10 countries in 9 months have left me a bit overwhelmed and ready to go back "home".
Nestled in high mountains in rural Japan, it's time to record some of the craziness of the last 5 countries in 2 months.
SEA JAM in Kuala Lumpur was fantastic, and reminded me of how much I love Lindy Hop. This event was followed by a stop in Thailand, then off to Nha Trang for Vietnam Lindy Exchange, Seoul for Camp Swing It and Beijing's Great Wall Swing Out.
72 hours in China cured me of any desire to learn Chinese. The remaining choices are Korean and Japanese; basically a choice between living in a place with great dancing or another with a fascinating culture.
Learning
I couldn't keep up the Coursera classes in places with bad bandwidth, and got very frustrated with the deadlines and tests. Just like cars were initially horseless carriages, online classes are university classes without accreditation yet with all the trappings of the old system.
If there's no accreditation, why am I getting a mark? Why all these exams? It's natural to have test problems to verify one's understanding. I should be able to do 1 problem, see if I got the answer right, and get a chance to try a similar problem if I didn't solve it. Right now Intro to Finance, has 10 questions in a test, and you don't get the right answers. This keeps the cheaters out-- but what's the point of cheating in an online class if there are invigilated exams for those wanting verifiable credentials?
Fitness
Too much moving around means no stead access to a gym. When I did have access, they didn't have a squat rack, so I tried the leg press which is a lot easier.
Software
Just a little bit of coding gave me an important insight: one leitmotif has been wanting tools to handle data streams on the web as easily as it is on a command-line.
May
I'll fly from Tokyo to San Francisco on the 1st, then to Montreal on the 8th. Besides a conference on May 3rd, the only plan is to reconnect with friends and network my way back into my field after a long absence.