It did what I asked it to

On, click, snap.

The highest praise I can give any tool is the praise I'll give the M11: It did what I asked it to do. It never failed. I failed plenty, but the tool kept on being the tool, waiting for me to rise to the occasion.

Scott Gilbertson in Leica's New Camera Puts Skill Back Into Focus

There are broken systems, and there are reliable systems. Being reliable doesn't mean it never breaks, but that there is a proper workaround, or it can be fixed.

The mark of a great system however, is that when time comes to crunch, it does not fail.

Perhaps I had underestimated just how bad things really are, and the culture shock I was in for.

A few days after Christmas, I boarded my flight halfway across the world. It was bittersweet, I had put it off for as long as I could, postponed by a week even when I couldn't get a Covid test on a weekend.

Passing through a deserted international airport, it really hit me just how much NZ had sacrificed itself for the sake of public health. Arriving on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the contrast was unbelievable, it felt like I was on another planet.

Having had so much drama through airports before (being called into the 'special' room, going through accidental identity theft, etc), I was almost taken aback at how smooth I went through customs this time. Right in the middle of a freaking pandemic, and you just look at my DS-2019, took a photo, no fingerprints even and let me go?

With only two doses and no booster at that time, like sure, I probably had other things to worry about being at a busy airport. Checked in my 2 bags which were both overweight, because budget airline, and me no entiendo imperial units. Tried to stay outdoors as long as possible, but of course, my flight had to be delayed after I cleared security. So there I was at the terminal, standing rather than sitting, waiting for my last plane.

Aside from having to rebook a pick-up-ride, because the stupid app used the timezone I was in when I booked the ride rather than the timezone of where I was actually being picked up, I arrived at my temporary accommodation at like 2-3 am. Showered, slept for a few hours, and I decided to go straight to my office to meet one of my supervisors.

It was pretty quiet at the office, I got shown around the floor, got acquainted with another postdoc, and yeah, sat down to do some paperwork. Oh and trust me, there was a lot of paperwork. As I write this three months away, I have a nagging feeling that there's still one or two bits I still need to do.

The next few days, I slowly began adjusting to this strange country. Walking on the right side of the road, not plugging in my 240V only devices, seeing plastic bags like it's the 2010s... Oh, and did I mention they still use imperial units?

Really, I wanted to not go out as much as possible, but I was on a mission to find these elusive rapid-antigen test kits. Three pharmacies I went to on foot, all of them out of stock. It slowly hit me - those numbers being reported on the website? Oh yeah, they must be seriously underestimated, or one could also say, they're under-reporting.

And hit me it did, because just three days after I arrived, I woke up with a sore throat.

By afternoon, that turned into a high fever.

If there's ever a worse possible time to fall sick, is it:

Guess what's my answer?

Like, I can laugh about it now, but at that point in time, I was not in a good place. It was bad on so many levels, really freaking bad.

What made it worse, was the broken system. Now I don't know the full history, or the conditions that made the system become the way like so. But it is insane, just bloody insane.

I slept through my high fever on the first day of symptoms.

Through that Sunday afternoon, I did contemplate on whether I was able to survive this.

Journaler's note: The above sections was written on 27 March 2022, and four months later, still alive, I decided to finish things up.

Now I could go on and on about how messed up the whole experience was. And I might as well do that, for the sake of looking back years later and seeing how absurd this all was.

I called the hotline the next day to schedule a PCR Covid test. Waited for an hour, no luck. Called again super early on the next day (like 8am or something), they picked up.

The first person said the closest day was Friday (?!), and I was put on hold again for another half an hour to talk to the person scheduling appointments (?!!!). The second person told me some spots opened up on Thursday morning, so I just took it.

Yeah, I was positive.

Unbelievably, I made it through by drinking hot water - classic. The medicine only came a week or so later, after I had almost recovered, from a relative who was kind to send a package (yes, they use that word instead of parcel) from New York. Oh yeah, and I had moved from the hotel to my apartment in the meantime so I had an actual address.

About the delivery systems though. Bizarrely, I had grocery items mixed up on 3-4 different deliveries (each with different stores). It started with cabbage becoming lettuce, and the last straw was when a bottle of honey became a bottle of some generic brand soy sauce.

