presentation. Which means...the weekend after the defense I will be reading and writing a TON. I'm trying to preread the assignments due that week, but it's just not happening. I'm so swamped in reading for my environmental institutions class that I can't fit in other reading.
Lastly, this week starts my international law class. I was tempted to drop it this past week because it's 3 hours of extra class a day (M- F) and the reading assignment is ridiculous. I have 330 pages of school reading to do for this week and almost 300 of it is just for international law. Did I also tell you that 300 pages is spread out among THREE days? What happened to reading for Thurs and Fri? Anyway, I'm up to my eyeballs in legal stuff since I have to do a case brief for my coastal zone law class. I'm sure if I was a lawyer, briefing a case would go much quicker. Anyway, international law this week might just kill me. Because of the 3 extra hours, I have a little more than 4 hours of class everyday, but with the way my schedule works...I'm just staying on campus all day Tues and Wed and maybe Thurs if my meetings go too long. So Tues I'll be at Bren from 10am to 7:15pm. Wed I'll be on campus from 10am to 6:45pm. Joy. I'm going to have to pack a ton of food and drink to sustain me that long. LoL
Then, of course, next, next week is our defense and we are practicing in 1414 on Monday and to the group on Wednesday and then will be practicing on our own. This Wednesday we're supposed to do a run through of the presentation, which will be super informal since I won't have anything memorized or remotely solidified in my head by then. We only tonight put the presentation together and I don't have time to really work on it between now and Wednesday morning. Oh well. I'm sure Arturo will understand.
Anyway, my stress level is incredibly high and I just keep thinking of all the stuff I have due in my other classes after the week after defenses (3 papers and 2 presentations). I really don't feel like I'll be able to breath till March 1st. Course, I have 2 group papers in classes too....so I have to find time to meet for those too. Ugh. I really am disliking group things right now. Too many right now.
*sigh* Well, I need to go. I want a draft of my case brief finished tonight (due Tues) and I still have 60 pages of international law reading to do. I'm reading, right now, all about treaties.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
HOY: Congrats to...
ZENYATTA!!!!!!
Boy I wasn't sure...I haven't been able to do any work since 4pm because that's when the Eclipse Awards started. I've been glued to my chair seeing who won. For the most part, it was pretty predictable. I think it is almost every year since it's usually based on performance. I find reading the reported vote totals more interesting. I think they might be the only award ceremony that REPORTS the voted totals. Which...makes me a little peeved...Blame won Older Male unanimously, but Zenyatta was 237 and Golidkova was 1 for Champion Older Female. Really? She's not unanimous? That just seems wrong. It's probably the same guy who wanted Goldikova to win HOY and is voting for her. She ran ONCE in the US. *rolls eyes* Oh well.
The important thing is she FINALLY won HOY!!!! At least that means Blame can fade away into oblivion now as a great stallion (I do wish him the best) and the only one who beat Zenyatta. It would honestly bother me if he was also always know as the "horse who won HOY over Zenyatta" too. In some ways it's also an injustice to him since he'd always be tied to Zenyatta (and will be). It's just unfortunate for him he happened to beat a horse who most of the country loves more. Oh well. Congrats to Blame for his Champion Older Male award and for a good race year!
Zenyatta, though, defies all logic (her racing style, the phenomenon, etc) and I'm glad she won HOY. I feel like I can never watch another horse race again and feel content with where I left the sport. :P However, there is always another year. I just hope there isn't this big of a contention for HOY again. I've suffered for a little more than 2 months over this HOY debate. I know the World won't be 100% happy with the result either, but...SHE WON!!!! I am sooooo happy!
Boy I wasn't sure...I haven't been able to do any work since 4pm because that's when the Eclipse Awards started. I've been glued to my chair seeing who won. For the most part, it was pretty predictable. I think it is almost every year since it's usually based on performance. I find reading the reported vote totals more interesting. I think they might be the only award ceremony that REPORTS the voted totals. Which...makes me a little peeved...Blame won Older Male unanimously, but Zenyatta was 237 and Golidkova was 1 for Champion Older Female. Really? She's not unanimous? That just seems wrong. It's probably the same guy who wanted Goldikova to win HOY and is voting for her. She ran ONCE in the US. *rolls eyes* Oh well.
The important thing is she FINALLY won HOY!!!! At least that means Blame can fade away into oblivion now as a great stallion (I do wish him the best) and the only one who beat Zenyatta. It would honestly bother me if he was also always know as the "horse who won HOY over Zenyatta" too. In some ways it's also an injustice to him since he'd always be tied to Zenyatta (and will be). It's just unfortunate for him he happened to beat a horse who most of the country loves more. Oh well. Congrats to Blame for his Champion Older Male award and for a good race year!
