Pohatu Penguins at Akaroa, Mount Sunday, and Christchurch

July 24, 2020

Our South Island trip had three distinct components, so it makes sense to post about them separately. This is part 2. Part 1: Heaphy Track. Part 3: Arthur’s Pass and the TranzAlpine. Part 3b: BreakFree on Cashel. Full galleries at https://gallery.patricklam.ca/index.php?/category/1227. July 10: French-themed day in Canterbury More pictures from July 10 After a big day on July 9th, finishing the Heaphy Track and getting to the suburbs of Christchurch, we were scheduled to go see penguins in Akaroa with Pohatu Penguins.

BreakFree on Cashel (Christchurch): A Review

July 15, 2020

tl;dr Exceeded expectations. Great value-for-money. Related Work See also Yotel: A Review, a stay in AMS Schiphol Yotel back in 2016 after a conference. Staying near the bus stop For our night between getting off the TranzAlpine round trip and taking the 7am-bus-then-ferry back to Wellington, we wanted a place close to the bus stop. The BreakFree was as close as you could get (3 minute walk), and also cheap, at C$63 (NZ$70) for an “Inner Urban Double”.

Level 1 June

July 4, 2020

This month started in Charleston where I went climbing with Elliott. As I write this I’m going to the Heaphy Track tomorrow morning. We chose to delay for a day due to weather. The number of active cases in NZ is now 21 but that is a misleading number; all of these cases are in quarantine “at the border”, i.e. found in returning New Zealanders in managed self-isolation. The number of known active cases in the community is 0 which has been a stable number for a while.

About sabbaticals

June 15, 2020

tl;dr: Sabbaticals are not an unpaid vacation but rather a chance to focus on longer-term scholarly projects. Sabbaticals are an awesome feature of the academic job. I feel like they are often misunderstood by the world in general. This description is specifically about how sabbaticals work at the University of Waterloo; many North American universities are similar but not identical. The normal distribution of work for tenure-track and tenured faculty members at the University of Waterloo is 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% service.

May, moving down the levels

June 3, 2020

It’s astonishing how quickly things have returned to almost-normal in this country. Since May 14 (3 weeks ago already!), we’ve been in Alert Level 2, where most things are open. Physical distancing, capacity controls and mandatory contact tracing remain for now, although there will be another decision next Monday, June 8. The number of known active cases is 1 and the last positive reported case was on May 22. Haircuts I had been planning to wait a few more days, but I was walking down the street and noticed a barber open with no line, so I’ve had reasonable hair since May 17.