Our New Professor and the World Cup

Professors are a fascinating breed of human. While resembling normal people in many important aspects, they do, however, have uniquely identifiable features. My observations of the subject have determined these features to include a lofty irreverence for adolescent vocabulary, an unwavering ability to remain unfazed by perplexity and a general benign indifference to popular norms.

They also have the remarkable ability to make you feel that you know a decreasingly small amount about a subject that you previously thought you knew a lot about. That amount directly decreases in proportion to the amount of time a professor spends giving you feedback on a research proposal.

My new professor is pretty cool though. He drinks beer and likes fried chicken from a place called 'Chicken Mania'. His wife once gave me a piece of cake, as a consolation prize for not being able to fix their printer.

He also likes to sing in noraebangs and knows a lot about ovarian cancer.

Smiling in this photo is Seo-Jin, who is a Biomodulation student in Professor Lim's lab over at Building 200. She's very helpful and translates class assignment questions for me, which are often written in Korean.

Before our professor took off for Canada, he organised a poster competition, which went well. He likes to organise things in general, and doesn't sleep much. Sometimes I get replies to my emails timestamped at 4am. In Canada he organizes charity fundraisers that auction things like 'lunch hosted by an ambassador'.

He told me that businessmen go nuts for those kinds of things.

Here he is, giving the first prize to Sam, who won the poster competition. Sam's poster was about functional food and tumors in mice. You'll hear about it in the newspaper one day.

The foreign faculty in Biomodulation only stay here for four months of the year, and spend the rest of the time back in their home countries. The program was designed to bring international influences here to our university and boost the quality of research that we do. Has it worked?

Ask me again in a couple of years.

That particular day we had a farewell dinner, and our professor gave a short toast. To his left is Professor Han, who is the Main Man when it comes to Biomodulation. He's got a lot of responsibilities resting on his shoulders, but is doing a remarkable job of getting things going.

One thing he can do is go around the table and have an individual soju shot with every professor in the department (13), as well as a good chunk of the students. And then he can recite the Periodic Table of the Elements.

The World Cup came and went. I like soccer a lot, but in Korea they go kinda nuts whenever anyone Korean accomplishes any kind of sporting achievement. If a Korean were to become a croquet champion, the Croquet World Cup would be instantly catapulted into the number one most popularly watched event. And demand for croquet instructors would go through the roof.

Which is fine, I guess. But as Carlos Pavao at SRTM says, it's important to be able to laugh at yourself every once in a while too.

For the Korea vs Uruguay game, we had some people over at our place. I like hosting people in general, but our place is pretty small. We hope to move into a bigger place next year and then we can do all sorts of interesting things, like Vietnamese Cold Roll Parties.

In the end, Spain ended up winning the World Cup as predicted by Paul the Octopus. Which, as a mathematics professor pointed out, is not that remarkable because we never heard about all of the psychic animals that made the wrong predictions. The media only made Paul famous after he had already selected quite a few winning teams.

According to the Wikipedia article: The animals at the Chemnitz Zoo in Germany were wrong on all of Germany's group-stage games, with Leon the porcupine picking Australia, Petty the pygmy hippopotamus spurning Serbia's apple-topped pile of hay, Jimmy the peruvian guinea-pig and Anton the tamarin eating a raisin representing Ghana. Mani the Parakeet of Singapore, Octopus Pauline of Holland, Octopus Xiaoge of Qingdao China, Chimpanzee Pino and African Red River Hog Apfelsin in Estonia's Tallinn Zoo all picked the Netherlands to win the final.

Sorry to burst any psychic animal fantasies you may have had...

Quote Dump #15

"With so many jaded slackers in one place, somewhere a Burger King is running itself.."

"My ex-girlfriend wrote a book called STOP DATING LOSERS."

"Your avatar is a shoe, man."

Make Your Own Mossarium

The study of moss is called bryology. Apparently there was a huge fad for it in the 18th century, with people building large moss exhibits in their gardens. Since then, moss has quietly faded into the shadowy backstreets of the popular psyche.

Walking around the Seoul National University campus, we see a lot of different kinds of moss and it piqued my interest in the stuff. Traditional Japanese gardeners often encourage the growth of moss to add an element of history and serenity. Here in Korea, it just seems to grow where it pleases.