Zenyatta, though, defies all logic (her racing style, the phenomenon, etc) and I'm glad she won HOY. I feel like I can never watch another horse race again and feel content with where I left the sport. :P However, there is always another year. I just hope there isn't this big of a contention for HOY again. I've suffered for a little more than 2 months over this HOY debate. I know the World won't be 100% happy with the result either, but...SHE WON!!!! I am sooooo happy!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Random school things
I'm a little sad that I have class on Tuesday at 10am. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors are getting together on Tuesday to try and convince the Coastal Commission to give certifications for major revisions to the SB County and Montecito Land Use Codes. Our prof said she will try to find out when they're actually discussing this and see if it's still going at our class time (1pm) and figure out a way to see if we can watch it on-line. That'd be neat. The meeting starts at 9am and I've got class at 10am so if it starts then, that's a bummer. I'm learning quite a bit in class and we've only had 2 classes. It's the most law like class I've had (the prof has a JD) and it's all Coastal Zone law so it's pretty interesting. I've never delved deeply into the Coastal Commission before (kind of an area I was lacking knowledge in) so it's been pretty interesting. She's also teaching us how to brief a case, which is a little tedious since you have to actually think about the cases in a deeper manner. :) I am learning more about the judicial system too. Nothing major, but little things here and there and how rulings can effect quite a few things.
I still find I enjoy reading legal cases, though. I don't enjoy legalese, but I enjoy legal cases. That may be why I like County Board of Supervisor meetings too. It's like a legal case in person. People are arguing why their side is correct and they're like little histories in front of you as people explain about their lives and how something might affect them and the legal arguments within it. It's just interesting. Wouldn't want to do it for a full-time job (I think -- Bethany Taylor running for County Supervisor -- eh), but it's interesting. It's by far my favorite class and the reading is dense, but it's at least on a topic I enjoy and the prof is good.
My environmental institutions class is interesting...I like the prof on a personal level and he's more of a lecturer-seminar type prof, but he does run off into tangents and stories quite easily. It's actually pretty funny because he KNOWS he shouldn't say the story, but he runs through it anyway after a mini-battle with himself. It's slightly annoying, but his stories always end up being interesting/weird/funny in a good way so it's a toss up about whether he should or shouldn't do them from an interest level. The class goes by quickly if anything, which is good since it's at 10am and I'm still half asleep through it. There are only 10 of us in it so we're definitely small and hard to miss. The class, though, is going about issues in a way I never thought of before so it's been a learning experience. I don't particularly like the class still, but at least I'm learning something and something new for that matter.
We're basically going to be researching an environmental problem (one that is anthropogenically caused like air pollution, overfishing, deforestation, etc) and come up with an institution to fix it. You know, that's hard! If it was that easy to take this class and we could solve all our problems, we wouldn't have all these environmental problems anymore. It's particularly interesting because this book we're reading (Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom -- totally dense, but interesting and she won the 2009 Nobel Prize) has these "principles" to create a successful institution for common-pool resources and even she knows that applying all these are not fool proof. This class is like thinking "outside of the box" and, at the same time, thinking within it. Instead of using a central government to fix everything or privatization (both have their issues), can you create another type of institution (in this case, rules, but it can be an agency too. Right now in class we're talking about a set of rules) where the common-pool resource (CPR) is sustained over a long period of time and followed generation after generation? Ostrom lists these general principles that successful communities have followed to sustain the CPR and have everyone follow, but even she knows these principles can't fix everything. And, truthfully, her principles aren't anything mindboggling. They're things like clearly defined boundaries, collective-choice arrangements, graduated sanctions, etc. Individually, not innovative and, I like to think, the principles have been included in a lot of things, but got warped over time. So, anyway, that's basically what we're learning right now. It's complex, but I feel like I'm being taught to look at the issues with CPRs and think up new ways to try and solve them than our already worn out ways that don't seem to work. We'll see how it goes.
Conservation planning is pretty...boring...We're using GIS which has been fun. I haven't used it in 3-4 years so it's been a "Ohhh...I remember doing that!", but it's coming back to me pretty quickly. The only issue is that ArcGIS has a lot of quirks so it's relearning all those weird things again. It's going well, though. I apparently look "very knowledgeable" to my classmates because I've had a few people come up to me ask for help and comment on I look like I know it well. I am thankful for CSUMB's GIS lab, though. I feel like I REALLY learned the program when I took the class. I've talked to others who have been certified and my certification was much more intense than there's since we actually went out into the field with GPS units, plotted, came back, and combined all the different layers into one GIS map and manipulated it. We also covered a lot of things in the basic training too (making models for example). Making models was funny for me because the instructions our lab TA gave us were horrible. He missed random steps or didn't explain things well so a lot of deduction skills were involved to try and understand what he was trying to get us to do. Once I figured out he wanted us to make a model, it all clicked and then, weirdly, my brain suddenly remembered how to make a model. So weird. Weird things like remembering F5 is the refresh button for GIS came back too. It really has been a weird relearning process. It's good for the refresher now, though. I feel less guilty about putting the GIS certification on my resume now since I remember how to use GIS again. :) I'm still on the fence about taking the GIS class next quarter...I may or may not take it. I don't NEED it, but it might just be fun to take. I might talk to the prof and ask if I can drop in every once in a while. Anyway, conservation planning is boring and I doubt I'll learn much, but I am enjoying relearning GIS.
Group Project is...going. We're all feeling better about the project, but it's also a high stress level still. It's like we're almost there, but not quite there. So we're fine-tuning now, trying to do some last ditch research efforts, and writing drafts as they become complete. So..it's getting there. Deadlines this quarter are a little intense (our final paper is due March 18th in hard copy with our signatures), but it's moving. It's been a lot of "breathe...breathe...breathe" moments. We had a 2 hour meeting this last Wednesday and I have a feeling it's going to be 2 hour meetings for the rest of the quarter...We need the time, though.
