Bradford Shipmeet at the end of a normal week

Right lets see about this weeks happenings. I am beginning to feel that I am settled back into what I need to do. I managed all four days at work this week without a migraine so it seems to have been the post Christmas blip that I have managed to throw off. On Wednesday in work there was an NVivo Users meeting. I am begining to realise I need to be more proactive in taking things to people. A research bid went in and because I had not talked to someone they had not put in the money for software and hardware plus personel to keep it running that they need to really run the software.

Another thing is I am learning that with another member of staff that when I was expecting her to take the initiative she was waiting for me to issue instructions. Bother. I can issue instructions but she really does need to be more instrumental in doing her job (that is organising and running computer courses). I am not pushy but I have been wondering why things have not been happening and it seems to be because I have not been suggesting dates. One of the problems is that she actually knows the demand while I don’t. Oh well I now have one arranged.

Another thing is I have my phone battery sorted. It has been running flat far more than it should have. In the end I needed to do several things. Firstly set up a sync properly, as it was trying and failing to sync. I then turned the frequency of syncing to daily and largely turned syncing off. I also got a larger battery, which means a chunkier phone but the battery now last about three days instead of less than one. I have tested that over the weekend and on Saturday it got a lot of work for me and still did the three days.

Even better news is that I saw the doctor on Friday and I no longer have a prescription for Paroxetine (Seroxat). I am on a really small dose at present 5mg having been tapering off for a long time (I think something like three years). 5 mg is really an irritating amount to be on as you need to chop tablets in half to get that amount. If I do go down after stopping I can go back on but the doctor thinks the present level is almost homeopathic it is so small so I do not expect to. Formally I will stop doing this on Wednesday.

Saturday I went to Bradford for a Ship of Fools Meet, in honour of Erin Etheredge(community editor on the forums who died just before New Year). We met at the National Media Centre and I got to seeing an Imax film for the first time with the film Wild Ocean ). It was spectacular although I came out with a headache. I found that although the initial images lept out at me, after a while my brain seem to process them as on a screen or a fish tank. Then we went onto Omar Khan’s for a meal. It was only a small crowd of us I think six people through out the whole event. I also went tee total for the event and that meant with getting back to Sheffield by about 10pm I was able to be functional today.

I was reading in church today. Normally when there is a version of the bible in the pews I use that one. However the version is the Good News and as part of my preparation I look up other versions and this time even glanced at the Greek. The reading was only 4 verses long 1 Corinthians 1:18-21 but I had at least three grumbles with the way it was translated. The deal breaker for me was the fact that they had changed the subject of the first verse. Not drastically admittedly but in a way that would have for the original readers weakened the force of what Paul was saying. The switch had happened from the fact Christ was crucified to the fact he had died. the others really were personal preferences. However this is of course Paul speaking about the wisdom of God being different from the wisdom of this world. Ironic that I am using learning to ask questions about the passage and find it wanting. However I take comfort from the fact Paul the writer is a trained scribe and not only that uses that knowledge to write this passage when he picks up the verse from Isaiah. In other words to read this passage correctly then it is not a rejection of worldly knowledge but a plea to understand its limitations. However it so happened that although the bible in the pews are Good News none of the readers used it today. The preacher read from the Bible she had with her which was probably the NIV, I read from the ESV and the third reader read from the NRSV because she had the beatitudes and could not stand using “happy” instead of “blessed”.

Settling into the New Year in Sheffield

Last week was odd. I had basically thought I could do practical things far faster than I could in reality. So when Monday dawned I realised that I had a full morning of activity to get through and nothing was written on a major piece of work for my thesis. So at that stage booked the Tuesday off as holiday.

The piece of work got done by the Tuesday evening and was sent off to the proof readers. I then spent Friday working at home and going through the proof read pieces. It worked ok I think. It is one of the few pieces I know that will not be in any form in my thesis. Basically because I had to outline the argument in my thesis given the work I had already done. I will be interested to see if this counts as an argument rather than a series of ideas strung together.

