Week 2 -- Settled in

Week 2 in Daejeon ends tonight. It was a pretty good week. Things went very well.

1. (What I learned about Korea)

The KAIST auditorium has biweekly concerts, it seems. I went to one this Friday. There was a cellist and a pianist, and they went through some classical pieces. It was really good music and quite enjoyable; they even played an encore at the end, a Chopin prelude, that I know well, and that was a fun surprise.

I also went out for my first Korean barbecue meal since arriving, and was reacquainted with all of the delicious side dishes that come with it. Some of the sides were actually new to me; I hadn't had them when I had barbecue in Korea in November.  One was a hard-boiled egg in soy sauce, another was squid, and a third was a sort of sweet-potato kind of food. It was very fun.

Apparently I was holding my chopsticks incorrectly. I was holding them so that they crossed; the guys in the KAIST lab showed me how to hold them so that they don't cross. This is the more acceptable way to do it. So I guess I'll practice using the new way.

Finally, the KAIST guys and I went to lunch on Friday at a Chinese place. Like the first night we came, we got a big sweet & sour pork platter before the main course of noodles or rice. I suppose it's traditional that Korean Chinese restaurant do this. As I generally enjoy these pork dishes, I think I like this custom.

2. (Project status)

I went through the CAN bus code and made extensive notes on what all the functions do, what variables they manipulate, where information is actually written to the bus, etc. Clayton also asked me to make some flow charts showing the operation of the more important functions.

I also read up some more on RTX.

It looks like in the coming week I'll begin studying how to surgically extract the CAN bus from the rest of the HUBO system. I may also (if things work out) begin working on programming my own version of a CAN bus.

3. (Picture of the week)

At KAIST, a part of the path I take to go from the lab to the piano that I practice on:

4. (What I'm learning about myself)

I spent a lot of time this week traveling without Clayton, and so learned that I'm able to get around Korea fine on my own. Among other things, I ate at several restaurants, hiked some more, and went through Daejeon's downtown area. 

5. (New people I met)

In the dorm I met two students named Baat and Lan. The former was from Pakistan, the latter from Vietnam. I talked to Baat for a while, we discussed the city environment (he was from an urban city near the India/Pakistan border, while I was originally from the Chicago suburbs but moved to Philly) and what we thought of the city. It was a fun time.