In Korea

I am in Korea this week. It is my first time in Korea ever.

In case you have never experienced it, it can be very scary to be all by yourself in a country you've never been to. Where you don't speak the language. Where you can't even read the street signs. Where the basic unit of money is not a dollar or a pound or even 100 cents, but is measured in multiples of 1000. My taxi cost 80,000 won. I think that was about 80 dollars. I withdrew 300,000 units from the ATM. I have never ever withdrawn 300,000 anythings from an ATM, and I tell you it is terrifying to see that number on the screen and click "yes, I really mean it -- really take out 300,000 of them." And then clutch your heart and hope that your account isn't overdrawn.

It is very scary to be in a place where nothing you read makes any sense at all. For example, the following sign is posted on the wall of my hotel bathroom.

I cannot make any sense of that. The first two lines are completely unreadable. The second two lines seem to say, "Please put toilet paper into the trash bin." But that doesn't make any sense. Because toilet paper? That bin is unlined, guys. They can't really mean all toilet paper, can they? I mean, the used paper? Wouldn't that, um, stink a little? But do you think maybe there is a plumbing problem, and if I don't follow the instructions on that sign, then there will be worse things coming out of the bathroom than stink?

This is what I mean. It is really, really scary to be all by yourself in a place where you can't make any sense of the instructions printed on the bathroom wall.

You know, if the pipes are big enough to accommodate the solid waste that I am putting into the toilet, I am going to guess that the pipes can accommodate a little toilet paper too. So that sign cannot make any sense.

Speaking of toilets, the hotel toilet is amazing. The first thing you notice when you use it -- every single time  -- is that the seat is heated. You wouldn't think that would make such a difference in life, especially when the bathroom isn't cold to start with. But it makes a difference. Wow. I could sit there all night.

And then you notice the buttons on the side of the toilet.

Zoom in a little:

I cannot read the instructions on my toilet. There is a square, a bum made out of raindrops, a bum made out of raindrops with an traffic cone on it, three waves, a baby with AUTO printed over its head, some greater-than and less-than signs, and then random symbols and a fan. 

Since I could not make any sense of the other buttons, I tried the button AUTO first. And wow, guys. AUTO is amazing. AUTO means a warm-water massage while you receive the world on your heated throne. Followed by a little blow dry. AUTO was totally totally awesome! I cannot recommend AUTO highly enough.

And I think AUTO may also help us to reach a compromise with the toilet paper situation. After AUTO has done his work, less toilet paper is required. But lest you get the wrong idea, some toilet paper is definitely still required. And that toilet paper is definitely not going into the bin after being needed in that way. I don't care what that sign says in the bathroom.

Colder

The weather has taken a turn towards cold. Colder, at least. It was rainy this weekend, with the high never popping over 20 degrees centigrade. Doing a little mathematics (divide by 5, times 9, plus 32) that's... almost 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It didn't feel like almost 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It felt cold. I pulled out our winter down comforter and wore cozy sweaters and socks around the house.

Up the street, there was construction.

It's one of the same projects I described last week.

A couple more days, and the trams will be running again. But the new train line will be under construction for years. Even so, we don't really get much noise from where we live. As long as the trams go back to normal, things should be good.

Public transport

We survived the first week of School Holidays. And we are mostly in good shape.

These are the holidays of the Great Public Transit expansion. The city is working on all the train and tram lines at once, it seems.

For the next week and a half, there will be no trams on the stretch of road in front of our house, while digging begins on a new train station that will be located just up the street.

And there are no trains running on my usual train line, while they move the rail lines high above the road to free up traffic congestion.

All these improvements will be lovely when they are eventually finished (a sign said 2026 for the new train station). But it is somewhat annoying to have all our usual transit routes unavailable all at the same time.

So what have we been doing about it? More walking.

Walking to shopping, walking to outings, walking. Lucky for us we are in good health. And the weather has been perfect -- not too hot, not too cold. Although with the recent time change the evenings are very dark again.

We will endure. Soon after Jonathan goes back to school for term 2, the trams will be running again.

***

On Monday, we went to see the movie Ready Player One, and watched all the credits. This time, we found two people we know in them -- Collette and cousin Heidi! Way to go, people we know. We feel extra cool to know you and to find your names in the movie credits while we're on the other side of the ocean from you.

And more excitement: right as we left the movie, the casino was running its fire show.

Happy flames to you.

Out and about

Happy Easter weekend.

Last Friday, Good Friday, was the second most major holiday in Australia. There are only two days per year that certain museums, shops, etc close. One is Christmas. The other is Good Friday. (Not Easter.) We all had the day off. And we get Monday off as well. Jonathan's school holidays have now started, and he gets two weeks away from school. I have one week of semester break, then one final week of teaching, and then I hand off the lecturing to someone else for the second half of the semester. That's another crazy thing that happens here: half semester teaching gigs. It's convenient though, because I'll be attending a big pile of conferences in the second half of the semester, and I don't have to find substitutes for teaching.

