Lines of code flowed across the screen as ink does from a Joseon era calligraphy pen. The green arrow in the right corner of the screen beckoned, and soon, all the code was pressed through the native complier with ease. Executed, the code began to paint the screen with critical results, finding branch points with accuracy… it was beautiful…
But it was not to be, yet.
Bri Robertson lifted her tired head from the desk, only to see the words, “Segmentation Fault,” bolded in white print at the last line of the command prompt. The past eight hours were focused on extracting coordinates of the branch points and using those to quantify angiogenesis; however, the array would not pass, so Bri took the opportunity to take a deep dive into numpy arrays for most of the day. Time was not fleeting; rather, time was stumbling forward with boulders tied to both ankles. There is nothing beautiful in coding to the normal observer, yet within the lines capped with indentations, Bri found a peace that she would carry with her throughout her adventures in Seoul. With a final F5 press for the day, the code executed, and she waited, in the calm before the expected storm. This time, however, the typhoon’s path was diverted! Within three minutes, the stack of angiogenesis slices processed, exporting information about density regions and max length areas to Excel.
To celebrate the in-lab achievement, Bri, for the fifth time, escaped to the mountains of Seoul. However, prior to climbing Inwangsan, a mountain known for its views of Seoul and the Seoul Fortress Wall that traverses the mountain, Bri took a detour through the Gyeongbokgung palace: Seoul’s largest palace. Taking a moment to investigate the history, she quickly learned the importance of the area. Originally built in 1395 during the Joseon dynasty, the palace was then burnt by the Japanese in 1592, rebuilt, and then demolished again by the Japanese during occupation! Without an extensive Korean history background, Bri relished every line she read from Wikipedia on a park bench beside Gyeongbokgung about the palace’s history, proceeding to reflect during her quiet hike up Inwangsan.
IRiKA 