There's a freaking annoying system where after checkout, they ask if you would like to substitute any of the items in your cart if it's out of stock (like they're anticipating it already). This extends to the pharmacy too, and when you're in a highly infectious state peak omicron, imagine if the medicine you ordered just magically got swapped randomly.

Oh no, they decided it was better to drop the order completely.

Hence the hot water.

Plus the swearing (and if you know me personally, I rarely ever swear).

Again, I could go on and on about how messed up the whole experience was. And I might as well continue while I'm on a roll.

One thing that exacerbated the situation was that I didn't have a SIM card yet. It turns out, a lot of websites (like Amazon) simply won't work without a phone number.

Not that I didn't order it, I did, but they said my address was incorrect, so I gave them a new one, and never heard back. In the end, I ordered from another company, still took a few days (and the first company sorted things out after). I will mention though, there's some weird non-standardization thing with the wavelengths/frequency devices use. One company actually gave me 2 SIM cards because of this, because sure, choice.

Then there's the apartment I stayed in, which was a bit over my budget (but it was the closest to my office so I took it). It was a far cry from the website photos (probably taken 5 years ago or something). First there's the package system (yes let's go back to this for a while), which they had to have someone manually log it into their 'system' before you can pick it up. Sure I'm all for traceability, but I've had to come back a day or even two later sometimes before I could pick up my already-delivered stuff (such first world problems I know).

Someone also flooded the gym in my first month, and they didn't start renovating it until I moved out. Even then, they only renovated the walls and floor, while keeping the same set of equipment that had survived the flood.

The attitude I got was that yeah, just do the bare minimal to get away with it. Some of the office people were actually nice and professional, but a few felt like they were thrown in there with hardly any training.

If there's any happy ending to this, let's just say I decided one term was enough. They wanted to raise my rent by like $200 a month to ~$1200, but it's just not worth it anymore.

The system just didn't fit.

On the university side of things, my new job started with a pile of paperwork. Like it felt that my first month was literally spent filling up forms, emailing people, attending all sorts of compulsory orientation sessions, etc etc.

The health insurance definitely took a while for me to understand. Apparently I misread one of the premiums (it was a price per year, rather than per month), so I switched from an all-in-one insurance to a two-policy insurance. Only because it's cheaper that way, one's subsidized by the university, another one is required for my visa (basically if I pass away, they can ship my body back or something).

Also had to set up a bank account. I was actually using my NZ card for like a month (yes, with all the currency conversions). Decided to get my university's affiliated one, and boy was it a bad decision.

The first thing was that they said they'll mail the debit card to me in a week. Ok, I waited, didn't arrive, so I called them, and apparently I had to go back to the bank or something to request it (?!!).

Ended up ordering a Wise card, and in hindsight, it was probably the wisest decision I should have made a long time ago. I was thinking of using Revolut, and the physical card did arrive, but strangely, they couldn't activate my account because of some SSN quirk (see paperwork above).

The second thing about banking is probably not specific to my bank, but apparently, sending money to another bank account isn't straightforward in this country. I had trouble once with a payment I sent that didn't get recorded on the other end, so look up the proof of payment receipt right?

Oh wow, the bank website doesn't have it (I could do a screenshot but it was missing lots of details). So I walked up to the bank, asked the teller, and even they couldn't provide it, saying they can't see it on their end (?!!!!). I had to call some call centre, explain my situation (literally give me a receipt with account numbers for the transaction please), and all that person could do still was give me some trace numbers that didn't seem to mean much. Back to the bank branch I went, literally forced them to write an official letter with a letterhead saying yes, I had paid this to so and so on this day...

And to add to the absurdity of the situation (yes there's more), I was literally instructed to fax that letter. Like I was literally emailing some person, and he was telling me I needed to send the proof of payment to this other department via fax (?!!!!).

Oh sure, and I saw someone cash in a cheque while I was at the bank. Heck, I had to cash in one myself for a refund I got. Told my parents about this and they laughed, even Malaysia is way ahead of this.

Sorry for the rant again, maybe it's just a prolonged culture shock. There are times where I wonder if I'm still in the 21st century.

Technology-wise, I knew I needed an upgrade for what's coming next.

My phone (which was a hand-me down from my partner) was definitely showing its age. I think I've used it for 5 years? And my partner used it for 1-2 years before that, so yeah, about time.

