Chattering on a foggy November day

Thought I’d start with a bit of poetry well not mine and I did not have a camera at the ready to capture the texture of this morning so from John Clare:

"So dull and dark are the November days.

The lazy mist high up the evening curled,

And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;

The place we occupy seems all the world."

-   John Clare, November

It gives a feel for what the feel and texture of the weather is like here at present.

Well Monday was the sort of work day where I could do with a bit better pacing. I had two heavy (i.e. energy consuming) meetings on the morning. The second of which was a meeting with the Doctoral Training Centre which delivers research training for Social Science doctoral students and early researchers about creating a core of material that people can use to become more proficient at using NVivo. The result is that I am going to try and record my course onto Echo 360 and try putting it up on the web so people can use it when they want. I don’t think this is particular special as NVivo already has a lot of tutorials up on line and that will be part of going further. In the evening went to writers group and took a poem about the safe from Hanover which was left discarded in the builders rubble. Don’t think it worked as well as last weeks but I am glad to have written it.

Actually Tuesday and Wednesday were relatively quiet days in work, time to catch up, review some of the training I have been too and sort out where to head next. I am hopefully going to get to look after a group of webpages, I just suspect I need to find out who is the departmental webmaster. Also spent some time on a project on nutritional information in Men’s Health Magazines. It is certainly shall we say interesting, although the last few weeks have been spent trying to weed out the useless categories (e.g. anyone know what cabbaggin is? No nor do we but we guess it comes from cabbage).

Thursday was busier, editing a paper in the morning and also spending the afternoon reviewing work. My boss is going to have to learn that it is no longer possible for her to assume that when she has a spare hour she can just book it with me. I have significant amount of time booked every week up to Christmas. Partly that is with teaching which starts the week after next .
Friday I managed Broomhall Breakfast, and stayed on after to help put away as Sarah had gone early and there weren’t many of the men hanging around. then went into town to do a weekends shop and finally sat down to write. I got a fair bit written but am conscious that I need to go back over part of what I have written to finesse it. It is writing about writing always somewhat tricky. Anyway I have just done a final go over it and sent it to my proof readers (thanks Ruth and James) . I was using pomodoro technique  it does seem to work quite well for these writings up. I ended up with over 3,000 words this week, hmm. I think word count wise I will be able to take Christmas and New Year off, well maybe writing after New Year.

Yesterday I sat down and finally got all the interviews I had done at Herringthorpe and not sent copies out of, ready to send out. That was twelve different envelopes with CDs, forms and a covering letter plus a reply envelope. I had the bad habit of interviewing people for an hour and twenty five minutes and CDs only took an hour and twenty minutes so I was often having to split the interviews. I thought I was going to run out of CDs so ended up with a quick journey down town to buy CDs and labels for the envelopes. However the envelopes are filled and now just need posting (next Friday?)

I should have been at the study day for the Society for Liturgical studies but they were so badly organised that by the time I knew I was going other things had cropped up. The big problem with a study dayl in London is you have to book early to find reasonable priced accommodation nearby and I did not fancy an early train in and a late train out, especially as I had given my word to be a church meeting today (to deal with the technical equipment). However one of the organisers wanted to ask me about a paper I had written. Well one of his questions was fine, had I selected the church I wrote it about (yes and no) but the second was about my analysis method and that is part of the creativity in my thesis I had to give quite a thought out reply and also felt I needed to copy my supervisor in on it.

Today I went to St Andrews for worship this morning. It was Music Sunday and included one of the Middleton boys playing a piece called siesta on his guitar as well as the choir performing a couple of pieces. Stuart was reading a passage so I knew he was not working today. Church meeting was discussing Zero Intolerance/Radical Welcome . I am aware of many misgivings about the campaign, I also happen to think it is a good thing, not because of the stuff it does but because it says “We do evangelism”. I have a theory that as evangelism has had low profile on many of the denominational central bodies (it was seen as the duty of the local church and therefore not their business) it has been seen as not important by the local church, now with the centre clearly putting effort into it, local churches are perhaps going to raise it on their own agenda whether or not they participate in the actual campaign. Almost certainly I suspect in twenty years time we will look back at it as a crass first attempt, but hopefully we will have developed skills to actually make this sort of evangelism work for us. However I suspect most people are for it, in the same way most people are for motherhood and apple pie. However the “welcome” here intended is far more than a friendly handshake at the church door. It is in the end a commitment by the congregation to be open to change that is required if new people want to join. I am not saying new people should not change, but I am saying the change is not just one way. We, those already there, have to be prepared to change as well. That is deeper, much more difficult and I am afraid I suspect many in the church aren’t ready for it.