Oh, random thing, I got a free cookbook out of Amazon.com! I got a misship book (Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners) and I contacted them saying they misshipped the book. They replied saying to give them this set of letters and numbers on the bottom barcode so they can track the order and give me a new shipping label so I can mail it out. Well...weirdly...3/4 of the shipping label was missing. Somehow everything BUT my address and the Ontrac shipping number got ripped off. I told them I had the packing slip, but apparently that's not enough for them to track the order or too difficult or something because I got an e-mail reply back saying to just keep the book, free of charge, and that they "hope you'll consider this an isolated incident and give us another chance in the future." So weird, but...Hey! Free book! It retails at $35 and the person paid $23. I'll take it! It has some good recipes in it too. :P
In other news...Saw Easy A. I rather liked the movie. It's a more adult version of Mean Girls (language is more adultish and the topic too), but the acting was good and it was an interesting storyline. Instead of spreading rumors about others, though, it was more of a letting-a-rumor-take-over-your-life-and-how-it-destroys-it kind of thing. If you didn't know what the title meant...It's a reference to the Scarlett Letter and how getting her "A" (for adultery) was, well, easy. I liked it. It's not as funny as Mean Girls because Mean Girls has some truth in it about how girls in high school treat each other. This one was less satirical, I suppose. It also made fun of this Christian group too (which, they way they were portrayed, was...yeah...They were signing songs and holding hands underneath the gazebo at school and their big thing is they wanted to get rid of the the girl with the "A" (the main character actually starts wearing an "A" on her clothes -- again, Scarlett Letter plays a big role in this movie and its script)). So...yeah. I'd give it a B.
With that...today is my relax day before I hit the books tomorrow. I've got to come up with an environmental problem to write about for my issue brief for my environmental institutions class on Tuesday...No clue what to write. What I do want to write about isn't really the type of environmental problem I can solve with an institution (though it does stem from an anthropogenic issue) so I need to come up with something else to write about.
I still find I enjoy reading legal cases, though. I don't enjoy legalese, but I enjoy legal cases. That may be why I like County Board of Supervisor meetings too. It's like a legal case in person. People are arguing why their side is correct and they're like little histories in front of you as people explain about their lives and how something might affect them and the legal arguments within it. It's just interesting. Wouldn't want to do it for a full-time job (I think -- Bethany Taylor running for County Supervisor -- eh), but it's interesting. It's by far my favorite class and the reading is dense, but it's at least on a topic I enjoy and the prof is good.
My environmental institutions class is interesting...I like the prof on a personal level and he's more of a lecturer-seminar type prof, but he does run off into tangents and stories quite easily. It's actually pretty funny because he KNOWS he shouldn't say the story, but he runs through it anyway after a mini-battle with himself. It's slightly annoying, but his stories always end up being interesting/weird/funny in a good way so it's a toss up about whether he should or shouldn't do them from an interest level. The class goes by quickly if anything, which is good since it's at 10am and I'm still half asleep through it. There are only 10 of us in it so we're definitely small and hard to miss. The class, though, is going about issues in a way I never thought of before so it's been a learning experience. I don't particularly like the class still, but at least I'm learning something and something new for that matter.
We're basically going to be researching an environmental problem (one that is anthropogenically caused like air pollution, overfishing, deforestation, etc) and come up with an institution to fix it. You know, that's hard! If it was that easy to take this class and we could solve all our problems, we wouldn't have all these environmental problems anymore. It's particularly interesting because this book we're reading (Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom -- totally dense, but interesting and she won the 2009 Nobel Prize) has these "principles" to create a successful institution for common-pool resources and even she knows that applying all these are not fool proof. This class is like thinking "outside of the box" and, at the same time, thinking within it. Instead of using a central government to fix everything or privatization (both have their issues), can you create another type of institution (in this case, rules, but it can be an agency too. Right now in class we're talking about a set of rules) where the common-pool resource (CPR) is sustained over a long period of time and followed generation after generation? Ostrom lists these general principles that successful communities have followed to sustain the CPR and have everyone follow, but even she knows these principles can't fix everything. And, truthfully, her principles aren't anything mindboggling. They're things like clearly defined boundaries, collective-choice arrangements, graduated sanctions, etc. Individually, not innovative and, I like to think, the principles have been included in a lot of things, but got warped over time. So, anyway, that's basically what we're learning right now. It's complex, but I feel like I'm being taught to look at the issues with CPRs and think up new ways to try and solve them than our already worn out ways that don't seem to work. We'll see how it goes.
