Office move

Lets see, Monday saw me off to Birmingham for a supervision. I persuaded myself that I had booked the 10:30 train when in fact I had booked the 11:00 one. Also the ticket machine decided to not release my ticket, even though I am pretty sure I put in the right number. It said that the ticket had already been collected which is what worried me, so I went to the ticket office and they issued the ticket without problems. So I ended up taking the wrong seat because I was on the wrong train. I had plenty of time and there was plenty of space for me to work on doing searches for my PhD. I came across the idea of Bio-ecological systems. Now it is not directly applicable, in the sense I do not expect to find something that is worked out for child development can just be taken over by congregations but the idea of layers of systems that interact is something that I seem to be working towards for my PhD. The question is can I produce a layered model where the interactive boundaries are so clear. I somehow doubt it but it is worth a go. Also the layers are not simply layered, each one getting larger but sometimes they are rather overlapping. Any congregation places itself both with respect to the profane society and the sacred society. I wondered if secular was a better word than profane but decided probably for discursive reasons (i.e. the way the discourse is framed in ethnography) that profane is probably the more correct. Then went to see my supervisor. His comments on my essay were useful and I need to sit down and do the re-write pretty soon. Maybe next Saturday. He also suggested a different way of transcribing. However I was pretty whacked by the time I got in.

Tuesday, the business of the last few days caught up with me and I ended up with a migraine. So a quiet day and I did not make Bible study in the evening. However this was fortunate as although work had said they were moving me the day before, they only did it on Tuesday.

Wednesday, I went into work to find the mess the porters had left. They had been asked to remove a bookcase-cum-cupboard and had not done so. The net effect was that with the three bookcases I was bringing they had not managed to get everything into the room. So I set about organising the room as well as I could. The first thing was to move one of my bookcases outside the room and then remove a bookshelf that had been put up by Cliff. The workmanship showed that it definitely was not a workman employed by the University. To start with all the wood looked as if it was recycled; secondly all I needed to do was to remove three screws. Luckily I carry a screw driver with me although I almost came home for a better one. However I did have to get one big box of books up and two crates of files, and that up two flights of stairs. I refused to move the bookcase-cabinet down, it simply was too large. I was shattered by the time I got home and went straight to bed.

Thursday I actually got some work done. That is once I had got through the morning, when the porter came and too the cabinet part of the bookcase-cabinet away. I realised I could re-cycle the bookcase part by putting it on top of one of my lower bookcases instead of on-top of the cabinet. This means I have added at least another bookcase worth of book/folder space. I am however going to have to make difficult decisions in the near future. Some are straight forward, like folders where I have one piece of paper from five years ago, need just putting out. Others are more difficult. I have the last set of printed manuals for two lots of software, all manuals for both are now on DVD or web. I am reluctant to throw out the manuals simply because they are the last on paper but given that it is several versions (three for one and seven for the other) since they were issued their relevancy is getting less and less.  Then there are the journals of the Royal Statistical Society. While I am at the University I have access online if I need it, but if I move on, do I want to keep these? Hmm. Anyway managed to sit down and tackle the latest oviduct study for the group from the Jessop Wing. I discovered in the evening that my paper for the Society for the Study of Liturgy conference in September has been accepted.

