March is here

It got cold enough again to wear thicker jackets outside. I really prefer this weather to the hot summer. Hoping that summer can come later this year. I haven't really done very much running this year. I kind of stopped after that 10k in January. I feel like I got bluetooth earphones and haven't put them to use. 

Spent 3 (or 4?) hours skyping with Yalu yesterday and we planned out our Seoul trip. I think we did a pretty good job! I feel like I still need to do some work on that one day where I'm just hanging out by myself. But I'm always really lazy when I travel by myself so I'll probably just wake up late, walk around, eat, sip coffee at a cafe, repeat. No clue how I would communicate with anyone. Guess I would have to use my sign language and observation skills again. I get a bit nervous looking at Hangul characters. It's not like languages with romanization. They all look alike... Oh wells, can't really get lost in a city with so many subway stations.

Work is the same old business. New guy is still not being very productive. I feel like I finally forced something out of him today. At least I have an end product, sort of. 

I joined a board level committee that's part of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering after the Paris conference last September. The committee that I"m a part of focuses on young people and their involvement in the society. There are 3 representatives for each region. But I feel like we haven't really done much. We've had two Skype calls, elected people to be Vice Chair and Secretary, and signed up for task forces. But I really feel like none of the task forces have done anything. I'm chairing a task force to fix up the website. I've tried and failed to set up a meeting, encouraged people for suggestions, and have even set up a Google Sites website as a test page. I really think the Google Site is a good idea since people can write and change things without making a mess on the real website. But so far no one has done anything. These committees have a long term outlook since each term is at least 2 years. But unless you do something every week, there's going to be no progress. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I kind of wanted to be Vice Chair so that I could poke around to see how the other task forces are doing. But I really feel like they haven't done much. I signed up for 2 out of 4 task forces and both of those have had some emails fly back and forth due to my prompting. Need to figure out ways to motivate the motivators.

Found this really nice cafe that's literally across the street from where I live. There is a little sitting area that leads to a dead end street. I've peeked down this street several times but never gone down it because it didn't look interesting. Turns out, it's a mix of auto body shops and small restaurants. There is the cafe (been there twice already!), a western-Asian place, dim sum place, and a ramen shop. The dim sum place looks popular too. Might try that out next time.