Cold

Cold, in more than one way. The venue - Seaside House - is very enthusiastic about its state of the art air conditioning. As a result I'm freezing as I sit in the seminar room, then get beaten up by a wall of humid heat once we step outside. When you go back in the sweat and humidity condenses and chills you even further.

And now I've caught a real cold, with sore throat, aching joints and all. The AC is partly to blame but of course, if you grab forty people from all over the world and stick them in one building for three weeks you're creating a great breeding ground for any virus that happens to pass by. Happily, Japan allows the sale of over-the-counter cold medications that could club an elephant so I feel reasonably symptom-free at the moment - though not particularly alert, or rational, or awake.

Random images:

Student and tutor in a discussion about his project. The seminar rooms have glass walls that are perfect as whiteboards.

Lunch buffet. The food is good. Problem is, it's pretty much the same food every day, morning, lunch and dinner. I think I might have actually lost a little weight these three weeks, simply because I really can't summon much enthusiasm for the meal times any more.

A typhoon passed by to the west of us; we caught only the edge of the storm zone, fortunately. We got some dramatic weather changes as it cleared up.

Cooped Up

We're coming up to the end of the second week at OCNC, and I'm starting to feel a little cooped up. We spend every day in the same building, with the same people, working, discussing and going to lectures. It's a beautiful building and fascinating discussions, but after two weeks you do wish for a bit of change.

The food - buffet delivered from a nearby hotel - is excellent, but buffets can only be so varied. We're in a semi-rural area so there's really nowhere to walk and there's nowhere you can go without a car.

Most of all, though, I miss Ritsuko. Two weeks is a long time to be apart. I miss making dinner together, talking about our day in the evening, walking through Osaka on a weekend. Life is much better when she's around and I get unhappy when she is not.

Don't read this wrong; being here is immensely rewarding. I'm very happy that I get to spend these three weeks at the summer school. But I'm also happy that it's three weeks only, and that I'll be back in Osaka before long.

My Work Done, It is Time to Relax

One of the main jobs of the tutors at OCNC was to give afternoon tutorials on various simulation software; general tools like Python and Matlab as well as specialized packages such as NEURON and Nest. The students use those software packages for their own projects so the tutorials have all been crammed into the first week.

Preparing and holding the tutorials have eaten up a lot of time, but now they're all done and life here is settling down a little bit. We are of course helping the students with their projects but now there's time again for some of our regular work. I've poked at my simulation code for the first time in a week, and a few of us found time to go to nearby Maeda point for a bit of snorkeling. I have to get fins and a good underwater camera.