On a wet Sunday Afternoon

A fortnight to report as I did not get around to it last week so I will try and do events based rather than a day by day account.

However the week before last was pretty mundane, the only problem was that work decided that it wanted me in early three days out of four. Therefore I was struggling to get my thesis writing done in a morning. I managed it before work on the Monday but Tuesday’s meeting was even earlier and I didn’t. I was hoping to get it done at night but was just too tired.The final one was on thursday and once again I managed it before work. It seems easier to move things around so I do it in a morning than to try and fit it in on the evening. However apart from these early starts the whole week was not overly busy. This was such a surprise to my brain it started having bright ideas. Whether any of these are any good will have to be seen but I have let other people know.  I also recorded a test for the NVivo course.

The other two notable things that happened that week are that my writers group started up again and I am glad to be back, even if I am tired in work on a Tuesday after attending on a Monday. It finishes as 9:30 which should mean I get to bed by 10:30 but it is anything up to midnight before I manage it. The other is Elle has started attending Broomhall Breakfast. She is one of Margo’s students and is looking at eating patterns with people at the Breakfast and from the Breakfasts point of view looking at its contribution to their diet. There are perhaps three groups. There are a group of people who are part of normal society if pretty marginal to it. Some are employed, quite a few are self employed, or work combining if you prefer or vulnerably employed. Then there are the drinkers, I suspect most of them are housed, they get by through camaraderie and sharing money for next drink. These are not employed. My impression at the moment is few of them are on anything stronger than drink.. Finally there are chaotics, who drop in, sometimes for several weeks but for various reasons attendance regularly is unlikely. These may or may not be housed.

The weekend was a writing one. That meant most of the time indoors but Stephen  from the Breakfast has an exhibition on at the Access Space He claims he never could do representative art but once he started working with geometric designs he has gone from strength to strength. If you have the chance just pop in and see.

The big problem over the weekend is my right hand started hurting from the use of the mouse. On Monday I went into work and it was so painful I was almost yelling out loud at time. It presented as a repetitive use injury, so I looked at the options and in the end decided to get a Bamboo Pen and Touch. I was not happy with the idea of using just a pen as that seemed to involve holding the hand in quite a cramped position and while I am happy to do that for writing, I am not sure I wanted to quite work a mouse like that. I was pretty sure due to where the pain was that most ergonomic mice which seem to be designed to take the strain off the wrist and I was not too sure about tracker balls. Well I am getting used to it. It is more different to work than I expected. Although they have programmed it to do the same sort of things a normal mouse does and more, they have also programmed it to do them in several ways. As I am finding this is essential as tasks that with a normal mouse seem the same, feel very different with a touch pad. However I was developing skill and the big thing was that my hand was not hurting any more. I am still debating whether I buy a second, at present my paln is to carry it between home and work.

Tuesday I was off to Birmingham for another supervision.The weather was dry and I even managed to sit outside in the sunshine after my supervision. The supervision was short but sweet, in that my supervisor assessment was at the top of my range  of where I was at. That meant a chapter could be put to one side while I got on with writing the next. More detail of where it is at can be found on my thesis blog. My supervisor asked me how the trains were and when I said fine he looked surprised. It turned out he had been using local trains that morning and they had been properly topsy turvy; whereas with my train coming at least from Newcastle if not Edinburgh and going onto Reading it had been little affected. The other thing was with the train to the University I just get the first available rather than worry about timetables as they are at most fifteen minutes apart.

I have finally got moving dates. The problem has been that I am not moving to Burnswick but to the Computer Centre. That meant I did not know whether the Brunswick move applied to me, or whether I was going to be timetabled as a separate move to happen between the two Brunswick move weekends. I also now know which office I am in. The result of the change around is I am going into my immediate bosses office unless something happens to change it, then it is the office next door. The other big advantage is for the first time since I started the job I will have a south facing room. I hope that that makes up for the closeness of the buildings opposite. I have asked for a big book case and three office chairs. It just suits my style of working to let a guest sit on an office chair rather than a table chair. Table chairs are lower than desk chairs.

Wednesday it started raining and although there were times on Friday and Saturday when you could get around without getting soaked, the threat of rain has been ever present. I was relatively unaffected until Friday morning, then after Broomhall Breakfast I came home to find that locally we were having another series of powercuts. However after an hour or so they cleared and I settled down to get on with things. Unfortunately that did not last. Just before 5:30 pm the power failed again. So I sat down and started reading. As it got darker I lit some candles and moved my reading position to the window. At 9:00 p.m.m I decided that I may as well go to bed, but just as I did the lights flickered very quickly on and off several times. The longest the power was on I had just got around to resetting all the clocks and was doing the last one and it went off again. The annoying thing was that everytime it went off smoke alarms from several flats would also go off. They would ring for a round half an hour. There was no point going to bed until they stopped ringing. Eventually got to bed, woke again at 3:00 to 4:00 a.m. when the lights flickered on several times briefly. However there was no power when I got up. I used my dongle and checked the internet and found it was not expected on to 11:30 a.m., so I replanned my day and went to Costas for an early coffee and then a leisurely shop around town. Got back around 12:30 but the power was still not on, was just checking to see how long it would be when it suddenly came back on. That was good news as the estimated time on the webpage was 7:00 p.m. Northern Grid also put a note through my door saying I was due a refund due to the power cut. We have had an awful lot of power cuts recently and I suspect the blue huts opposite on Broomspring Close have something to do with trying to fix it. This power cut seems to have done less damage than the one a month ago.

