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My advisor has basically told me to stop writing and coding and reading for a bit and sit around brainstorming. So. Time to scribble some concept maps until I come up with a hypothesis. I also got to meet his other grad students and they are both interesting people, though I might not see very much more of them.
R and I practiced ice dance on our own today - we're supposed to be signed up for the first beginner adult test on the 25th, though I think currently only I am signed up and, uh, the deadline passed on Saturday (this is why we should do things ahead of time - it was a confusing process). Anyway, we dodged a lot of children today, and while we noted some things we need to ask our coach about, I think we also made progress. The area above my knees aches now, which I was worrying about for a little while before I realized that the 'straighten your leg yes really ALL THE WAY' muscles are there, and I have been working on knee straightening the past couple of sessions.
A nonny on meme linked to an article about the Finnish girls' hobbbyhorse riding competition... hobby. Thanks to a family member's Prime login, I went ahead and watched the documentary about it, Hobbyhorse Revolution.
This is one of those documentaries where the filmmakers shut up and let the stories happen. There's no narration at any point; it doesn't go 'well, you might think this is weird, but...' or anything like that. It doesn't judge, but it also doesn't explain how the sport works or have the girls explain it at all. By the end of the film, I still didn't feel like I knew very much, even though I was kind of curious.
It starts out by introducing the various aspects of the hobby - having fun with friends, trail 'riding', practicing, competing, making the hobbyhorses - before it gets into the drama of the main girls' lives and emerges into a hopeful ending showing how they are changing for the better and growing up (without growing out of hobbyhorses). Note: there is some darker stuff in the middle that you might not expect from a documentary about a niche teenage girl hobby. One girl is going through family issues and is in foster care for a while; another has been very badly bullied and is working through mental health troubles.
Overall, I enjoyed the film. To be honest, the first few minutes of watching these girls run around with their hobbyhorses were kind of weird, though I don't mean that in a judgemental sort of way. I mean, I have weird hobbies myself. I am all for people enjoying their harmless weird hobbies. (And hey, this one provides opportunities for creativity and leadership and is good exercise - you could see them really working when they were running around on trails or jumping through their routines.) It kind of reminded me of people playing the Petz games coming up with all these rules for 'shows', and even a sub-subculture of players emerging based on showing and breeding modded horses, all very serious and elaborate.
By the end of the documentary, though, I got used to seeing them riding around on their hobbyhorse sticks. I thought it was an interesting peek into a world that I didn't know existed. They did a good job of picking their protagonists, who are at different places in life and in the community, and who have very different personalities. One I just wanted to wrap up in a blanket, while another was sometimes sympathetic and sometimes not very likable in a realistic teenage way. There's also an undercurrent of Girl Power that comes out in a few scenes (most explicitly when an insert song starts off with 'you aren't made from anyone's rib').
I think the editing of the documentary could have been better - for example, I was confused at one point for several minutes as to whether a woman shown with one of the main girls was an adult she knew, such as a friend's parent, or her own mother. There were a few times when I got a bit lost with the subtitles, though generally the translation was idiomatic (and good from the viewpoint of someone who knows no Finnish). They also use 'Chandelier' for an insert song in one scene where it really doesn't fit and it felt inappropriate.
I also wished that the filmmakers had provided a little more in the film - why is it only girls? Are there any boys into it at all? Did Finland also go through horses are manly creatures -> pony books are for girls? How did the hobby originate? What differentiates someone who's good and bad at it besides having more limb control? How does it work??? I was still somewhat unsatisfied at the end, but I did like watching it and would give it a thumbs-up.
R and I practiced ice dance on our own today - we're supposed to be signed up for the first beginner adult test on the 25th, though I think currently only I am signed up and, uh, the deadline passed on Saturday (this is why we should do things ahead of time - it was a confusing process). Anyway, we dodged a lot of children today, and while we noted some things we need to ask our coach about, I think we also made progress. The area above my knees aches now, which I was worrying about for a little while before I realized that the 'straighten your leg yes really ALL THE WAY' muscles are there, and I have been working on knee straightening the past couple of sessions.
A nonny on meme linked to an article about the Finnish girls' hobbbyhorse riding competition... hobby. Thanks to a family member's Prime login, I went ahead and watched the documentary about it, Hobbyhorse Revolution.
This is one of those documentaries where the filmmakers shut up and let the stories happen. There's no narration at any point; it doesn't go 'well, you might think this is weird, but...' or anything like that. It doesn't judge, but it also doesn't explain how the sport works or have the girls explain it at all. By the end of the film, I still didn't feel like I knew very much, even though I was kind of curious.
It starts out by introducing the various aspects of the hobby - having fun with friends, trail 'riding', practicing, competing, making the hobbyhorses - before it gets into the drama of the main girls' lives and emerges into a hopeful ending showing how they are changing for the better and growing up (without growing out of hobbyhorses). Note: there is some darker stuff in the middle that you might not expect from a documentary about a niche teenage girl hobby. One girl is going through family issues and is in foster care for a while; another has been very badly bullied and is working through mental health troubles.
Overall, I enjoyed the film. To be honest, the first few minutes of watching these girls run around with their hobbyhorses were kind of weird, though I don't mean that in a judgemental sort of way. I mean, I have weird hobbies myself. I am all for people enjoying their harmless weird hobbies. (And hey, this one provides opportunities for creativity and leadership and is good exercise - you could see them really working when they were running around on trails or jumping through their routines.) It kind of reminded me of people playing the Petz games coming up with all these rules for 'shows', and even a sub-subculture of players emerging based on showing and breeding modded horses, all very serious and elaborate.
By the end of the documentary, though, I got used to seeing them riding around on their hobbyhorse sticks. I thought it was an interesting peek into a world that I didn't know existed. They did a good job of picking their protagonists, who are at different places in life and in the community, and who have very different personalities. One I just wanted to wrap up in a blanket, while another was sometimes sympathetic and sometimes not very likable in a realistic teenage way. There's also an undercurrent of Girl Power that comes out in a few scenes (most explicitly when an insert song starts off with 'you aren't made from anyone's rib').
I think the editing of the documentary could have been better - for example, I was confused at one point for several minutes as to whether a woman shown with one of the main girls was an adult she knew, such as a friend's parent, or her own mother. There were a few times when I got a bit lost with the subtitles, though generally the translation was idiomatic (and good from the viewpoint of someone who knows no Finnish). They also use 'Chandelier' for an insert song in one scene where it really doesn't fit and it felt inappropriate.
I also wished that the filmmakers had provided a little more in the film - why is it only girls? Are there any boys into it at all? Did Finland also go through horses are manly creatures -> pony books are for girls? How did the hobby originate? What differentiates someone who's good and bad at it besides having more limb control? How does it work??? I was still somewhat unsatisfied at the end, but I did like watching it and would give it a thumbs-up.