Conservation planning is pretty...boring...We're using GIS which has been fun. I haven't used it in 3-4 years so it's been a "Ohhh...I remember doing that!", but it's coming back to me pretty quickly. The only issue is that ArcGIS has a lot of quirks so it's relearning all those weird things again. It's going well, though. I apparently look "very knowledgeable" to my classmates because I've had a few people come up to me ask for help and comment on I look like I know it well. I am thankful for CSUMB's GIS lab, though. I feel like I REALLY learned the program when I took the class. I've talked to others who have been certified and my certification was much more intense than there's since we actually went out into the field with GPS units, plotted, came back, and combined all the different layers into one GIS map and manipulated it. We also covered a lot of things in the basic training too (making models for example). Making models was funny for me because the instructions our lab TA gave us were horrible. He missed random steps or didn't explain things well so a lot of deduction skills were involved to try and understand what he was trying to get us to do. Once I figured out he wanted us to make a model, it all clicked and then, weirdly, my brain suddenly remembered how to make a model. So weird. Weird things like remembering F5 is the refresh button for GIS came back too. It really has been a weird relearning process. It's good for the refresher now, though. I feel less guilty about putting the GIS certification on my resume now since I remember how to use GIS again. :) I'm still on the fence about taking the GIS class next quarter...I may or may not take it. I don't NEED it, but it might just be fun to take. I might talk to the prof and ask if I can drop in every once in a while. Anyway, conservation planning is boring and I doubt I'll learn much, but I am enjoying relearning GIS.
Group Project is...going. We're all feeling better about the project, but it's also a high stress level still. It's like we're almost there, but not quite there. So we're fine-tuning now, trying to do some last ditch research efforts, and writing drafts as they become complete. So..it's getting there. Deadlines this quarter are a little intense (our final paper is due March 18th in hard copy with our signatures), but it's moving. It's been a lot of "breathe...breathe...breathe" moments. We had a 2 hour meeting this last Wednesday and I have a feeling it's going to be 2 hour meetings for the rest of the quarter...We need the time, though.
Oh, random thing, I got a free cookbook out of Amazon.com! I got a misship book (Sara Moulton's Everyday Family Dinners) and I contacted them saying they misshipped the book. They replied saying to give them this set of letters and numbers on the bottom barcode so they can track the order and give me a new shipping label so I can mail it out. Well...weirdly...3/4 of the shipping label was missing. Somehow everything BUT my address and the Ontrac shipping number got ripped off. I told them I had the packing slip, but apparently that's not enough for them to track the order or too difficult or something because I got an e-mail reply back saying to just keep the book, free of charge, and that they "hope you'll consider this an isolated incident and give us another chance in the future." So weird, but...Hey! Free book! It retails at $35 and the person paid $23. I'll take it! It has some good recipes in it too. :P
In other news...Saw Easy A. I rather liked the movie. It's a more adult version of Mean Girls (language is more adultish and the topic too), but the acting was good and it was an interesting storyline. Instead of spreading rumors about others, though, it was more of a letting-a-rumor-take-over-your-life-and-how-it-destroys-it kind of thing. If you didn't know what the title meant...It's a reference to the Scarlett Letter and how getting her "A" (for adultery) was, well, easy. I liked it. It's not as funny as Mean Girls because Mean Girls has some truth in it about how girls in high school treat each other. This one was less satirical, I suppose. It also made fun of this Christian group too (which, they way they were portrayed, was...yeah...They were signing songs and holding hands underneath the gazebo at school and their big thing is they wanted to get rid of the the girl with the "A" (the main character actually starts wearing an "A" on her clothes -- again, Scarlett Letter plays a big role in this movie and its script)). So...yeah. I'd give it a B.
With that...today is my relax day before I hit the books tomorrow. I've got to come up with an environmental problem to write about for my issue brief for my environmental institutions class on Tuesday...No clue what to write. What I do want to write about isn't really the type of environmental problem I can solve with an institution (though it does stem from an anthropogenic issue) so I need to come up with something else to write about.
Horse of the Year: My Rant
Monday, Horse of the Year is announced. I'm going to hate 2010 if Zenyatta doesn't win it and I really don't have a gut feeling which way it'll go. The Daily Racing Forum is leaning towards Blame and they have a voting interest, but I'm not sure about the other 2 groups. If Blame wins, he'll only ever be known as the "only horse to ever beat Zenyatta" and "the horse that beat Zenyatta for HOY". He'll never have the title for his accomplishments for the year, as people are saying he should be voted for. He'll be judged, for the rest of history, for ONE fact and one fact alone -- he beat Zenyatta. Boring horse to have for HOY. (I still refuse to admit Curlin won it two years in a row -- lame-o). I still can't believe Goldikova is on the ballot for HoY. Really? She's raced ONCE in the US and, underneath the voting regulations, they must have raced once in the US, but still. If Goldikova wins it, there is seriously no justice in this World and the US might as well unrevolutionize itself from Britain because it obviously is favoring European horses for some bizarre reason. I admit she's amazing, but NOT enough for a HOY vote and at least ONE person is voting for her. Talk about no base for a vote...With that reasoning, you might as well vote me for HOY.