Lets be clear it is easy to tackle the headline issues that are open to discrimination, such as race or sexuality; you can talk about those and get an understanding by the congregation but difficulties such as coping with boisterous children in worship amongst a group of senior citizens, honouring different peoples cultural norms and creating an environment that supports those with chaotic life style whether due to working patterns, drug abuse or poverty is often more difficult and more challenging. The big problem for being welcoming may not be the settled gay couple with two jobs who enjoy classical music, but the young married couple with four kids who have a can of beer in the pushchair, go out for a quick fag during the sermon and use expletives in conversation or the older man with a drink problem who wets himself during a service (neither of these are not hypothetical, I have seen them in church and I have seen congregations struggle). The prejudices do not necessarily fall where we think they do.

Anyway during setting up the audio visual Sarah brought a long extension cable on a wind up reel but it was not winding. Fortunately I realised this before it was put in use. Mum and Dad’s church had a heater fuse because they used a cable while still wound. So we used others and I brought it home and unwound it and rewound it. As it now easily unwinds and winds again I think I will take it back to the church. Stuart came around later on, mainly I suspect because he rang the Dicksons and they were slightly abrupt with him and he wondered why. The answer was simply because he rang them immediately on them getting in from church meeting and it really was an inconvenient time. He really must learn not to take things so personally.

Chattering of the first week of winter

Well by Monday evening there was a definite change in the weather, so much so that the heating was not warming the committee room through until the second half of writers group. I checked the temperature in the room and it was set fine and the heating was clearly on so I just presume it was time to warm up. There were more there this week than last although not a full house yet. We will be very squashed in that room if we ever do get a full house as we are carrying a member over our quota, she is unlikely to actually come again this term as she has had major brain surgery.

Work wise a lot of what I have been dealing with has been at the design stage, although I must admit that some of it is due to argument about an analysis and wanted to claim I had done the wrong power calculation so I went back and did it for the way the person wanted to analyse it and got the same result. I suspected that it would, I wish some statisticians knew better how data behaves and understood that if an approximation gave one result it was quite likely that a more formal analysis would concur. I also heard this week that one of the outline research bids that I am involved in has had the go ahead to submit a detailed proposal.

Tuesday I went home for lunch realised I had a headache so took a pain killer and then went quickly to shop at Tescos for essentials before going back in. Hoping that it was just a headache. Needless to say the person I saw that afternoon had to put up with me in the throws of a migraine. It was not the pain that annoyed me, the painkiller took care of that, it was that my brain would slam on the emergency breaks half way through going down a particular line of enquiry. Anyway I did the meeting then headed home. I also sent apologies for the next day, knowing me I could possible have made the meeting in Preston but I would have been functioning as if I had a semi-migraine and then would have had to have had a proper one the next day when I had a training and another meeting.

The training was actually pretty useful and it was not the style of training I tend to prefer. What I like to have is a training which gives me something to think over and apply, while this one was very much a how to sort of training. It was called Networking for Women and the trainer was prepared to do the basics, such as give you ways to open conversations, telling you how to rephrase what you do and reminding us that networking is about finding out information, not really about giving it and certainly not about doing deals. Deals are done later on follow up of over coffee. It was good because it was so practical.

