International Visitors to the ICR

Another exciting day in the ICR. I'm just back from my favorite conference, SPR. Sorry to not have blogged from there, just so busy seeing extremely interesting research! In fact, I told my colleague, Paul Bolls, that I was leaving with terrific ideas...and 11 articles that I just HAVE to read!

The conference was held in Austin TX, which I didn't find very interesting. But, the day afterwards I visited my aunt & uncle who live in San Antonio. Here's proof...a picture of me in front of a closed Alamo!

So, now I'm back and happy to have a weekend that is pretty lazy to allow me to catch up on stuff. This past week, though, we were fortunate enough to be visited by a group of 5 professors from National Chengchi University in Taiwan. They are interested in designing a research facility and wanted to see what the ICR was all about. So, with the help of several graduate students, Annie Lang, Walt Gantz, Sharon Mayell (the ICR Lab Manager) and I showed:

Dr.Wei Wen, Chung, Dean of Communication College
Dr. Herng, Su, Chair of Journalism Dept.
Dr. Shang Ren, Kwan, Chair of Radio & TV Dept.
Dr. Tsai Yen, Li, Chair of Information Science Dept.
Dr. Pao Fang, Chang, Associate Professor of Journalism Dept.

some of the types of studies that we can do in the facility.

Here's Sungkyoung Lee talking about one of the studies:

And Annie explaining the importance of understanding context when interpreting psychophysiological measures:

It was a very pleasant visit and I was very proud to show off the ICR.

Visit to Ohio State Successful

It's been 10 days since I've updated. Sorry. Busy time.

Today, in fact, I was a part of a terrific panel as our Department's Colloquium Series.

Maybe more on that later.

But I wanted to share a little story.

Ten years ago or so I was an Assistant Professor at University of Alabama in the Telecommunication and Film Department. And, in order to continue my work I needed to get a physiology lab up and running. I had inherited all the equipment...it was in a storage room but I wasn't sure how to get it functional.

In our our lab use a program called VPM, written by a Professor Ed Cook at UAB to collect our physiology data. Because he was so geographically close to me in Tuscaloosa, I asked him to come down and consult with me. He was gracious enough to agree and soon the Media and Psychophysiology Lab was functional. I'll never forget his kindness.

And I remembered him fondly when Zheng Wang --an IU Telecomm. PhD. who is now at Ohio State--asked me if I would come and help her set up her lab in Columbus. She, too had inherited some equipment that were in somewhat a state of storage.

So, last weekend I went to visit her in Columbus and had a great time. Here I am with Brutus the OSU mascot...which is a nut as far as I can tell...but here he is dressed up as an astronaut.

And later in the weekend I was able to find my way into the OSU stadium which I understand is called "The Horseshoe." Apparently there was a big game that weekened between OSU and USC...but it was an way game as you can tell by the "crowd" around me.

And, most importantly, I'm glad to report that the Wang Lab is now all ready to collect data.

Go Zheng!

Time Flies During Washington State Vacation

Blogging has taken a hiatus while I took 3 weeks off to go to the great state of Washington. It's the state that both my wife and I grew up in, and the place where our parents still reside. And, so, every year we try to go and spend a good deal of time there.

This time we spent about 10 days in a place called Birch Bay. It's on the coast (with a name like that, imagine)...and the temperatures were colder than normal. So, it was rather chilly to those of us who have had their blood thinned by the midwest heat and humidity. Still, a wonderfully relaxing time filled with great beauty and the occassional sand sculpture and bald eagle.

Then the last week or so of our visit was spent in the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, & Kennewick) visiting my folks. The Tri-cities is on the eastern side of the state, and it's a desert climate. So, after being lulled by temperatures in the 70s and 80s (and the occasional 60s!) on the coast, Richland woke us up with three strait days in the 100s!

Here time was spent looking for water to keep cool in. Here's a picture of me trying to keep track of my kids at the aquatic playground at Kennewick's Playground of Dreams

And, my dad & stepmom's neighbors had their grandkids visiting...and had set up an inflatable pool just right for jumpin'

Overall, a great trip with me ignoring work (for the most part).