But...there are two sides to the coin. I think if it was any normal year, Blame would win HOY and no one would have second guessed it; however, the phenomenon Zenyatta created has been unlike any horse in modern times (most people say they don't remember this type of hype since Secretariat and he won the Triple Crown in 1973). She did run a good year, even if it wasn't amazing. The year that Azeri (a female horse) won HoY, her year was pretty unspectacular, but no other horse had an amazing year either. So the award kind of defaulted to her (I think she was like 6th in the BC Classic too and it was her only race against males). It was kind of a weird year in horse racing when no one dominated. Anyway, the horse racing industry is kind of straddling a sticky point. Any other year, Blame should/would have won HOY without any debate, but...they don't want to alienate and be criticized by all the fans who want Zenyatta to win too. And, let's face it, no horse has had THIS much pressure to win HOY in, well, I don't think ever. If she doesn't win, it'll polarize a lot of people. If she does win, she'll polarize a lot of people. There are some who are trying to stick to tradition (horse racing is quite the traditionalist and superstitious sport) and there are those who are, well, more emotional in their voting. I do like some opinions I've read about Zenyatta. Regardless of their prestige or the depth of the field, Zenyatta has won the most Grade 1 wins, will be a memorable HOY, and has been more consistent than Blame (I think her margin of wins has been greater than his overall and her margin of loss was lengths shorter than his loss this year). I think there's a rational explanation in there for why she should win, but good ol' tradition may win out. Then again, maybe the racing industry will surprise me and Zenyatta will win based on public opinion.
Female HoY, by the way, are incredibly rare. The award has been around (or awards -- The Eclipse Awards are more than just Horse of the Year, but also divisions) since 1887. Of those 120+ awards awarded, only 10 females have won HOY. That's almost shameful, but it's also the way the US runs its horses. There is more of a division between male and female runners in the US than there are in the other countries (Europe and Japan tend to run females/males together more often). The males are the big money earners so most of the big purses are also in male races (females are allowed in all male races as long as their age is appropriate, but it's rare -- which is why Zenyatta winning the BC Classic last year was HUGE), but it's also most of the prestigious races in the US are male races too. So, it's really no wonder that the males tend to dominate HOY. I think all females who have won HOY (except maybe one or two) have ran significant races against males. Rachael Alexandra's HOY win last year was because she won the Preakness (leg of the Triple Crown against 3yo males) and won the Woodward (race against older males). She ran the more prestigious races even though Zenyatta won against males once last year (which some are saying was an "inferior field" compared to RA's male won races).
So...yeah...I don't know. This was simply a rant about HOY more than a logical explanation for why Zenyatta should win or not. Her team was recently awarded a "special award" (big whoop) about, well, Zenyatta, which has made some worried that this means she didn't win and they're just trying to "appease the fans". I'm not so sure. I'm really on the fence about who will win. I will be extremely sad if she loses, though. She had raced in "bad" years because some say she should have won 3 years ago (her first year of racing) when Curlin won his 2nd HoY (she was nominated for HOY that year). He won it for very little reason other than the fact he was a favorite all year long and no one else outshone him (kind of like Azeri). I never thought he should have won that year and he did. I admit RA probably should have won last year over Zenyatta, but I wasn't happy that RA quit halfway through the year too (if she raced the full year, I think I would have been happier with her winning HOY). Actually, I'm pretty upset with her owners for this year too. RA was not handled well, but that's another story and topic. I'd feel bad if Blame didn't win, but it'd feel like an injustice if Zenyatta didn't win. There are no strict rules about who you should/shouldn't vote for. It's all subjective and this year Eclipse Awards might just cause them to redo the entire way you vote for future years because, no matter who wins, one side is going to be completely bent out of shape about it. There IS no clear way how to vote and there is justification for both horses to win. Last year they could have solved the problem by allowing co-HOY (RA and Zenyatta), but they have refused that option and so they have dug themselves into a hole that will leave someone bent out of shape. If she wins, at least the nation will be peaceful because she has over 58,000 fans on Facebook. Granted, a few thousand of those don't live in the US and a few other thousand don't care about HOY and/or are indifferent and/or are Blame and Zenyatta fans, but I'd still say about 45-50,000 are rooting for her HOY win.
You know...I'm finding through her blog and FB that most Zenyatta fans are a little crazy. It's like politics in the horse racing world. Did you know there is a PETITION for her to win HOY? There are buttons that say "Zenyatta HOY"? She has a "Zenyatta HOTY 2010" page too. Both sides have given their opinion about why their horse should win too. It's truly crazy. If I thought last year's HOY race was crazy, it's NOTHING like this year. People are quite sensitive about Blame arguments to win and some Zenyatta fans have gotten down right nasty too. I don't endorse that, but it's crazy! So, yes, Monday, January 17th will be a "touchy" day for race horse fans. The Eclipse Awards are in Florida this year (never knew they went to other places since they've been in Beverly Hills every year that I remember of) and it should be interesting...
But...there are two sides to the coin. I think if it was any normal year, Blame would win HOY and no one would have second guessed it; however, the phenomenon Zenyatta created has been unlike any horse in modern times (most people say they don't remember this type of hype since Secretariat and he won the Triple Crown in 1973). She did run a good year, even if it wasn't amazing. The year that Azeri (a female horse) won HoY, her year was pretty unspectacular, but no other horse had an amazing year either. So the award kind of defaulted to her (I think she was like 6th in the BC Classic too and it was her only race against males). It was kind of a weird year in horse racing when no one dominated. Anyway, the horse racing industry is kind of straddling a sticky point. Any other year, Blame should/would have won HOY without any debate, but...they don't want to alienate and be criticized by all the fans who want Zenyatta to win too. And, let's face it, no horse has had THIS much pressure to win HOY in, well, I don't think ever. If she doesn't win, it'll polarize a lot of people. If she does win, she'll polarize a lot of people. There are some who are trying to stick to tradition (horse racing is quite the traditionalist and superstitious sport) and there are those who are, well, more emotional in their voting. I do like some opinions I've read about Zenyatta. Regardless of their prestige or the depth of the field, Zenyatta has won the most Grade 1 wins, will be a memorable HOY, and has been more consistent than Blame (I think her margin of wins has been greater than his overall and her margin of loss was lengths shorter than his loss this year). I think there's a rational explanation in there for why she should win, but good ol' tradition may win out. Then again, maybe the racing industry will surprise me and Zenyatta will win based on public opinion.