Wednesday and Thursday were quiet in work. I was half expecting students to be back, or there to be a lot of conferences. Nothing in fact happened. I managed to deal with most of the queries that had arrived by email while I was off and I think dealt with one major one and started processing another. I found myself passing on what I would consider pretty basic stuff to an expert user. I wonder how he missed learning about those things. Some I think is that my brain just always worked that way and no I don’t trust myself to hand code things when a machine can do it for me.

Friday was actually fairly good but the effect of the unwinding of having submitted such a big piece was for me to throw a migraine. or I think I did, I was not fully functional on the Saturday although I was not curled up in bed. I also managed to spend a couple of hours in a book shop without finding much I wanted to buy. I somehow managed to take all my medication in the morning, which was not too bright a thing to do as some of it I am supposed to take before bed.There were plenty of books there so it was not lack of choice.

I went to bed early on Saturday and thought I had got over the mess only for a migraine to strike full blast Monday morning. However that does seem to have finally cleared whatever was causing it in my system and the rest of the week has been far better paced.

Tuesday I went down for a supervision to Birmingham, things worked smoothly until it was time to see my supervisor. Then there was some negotiation going on in Department and they wanted him down immediately for twenty minutes. These things happen about every nine months or so however it cut short the meeting by about twenty minutes which is better than some of these situations have been. However the supervisor thought what I wrote had the embryos of an actual thesis. Also checking for something else I came across the following quote “Culture - not vision or strategy - is the most powerful factor in any organisation”. This is from the book Cracking your Church’s Culture Code by Samuel Chand. It is American and it does presume culture is something the boss determines which does not fit with my understanding at all. However I suspect it would do no harm for a church secretary or minister to read it. For instance he points out that turf issues aren’t really about the tasks people fight over but that they are about personal pride and perceived powers.

Wednesday I had a long meeting on Wednesday morning and actually spent most of the afternoon going through the accumulated emails. The difference being from last week is that I was actually feeling as if I was getting on top of it. I also emailed the person in work in charge of running courses possible dates I could teach on. I am beginning to realise that at least as far as research training she is not a proactive about setting up courses. I am going to have to think about how I tackle this but it explains a lot. I can tackle this, this time, last time I was simply too depressed to do so, so courses did not happen.

Thursday another normal day in work. Saw a PhD student who is working on attitude to nature reserves in I suspect Malaysia. She always brings me treats, often milk chocolate that I give away or fruit. This time she brought home made sweets. It is so long since I have experienced my automatic gag in response to texture I was beginning to think that with cutting out milk it had got rid of it as I have eaten things where I would have expected the gag to play. However these although they look milk free hit it exactly.

Friday had a bit of a frustrating morning, a person with whom I have a long history of cooperation has a student doing a PhD. Now this should not be a problem but the student is falling into that grey category between where people make the grade and people don’t. The problem does not seem to be understanding or comprehension. If PhD were gained by written papers we expect she would pass but it isn’t and she seems to lack the spark that takes people beyond the taught course level. In the evening I went to have a meal with James and Jean Dickson. It was an enjoyable evening. The main course was ham with Inverness Sauce which was sharp and fruity jelly so worked well with ham.

Saturday was better this week. I went into town, I decided on a whim to buy myself a couple of extra thermal baselayers from Blacks as the Peter Storm ones they sell are so comfy. I managed to pick up one large and one extra small. The one thing I am not is extra small (although I quite probably would get away with medium. So there was a second visit down town to sort that. I also picked up my prescription from Boots. I had the review with the pharmacist and as it was a locum covering Saturday I had to explain that the fact it said my GP had not reviewed my prescription was due to my GP not ticking the box not due to the lack of review as there had been a major reduction in September in what I was prescribed. Stuart came around in the evening and he needs to do a tour for his NVQ and he can’t do a schedule one so would I mind coming up and he would show me around. I said yes but not until the week after this, but also suggested that he widened it to other people at church, not everybody but a small group.

Today I went to Herringthorpe and they had a church meeting. They seem to be slowly getting their head around the issues to do with finance and as a result there was more light in this church meeting. What I suspect they are really struggling with is not finance at all but the fact that the methods that kept a congregation of less than one hundred don’t work very well for congregations that are larger. For instance they need to be deliberate about things rather than leaving them to the natural flow of friendship. People will not know who every one is within a couple of months of joining the church. So how do people find who to talk to. For instance today Vicki (spelling is correct) was asking for people to help with next Sunday’s Homeless Cafe, but if I was new I would not know who Vicki was .

