Yup, this blogging experience is over. Now that I've been back in the land of milk and honey, I don't really feel the need to further populate the internet with my stories. I am so busy enjoying my friends and family and working hard, I have little time to blog... But that is ok... Sorry you won't get to hear about the Margaret River trip I promised a few posts back to write about.
Thanks for your attention these last months, gentle reader....
Over and out!
Bender....
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
Last post from Australia
This is it, folks. My last post from Australian soil. No worries, I still plan on writing about all the cool things I did here in the last month, but from home in the good ol' US-of-A. And that will be well after I recover from jet lag from the 12 hour time difference and my 37 hour trip home. Yikes.
I came here after the PhD frazzled and unsure of my future in my supposed career. It was mainly a decision between academia or industry, and even at times to engineer or not to engineer. Being here has helped me to relax and learn to appreciate the finer things in life... as well as given me a good work ethic and honed my mental tools. I am leaving here with clear goals, new strengths, and a wide open mind for the future. I am leaving for an academic position in a really great department that I know I'll love, where I have so many ideas for the future there.
So, there you have it. Thank you Australia, my post-doc institution, and the people I have had the pleasure of knowing, working with, and my friends that I have grown to love. I am thoroughly grateful for this chance at renewal.
I came here after the PhD frazzled and unsure of my future in my supposed career. It was mainly a decision between academia or industry, and even at times to engineer or not to engineer. Being here has helped me to relax and learn to appreciate the finer things in life... as well as given me a good work ethic and honed my mental tools. I am leaving here with clear goals, new strengths, and a wide open mind for the future. I am leaving for an academic position in a really great department that I know I'll love, where I have so many ideas for the future there.
So, there you have it. Thank you Australia, my post-doc institution, and the people I have had the pleasure of knowing, working with, and my friends that I have grown to love. I am thoroughly grateful for this chance at renewal.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Update
So very sad to be leaving soon.
Started packing last night after the AFL game (Fremantle Dockers vs. Hawthorn at the Subiaco Oval - too bad the Freo players were all a bunch of butterfingers and didn't win it - though they put in a good effort in the third quarter!)
Too busy finishing up work and having fun to write about much (e.g. the trip to Bunbury, Busselton, & Margaret River last weekend with my US pal and some Perth friends, and my last trip to Rotto - and finding the best snorkel spot, and the Footy game).
More later, I promise. That is after I get done working, moping about leaving UWA, Perth, and my friends, and packing (bleh).
Started packing last night after the AFL game (Fremantle Dockers vs. Hawthorn at the Subiaco Oval - too bad the Freo players were all a bunch of butterfingers and didn't win it - though they put in a good effort in the third quarter!)
Too busy finishing up work and having fun to write about much (e.g. the trip to Bunbury, Busselton, & Margaret River last weekend with my US pal and some Perth friends, and my last trip to Rotto - and finding the best snorkel spot, and the Footy game).
More later, I promise. That is after I get done working, moping about leaving UWA, Perth, and my friends, and packing (bleh).
Friday, March 21, 2008
The party culture
Ok, so after being in Perth for a bit, I have to get something off of my chest. Australia has a pretty serious alcohol/party culture. It's not everyone, but I certainly think that for the most part young people generally a completely unhealthy relationship with alcohol. The government views this as a significant problem and has established a strategy for addressing alcohol abuse - the National Alcohol Strategy. There are televisions commercials addressing teenage binge drinking and drink driving. There are not "open container laws" here like there are in the US. The drinking age is 18, and according to this, minors (under 18) are allowed to drink and possess alcohol as long as it is in a private location. Ok, perhaps I am not as hip and cool as I used to be, but do you think going to a restaurant, bar, or nightclub after 10 pm where there are out of control teenage binge-drinkers, irritated bouncers, and people fighting openly in the streets is a good time?
Anyway, I'm off the soap box. But... I do think people in general drink too much here. I am glad the drinking age is 21 in the US. Maybe people in the US drink just as much, but it certainly appears to be accepted and more out in the open with the Australian public. I went to a college with fraternities and sororities, I know all about binge drinking in young people in the US. But, the difference is that, for the most part, by the time college is over, most people I've known get over abusing alcohol.
Anyway, I'm off the soap box. But... I do think people in general drink too much here. I am glad the drinking age is 21 in the US. Maybe people in the US drink just as much, but it certainly appears to be accepted and more out in the open with the Australian public. I went to a college with fraternities and sororities, I know all about binge drinking in young people in the US. But, the difference is that, for the most part, by the time college is over, most people I've known get over abusing alcohol.
It's almost a wrap
Well my friends, it is nearly time for me to leave Australia. And as the time approaches, I find I am a bit melancholy about it. I've grown to love it here. I like the challenge and diversity of the research and industry projects I've been working on. I like my colleagues and friends. I've even found a few kindred spirits, who brighten my down days.
But then I think of my family and friends back home, and I can't wait to see them, share a good meal with them, and talk about everything and nothing and stuff in between. I've recently accepted a faculty position and am so excited (and nervous!) to start that, to move my life to a new apartment in a new small city and ask some furry creatures to be my pets.
