According to my notes the last I posted was 23rd November, so I have quite a bit of catching up to do. I am therefore going to do highlights rather than a day by day account.
Monday 24th I got to do another interview with Audrey Turner. She did not want to be recorded so I had to do a recreation afterwards. The disadvantage was that it meant I had to do the writing up in depth almost immediately, the advantage that my supervisor saw that I was getting people to talk about the congregations identity. Talking on thesis, I have now completed the course on Ethnography, if I was in the mood I would spend the holidays writing a piece for assessment. However time is at a premium and I do not have to. I may instead spend the time writing a piece on the the use of validity and reliability within scale development. The thing is that people from qualitative field spend all their time worrying about people asking about this, when in actual fact the serious people the other way don't play the game to make reliability the core thing. Just simply they know there is cases where reliability is impossible, such as testing migraine drugs, an illness which is notoriously unstable.
I have also taught on SPSS when I had a rotten cold. I am still puzzling over what is the best approach as I came into work on suppressants but the evidence looks like I gave the cold to the class so there was a massive drop in attendance the next week. The suppressants I used worked as suppressants but as a result the cold lingered whereas if I take time off I recover far more quickly. However if I do not teach a class then this worries the organisers. Really it is a catch 21 situation with no easy way out. Also in work I have been involved in a research bid to look at Roman teeth and see how this maps across to social status and such.
Then my parents were over on 29th November. The day was a dreary one and we ended up wandering around town getting bits and bobs. Lunch was an unknown quantity when we set up but as we had to stop into somewhere to get some oddments for me, we stopped off at M&S and got the things for lunch. Oh talking of M&S I think all children must be getting pyjamas for Christmas as when I went in early December to buy them from my usual source not only did they have none in, but neither did most other places except Marks and Spencers, so all pyjamas this year are courtesy of Marks and Sparks, yes I even checked Debenhams and Amazon and googled. I will on Wednesday sit down and check through what other things we have to do.
St Andrews Chesterfield is well into the Christmas season, last week, this week and next week they will be having two services. The first was a Christingle service, but they use glow sticks rather than candles in the oranges so there is no danger of people setting anything on fire. The service was also markedly different from ones I have seen on other places as rather than using the traditional carols, new carols were used. By the way, on the mornings when they light the advent wreath they are singing from Candles and Conifers a hymn by a Josie Smith. No I am not sure it is the Josie Smith I know but it might well be. It would certainly be a coincidence if it isn't. Yesterday was their Christmas Cafe service and next week is the carol service.
The first weekend in December I learnt the hard way that there are somethings that just trigger migraines. Boots gave me a free pack of Vitamin C and probiotics. I checked the back and there seemed to be nothing too bad there, although it included caffeine. I took it and it really did buck me up but woke up feeling groggy the next day, took it again and once again felt better but could feel a migraine coming on that evening and had a nasty one lasting the best part of two days afterwards. My tendency is to blame the cafeine but there is no more than in a cup of coffee and I drink those pretty regularly without getting a migraine every day. What I do know cafeine does is speed up my metabolism. So I am not sure what it was.
Tomorrow I am making the advent wreath for the carol service again. I am going to have to start early and keep going as I am the only person doing the whole thing. There are good reasons why my normal helpers are away. Sarah is visiting her parents and Lynn's daughter is getting married in New Zealand. This daughter is exceptionally bright lawyer who moved to Australia after getting stuck in a dead end lawyer's job in London and is loving it out there. Her fiance went out with her. She has just sat her Australian bar exams on at least one of them getting distinction. We have enough greenery, Lynn has picked loads, at least one other colleague at work has brought in stuff and then I picked one bag from the estate, another from the leylandii at St Andrew's Chesterfield and took a third bad from Tricia Legge who had it left over from flower decorating.
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