I'm sure you've all heard of an aquarium before, which is a glass container for holding aquatic life. Similarly, a terrarium holds earth and air, for animals like frogs to be exhibited. Well a mossarium is for holding moss. They're very easy to make and can be used for decorations as well as producing small amounts of oxygen indoors. The best thing about them is that they are very easy to take care of, more so than indoor plants. All you need to do is spray the moss in a small jar with water every so often, and it will live happily in low amounts of light, while trapping and degrading dust particles in the air.

When collecting moss, it's best to try and get it from places out of sight, so that passers-by can still enjoy it. This is one of only two guiding principles of 'moss etiquette', a term which I believe I have coined myself.

The other guiding principle is to refrain from throwing it at others.

Although this looks like me, it's actually my alter-ego: Mossarium Man. I must admit, the resemblance is striking. His superhero abilities mainly revolve around the skillful making of mossariums and educating others about them.

I like moss because it grows in odd places and just makes do with what's around. This little tuft of rock moss had a slater bug on it, which is a good reminder that even a small outcrop of moss provides a living habitat for millions of microorganisms and their grazers. In a way, you could think of that slater bug as a miniature cow.

I certainly did.

All you need to make a mossarium is a glass jar and a tool for collecting the moss. We used an old spaghetti jar, which is coincidentally an excellent example of upcycling.

It also helps to have a poking device to put the moss inside carefully. Chopsticks are good, or you can use a twig or two.

With a bit of artistic input, you can arrange the moss inside so that it pleases the eye. This one has a few rocks thrown in for good measure and contains three different kinds of moss. One thing to remember is that you want a bed of sand or small rocks under the moss. Soil might sprout dormant seeds or mushrooms, which you want to avoid.

Look how happy Mossarium Man is in this photo. That's because the moss is happy. It makes a great desk ornament or a gift, and our first mossarium is going quite well. The stuff grows so slowly that you really don't need to worry about it much. Best of all, it didn't cost us a penny and was a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon. 

So, dear reader, when are you going to Make Your Own Mossarium?

A Birthday at Home Together

We spent my birthday in May at home together and I'd forgotten about this video.

My wife is funny.

Korea Toastmasters Picnic

The successful separation of work and life can be a difficult thing. And working in a Korean lab, one often experiences a blurring of the distinction between the two. I saw a speech recently about happiness, and the speaker was saying that if you're asked why you work, a deeper analysis always reveals that the ultimate goal is the happiness of yourself and those you care about. So he called 'work' a rather inefficient way of obtaining something that is already in abundance.

Which is the ability to enjoy ourselves on a day-to-day basis, if we try hard enough.

Working in the new lab, there seems to be a lot more freedom in terms of self-determination. Different professors have different management styles that work well with different kinds of students. I'm more of a Toastmasters kind of student and I like to go to Toastmasters events. In case you haven't heard of it before, Toastmasters is an international non-profit social organisation that focuses on developing public speaking and leadership skills.

At the Korea Toastmasters Interclub Picnic, we ordered a few more pizzas than we needed. The day was a social event organised for the clubs in Seoul to meet and mingle.

Public speaking is a funny thing. The majority of people who enjoy it are those who have done it enough times to be good at it. Clubs like Toastmasters tend to attract the same sorts of people, which could be defined as those willing to volunteer their free time to improve their public speaking skills and help others do the same. The initial reason I joined was to practice toward becoming an engaging science lecturer.

We played a few team games, with this one being quite memorable. There were different team colours, and the idea was to tie a coloured balloon to one foot and then work together and try to stamp on your opponent's balloons.

It started off predictably enough, with the same coloured teams huddled in defensive groups. But eventually chaos ensued.

As with many such chaotic games, offense was the best defense.

Here's me and Alice with another girl we were talking to that day, whose name I forgot. We started talking about blogs and I said that I'd post this picture.

We had a great time that day. Although I only joined last year, the Toastmasters experience has been one of the highlights of my time in Korea. Wherever you are in the world, you should track down your nearest club and take the plunge.

You'll probably be glad you did.