At the end of Low Week

Monday I spent the day with my parents, Dad has a long history of wanting to stay at home on bank holidays. On Saturday his watch stopped working. Throughout Sunday he was regularly asking my mum the time, he was not going to accept either my Mum’s watch which is one on a chain or my gran’s old wrist watch even if it was just to wear around the house. I suggested that we should go into town on Monday to get him one. His first objection was that the shops would not be open. When he got told to stop talking nonsense shops had been open on bank holidays for years, his ruse went to the weather which did not have a good forecast, even though I offered to drive the car down. In the end I spent some of the morning sorting Dad’s computer, not that there was much wrong. One task was to try and get linkedin to work for Dad, in doing so I am realising how big an education task the URC has. There are good Reformed sites out there, take Reformed Worship for starters but just because a body had “Reformed” in its title does not mean that I or my father want to align ourselves with it. The Reformed Theology Institute) is one case where I am wary. The theology there is Reformed but it is largely of the very conservative sort. However a number of URC people seemed to think it was a good idea to sign up to that group on LinkedIn.

Tuesday was a day I missed due to a migraine. My cleaner was due to come when she discovered I had a migraine was happy to come on Thursday instead. It through me slightly in that it largely affect my tummy rather than head but as treating it as a migraine cleared it, I am presuming it was.

In work this week I finished the next draft of the NVivo document. I must admit I still have one or two bits to add, but I think the most important thing now is to for me to put together the first of the videos. This is going to be one of the few that involves both teaching and also using the software, it is not the first of the videos in order. I will also need to keep it short and I have had to order a book to do it. Otherwise I am teaching myself confirmatory factor analysis as I really need to start encouraging people who are dealing with scales to use that technique when appropriate.

Friday I went to the breakfast, there were only forty there but as the volunteers were down because it was so far out of University term the kitchen was busy, also Sarah was away with it being the week after Easter. Fortunately Joshua was there and he really keeps things tidy in the hall when he is. It was also obvious when I was there that there was help needed to get the hall s straight. Particularly as the Ethiopian Orthodox church which hires our premises was celebrating Good Friday. They wanted to be in from 10:00 a.m. or earlier but as breakfast serving only stops at 10:00 a.m. that was not possible. Fortunately people decided to leave slightly earlier this week than last week and two of the regulars Dave and Peter stayed to help clear, so we were clear by 10:30 a.m.

I then spent the rest of the day working on my location chapter, I have sent it to my supervisor and I hope it does not need another draft. On the other hand I am realising that I am beginning to know what theory I need to put into my chapter on community. I also found that I am better concentrating on editing if I have music on in the background. Saturday and today I have spent time writing up another section on my community chapter and I am beginning to know what theory I am going to put into the chapter, there will need to be bits on system theory and on organisational anxiety, something on ordinary theology. Then need to make it clear how these feed into the flows of the congregation around of themes. Also start to move to the way the congregation addresses people.

On Friday evening I went up to James and Jean for a meal. It is a very good relaxed evening and one I look forward to. They are going up to Melfort next week, this time without the family, but their daughter and family have managed to find a house fairly close to them and thus the family is getting more and more settled in Sheffield. Just hope that their son-in-law finds a post in this country soon that is an easier commute than Cork.

Today for the first time I was back on the sound system, this might have been slightly earlier than attended but John a church member has had stroke and though physically he seems not to have too much problem it has affected his memory and he is certainly not well enough to do it at present. Any way it was not until I got to working the system that I realised that people had been trying to get it right and thus fiddling with the levels, only they kept turning things down. I was therefore tuning it during worship, it appeared that the preachers diction improved when in actual fact I was upping the treble and mid so as to remove the bass boom that the system had developed. The preacher managed to choose three songs from Common Ground, one of which we did not know and the theme of his sermon was anniversaries. That said doing the sound almost means I am slightly disconnected from the actual meaning in the service as I am concentrating on whether I can hear what is being said.

