In June

Early June started Early. No -- really really early. I was invited to give three keynote talks in an online workshop that was running in the US, in the Texas time zone. My talks ran from 4-5pm in Texas. Which was 7am in Melbourne. The other talks started at 3:30am. I thought I might try to make it to the 3:30am talks. But I couldn't. I'm just ... not ... strong enough to get up for 3:30am talks. I made it to the 5:00am talks three days in a row. And that was hard, and I may have kind of dozed off during a couple of them. But I stayed awake through my own online talks. Although wow. It is really hard to give three online talks three days in a row.

In June, Jonathan says he "sat my examinations. And got really stressed for no reason." That's a direct quote. You notice that Jonathan speaks Australian. He doesn't take exams. He sits them. But getting really stressed for no reason seems to be a family problem. His friend Edward came back for a visit. Edward graduated from high school with Jonathan but then returned to Singapore to do his mandatory military service. He had a week of leave, which he took here in Melbourne. During that week, he and Jonathan and other friends planned to take a few train trips and have adventures. They went to Ballan and hiked to a lake. The next morning, Jonathan got a text from Edward: Edward had tested positive for Covid. So that was the end of the adventures, and Edward got to go back to the Singapore military after a fun week of isolation in Melbourne.

Tim says that he spent his June hanging out and avoiding being Covid-positive in spite of all our close contacts. Boring, Tim. Boring.

The other thing I did in June was travel to my first international conference since 2019. I went to Austin, Texas. There were three flights involved, in theory, to get from Melbourne to Sydney to LA to Austin. I got a message the night before the trip saying that my flight from Sydney had been delayed 90 minutes, and I'd been put on a later flight from LA to Austin. I wondered if I might bump back my flight from Melbourne to Sydney as well, so I didn't have to get up at 4am. But in the end I just got up at 4am and headed to the Melbourne airport. And that was a good thing, because it took me the extra 90 minutes to stand in security lines in Sydney, where a lot of staff had called in sick with the flu and Covid -- people get sick in the winter in a pandemic. 

 

The 14 hour flight from Sydney to LA was fine. When I got off the plane in the US, I went through customs, and sent my bag along to the connecting flight. When I tried to get my boarding pass to send myself along to the connecting flight, I was told it had been cancelled -- but not until after I had stood in a two hour line.

 

They put me on a new flight the next day, and booked a hotel room for me right next to the airport. 

 

I slept. Got up rested. Went to check in for my new flight. Unfortunately, someone had screwed up the booking the day before, and I was not on the flight. I had to walk 30 minutes to the other side of the airport to try to fix it. And then walk back. And then I still couldn't check in. Another long line. 

 

As I reached the front, and the helpful woman at the desk took my ticket and proceeded to make frowny faces and spend 15 quiet minutes typety typing, I thought -- maybe it is too early in the pandemic to be flying internationally. And then: If she sends me back to the other side of the airport, I am going to just get in line there and demand that they put me back on the next flight home to Melbourne. 

 

But to make a long story less long than I've already made it, she put me on a late flight to Austin instead. I got to spend the next 9 hours in LAX, but at least they were 9 hours inside security, with restaurants and chairs and not standing in lines. So ok. And I made it to Austin in time for the conference. 

 

And Austin is still as hot as it ever was in June when we used to live there. I did things like buy a massive container of Excedrin migraine pills at Target -- because they don't sell those in Australia, and after two and a half years of a pandemic, I was down to my last three pills. 

 

 

I walked around the Capital building, since it was near my hotel. The last time we were so close to the Texas capital, we were watching a Thanksgiving parade with a two year old Jonathan. 

 

I also checked out all the podiums on the University of Texas campus where the Confederate statues have been removed. And I walked down to the Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk to see bats -- which I never did when I lived there. 

 

On campus, of course the tower is still there.

Texas barbecue still tasty.

The turtle pond is still there.

But the fountain where we used to get off the bus, and the rock garden from my days of taking Jonathan to day care, are now gone, no trace. That was a long time ago.

 

The conference was very nice. Though hot. And the day after the conference dinner, we all received email that multiple people had tested positive for Covid. So watch for symptoms! I made it home with no symptoms, and no flight cancellations, even with three flights. *Phew*

 

In June.