But, I'll definitely be returning to Perth for many years to come. How can I not?
But then I think of my family and friends back home, and I can't wait to see them, share a good meal with them, and talk about everything and nothing and stuff in between. I've recently accepted a faculty position and am so excited (and nervous!) to start that, to move my life to a new apartment in a new small city and ask some furry creatures to be my pets.
But, I'll definitely be returning to Perth for many years to come. How can I not?
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Research, you will be the death of me.
Oh Internets, have you ever collected a ton of data that is really complicated to analyze where you've had to work out various geometries for behavior and use myriads of "if" statements in Excel? Have you ever discovered AFTER checking and rechecking your master reduction spreadsheet and proceeding to analyze ALL of your test data that there is an error that you have to go correct in all trillion of your reduced spreadsheets? And you can't go back and correct the master alone then re-reduce because you didn't have the initial foresight to automate everything, so that would take just an tad longer?
Rage? Do you need some? I seem to have plenty extra right now. It's times like these I wish I was a master programmer who could whip up a program to reduce the data, thereby changing only lines of code instead of spending countless hours (all wasted) re-reducing this freakin' data!
Argh! You have GOT to be kidding me!
Rage? Do you need some? I seem to have plenty extra right now. It's times like these I wish I was a master programmer who could whip up a program to reduce the data, thereby changing only lines of code instead of spending countless hours (all wasted) re-reducing this freakin' data!
Argh! You have GOT to be kidding me!
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Visiting Hong Kong
On my recent trip home from the US, I had a 9 hour layover in Hong Kong, so I decided to explore the city a bit. I arrived at 6 am and waited a few hours before heading to the city, for fear of nothing being open at such an awful hour. After passing through customs and storing my backpack, I got on the high speed train (100 HK dollars) to the city. It’s too bad it was an incredibly foggy day, or I would have climbed "The Peak" to overlook the city. I, however, opted to spend my time walking around. Here are my observations.
I had no idea what to expect, but I knew it was a big city, the NYC of China, if you will. The first thing that awed me was that it is a beautifully mountainous region by the sea with lush green flora. On these small mountains there manufactured stairways and drainage areas, but that didn’t seem to detract from their naturalness. Juxtaposed with the beautiful natural environment were these enormously tall and narrow skyscraper housing complexes mixed with smaller and highly crowded housing buildings. These places reminded me of Co-op City in NYC, only much, much, much closer together. What was the most eye-catching about these buildings (besides their size) was that the residents had devised elaborate systems of hanging the wash out, including flag-pole type apparatuses (or is it apparati?).
When I arrived at the Hong Kong station, I was dumped out in the downtown in a maze of elevated pedestrian walkways with "street signs" one had to follow. For pedestrians to travel at street level in this area appears quite dangerous due to the presence of taxis, electric trams, buses, and other congested vehicle traffic. In fact, many of the sidewalk areas at street level in this immediate area were fenced off to prevent pedestrians from taking "short cuts". Moving on, this elevated walkway system led me directly into the ritzy shopping area, where I passed the likes of Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Calvin Klein, and a myriad of other designer label stores. Many of these places had finely-dressed security guards on watch. Word is that Hong Kong has some amazing shopping, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t know how much it is to shop in those stores regularly, so I can't vouch for the so called "deals", especially with the Hong Kong to US dollar conversion being about 7:1. I was too jet-lagged to be doing any kind of rudimentary math in my head.
After a bit of time navigating through the classy malls and elevated walkways, I ventured to street level and out of the main shopping center. The streets were alive with pedestrians, security guards outside of some more upscale shops, vehicles belching soot and exhaust, people with wheeled carts, vendors and small stalls on the smaller streets, and on and on. It was all very busy with people speedily moving to and fro. Even the elevators at the train station and airport move much faster! I had no idea whether to walk on the left of the right (if the elevators are any indication, it’s the left), and I was definitely not moving fast enough to keep pace with everyone. One of the most eye-catching things during my exploring was the bamboo scaffolding. That would NEVER fly in the US, but there were whole sides of buildings scaffolded with bamboo with twine connections. In addition, construction rubbish was being loaded into baskets and hauled away by old men.
After being in the city for a few hours, all I could think of was two words. Air Quality. The air quality was horrible. My eyes had started to sting, as well as my nose, and it was noticeably affecting my lungs. I am a bit sensitive to smells, I admit, but this was different. Besides it being obviously foggy, I wonder how much of that was due to the poor air quality from vehicular exhaust. I am not kidding. And the large construction machines involved in the harbor reclamation project appeared to have no exhaust system at all. I had all I could do to not duck into every store when a large truck was stuck idling in traffic on a narrow side street, due to the accumulation of its sooty, stinky, airborne effluent. Every surface in the city was covered with a thick layer of unidentifiable dust. I must say though, the city was generally clean aside from that. Though, it's always a bad sigh when you see some of the older residents walking around with surgeon's masks on. My friend Xu says he likes being here in Australia because he never gets sick – turns out the poor air quality inspires respiratory infections galore.