After a busy Easter

No writers group this week, I am going to have to write a paper for them on epublishing, I am not sure that they are aware of the options and how to go about them. The problem is that I suspect many of them think that web-publishing, epublishing and publishing on demand are one and the same thing. What I think they actually want is website that show cases their writing and allows the group to interact. It could either be joint blog or a fairly simple content management system which allows interaction. The thing is that setting up such a website is beyond me at present with a thesis to write. Anyway part of the problem of running a website is that it needs to be publicised so others would need to be willing to do this.

The week was busy in work. with working on a paper and also preparing on-line course material well editing it at least. Plus I took Thursday off as I was aware that Holy week services, and other Easter commitments were going to dig deep into my time.

Wednesday I awoke to find it snowing. It was just settling so before I went into work I nabbed some pictures of cherry blossom and snow. Unfortunately only one of the really came out, I will attach it to the blog posting of this when I get home. The weather cleared by lunch time although still miserable and wet. Given the warmth of last week it was a real change around.

Thursday evening St Andrews had a short Maundy Thursday Service, this takes place before the choir rehearsal. This year it was a drama from Iona Community “Eh .. Jesus?” “Yes Peter” set in the last supper and based around the last supper. At the end I realised that the next people in were the Broomhall Breakfast and started moving the chairs and tables; as it became clear that there was a purpose to what I was doing, first Sarah and then others joined in. That resulted in the room being set up by ten minutes the tables were in the right place. If the disciples were as efficient maybe they did the washing up before going to the mount of Olves. It looks as if James and Jean did the setting up, I was on standby for helping.

Friday was the Breakfast, I had been booked by Sarah weeks ago. Although like many ministers she seems to think that there is more time between events than there actually is. St Andrew’s tends to turn up early and this week the Breakfast decided they wanted to sit and talk. Last week at Breakfast Phil (who I call silver due to the amount of jewelery he often wears and to distinguish him from Phil with the ponytail) had been in hospital for several weeks, we need to think about ways of getting news through because we would like to take some sort of care for those who come and who is ill.

We then set up for the Friday meditation service that Sarah. Sarah also wanted to look for a diary date during the time but we had only vaguely got the projection stuff up, when people started arriving. For a first Sarah even had the hymn words on the projector, but most of it was pictures and words to think about. The whole service was about broken covenants. I struggle with the theme as the covenants are normally on God’s initiative and it seems always as if he dictates terms. Is this really what we mean by covenant. It was hard hitting as we faced human failure. Anyway I setup the projector and the sound system and as I did so realised that what we really needed was to be able to get the projector away from the computer so that the computer could be placed where Sarah felt happy with it. Rather than try anything fancy it occurred to me a single long cable would do as well. I might need to configure the electrical extension leads differently as well but it was all doable fairly easily. Anyway I have ordered the cable and we shall see.

Friday evening I went around to a friend/colleague called Margo for a meal. We have a close research relationship which has developed over the last eighteen or nineteen years since I came to Sheffield. Times have not always been easy, nothing to do with our relationship just various life events but the last year or so she and I have worked very closely indeed. At Christmas time she held a very enjoyable party to which I was invited and on Friday I was invited around for a meal. She is also has a student project looking at how people at breakfast manage their eating and she went to check out what URC stood for. Well her background is Presbyterian Church of Ireland although she has not been to church for decades. So an interesting conversation ensued around St Andrews.

Saturday I ended up with the end of a mild migraine. So I shopped and then realising that I was not getting better went back to bed for a couple of hours but that cleared it, completely and utterly. This was just as well because as well as two case studies for my thesis to finish typing up I was also meeting James down at St Andrew’s to set up communion. I have agreed to be second table elder this year with a view to being first next year. I also understood I was have a varied first table elder as James’ had not had a deputy this last year but people had taken turns. I should have been suspicious when James started being very thorough about making sure I knew how things were done. However with three to four elders checking on me the first Sunday I was on pulpit duty I just thought it was a resurgence of that gene. Anyway we got it basically setup, with Jean checking up on us at times.

Anyway it was communion today, things went well on the whole although perhaps going straight from congregational member to table elder (rather than a serving elder) was a bit of a leap. There have been changes while I was away and the service is a lot less fussy than it used to be, but still not the simplest of URC services. I reverted to the old form and put a tray of glasses close by the minister. It also made sense when James gave me the communion case. It was not until Sheila, and said she was table elder two to my table one, I queried this as I want a slightly longer apprenticeship and she agreed that she would at least do the chasing of elders for serving communion (we need six, four main ones, one for the choir and one for special diets although we do not at present do gluten free so it is only the non-alcoholic wine).

It was therefore about 1:00 p.m. when I got home, then it was pack and get out to come to my parents. Dad has forgotten that I have travelled across most Easters and decided that I was going to struggle to get a train. I had to keep reassuring him. When I said I had seen the rising sun he said “from the train?”. I am not sure where else I was likely to say that from! Maybe next year I had better hire a car so as to stop him worrying.