I did do a major tidying up of the design of my homepage, though, using dreamweaver. I'm not a professional designer by any means, but I'm pretty proud of it.

Now, we're back in Bloomington and I'm getting ready for my Intensive Freshman Seminar...I've got LOTS of work to do to prepare for that, but I'm pretty excited about it.

And, expect more blog posts...hopefully.

I've given myself an incentive my including mention of the audioprof blog in the letter that was sent to the IFS students enrolled in my class...so I can't let it get too out of date!

More Pics from Savannah

Upon arriving in Savannah for the SPR conference, everyone kept telling me how much they loved the city. However, I wasn't taken with it. It seemed just old...and smelly...kinda like I felt about New Orleans when I visited it pre-Katrina.

But, it turned out that this impression was only of the streets near the Hyatt where we were staying. On Friday afternoon I went out walking with Yuki Fujioka, a friend and colleague on faculty at Georgia State University. And, what I found was a beautiful town...I found what everyone loved about the place. Fountains:

Architecture and wroght iron:

And of course the squares.

Although, technically, these next two pictures were not taken in one of these. It was taken in Forsyth Park. Which was hosting some sort of wonderful outdoor art show. Paintings like these were all over the place...there were about 30 of them and all really beautiful.

And, there was the impressive Forsyth Park Fountain.

Next report from SPR, I'll give a summary or two of research posters.

First pictures from Savannah and SPR

Last weekend several of us from the ICR Lab went to Savannah GA to attend the Society for Psychophysiological Research conference. As regular readers to TAP-blog know, this is by far my favorite academic conference of the year. I'll have more about the science in days to come, but for now here are a few pictures:

First, one to let you know that work did actually get done there. Above are two of our doctoral candidates, Sungkyoung Lee and Satoko Kurita at their research poster on Friday night.

Now, for some of the fun. One of the places we kept hearing about was a restaraunt called Mrs. Wilkes. The website for the place, doesn't do it nearly the justice it deserves. Although I admit to being skeptical about whether it would be worth it, when this was the line we encountered about 20 minutes before the place even opened:
But, I figured it would be time to catch up with friends old and new. Here's Missouri School of Journalism's Kevin Wise & Paul Bolls, Hawaii's Andy Kaufman (he was a student of Paul's at WSU), Johnny Sparks who is on faculty at University of Alabama--in the same department & college where I once worked, so it was nice to gossip with him. And, Julie Fox...my colleague from IU...we both think it's a shame that we have to go out of town to find time to have lunch together!

Also, waiting in line gave me my first glimpse at Savannah architecture and ambience. More on that later, too. When we got in, we were seated at large tables of 10 people. For those of you doing the math, 4 of whom we didn't even know. And, the food was served "family style" like this:

Although it may not look like much, it was one of the best meals I've ever had. You know they're doing something right when you ask someone to pass you the TURNIPS because you want seconds!

If you go to Savannah, you gotta go to Mrs. Wilkes!

Can you tell summer's almost over? FINALLY Last Busan Update

Now that I'm back in Bloomington...and over jet lag...and as the end of the summer creeps closer...I have been focused on getting a little bit of work done. But, now other things I want to blog about are cropping up so I want to wrap up the thoughts and pics from my trip to South Korea.

When we left off on my travel-log, I was leaving the APEC convention location and the skies over Pusan were opening up for a terrible thunderstorm. So, without the possibility of any outside activities, we decided to visit some indoor shopping malls for me to find a gift for my son. I don't quite know how we had gotten upon the topic, occassionally during my trip my host, Professor Kwon, told me the story of Wal-Mart's attempt to enter the Korean market--an attempt that eventually failed. Now, certainly there are many sides to this story, most likely. But according to Kwon, Wal-Mart thought that the same approach they use in the US would translate successfully to Korea: Low prices and high-volume purchases. But, in a country where space is extremely limited (click here for a posting showing XXX a stack of almost identical restaruants stacked on top of each other because of their last of space), the possibility of buying 15 rolls of paper towels is pretty rediculous.