Reporting back on the festive season

Lets see how I can do for a brief roundup. I left Christmas too late really or the snows just made everything that much more difficult. The fact that for two to three weeks I could not get to Herringthorpe meant that when I could I felt I should go there. This meant going to both the Cristingle and the Carol Service. That at least one week meant two services. The upshot of it was that I called off going to the works party. That did not mean an extra day off work but that I did not have the hassle of trying to organise myself to be on form for it. I am really getting to the stage where I feel that there is little point in my attending although I do still try to go for good form sake. I honestly would prefer to be managing the reception desk for the whole day than at the party.

The next day it was pack up and go to my parents. I aimed to be there about 6pm, but it was nearer to 7pm when I actually arrived. No the journey from Sheffield does not take long but I had so much to do. Not just collecting the car but buying too really big plastic boxes to put stuff in. I was so intent on buying the boxes I did not spot that they were on “buy one get one half price” which was nice. I have now found a place to store them in my flat. Hopefully both of them will only be needed at Christmas and I can get away with only one mid year.

The reason for the late arrival was my inability to get past Chesterfield, this despite having spent two years negotiating the back routes for my PhD. I guess I was cocky and I failed miserably until I just decided to follow the signs from Hathersage and stop being clever. No gritters this year although the car was less powerful than last (it was also smaller which in my opinion is a good thing) and I was not turning down the gears quick enough but there was little other traffic on the road.

The next day was quiet although I made the Christmas Pudding, however I spotted when I started cooking that the quantity of the packs of “150g pack Waitrose Soft Tropical Fruit Medley, roughly chopped” were not what I had bought but 220g pack. That’s odd I thought, then realised the stuff I was dealing with looked almost glace in texture. Brain starts thinking “They are treating this stuff differently to what they used to I really want the other stuff”. So I put in a full bag, as I am pretty sure that you get less genuine fruit per gram, but the fruit had poor flavour. Next year if I repeat the recipe I think I am going to have to buy other soft dried fruit and make the mix for myself.

The day started quietly, Dad decided that church was out as the streets were too icy to walk and car moving was not appropriate. However to get up to Cathy’s we would go in his car. That meant all sorts of fancy maneuvers as Dad would not countenance me parking in the slot of someone who appeared to be away on the day. Instead of which the position I parked in may have caused a neighbour to have difficulty in getting out but appeared to be the only other option.

Cathy had this year decided that Christmas should be lower key and that she was not going to fuss so much. The result was an overall much pleasanter Christmas meal. My MP3 player that has all the Christmas music on it decided to stop working. I don’t know if plugging it into a computer might bring it to life or if I just need to get on with it and buy a new mp3 player and speakers for next year. As usual we ran Irene home.

On the Monday I made a whiskey and ginger cake to this recipe, the thing is that you can either make that a mild ginger recipe by using fairly mild ginger or a strong ginger recipe by using strong ginger. Needless to say as it is me, I made the strong form. I also went shopping around Heatons. Not much was open but the Somerfield at Moor Top has been taken over by Co-op and this seems to have improved it. It was not bad before but the stuff was better displayed and more the range I am interested in. It also was distinctly different from the Tesco Metro just up the road at which I bought nothing.

On the Tuesday I was up to Drummore. The run was straight forward, and I went the south way around Manchester. I think now they have sorted the traffic problems around the Trafford Centre it is probably the better way to go. This time I missed the Old School House for Lunch and therefore had to continue onto Newton Stewart. I decided I might as well see what was open there and found that Cinnamon a local Christian cafe, book shop and grockle outlet, was open and selling home made soup. I’d prefer to shop there for Christian books than the local branch of CLC which is the best Sheffield now has on offer.

The big news from Drummore is the former Ship Inn is now a Thai Restaurant. This is really quite a daring experiment. Posh pub food (also served at the Ship Inn) is about as exotic as Drummore has previously got. The locals seem to be willing to give it a try but we did not over the holiday time.