To be honest, the battery life was still kinda ok. It's more that the dozens of app I need to use in this country (because the way they workaround problems is with an app) require a newer operating system version.

So my partner shipped a new one to me (along with an assortment of necessities like masks and bedding), and it's been a pleasure to use! Especially with USB-C (no more up or down facing) and 5G (though it's not well supported in parts of the country).

Then there's my laptop, actually my first and only one I had since high school like what, 11-12 years ago? Even with a duo core processor and 4GB of RAM (less processing power than my new phone?!), it was still pretty usable over my PhD. Using Linux definitely helped, and if I can do deep learning (via SSH to a HPC) using this laptop, I think that says something.

Alas, the battery life is next to non-existent, and it's been tough keeping up with video conferencing demands (blur background in Zoom doesn't work). So I decided to get a proper workstation device this time. It comes with Linux, there's a GPU in it, ECC RAM, and it's actually heavier than my old laptop, but it's fit for purpose to do data science.

Just in time too, because I had a packed series of workshops and conferences lined up!

As an introvert and someone coming from New Zealand which has timezone differences with practically everywhere else, I've came to appreciate asynchronous communication.

It's efficient when done right, and yes, it does take some practice to mold into. The written communication (if public) becomes a record, and a sort of documentation almost of what was the thought process behind it.

This is what PyGMT does, everything is on GitHub. We do have a Slack channel but use it rarely, and meetings only happen every quarter or so (if someone can be bothered to organize it). Like, we can coordinate new releases just as easily with or without a team meeting.

With that open source background, I was delighted to get involved in the 2022 ICESat-2 Hackweek taking place virtually around end of March. Funny thing is that I've applied twice before to join as a participant, but this year I'm roped in straight as a tutorial lead!

Sure, virtual hackweeks have both async and synchronous components. Typically people meet to sync on the high level points, and then off we go to work on the website and tutorial content at our own pace. If needed, people can do one-on-one meetings to discuss, but that should not be the default as ideas need to be written down to become concrete.

During the hackweek itself, there were a series of tutorial presentations (recorded in case anyone wants to watch later), and some (dis)organized binning of people to work on their projects afterwards. It was awesome seeing the organic division of labour amongst the team. Not everyone was good at coding or git, but those that did helped each other out, and some were happy to work on the visualizations and final presentation. All in all, a very rewarding experience!

Afterwards, I was planning to transfer some of the lessons learned from the ICESat-2 Hackweek to the PyGMT Short Course at EGU in May. Funny thing is, I tried scheduling a meeting but everyone was on leave one after another, so we never ended up on a Zoom meeting at all!

Yes, amazingly, all of the course content was discussed and created asynchronously, each one of us made draft video recordings, then a few suggestions, then a final recording. As the lead convener, I had to stitch all the recordings together into a 1hr30min video (and picked up some basic video recording/editing skills with OBS and Openshot), but then it's just uploading to the conference website.

Sure, it was only 4 of us. Also sure, it was a pre-recorded video rather than a live tutorial session. But we agreed up front that the videos will show live-coding, i.e. type out the code into a blank cell rather than just running already written code. So it's semi-live in a sense, and it's slower and limits the quantity of content we can get through, but it's much easier to follow as a beginner.

In the end, a few of us did go on a Zoom call with some members of the community, just for an informal chat. I think that's the value of having asynchronous communication as a default, it gives you time to yourself, and it makes you appreciate the little time you have with others.

Once you have all these skills, what do you do?

You stay humble, share your tools, and let people rise to the occasion.

... the camera doesn't matter, but rather the photographs matter. The camera is just a tool, and any tool is only as good as the person using it.

When you are provided a tool or a service, be it an app, a delivery service, an apartment, a bank, a phone, a laptop, or a piece of software. When time comes to crunch, when it is being challenged to do something it is designed to do (or at least it says so on the ad), it should not fail.

The tool should not be the limiting factor, the person should be.

Forget about the fine print for a second, or the documentation. Given a great tool and a more than capable person, they should be able to find a workaround solution to tackle the task at hand. This is the mark of an expert, someone with the experience to navigate the device.

As for the person, if you are stuck or blindsided by a poor tool.

Perhaps that is all you know, perhaps you think that is the limit and there is no other side. But know this - there is always something more.

Either you find a new tool that lets you level up.

Or you create that tool yourself.

And show people the way.