So, Wal-Mart sold their Korean stores to a Korean company that changed the names to E-Mart. And, off Kwon and I went to E-Mart in a pouring thunderstorm.

Of course, there were differences. Parking lots that were, well, actually parking 6-story parking garages. And, each ROW of the parking garages was headed by an EMART employee who either crossed their arms in front of themselves to let you know there were no spaces in that row...or they waived you in if there was an opening. But, regardless, as your car passed by they bowed to you. And not in a "this-is-an-hourly-job-that-I'll-quit-as-soon-as-possible" way. With seeming actual pride in the job they were doing and glad we were there.

Then, just like the parking lot, the store itself was multiple floors. Imagine hundreds of people with shopping carts going up and down flat escalators (I'm sorry I dont' have pictures of that). But, I did take pictures of carts...or at least a part of a cart. Check this out:

Each cart is locked to each other when you enter the store. To unlock it, you need to put in a 100 Won coin. The reason? Because E-Mart knows that even for the equivalent of less than 10-cents, their customers will bring their carts back to get that coin back. And...THEY DO...they all bring them back to the store after depositing their groceries in their cars. No carts in the parking lots...incredible! Oh, here's instructions for those new to the system:

Another thing that was surprising to me was just how LOUD the place was. While the outdoor fish markets were mostly quiet (a surprise in hindsight only), this place was hoppin' with E-Mart employees trying to get you to come over and look at their fish, or kimchee, or whatever. Here's one guy who posed for me...I was so over-the-top with being an obvious tourist...I mean, imagine seeing someone in your local Wal-Mart snapping digital photos every 50 feet...

Before I visited I used to tell my Korean students that I liked kimchi. To me, that was self-explanatory, because I thought there was only one kind...made of spiced/fermented cabage.

But, now I know that just about ANYTHING can actually be kimchied (?). Here's a picture I took of an entire display case of different kimchis. I'd have taken a better one, but apparently this was a counter operated by a particular brand of kimchi. The moment I took a pic the woman behind the counter came scurrying out and told Professor Kwon that these were trade secrets!

So, I'm almost to the end of my my pictures. It was, again, an unforgetable trip and I hope you enjoyed my retelling of it. I thank you for visiting my site to stay up to date, and thanks to those who leave comments every once in awhile.

To truly thank you, I'm leaving you with just a picture of me singing karoke to "With or Without You" by U2. No audio.

But, check this out and just imagine my face superimposed over Bono's.

Busan Korea Catch-Up Part 2

Well, I'm now almost completely back on EDT. Now just gave to get completely back in the swing of things in the office...the final push of writing and research before the summer is over.

BUT FIRST, another look bak at my fantastic trip to South Korea.

We're up to my final day, which was Sunday. Woke up rather early and went for a walk across the Kyoungsung University campus and into part of the city. One of the first things I came upon was their library (which also contains their student athletic rec center, a performance hall, and their Dept. of Dance). Outside is a cage of about 1000 square feet that contains about 5 huge sea eagles like these (sorry for the out-of-focus).

After a (much-needed) relaxing morning sitting around the guest house, Professor Kwon picked me up and we went up onto a hill that is behind Kyoungsung where I got a great view of part of Busan...through the humid haze:

Now, let me give a little aside. I flew over on Northwest Airlines (although many on my trip referred to it as "Northworst" I honestly didn't have a problem with them). Their in-flight magazine did a story on Dubai, and one of the little inset pics showed indoor skiing in the desert city. Couldn't believe it. I thought to myself "How cool [I often use puns when talking to myself] would that be, to go skiing when it's burning hot outside!"

Well, to add to this incredible trip...guess what Busan has? That's right, it's the Snow Castle is right on this very same hill. And, even though they were just getting ready for a grand opening August 11, we happened to be there on a day when they were having a by-invitatation-only event to have people try the facility out. We thought, for a few minutes, that we were going to actually be able to rent skis, equipment, and such. But, turns out we needed to have been invited. Still, Kwon was able to talk them into giving us 2 entry passes so we could at least take pictures from "the slope."