The rest of the time passed fairly quietly, in part because I had to do a lot of reading for my PhD. I am trying to collate the ideas I have had over the last four and a half years and see if I can find a pattern/ range of themes or such that could be sorted into a thesis. It is not lack of ideas, plenty of them, as those who have read the papers I have written will know but it is actually trying to develop a rope out of all the different strands.

Also while I was there Erin from Ship of Fools died. The first inkling I got of this was actually on 2nd December. Morag had taken the two girls to the Quaker Meeting in Newton Stewart, and they had done Sadako, who tried to fold 1000 paper cranes, as part of her cure for Leukaemia caused by the bombing on Hiroshima. She folded 663 before she died. Folding the cranes became her way of fighting the disease. Cait wanted to hear the story. Now it is a sad story and I knew when she asked me to read it, that I did not want to. Nothing I could put my finger on so I read, and was in tears for the later part of the story. I presumed some displaced grief was being released and thought nothing more of it. The next morning on browsing the Ship of Fools forum I spotted a “Important -Please Read thread in Styx” apparently started by Erin. My initial response was “Drat what an awful time for them to decide to take the ship into dry dock”, but I clicked on it, only to find it was actually posted by her brother Jason as Erin had died on 30th December. From the sound of things it was pretty quick, Erin showing ‘flu like symptoms earlier in the day, before being rushed to hospital and dying on admittance. She was only 39.

Now Erin isn’t someone I would claim as a friend, she is someone I respected highly, but I did not personally interact with her. I am trying to sort that out, because people talk on the Ship of being scared of her. I think I can say that with me it was not so simple. I never felt the need to post things that drew her ire, I rather listened and learned about what was and what was not acceptable on the site. However I don’t think I ever did not post something because I felt it would annoy Erin. I usually did not post something because I felt that either others had said it better or that what I had written was rubbish. However she was deeply connected with the boards. In the early days she helped “save” the boards when under attack from an internet troll who had scuttled other boards. She developed ways of coping with trolls and other storms that effect all internet forum firstly on the fee paying boards and finally on the public boards. These methods largely work, ship-of-fools is neither a lovey-dovey strongly controlled coterie nor a boards continually caught up in cataclysmic wars. Through a range of methods including having ten fairly straight forward rules, having a place to take personal attacks and also a board dedicated to issues that people tend to talk past each other on, she helped create a place where discussion can happen. Some of these are taken up more widely. If a discussion board has clear published rules they often owe quite a bit of what is in them to Ship-of-Fools. Others are hotly debated, the Hell board for containing personal vindictiveness, is effective but many people seem to get confused by it. The instruction to “take it to Hell or shut up” seems to work better than the instruction just to “shut up”. Linguistically the places is rougher, but it is a bit like having something out with someone in front of a school forum where others can comment. It sorts the trolls from the merely inexperienced who want to learn.

Ship of Fools is also a community that knows it grieves well. That is it can handle grief and perform well during times of grief. This goes back to 2002 when Miss Molly died, if you doubt this read this . If you have the time, spend more time in Limbo and read the other threads to Gambit and Kenwritez. However it is a strange time, Erin was bigger than anyone else on the boards. She was present even when she wasn’t in the way people related and it is a complete surprise. I am not sure even yet that everyone knows who should.

I travelled back last Thursday, Mum and Dad were surprised to see me back around 4pm, but if I leave at around 10:00 a.m. then the journey between Stockport and Drummore takes until around 4pm usually. Gritters were out but again clear roads. Then on Friday came back to Sheffield via Fleur and Walters. They were kind enough to provide me with lunch which I appreciated, however Erin’s funeral was at 4pm GMT and although I was not going I hoped to be in the Ship-of-Fools cafe for the time, so I could not stop.

Yesterday was spent sorting things out, then installing software so I could access the work I have done over the holidays on PhD from my main home computer and then Stuart came around to catch up.

Today I attended Herringthorpe and so am back into life in Sheffield. I have a busy day tomorrow and probably won’t go back into work until Wednesday (taking an extra days holiday so I can finish what I need to write for this months supervision).