Camomile

After a long and arduous day of laboratory-related drama, a man retiring to his dwellings often finds solace in a pot of tea.

Well, not so much within the pot of tea, but from the enjoyment of such.

Camomile tea originally rang alarm bells for me, because a real Aussie Man's idea of tea would be composed of only two adjectives, those being Hot and Black. However, as often happens post-marriage, I have been converted into a regular subscriber of many things less stereotypically masculine. At the end of a long day, a good cup can really knock you out like a dose of Nyquil. Sometimes it makes me so sleepy that I forget which colour toothbrush is mine, and get told off by the Lady of the House.

Our Lady of the House occasionally drinks tea with me, but she also likes to drink Bailey's and milk. I'm still unsure which of the two is more befitting of a man of my testosterone-elevated stature, but I usually go with tea because it has less syllables.

This is a lunchbox I made for her. Mind you I don't do this very regularly, and often only when the Lady of the House is displeased with my general homely untidiness. Those are real cherries, and there's a beef curry in the container at the top.

Luckily I only have one wife, or I'd be quite busy.

This photo was sitting quietly in the dusty archives of my Flickr account. I blew the cyber dust off it and now it's looking as good as new. 

Makes a good wallpaper, I might add.

Ka-Hee is getting pretty good at looking after our indoor plants these days. My new nickname for her is Heather Greenthumb, which sounds a little better than Ka-Hee NokSaekOmJiSonKarak ('greenthumb' in Korean).

Here's a worried looking dog wearing shoes in a Korean phone shop. Although this little pup would probably get teased in dog language by my dad's massive mongrel in Australia (called Buster, he's half wolf and half cow), the shoes actually do serve a purpose. Because Koreans customarily take their shoes off indoors, some dogs are also humiliatingly forced to wear them outside and take them off indoors, so they don't bring dirt into the house.

This mosque sits patiently on top of a hill in Itaewon. I've been here a few times around dusk, mainly to enjoy the tranquility. The area nearby is one of the best places to go shopping for curry spices.

And to take us out this week is this photo that I saw on a toilet wall in an Itaewon pub. Excuse the language.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Quote Dump #14

"No, the last thing they will be expecting would be for us to turn into ice-skating mongooses and dance the Belero..." - Rimmer (Red Dwarf)

"Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn't try it on." - Billy Connolly

"Madness is unusual in an individual but the norm in groups" - Nietzsche

Korean Umbrella Non-Aggression

Not more than a few moons ago, I said that I regarded myself as 'a tolerator of art'. That status has since been modified and my new position has been reclassified to 'an unwillingly frequent observer of art'. The two are not far removed, but my new status more accurately reflects the current weekend climate.

This is the Ministry of Art building at our university, which to me appears somewhat unfinished. Nevertheless, it has been open and operating without structural failures for the past few years.

We went along to see the work of Otto Dix, a German war cartoonist of the past century. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the prints, but they mainly consisted of unshaved weary soldiers, either walking across a barren wasteland or strewn across it.

This display is on the basement floor of the gallery and was arguably the most interesting. The lights are animated to form moving spheres in 3D space. It reminded me of the 3D chess games they play in Star Trek, which permits attacking moves along the Z-axis.

We left the gallery soon after I began to discuss the strategic intricacies of 3D chess.

This is an advertisement on the subway for plastic surgery, which is still a popular pastime here in Korea. Like copyright, I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. Some people spend thousands on golf equipment, while others splurge on expensive art or dog grooming. Live and let live, I say, but there's no need to take yourself too seriously. I get the feeling that the current demand for cosmetic surgery is probably driven by some of the more sinister elements of the market economy. The picture above underlines the desire for many women in Korea to have larger eyes.

All the better to see you with, my dear.

And here's Heather, who requested this week that I call her by her Korean name, which is Ka-Hee. I prefer the English name myself, but being married is all about giving in to the other side at the appropriate times.

Anyway, in this photo is Ka-Hee, enjoying my green chicken curry, the coriander powder for which I bought for $1 from a Thai student at a garage sale.

Although my days as a plant pathologist are over, I still have warm feelings for foliage. Our ancient ancestors used it to hide from the eagles above and tigers below. These days we chop it down and occasionally put it in salads.