From below freezing to back outside, where it was 87-degrees and very humid. Off we went to the Westin Chosun, Busan. George W. Bush stayed in this hotel during the APEC summit in 2005. In fact, he rented the entire hotel for security purposes. Or, rather, I helped pay for him to rent the entire hotel during his stay.

We walked from the Westin to the actual APEC Center where the conference actually took place.
A glace over my shoulder revealed the beach which I'd seen during my trip to the Busan Aquarium. However, Professor Kwon told me that this weekend over 1 million people would be on this beach EACH DAY. Couldn't believe it.




So, here I am in front of the space-ship looking APEC center...which is now pretty much a museum dedicated to this bit of international relations in Dynamic Busan.

Me in front of the tapestry that welcomes visitors. In it are the 12 symbols of longevity: sun, cloud, mountain, rock, water, crane, deer, turtle, pine tree, herb of eternal youth (!?!), bamboo, and mythical peach.

Where President Bush sat. Joined on each side by Vietnam and Thailand.

An "artistic shot" of the conference center. I took this just before the thunder we'd been hearing was joined by rain and lightning. We ran to the car in time to get stuck in having 1 million beach goers come off the beach.

With no more captive audience, the advertising blimps were grounded.

So, with the rain pouring down, we went shopping at the Korean version of Walmart...E-Mart.

Impressions on that next time.

South Korea Catch Up--Part 1

I am now back in the States, safely home in Bloomington Indiana. In fact, I am sitting at a table in the Starbucks loated in the basement of the IU building that houses the ICR. I'm NOT drinking any coffee, though, because my hope is to be able to go home and have a nap this afternoon. Everyone told me that the jet lag was most difficult returning to the States...and they are right. I have tried to get back in the swing of the EDT-zone...but today I am even more groggy then when I first came back.

Of course, some of my fatigue may be due to the fact that I sightseed (?) my tail off while I was in Busan...and that is just now catching up to me. The hectic schedule also kept me from blogging much after the second day there...so I know that I have a lot to catch up on. Since I just missed my bus, I figured I'd get some on it chronicled while I wait for the next one.

So, where was I?

I had mentioned that we went out to a wine bar the night after my talk. The next morning Professors Auh and Kwon met me for breakfast. When they said that we were going to have "cod soup and rice" I was not particularly looking foward to it...not my idea of breakfast fare. But, I must admit that it was delicious. Here's a picture of my two breakfast companions:

After breakfast, Professor Auh (on the left) had to catch a subway ride to the KTX train to take him back to Seoul. Professor Kwon and I met in his office at Kyungsung University to discuss ways that we could collaborate on research projects in the future. Then, I'm sure so that he could get some actual work done rather than just cart me all over the country, Kwon and I parted ways and Soyung Bae (a current masters student of mine, and former student of Professor Kwon AND Professor Auh) and her friend Shin Ju took me to Gyeongju province to do more sightseeing. This was once a major city under the Shilla kingdom---the conqourer of the other two kingdoms around 600 AD. Since Shilla officially supported Buddhism, one of the main attractions here is the Bulguksa temple. Here are some pictures from there:

Inside this main gate--off to the side (behind the orange panels in the above picture) --were huge carvings of temple gaurds

The one of the left was apparently going to anhialate all intruders with his mean mandolin.

Here are some of the inspiring and old pieces of beauty. A drum:

A pagoda
An 18.9-ton bell...And some paintings on the wood ornamenture of the ceiling.

This painting is remeniscent (to me) of the carvings/paintings of native americans I've seen in the Pacific Northwest. I didn't say anything about this at first...but then we went to the tumuli burial mounds in Hwangnam-ri

It reminded me strongly of the almost identical Native American burial ground in Moundville Alabama that my wife and I visited when we lived in Tuscaloosa.

So, now you know what I did on Day three. More later...including shots of me skiing...well, almost. Check back.

Another Busan Entry---now 24 hours behind!

