Yoon Seok Yul declares martial law late last night while we are sleeping, and brings the military in to halt parliament. I'm taken by surprise, because from all I have heard of him, I feel that he should have been sleeping too. Parliament should be sleeping. It's a little suspicious that they can be shut down at 2 in the morning. When do they get their 8 hours?

Reading about it early in the morning, I wonder how this affects me. The military has probably not come to halt the math department. Probably nothing changes. Except I guess it means that corporal punishment is now required in the classroom.

My wife tells me that if the students make a mistake, then I have to whack their hand with a ruler.

I don't have a ruler.

I go into my office early to see if there is anything I can use in place of a ruler. I have pencils, but they aren't long enough for a good whacking. At best I can poke with them.

I have a spoon, that might be okay for whacking, but it really is more of a "bonk", then a "whack".

I have a wilted avocado tree. If I pull off the leaves, I could use the stem. But that is more of a "whip" than a "whack".

I'm not sure how important the sound is, and a google search of "Martial Law" only returns nostalgic photos of the the old Sammo Hung show. Articles on this never go into the acceptable sounds of corporal punishment.

I could get a ruler on Temu, I guess, but that would take a couple of days to get here.

Maybe it is all moot, though. My students don't answer questions, and so mostly I don't ask them. Easiest to avoid the issue, no questions in class until martial law is over.