Monday, September 20, 2010

Back to work

Now it's back to work in Taiwan. I still had several administrative issues to take care of this morning (health insurance, travel reimbursement, opening a bank account, etc.), which made me stop and estimate the total amount of effort that it has taken to set up this sabbatical. I'd guess we expended a person-month of work to book travel, sublet our house, move in, set things up here, enroll the kids in a new school, etc., etc. It's pretty daunting considering our planned stay here is slightly less than a year!

I've had really good luck with jet lag in the last month. I adjusted fairly rapidly from Pacific to Taiwan time (-9 hrs), then to Spain (-6 hrs), and now (seemingly) back to Taiwan. I find melatonin works well for me, although individual responses vary. (I learned about it from a Japanese physicist who travels a lot.)


Below are some photos of my office and the Institute of Physics here. I've gotten in the habit of taking photos all the time using my iPhone. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it helps me remember what I've been doing during this life. ("The days are long, but the years are short.")









3 comments:

  1. botti6:44 PM

    ***I find melatonin works well for me, although individual responses vary.***

    I've found it to be excellent when I've travelled from NZ to the US or UK. Annoyingly, in NZ you need a prescription to get it.

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  2. botti6:53 PM

    Also, Robert Plomin has reported on some more genes associated with academic performance.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/found-genes-that-make-kids-smart/story-e6frg6nf-1225926421510

    It will be interesting to see what results the BGI get.

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  3. Someone else sent me that link. I think the reporter has things a bit garbled, but we'll see. I doubt they really got 200 statistically significant hits -- probably only candidates at this point.

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