I am now slightly more than 24 hours behind on chronicling my trip. The two related reasons for this is that my hosts have done such a good job keeping my schedule full with visiting the marvelous historical sights that any spare time I have left is devoted to, well, sleeping. Finally, I had to say that I really needed some rest (which made me feel old!). So, right now it’s about 4:30pm on Saturday in Bloomington. Here in Busan it is about 5:30am on Sunday morning. Last night we arrived back from a full day of sightseeing around 5pm and I made arrangements to eat dinner on my own and not meet Professor Kwon until noon today. Dinner on my own was supposed to be right after I had a much-needed nap. I woke up at 1am local time. Guess I was even more tired than I thought!

But, as I said, it is now 5:30 in the morning and, well, I didn’t have dinner. I’ll write a blog entry ( I think that I’ll keep it chronological; even though that means I’m still a day behind, I don’t want to miss chronicling anything of my trip) and then walk down from the campus guest house to find a place for breakfast.

So, right, let’s start there. I’ve changed where I’m staying from the beach-front Hotel Homers to the Kyungsung University Guest House. Here’s a picture of it.
It’s a huge building, really. Not quite as big as the IMU and is much more reminiscent of Campus View House or Tulip Tree on the IU campus. But it is newer. Plenty comfortable and certainly more affordable for my hosts than the Homer. And, it is likely that there were no more rooms even available at the Homer because over the weekend it is the destination beach for Koreans trying to beat the 87-degree heat with really high humidity. In fact, I’m sure that my touring around in it is one of the reasons I just lost steam last night.

Here’s a few pictures taken from my room on the 15th floor of the guest house. Beautiful Korean hills---which are everywhere. Also, in the second picture you can see the bridge which was right outside my room at the Homer.


So, what happened on my Friday? First, Professor Kwon and I toured an area of Busan called the Dalmaji Hill which is where many English-speaking foreigners live. Interestingly, the value of real-estate in Busan is opposite of what it is in the States: it costs less to live on the water than inland toward the mountains. Apparently this is due to havoc of the salty breezes and fog that blow in off the ocean every morning.

My understanding from the tourist signs is that Dalmaji translates as “moon-viewing” and here is a pagoda dedicated to doing just that (although, when we were there in the daytime it seemed dedicated to a couple families having picnics and older men hoping that the higher altitude would bring breezes to relieve the heat.


After this we had lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant overlooking the water. The place was called the Opera and I would recommend it if you ever find yourself in Busan.

The only drawback to the lunch was that the courses were slow in being served [every restaurant…even the Italian one…serves meals in multiple courses. I mean, like 6 or 7 courses. Not only does it take forever…but there is SO MUCH FOOD and it’s all delicious…that by the time you get to the 4th or 5th course you WANT them to take their time serving you the next course so that you can digest. They, of course, oblige.

So, we were later than we had hoped getting out of the restaurant and needed to proceed straight back to Kyungsung University for me to meet Professor Taik Sup Auh who was Professor Kwon’s dissertation advisor at Korea University. Professor Auh came down to see my talk, which was a very big honor.

The talk went fine. It was a basic primmer on psychophysiological methods and the audience was very interested. Even had some students ask questions, which I found out later is something that culturally they find very difficult to do since in the Korean classroom they only dutifully take notes on every word the professor says. [This is something I need to keep in mind in my own graduate classes when Korean students are in attendance.]

After the talk, Kwon, Auh and Soyung took me to sashimi dinner. Later, Soyung went home and the two gentlemen showed me a Korean night of wine drinking. Although I have a health condition where drinking is contra-indicated, and I had told my hosts that from the moment I accepted their invitation, it is such a part of the bonding/friendship building in this culture that I eventually relented this evening and had a little bit with dinner and at the bar we went to. Sacrifices for international relations.

Well, now I’m starving. I have to go find food…even if a convenience store is the only thing open at 6am. I’ll try to blog about my Saturday before the day is through. For now, let me leave you with a final picture. Although I have enjoyed my trip immensely, and found Korea to be a safe, friendly, interesting, and beautiful country…there are things about there culture that I would take a LONG time to get used to. For example, here’s a vending machine outside the bathrooms at Dalmaji Hill pagodoa:



Aneyong-hi gamseo.