Female HoY, by the way, are incredibly rare. The award has been around (or awards -- The Eclipse Awards are more than just Horse of the Year, but also divisions) since 1887. Of those 120+ awards awarded, only 10 females have won HOY. That's almost shameful, but it's also the way the US runs its horses. There is more of a division between male and female runners in the US than there are in the other countries (Europe and Japan tend to run females/males together more often). The males are the big money earners so most of the big purses are also in male races (females are allowed in all male races as long as their age is appropriate, but it's rare -- which is why Zenyatta winning the BC Classic last year was HUGE), but it's also most of the prestigious races in the US are male races too. So, it's really no wonder that the males tend to dominate HOY. I think all females who have won HOY (except maybe one or two) have ran significant races against males. Rachael Alexandra's HOY win last year was because she won the Preakness (leg of the Triple Crown against 3yo males) and won the Woodward (race against older males). She ran the more prestigious races even though Zenyatta won against males once last year (which some are saying was an "inferior field" compared to RA's male won races).
So...yeah...I don't know. This was simply a rant about HOY more than a logical explanation for why Zenyatta should win or not. Her team was recently awarded a "special award" (big whoop) about, well, Zenyatta, which has made some worried that this means she didn't win and they're just trying to "appease the fans". I'm not so sure. I'm really on the fence about who will win. I will be extremely sad if she loses, though. She had raced in "bad" years because some say she should have won 3 years ago (her first year of racing) when Curlin won his 2nd HoY (she was nominated for HOY that year). He won it for very little reason other than the fact he was a favorite all year long and no one else outshone him (kind of like Azeri). I never thought he should have won that year and he did. I admit RA probably should have won last year over Zenyatta, but I wasn't happy that RA quit halfway through the year too (if she raced the full year, I think I would have been happier with her winning HOY). Actually, I'm pretty upset with her owners for this year too. RA was not handled well, but that's another story and topic. I'd feel bad if Blame didn't win, but it'd feel like an injustice if Zenyatta didn't win. There are no strict rules about who you should/shouldn't vote for. It's all subjective and this year Eclipse Awards might just cause them to redo the entire way you vote for future years because, no matter who wins, one side is going to be completely bent out of shape about it. There IS no clear way how to vote and there is justification for both horses to win. Last year they could have solved the problem by allowing co-HOY (RA and Zenyatta), but they have refused that option and so they have dug themselves into a hole that will leave someone bent out of shape. If she wins, at least the nation will be peaceful because she has over 58,000 fans on Facebook. Granted, a few thousand of those don't live in the US and a few other thousand don't care about HOY and/or are indifferent and/or are Blame and Zenyatta fans, but I'd still say about 45-50,000 are rooting for her HOY win.
You know...I'm finding through her blog and FB that most Zenyatta fans are a little crazy. It's like politics in the horse racing world. Did you know there is a PETITION for her to win HOY? There are buttons that say "Zenyatta HOY"? She has a "Zenyatta HOTY 2010" page too. Both sides have given their opinion about why their horse should win too. It's truly crazy. If I thought last year's HOY race was crazy, it's NOTHING like this year. People are quite sensitive about Blame arguments to win and some Zenyatta fans have gotten down right nasty too. I don't endorse that, but it's crazy! So, yes, Monday, January 17th will be a "touchy" day for race horse fans. The Eclipse Awards are in Florida this year (never knew they went to other places since they've been in Beverly Hills every year that I remember of) and it should be interesting...
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Welcome back to school -- Have a dose of stress!
The first week back to classes. I have class tomorrow morning (Thurs) and have my GP meeting and a workshop on Friday (that'll be a looooong day), but I'm through hump day.
I found out today (as did the rest of my classmates) the GP defense schedule. My group is presenting second out of ALL the groups! We present at 9:45am-10:25am on Friday, February 4th. All presentations (and Q&A) are 40 minutes long with a 5 minute switch in between. We'll get the logistics of the presentation within the next week (exactly how long our presentations can be, what's expected, etc), but that means 4 weeks from Friday I will be presenting our GP...STRESS! However, I am glad I'm presenting at the defense and not the final presentation. I will feel loads better knowing my speaking role will be finished. :) I feel like we have tons more work to do in between now and then, though. I am glad I'm presenting with my friend. We're taking hold of the presentation now so we can get it the way we feel comfortable presenting it. In addition to the defense, we have our final paper due at the end of the quarter and our draft due shortly after our defenses. When a quarter is 10 weeks long (11 weeks with finals week), that's NOT a whole lot of time to get things done when you're also taking normal classes and some of us in our group works. Ugh. Stress!