Friday was another full day. I got up early so as to make breakfast in case Janet Brown was in to see me. She has been the last two weeks but I was really suspecting her next week. Then it was also departmental meeting. The elephant in the room is funding. We all know cuts are coming we just don't know how big or how the management is proposing to tackle them. However this was not announced on Friday, rather we had a fluffy meeting with awarding ABBAs to staff who had contributed significantly to the department. I am not sure how much one was a sop with the telephone operators getting one prize, but they were still being moved out of a private office in the computer centre. The other to the departmental secretary was richly deserved. She was left in September in charge of a team where the senior half had just left including her manager. She stepped up to the challenge and the department has not decayed into chaos. During the year we have had to recruit a number of more junior staff just to cover some of the roles. Somebody is going to have to inform her boss that the assumption for meetings is someone already present will take minutes not that the secretarial staff will provide a minute taker. That afternoon I reviewed a qualitative paper and then wrote up the week. I have another paper to work on next week, but it looks as if it is  being accepted for publication. Then on the evening I went out with Stuart to Nirmals. When I had mentioned Nirmals earlier he said he'd never been, and as it is an experience, I felt that as he had lived local to it for about a decade it was time he went. Mrs Nirmal runs the restaurant, and she is very definitely in charge. Stuart asked me to recommend for him what he should have off the menu, I said that there was not much point as Mrs Nirmal will inform us of what we should have. I am quite happy to go with Mrs Niirmals suggestions as usually they are brilliant. Friday night was no exception to this. For instance she suggested one rice and one bread. The rice was good, but the bread was peshwari naan and another home made bread that had spinach in it that she had made herself.  She also imports mangos from Mumbai in season, which it is at present. If you think you have had good mangos in the UK, then you should try some from Mrs Nirmal, they are in a class of their own.

Saturday my parents came over. It turned into a shopping day. The morning we went around Waitrose, mainly because I had not find time and energy to shop earlier in the week so was out of everything including coffee. Actually my parents then bought plums and decaff coffee beans. We also bought lunch although I forgot the carb so had to pull rice from the freezer. Then we went into town to shop, to buy wool so that Mum could knit a jumper for herself. The specifications were quite precise, we had to get a not to simple, not to complex pattern, in a fairly thick wool. However before we did that we had to go through the process of looking at what else there was, so mum would be sure this is what she wanted to do. We were also supposed to shop for trousers but Mum decided she did not need any new ones. On the other hand dad wanted a new battery for his pedometer, so I had to find the battery sort, then take him to Maplin (I got him to get two so when one runs out, we just put in the next, and then buy a new battery), I also then had to set it up. By this time I think we were all getting tired so we went back to my flat had a cup of tea and then the parents headed for home and I went to bed.

This morning I was over to Herringthorpe for the all age parade service. It was also the last one on the theme of Fruits of the spirit. In many ways it was a festival service with all the stops being pulled out. They actually seem to be developing a descent worship band. They now have a cellist, keyboard player, two guitars and somebody playing a simple drum. They also have two teenage girls with very good voices. Then they had drama and the all age worship team have some people who are very good at that (I think four or five to date, and I am not including the minister). So it all comes together very well indeed.  They have a depth of worship leadership skills that many congregations would envy. On the other hand I suspect that there is a group of people who stay away on these Sundays because they do not like the style of worship. This seems a big shame and against the spirit of congregational worship. The line is that you don't pick and choose, but come for the times you do enjoy worship and also for the times when it is not your style. Just like when you are with your family you don't expect everything to suit the children or everything to suit the grandparents but the fact is both are around for the bits that the other enjoy. All right so I am exceptional in that I have yet to find a form of worship I could not get anything from including what for me is the most challenging and that is worship dominated by loud music. I care not whether the music is on the organ or from a rock band. When I participate in that style, just sit further back in the congregation. The band at Herringthorpe today were all unmiked so their volume was less that Douglas Jones going full blast. Oh the last hymn was "You shall go out with Joy". They sang it through twice, standard URC style but unusual for Herringthorpe which seems to have a once only rule. Then they said the grace and it was obvious to me that the band were going to play that again, only it wasn't to the band or the congregation, but they eventually got organised too but the projectionist had to hunt for the words. Even so it was only played through twice again. The thing is that traditionally that song is repeated, going faster and faster, until either the band or the congregation give up.

This week may be quieter,  however have bible study on Tuesday and a meeting connected with Herringthorpe and tFr on Thursday afternoon, please pray for wisdom as I am not particularly happy in this role, but I am realising that Sue who is heading the Needs Assessment Group needs supporting. I just wish that there was somebody in the congregation who was more au fait with community work than there appears to be, who could support her. Next weekend should be quieter but I will need to do some shopping (I need new smart sandals).