To get away from it all, I headed to the harbor to see if I could get a better view of the city or the surrounding area. I could see the city fairly well, but not the areas beyond the sea. I was very curious about the harbor reclamation project. They appeared to be dredging some areas and filling in others with clean fill. It was a big operation with several barges and dredging machines. Being a civil engineer, I watched for probably longer than I should have. The cityscape was great, but unfortunately, someone didn’t have the good sense to charge their camera battery before hand, and therefore I have no more pictures. Pretty awesome, I know.
Overall, I only spent a few hours in a very small part of the city. I wish I had planned better about where to go – parks, mountain peaks, the art museum, some temples, and other touristy things. I also could have taken an organized tour of the city and its sights for a few hours and $200 HK, but I didn’t. Though, I don’t feel too bad. As soon as I got out of the train station I vowed to go back to Hong Kong and China to explore. It really is an amazingly complex feat at human civilization. Well, except for the Chinese fascination with shiny, patent-leather type, plastic fashion accessories such as shoes and hand bags. I can do without that…. Forever.
You can check out some of my photos here.
I had no idea what to expect, but I knew it was a big city, the NYC of China, if you will. The first thing that awed me was that it is a beautifully mountainous region by the sea with lush green flora. On these small mountains there manufactured stairways and drainage areas, but that didn’t seem to detract from their naturalness. Juxtaposed with the beautiful natural environment were these enormously tall and narrow skyscraper housing complexes mixed with smaller and highly crowded housing buildings. These places reminded me of Co-op City in NYC, only much, much, much closer together. What was the most eye-catching about these buildings (besides their size) was that the residents had devised elaborate systems of hanging the wash out, including flag-pole type apparatuses (or is it apparati?).
When I arrived at the Hong Kong station, I was dumped out in the downtown in a maze of elevated pedestrian walkways with "street signs" one had to follow. For pedestrians to travel at street level in this area appears quite dangerous due to the presence of taxis, electric trams, buses, and other congested vehicle traffic. In fact, many of the sidewalk areas at street level in this immediate area were fenced off to prevent pedestrians from taking "short cuts". Moving on, this elevated walkway system led me directly into the ritzy shopping area, where I passed the likes of Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Calvin Klein, and a myriad of other designer label stores. Many of these places had finely-dressed security guards on watch. Word is that Hong Kong has some amazing shopping, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t know how much it is to shop in those stores regularly, so I can't vouch for the so called "deals", especially with the Hong Kong to US dollar conversion being about 7:1. I was too jet-lagged to be doing any kind of rudimentary math in my head.
After a bit of time navigating through the classy malls and elevated walkways, I ventured to street level and out of the main shopping center. The streets were alive with pedestrians, security guards outside of some more upscale shops, vehicles belching soot and exhaust, people with wheeled carts, vendors and small stalls on the smaller streets, and on and on. It was all very busy with people speedily moving to and fro. Even the elevators at the train station and airport move much faster! I had no idea whether to walk on the left of the right (if the elevators are any indication, it’s the left), and I was definitely not moving fast enough to keep pace with everyone. One of the most eye-catching things during my exploring was the bamboo scaffolding. That would NEVER fly in the US, but there were whole sides of buildings scaffolded with bamboo with twine connections. In addition, construction rubbish was being loaded into baskets and hauled away by old men.
After being in the city for a few hours, all I could think of was two words. Air Quality. The air quality was horrible. My eyes had started to sting, as well as my nose, and it was noticeably affecting my lungs. I am a bit sensitive to smells, I admit, but this was different. Besides it being obviously foggy, I wonder how much of that was due to the poor air quality from vehicular exhaust. I am not kidding. And the large construction machines involved in the harbor reclamation project appeared to have no exhaust system at all. I had all I could do to not duck into every store when a large truck was stuck idling in traffic on a narrow side street, due to the accumulation of its sooty, stinky, airborne effluent. Every surface in the city was covered with a thick layer of unidentifiable dust. I must say though, the city was generally clean aside from that. Though, it's always a bad sigh when you see some of the older residents walking around with surgeon's masks on. My friend Xu says he likes being here in Australia because he never gets sick – turns out the poor air quality inspires respiratory infections galore.
To get away from it all, I headed to the harbor to see if I could get a better view of the city or the surrounding area. I could see the city fairly well, but not the areas beyond the sea. I was very curious about the harbor reclamation project. They appeared to be dredging some areas and filling in others with clean fill. It was a big operation with several barges and dredging machines. Being a civil engineer, I watched for probably longer than I should have. The cityscape was great, but unfortunately, someone didn’t have the good sense to charge their camera battery before hand, and therefore I have no more pictures. Pretty awesome, I know.
Overall, I only spent a few hours in a very small part of the city. I wish I had planned better about where to go – parks, mountain peaks, the art museum, some temples, and other touristy things. I also could have taken an organized tour of the city and its sights for a few hours and $200 HK, but I didn’t. Though, I don’t feel too bad. As soon as I got out of the train station I vowed to go back to Hong Kong and China to explore. It really is an amazingly complex feat at human civilization. Well, except for the Chinese fascination with shiny, patent-leather type, plastic fashion accessories such as shoes and hand bags. I can do without that…. Forever.
You can check out some of my photos here.
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