So what have we done with our few days of freedom?

We talked about booking a car and driving somewhere, but the roads out of town were expected to be busy. And it sounded more fun and relaxing to hang out at our house with a big pile of novels and just read through the weekend, taking occasional breaks for fresh air and walking. So that's what we've done. So far, I'm 3/4 of the way through a trilogy. And I've walked a few times around the park out the back. Yesterday we took a tram to a different park a little closer to the central business district, and walked around it for a change of scenery. Here is a picture of Jonathan against different scenery.

It was sunny -- a warm and lovely autumn day.

Yes, Jonathan really is that tall.

And a fuzzy picture of me near one of the park's water features.

Today, Tim and I walked to the Botanic gardens. This gorgeous tree was covered in large pink flowers -- in autumn. I couldn't find its name. Anyone know what it is?

And this one was called a dragon tree.

I love the botanic gardens. Probably one of my favourite places in this entire city. I'm happy to be able to walk there on a quiet Easter weekend.

What I will post

What is really happening in my life:
* I've been second guessing my career progression as I've attended meetings on applying for promotion. I will need to explain why I don't have more PhD students, more citations. I need to find five international experts who can write a letter of recommendation for me, but I feel like my best letter writers are either collaborating with me (conflict of interest) or facing retirement.

* Two different coauthors are writing papers away from me, and I can't find the time during work hours to catch up with what they are doing and contribute my share. I don't want to work over weekends, but it keeps happening.

* The engineering students I am teaching have better intuition than I do, and I keep having to start lectures by apologizing for errors perpetrated in the class notes, or in the last lecture, or my inability to give them good answers to their excellent questions. I'm only being paid for about five hours of teaching per week, but I'm spending far more time than that figuring out where their equations came from, and why, because they ask!

* My church seems to be playing cover up with sexual abuse, at higher levels than imagined. It isn't a surprise, but still horrible. I decided I'm done with church and taking a week off. And then I decided to go because it is easier to go than to find a substitute to play the organ. I am in a rough place with religion right now.

* Taxes.

But I won't post any of that on my blog. 

What I will post about on my blog:
* Grand Prix! We didn't pay for tickets, but we walked across the street to watch the fighter jet doing tricks. Very loud. And fun. This is the more economical way to enjoy the Australian Grand Prix.

* Relay for Life. Jonathan participated in a walk to raise funds for cancer with some good kids in his school.

* Pictures from my coloring book. My coloring book helps me stay calm and happy while I sit through church on Sundays, dealing with my religion issues. Other people don't deal with these issues because they are more calm than I am. So I color to become calm. My current book has an ocean theme.

Shells.

Clown fish.

Crabs. 

See? If I avoid the real things that are bothering me, it isn't so hard to write a blog post after all.

Unlocking life achievements

Although I may not be unlocking blogger achievements, I am doing important life things.

Like cleaning my refrigerator.

And spending quality time with my son. There was no school on Monday or Thursday last week, and Tim was away. So Jonathan got to come with me to work. In addition to doing homework in my office, he decorated all my whiteboards.

He and I also took a walk around the botanic gardens on Sunday.

And went to the Moomba festival -- basically a carnival on the river -- on Saturday night.

There were a lot of intense carnival rides. After watching people ride the Death Hammer and the Puke-O-Swinger, I asked Jonathan if he wanted to come with me on the ferris wheel. He said no. So we just walked around and then went home.

It still counts as a life achievement even if you don't go on the Death Hammer.

First week of autumn

It is autumn now. The season officially changed on the first of March. You could tell it was coming, though, by the way the sunrise came later and later, and the sunset earlier and earlier. Last week, sunrise happened after we were all awake and dressed and eating breakfast. Although I do like the early sun in the summers, it is nice to be able to enjoy the sunrise without getting up at a crazy hour.

Another sign of autumn are the little yellow leaves appearing everywhere. When the breeze blows while you walk through the park, they scatter and swirl all around you. The borders of the path are lined with them. That looks like autumn.

So autumn. Here we are.

As I mentioned last week, I've started teaching again. That's also very autumn-esque. The first week went very well. I'm all prepared for the first day of the second week, too, and I expect it will go well. But I'm not prepared at all for the second day of the second week. I did that on purpose. I've been trying to regulate my teaching prep time. I will spend too much time over-preparing if I let myself. So I have consciously held back. I have time on Monday to get ready for Tuesday. Because only 10% of my salary goes toward teaching this year, but 80% of it goes to research, I should finish the research paper first, and prepare for teaching later.

But then things come up. This time, a colleague had a family emergency, and I was happy to step in to cover her classes next week. But knowing I'm teaching twice as much next week, somehow I feel twice as nervous about not being prepared -- even though I actively stopped myself from preparing, and even though I still think that was the right thing to do. Stupid brain. Calm down. Chill. Everything will be ok.

Happy autumn.