In other news, I will have a 2-week Spring Break! My one final is a take home final and, for whatever reason, we get it in week 8 instead of week 10 or 11. My other two classes have group papers/presentations the last week or two of classes and, of course, GP has nothing in finals week. So...Two week spring break!! Yes!
As for my actual classes, they're okay...I'm not enamored of all the group papers, but I'll live. I'm taking conservation planning (ESM 270) and it's the same prof I had last quarter for environmental modeling. The class is Mon and Wed from 2:30pm to 3:45pm. She has a marine background so the class will have some relevancy for me. If Frank Davis had taught it this year, it would have been land based and been a little less relevant for me. Now that it's marine related...Perfect! We'll see how this goes, though. She's a nice lady, but not a fantastic professor. This class has a group paper/presentation and she wants it scientific paper publishing quality. So...that's a little intimidating, but I have a good friend in the class with me so that'll be nice to work with her.
My other class is environmental institutions (ESM 248) and it's Tues/Thurs from 10-11:15am (a little bit of a rough time, I admit it). I was not (and am not) excited about the class, but it's a requirement for my specialization. It'll be interesting, I think, since we're talking about institutions and how they can be applied to environmental issues and the problems with the common ones of today (private property, central governments, etc). On the downside, it's just not a class I'd normally be drawn too so that has its downsides. The professor is interesting, though. I'm still deciding whether he's going to be an unorganized professor or simply one that has a mind that runs in a million directions and will be okay. He talks quickly and randomly remembers different things in the middle of what he's saying and runs off on that thought instead. Sometimes he simply forgot to go BACK to the original thought and we'd have to remind him. On the upside, he's a laugh-er. He does not have an issue with laughing at himself or anything. At the end of class he wanted us to write our names on a piece of paper and write an interesting story he could associate our names to (to help him learn our names since he's bad at remembering names). He specified stories could not be about illness or injuries (since they lack the personal touch when you write "I broke my arm") and if it was about traveling, it had to be something different. It couldn't just be "I went to England." He read all the stories out loud (he told us this early) and we laughed for about the last 20 minutes of class at the stories. It was actually quite fun and we learned something new about our fellow students too. BTW, there are only 10-12 of us in the class. So we're a SMALL group. We also have a group paper in this class and he's going to have us "judged" by another Bren prof during our presentation. He's also stressing writing in this class. So we're writing two memos, 1 op-ed piece (he wants it be like an op-ed piece you'd see in a newspaper or magazine), 1 brief, and our final paper will be a white paper. I've never written an op-ed before. It should be interesting.
My other class is an advance course so it's once a week and it's about Coastal Zone Law (Tues from 1-2:15pm). It's right up my alley since the prof who's teaching it has a JD, but is now a prof at MSI (Marine Science Institute). So it sounds like we'll be learning more about the actual laws in California. I've already learned something, actually. California's jurisdiction is out to 3 nautical miles and our Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ - fed gov) is from 3-200 nautical miles. Did you know that our territorial seas is only to 12 nautical miles and anything beyond 12 nautical miles is technically open seas? Who'd of thunk. I always thought open seas was past the EEZ since, well, within the EEZ the US (and other countries after the US declared this) has declared claim over all living and nonliving resources. When I normally hear "open seas", I think of pirates, uncharted waters (those don't really exist anymore), and dangerous areas that are unruled by any country. I kind of feel like my fantasy about the "open seas" is a little dashed now by legal terms. :P It's all quite confusing, though. For example, most countries have a 24 nautical mile contiguous zone, but since the US never ratified those treaties, we only have a 12 nautical mile contiguous zone. In addition, why do we have a 12 nm territorial sea and a 12 nm contiguous zone? Anyway, there's a lot of weird overlap like that so I'm learning about that! We also watched an interesting video the first day (partly) called "Coastal Clash" that was done by KQED. It was interesting and I'd like to see the rest of it. It was mostly about beach rights/laws and homeowners. You know...People own waterfront property so they want to restrict the beaches from public access (against the law) and homeowners have their homes falling into the ocean so they want to put a seawall in. Anyway, it was interesting and I'm excited about the class.
My last class is another advanced course, but it's an intensive course. Sadly, the class is the week before my GP defense. I also have 2 assignments due the same week as the intensive course. So, it will be long days that one week (Jan 24-28). I will have 3 hours extra of class each day. That class is international law and I don't know anything else about it since it's just the one week. Should be interesting and rather stressful.
My last class, of course, is GP. So I'm taking 16 units this quarter, but really 14 for the ENTIRE quarter since that one advanced class is only 2 units and it's one week (all advanced classes are 2 units).
Well, with that, it's time to go to bed. I got class in 10 hours...Ick.