On the evening I went down to Waitrose to do a small shop although most of the shop for the weeken was being delivered by Tescos the next day. On going through the subway Neil  the guy who is often there begging was there again. For those who are not familiar with Neil’s story he is ex-army and homeless, he mainly begs for the money to pay for his accommodation for the night as far as I can tell. He has been in hospital twice this year and I suspect with illnesses related to being homeless. He smokes but he is not a drinker (I am pretty sure of this now) and has taken ownership of an abused dog. This time he had a friend with him called Chris. Chris is fairly new to being on the streets of Sheffield, he is probably an alcoholic and certainly has mental health problems. According to Neil (Chris was that scared of me he could not talk to me) Chris was staying with the Occupy Sheffield Protest and sleeping in some of their accommodation. Neil was basically directing him towards Archer project and someone from the protest was trying to organise him into seeing a doctor.  The fact was Neil who has next to nothing was helping someone who had even less. The good news was that Neil looked as if he might have an offer accepted on a council flat.

This weekend has been spent mainly on thesis. I have proof read my paper, it still needs some smoothing but I think it is in a state to send to my supervisor. I heard during the week that it had been accepted. I know I was expecting that as it was in line with the conference theme, a lot of PhD students in my opinion have a single talk which is basically “this is my thesis” which they wheel out on numerous occasions. That is not my approach and never has been. That meant that the paper I submitted was likely to be more on topic than quite a few papers. It also meant that I find it easier to stay to the time limit. My thesis is too big and unwieldy to be presented in twenty minutes. I also have decided not to do a Powerpoint and concentrate on familarising myself with the text. I can do this there are enough changes in tone and pace in the twenty minutes for it not to be difficult to keep interest. A review of how the writing up process is going is on this post in my thesis blog

Last night there when I went to bed there was lots of flashing lights from Ambulances and police cars on Hanover Way with the whole of anti-clockwise lane of traffic sealed off. The news this morning said that there had been a person killed on the pedestrian crossing. It is not the first time this has happened, I can recall at least two other occasions of people being hit by vehicles there, and one of the times was a youth worker at Hanover Methodist. I am not sure how it is going to play locally.


Today i may have made a bit of breakthrough with the editing and going from initial writing to first draft (I know normally first draft is normally the initial but for me the initial writing is done using a series of short periods (half hours) where I just try and write as much as possible. It is a good way to get ideas out of my head and onto the page. First draft is what I do at the weekend with those pages, where I read, type in and do a lot of the pulling in of references and rephrasing.  This is an adaptation of the method proposed by Robert Boice in his book “Professors as Writers” he calls the intense fast getting ideas down generative writing. However I was finding then that the getting from that to a basic text was taking forever as I would keep getting distracted. So I decided to take a look at Pomodoro Technique as suggested by the Thesis Whisperer . It got me through the last half of editing a second draft of part of my thesis quickly. I really must try and see if it will mean I spend less time getting a second draft next weekend and therefore more time with the books that feed the writing process. or doing the administrative side such as sending out recordings of interviews.

Now the cherry tree has lost its final leaves

I noticed this week that the last leaves have fallen from the cherry tree and today even the sun had a chill to it.

This week has been slightly less hectic although I was writing the paper. Monday I spent some time being interviewed by a colleague at work because he discovered that he did not quite know what I did. I decided to describe myself as a research whisperer. That is not that I am the researcher, but often when a researcher gets into difficulties, particularly with the analysis stage, I am able to provide them with the know-how to get them over them. Actually I do everything from help prepare research bids to reviewing comments by reviewers and deciding on best method of approach. However the skills I am employed for is the ones that involve using analysis software.

Meanwhile Dad was over in Sheffield with Mum for Doug Thackers funeral. I describe Doug as Dad’s best friend, he was one of the few people Dad made the effort to keep in contact with over the years. This is not me being rude about Uncle Jack, Dad’s relationship to Uncle Jack is far closer to that of brothers than best buddies including the ability to wind each other up totally!  Nor is this a reflection on how Doug held Dad, although I  know Doug appreciated the fact that Dad when he was there listened as Doug could talk. The funeral was very clearly designed by Doug and Leslie Green (another old friend of Doug’s). Though Doug’s Christian life was mentioned there was no mention of either family or of Doug’s achievements and I think Dad felt that it was a good funeral.

On the evening was writers group, it was good to be meeting again and to be concentrating on writing. Unfortunately there were only six of us there and I had brought the shortest poem I had. This meant they had fifteen per word to analyse it! I think I will take a longer piece this week.They keep teasing me about putting together a collection, I think largely because my poems are often on the short side. The big problem with this is I don’t know how to select those which are good and those that aren’t.

