An Adminny sort of week

Last Sunday while recovering from the migraine, I had a sudden yen to make bread. I think the desire was to do the kneading rather than actually for the smell. As I am aware I occasionally get this sort of yet  of desire to make bread I tend to have a couple of ready mixed ingredients in.  I am beginning to think that the reason my loaves never rise as much as I desire is that with hand kneading I tend to keep the dough just too dry. Anyway I enjoyed the loaf that I made and I still have a couple of packets more to use when I want to, although I must admit the fact that they are Tescos Wholemeal  rather than something more interesting does mean I am less likely to get the yen. A few years back when I had either more energy or time I used to make a fresh loaf each Sunday, and then it was worth having the dry ingredients but these days I rarely have that sort of opportunity.

Monday it was into work as usual, on the morning saw Margo with the brighter of her two student who knows what he is doing. It is just so completely different dealing with a student who is basically competent to one who is struggling. I outline roughly what he needed to do, he does it and then produces a good summary for us to review. The other student despite far more intensive support and an easier project is still struggling. I am not sure this happens but I normally know whether a person is struggling or really capable by the end of a first session. Some totally capable people are full of self doubts and just need to see me so I can say “yes you are doing fine”.

Also this last week I found the formula for Fiellers method for calculating the confidence interval of a proportion when the terms are individually normally distributed and the coefficient of variance of the denominator tends to infinity (basically an infinitesimal probability that it could be X). The data is not normally distributed but most of the studies assumed it was. I also hope I have a book with the formulae for the moment expansion method. The conclusion I am coming to is that Fieller’s method is actually better.

Wednesday I took as holiday, going to see Fleur about something that was bothering me. One of the interesting things is the assumption that because I get involved I am losing my critical distance. The fact is that although I am willing to work and chat and spend time there, I do always see this as a placement church. They have no pastoral responsibility for me, I will not vote during church meeting and I will never have myself included as a member. I am not without pastoral care, I made darn sure of that, according to what the need is I will either go to my counsellor, my minister, my elder, Fleur who is a long term confidant or my support group. It is not the placement churches role to help me sort myself out. Actually one of my reasons for having a counsellor is somewhere that I can unpack what I am feeling about the church and what I think the church is feeling about me. Sometimes I have to work harder at unpacking what other people are thinking because my past experience gets projected into the present. Fleur seemed to be in good sorts and sent me back with a German magazine for my father and was getting ready to do simultaneous translation for a group talking about spirituality of refugees and immigration in Europe I think.

Thursday I was in work but my concentration was shot, I eventually came home at 4:30 pm because I could not cope with pretending to stare at the computer screen for much longer and went to bed and slept for a couple of hours. During that time it tippled with rain. So often the inability to concentrate seems to happen in the build up to a rain storm!

Friday was a day I did a lot of admin for PhD including signing up for next year. It said that if I was eligible for 50% off I would get a tick box but no tick box appeared. As I have received it in previous years I decided to query this, especially as the description had not changed. I suspect that it quite possible that they had forgotten that my course is technically hefce covered. There is just almost nobody from the funding councils doing it. At least that is what I am hoping. Hopefully I will find out Monday.

Saturday I was out of sorts again, although I managed to buy some clothes for next week as I decided I wanted to be comfortable and fairly smart at the conferences and the clothes I had were either comfortable or smart. If I am happy with these for next week I will try buying a couple more silky stripped shirts and try wearing that during warmer weather into the office in an attempt to smarten up slightly. Work is always a problem as I have to be able to adapt pretty quickly to different situations. I need to satisfy both comfort and smartness, plus I carry a lot in my pockets. I am fortunately not a regular attender at meetings. Winter is mainly sorted with a turtle neck and trousers although I know I should wear something smarter than sweatshirts but they are warm and comfy (actually I have toning fleeces that I wear a lot). Summer however with wanting long sleeve tops, I find that most of the t-shirts have really deep neck lines which I am not really comfortable with in work. Hence my trying out of blouses. I just hope these don’t need ironing and tumble drying them will do.

So to today, and a normal day really. Got to Herringthorpe, congregation was missing mostly the families there being only about two there. There were two older lads but I had no idea where their parents were. The Sunday school was therefor sized at 6. Three of whom were cousins. Normally there are over twenty children that go out although even they are worrying over the Sunday School as they had not got any younger children coming through. I suspect it will need something stronger than a recruitment drive. Actually one of the interesting things about Herringthorpe is that the congregation is prepared to talk of things as a marketing campaign.