I found out today (as did the rest of my classmates) the GP defense schedule. My group is presenting second out of ALL the groups! We present at 9:45am-10:25am on Friday, February 4th. All presentations (and Q&A) are 40 minutes long with a 5 minute switch in between. We'll get the logistics of the presentation within the next week (exactly how long our presentations can be, what's expected, etc), but that means 4 weeks from Friday I will be presenting our GP...STRESS! However, I am glad I'm presenting at the defense and not the final presentation. I will feel loads better knowing my speaking role will be finished. :) I feel like we have tons more work to do in between now and then, though. I am glad I'm presenting with my friend. We're taking hold of the presentation now so we can get it the way we feel comfortable presenting it. In addition to the defense, we have our final paper due at the end of the quarter and our draft due shortly after our defenses. When a quarter is 10 weeks long (11 weeks with finals week), that's NOT a whole lot of time to get things done when you're also taking normal classes and some of us in our group works. Ugh. Stress!
In other news, I will have a 2-week Spring Break! My one final is a take home final and, for whatever reason, we get it in week 8 instead of week 10 or 11. My other two classes have group papers/presentations the last week or two of classes and, of course, GP has nothing in finals week. So...Two week spring break!! Yes!
As for my actual classes, they're okay...I'm not enamored of all the group papers, but I'll live. I'm taking conservation planning (ESM 270) and it's the same prof I had last quarter for environmental modeling. The class is Mon and Wed from 2:30pm to 3:45pm. She has a marine background so the class will have some relevancy for me. If Frank Davis had taught it this year, it would have been land based and been a little less relevant for me. Now that it's marine related...Perfect! We'll see how this goes, though. She's a nice lady, but not a fantastic professor. This class has a group paper/presentation and she wants it scientific paper publishing quality. So...that's a little intimidating, but I have a good friend in the class with me so that'll be nice to work with her.
My other class is environmental institutions (ESM 248) and it's Tues/Thurs from 10-11:15am (a little bit of a rough time, I admit it). I was not (and am not) excited about the class, but it's a requirement for my specialization. It'll be interesting, I think, since we're talking about institutions and how they can be applied to environmental issues and the problems with the common ones of today (private property, central governments, etc). On the downside, it's just not a class I'd normally be drawn too so that has its downsides. The professor is interesting, though. I'm still deciding whether he's going to be an unorganized professor or simply one that has a mind that runs in a million directions and will be okay. He talks quickly and randomly remembers different things in the middle of what he's saying and runs off on that thought instead. Sometimes he simply forgot to go BACK to the original thought and we'd have to remind him. On the upside, he's a laugh-er. He does not have an issue with laughing at himself or anything. At the end of class he wanted us to write our names on a piece of paper and write an interesting story he could associate our names to (to help him learn our names since he's bad at remembering names). He specified stories could not be about illness or injuries (since they lack the personal touch when you write "I broke my arm") and if it was about traveling, it had to be something different. It couldn't just be "I went to England." He read all the stories out loud (he told us this early) and we laughed for about the last 20 minutes of class at the stories. It was actually quite fun and we learned something new about our fellow students too. BTW, there are only 10-12 of us in the class. So we're a SMALL group. We also have a group paper in this class and he's going to have us "judged" by another Bren prof during our presentation. He's also stressing writing in this class. So we're writing two memos, 1 op-ed piece (he wants it be like an op-ed piece you'd see in a newspaper or magazine), 1 brief, and our final paper will be a white paper. I've never written an op-ed before. It should be interesting.
My other class is an advance course so it's once a week and it's about Coastal Zone Law (Tues from 1-2:15pm). It's right up my alley since the prof who's teaching it has a JD, but is now a prof at MSI (Marine Science Institute). So it sounds like we'll be learning more about the actual laws in California. I've already learned something, actually. California's jurisdiction is out to 3 nautical miles and our Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ - fed gov) is from 3-200 nautical miles. Did you know that our territorial seas is only to 12 nautical miles and anything beyond 12 nautical miles is technically open seas? Who'd of thunk. I always thought open seas was past the EEZ since, well, within the EEZ the US (and other countries after the US declared this) has declared claim over all living and nonliving resources. When I normally hear "open seas", I think of pirates, uncharted waters (those don't really exist anymore), and dangerous areas that are unruled by any country. I kind of feel like my fantasy about the "open seas" is a little dashed now by legal terms. :P It's all quite confusing, though. For example, most countries have a 24 nautical mile contiguous zone, but since the US never ratified those treaties, we only have a 12 nautical mile contiguous zone. In addition, why do we have a 12 nm territorial sea and a 12 nm contiguous zone? Anyway, there's a lot of weird overlap like that so I'm learning about that! We also watched an interesting video the first day (partly) called "Coastal Clash" that was done by KQED. It was interesting and I'd like to see the rest of it. It was mostly about beach rights/laws and homeowners. You know...People own waterfront property so they want to restrict the beaches from public access (against the law) and homeowners have their homes falling into the ocean so they want to put a seawall in. Anyway, it was interesting and I'm excited about the class.
My last class is another advanced course, but it's an intensive course. Sadly, the class is the week before my GP defense. I also have 2 assignments due the same week as the intensive course. So, it will be long days that one week (Jan 24-28). I will have 3 hours extra of class each day. That class is international law and I don't know anything else about it since it's just the one week. Should be interesting and rather stressful.
My last class, of course, is GP. So I'm taking 16 units this quarter, but really 14 for the ENTIRE quarter since that one advanced class is only 2 units and it's one week (all advanced classes are 2 units).
Well, with that, it's time to go to bed. I got class in 10 hours...Ick.
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