Tuesday was fairly quiet, well I had a review of a bid to the Nuffield foundation prepared by one of the brightest students in last years human nutrition programme. The aim is to get enough money so she can be employed to do the work. She is bright, hard working and a very good researcher so I hope it comes off. The project is also interesting as she is looking  at choice in school dinners. After all there is no point in the world in providing kids with superb meals if they are going to choose pizza instead and in Secondary School they can often do just that.

Wednesday should have been busy, spent the morning editing and paper, then prayer meeting at St Andrews and then I was back to meet someone who is the most incompetent researcher I have ever come across. Well he had a cold so did not make it. I think I was grateful. So I spent the afternoon going through a paper looking for places where it related to policy, this was not difficult, it was all there and required minimal editing to bring out the nuances that were hidden in the text. Sometimes it just takes a fresh pair of eyes to create new enthusiasm for a piece of research.

Thursday was training on the morning. I am afraid that I suspect the solution to my tendency to prefer to do things that seem safe in my office rather than go out and get things done with other people is to rather get out and do it. I am competent and able to do it, I know that because when I do, I tend to succeed at what I do, but for some reason that never builds into wanting to do it more. Actually it sounds as if I better get on with working through Ask for it. Their other book “Why Women don’t Ask” started a noticeable change in attitude and I suspect this will help further. The afternoon was spent devising coding schemes or at least helping somebody to. This is one of the few times I have been through the whole process.

Friday, I was woken by time of the month cramps so rather than go to Broomhall Breakfast I took pain killers and got a hot water bottle and went back to bed. Fortunately by 11:30 a.m. I was up and ready to type up the paper I had written in the morning slots. I was being very strict with myself over word limit and it is about 1850 words long, I now have to consider if I put in the bit I dropped from the beginning which is about the standing of theologians within the Reformed tradition (ambivalent at best). It strengthens the conclusion but is a bit tangential to the rest of the paper.

On the evening I went around to the Dickson’s for dinner. James is a bit the worst for wear having had another arm injury and has not been great the last few weeks. Jean says he has not been doing much but I know from her response he is still doing things she wishes he wouldn’t. They seem to be enjoying Rosie and the boys living in Sheffield and were pleased with the milk and gluten free biscuits because Alex had told Jean off for not having biscuits for him during the week!

Saturday saw a quick trip into town and then me trying to spend the rest of the day reading, unfortunately I was just out of sorts, I presume due to time of the month. Anyway I managed to settled down to read. Oh I spent more time on Belden C. Lane’s book “Ravished by Beauty” . It is a very useful book to think with. I am not sure that it informs me as much as other books on spirituality but it is very interesting what he does. Firstly he does not treat the Reformed tradition spirituality as above reproach, he takes seriously the times it has gone wrong and done harm (he is looking a ecological spirituality). He however is very good on the positives and is making an interesting case for the centrality of desire for God within the Reformed tradition and that without it or with it wrongly directed the Reformed tradition becomes a dead weight. He also highlights the tension between the immanence of God and the transcendence and that if we get them out of balance we get into trouble. In this bringing of the emotions into the central area of what has often been seen as an over intellectualised set of rules he is challenging.

Today I went to worship, it was Shirley Knibbs preaching and I am sure Dad would have approved, even might have been tempted to mutter a quiet amen under his breath in the hope that nobody heard him. However she caused consternation by choosing an Old Testament reading from the Wisdom of Solomon.  Ian Cooke spotted it first and came across to see David Hill about not being able to find the reading in the Bible. So they set about trying to find a Bible in the church with an apocrypha in it. They failed so I went home and got one, just in case Shirley did not decide to read it herself (she did). Eventually it turned out there was one in the Bible that is normally placed on the lecturn, which is a large print one I bought for evening service years ago but is the one large Bible that is in a modern translation in the church. She talked in the introduction about having oil for our lamps and brought an oil lamp to show us. She said if she had been organised she would have had the oil and would have lit it. I immediately thought “not in St Andrews, not unless you told the elders first, or you will have at least one elder leaving church to get a bucket of water”.