In Korea I've observed a social phenomena that I call 'The Korean Umbrella Non-Aggression Treaty'. Because the apartments here are relatively small, many people will leave their umbrellas in the hallway to dry overnight. The phenomena manifests itself as the idea that everyone can reasonably expect their umbrella to be there in the morning, both in an unstolen and unharassed state. However, once in the apartments of Busan I did find my umbrella missing in the morning, only to be returned that afternoon on my doorstep with tell-tale raindrops dispersed liberally upon it.

The phantom borrower was never identified.

And here's a bunch of things that keep me happy. In the bowl is a packet of Mi-Goreng instant noodles, my comfort food of choice. As an undergrad student in Australia I once lived on a carton of them for a week. It wasn't good for digestion, but fulfilled all of the requirements for deliciousness. Obscured by my hand is a packet of Thai Mami shrimp noodles, which are spicy and come with citric acid in the flavour to simulate lemongrass. On the bottom left is a tube of Colgate toothpaste, which is harder to find than mountain ginseng here. And on the top right is a can of Chef's Choice coconut milk, the best brand in the world. It will be used to make Malaysian laksa, when laziness subsides. Back at Casuarina, we used to make about 60 litres of laksa soup at once, and we'd empty 16 of those cans into it.

Now that's a useful trade secret if you aspire to open your own laksa restaurant. Like me, someday, perhaps.

Samsung Blue Earth

The word Upcycle means to convert waste materials or useless products into new products of better quality or value. For example, instead of recycling plastic bottles by melting them down and reforming new ones (which creates waste in the process), upcycling would involve converting the plastic bottle into something of higher value, like a pot for plants. Other examples include turning old car tyres into wallets, or using wooden crates to make furniture.

Most of the developing world and especially shanty towns rely on upcycling to build their dwellings.

Whether you're concerned about environmental conservation or not, one thing that we all need to admit is that burying our rubbish in large holes in the ground cannot continue forever. It's convenient, but dumping hundreds of tons of waste everyday means that we'll be forever destined to dig bigger holes.

While we as individuals can only make a small difference through our daily lives, that effort magnifies when we spread information to others who might take it on.

Now here's something interesting. I recently bought a new cell phone called the Samsung Blue Earth, billed as the world's first environmentally friendly phone. The blue plastic casing is made from used plastic water bottles, which I guess means that it is partially upcycled.

Most strikingly, it runs on solar power. For every six minutes that the solar panels receive sunshine, it'll give you about one minute of talk time. The panels are pretty sensitive, and will automatically recharge even if you're only getting a small amount of sunlight from indoors. It can also be charged with its own recharger, which is designed to be 25 percent more energy efficient and is manufactured with eco-friendly materials.

Even the box that the phone came in was made from recycled cardboard, which was designed to be upcyclable into photo frames. I had to rummage around in my plastic folders for some photos to put in them.

Now here's an old photo. This is a picture of me when I was two years old, being held by my foster mother in Korea. It was sent to my Australian parents in the mail before I was adopted. Kind of like a mugshot, if you will.

But this post isn't about me, it's about upcycling and my new phone. There's also a Find Music feature, where you can use the phone to record a few seconds of a song and send it to a server that identifies the track. Heather also bought a new phone, and has been fixated on a built-in game it has where you brush away dust from vegetables, for the past couple of weeks.

I, for one, would like to welcome our new cell-phone overlords.

And this feature is called Eco-Walk. You enter your height, weight and average length of step. Then you put it in your pocket and walk wherever you want to go. It senses each step you take and calculates how many hypothetical trees you have saved by walking instead of driving a car. So far I've saved 12.8 trees, apparently.

While I question the integrity of the algorithm, it nevertheless gives me a daily dose of eco-friendly amusement.

Overall I'm happy with the purchase and the only downside is that the phone heats up a lot when charging in the sun. It might be only token eco-friendliness, but it's a start at least. And more importantly, it's a good reminder that you and I should all remember to reduce, reuse, recycle and upcycle.

Because our efforts propagate when we spread awareness of such things, remember to remind your friends as well.