On Palm Sunday with cherry blossom on the trees

As it is a fortnight and I don’t suppose that you really want to spend the next couple of hours reading minutiae of my doings (acceptable in small quantities but not in large doses), this blog will take the form of lowlights and highlights.

The fortnight started slow, as I had been struggling with a migraine over the weekend. The ones prior to this I had managed to take a short nap and then get on, this time it was belligerent and my attempts to shake it off did not work. The result when I do this is that I get well enough to be active, I am active and pretty promptly the migraine returns, I call it cycling and the only way I know to get rid of it is to stop and have a day inside where I deliberately do very little. The problem is detecting when a migraine is this sort rather than the sort a quick nap will cure. The trigger for it was the relief at having a major research bid in by the deadline (well actually it happened on the following tuesday). If the bid is successful it will mean a lot more hard work but very interesting work as I seem to be a doing major translation work between different people in the group who submitted.

Then there was March’s supervision. I seem to be fairly fortunate with the weather for my supervisions and this time was no exception with a lovely sunny day. There was the cube for Bromford Dreams . Chris Shannahan is a research fellow and Methodist minister who did his doctorate under my supervisor. He would describe him self as a contextual/liberation theologian and has been studying the way that faith connects with those way beyond the boundaries of the church. Intriguingly earlier in doing this project Martin suggested he did Martin’s Ethnography course and that was the year I gave a talk on my experiences of ethnography. I have attended one of his Urban faith forums at Birmingham and we also ended up doing the study day on writing up together. If people are interested in Chris’ work he writes a blog called “Faith in an Urban World”. There is also a Facebook group for the Bromford Dreams. He is at present looking for funding to take it further.

Sometimes I wonder how I should describe my thesis in technical terms. The small area of study is find, it is Congregational Studies, but where does that fit in the wider view of things. I am in a student in a theology department and my degree is officially a doctorate in theology. My supervisor is in that department, I had to find a degree the department offered and as there was no precise fit I opted for the most general one. If I am theologian I fall very definitely into the practical/contextual sub group. However there are alternatives that I often seem to work as well with. I spend quite a bit of time dealing with liturgy, how it is understood and such. Others of more theologically evangelical views, looking at topics allied to mine would call themselves missiologist.Then there is the actual research tradition I am working in. That seems to be a lot more orientated towards sociology particularly sociology of religion and the actual methodology is straight ethnography (it is about the only thing where I am completely within a discipline and itself is part of the reason why this is such a wide ranging study) so I can also own the label social anthropologist which is technically my supervisors core discipline. This goes without adding that the other contributors such as psychology of groups and social geography. Any label seems to miss a whole lot of the complexity of what I am studying.

Saturday Mom and Dad came over. I decided that it was time we did something different than shopped at Waitrose and then wander into town on the afternoon to see to their other shopping needs. They use Sheffield rather than Manchester for quite a while. I think partly because it is smaller but also because I know my way around and can guide them. So we went out to Old Moor RSPB site by Rotherham. It was a foggy day when my parents came over and Dad was worrying that we would not see anything as the fog thickened as we went out there. I thought that if we got there, then we could at least have a meal at the cafe and a slow walk along the paths which are smooth and flat with the odd bird flitting by. However the sun came out as we arrived and we had a glorious day. We had lunch at the cafe, I thought mum had given her order so ordered it, but when she saw what I decided to go for she decided to go for that instead. So confusion reigned for while, but I just took the steak and mushroom pie that Mum had requested which was very good. We then wandered down one of the tracks. Did some looking at sparrow farm hoping to see yellowhammers but no luck. We did see sparrows, blackbird, a chaffinch and I think some bluetits. Then in the first hide we sat down. At first dad was thinking that there was nothing of interest there but as we settled we saw a little egret, some grey lag geese, goldeneye and gadwall. There were cormorants and coots having a tiff right in front of us at the next. Then we headed back to the centre for a coffee and cake before driving home. The day worked superbly, it had just enough activity for my parents to enjoy it. I also looked at binoculars and was surprised how much difference different pairs made. I am thinking of upgrading but probably won’t until September time just before I go up to Mull of Galloway after all I do most of my bird watching there.

Work wise I have two analyses finished off, just the checking of the papers to do. This leaves me a pretty clear desk at present, although I need to spend some time brushing up on Confirmatory Factor Analysis, a technique that I think is only available in AMOS and which I will need to build the models for if this user is going to do it. It is a sad story, the doctoral student got an statistician to do the analysis and they did a decent analysis, but unlike me who knows a wide variety of subjects they had no idea that some subjects ask additional questions. This person is right in the middle of one of those and needs to do it. However the statistician never sent them the data set. I just hope that they have they are good statisticians who never throw out data (you never know when you will be asked to reanalyse it) and therefore she can get hold of it, otherwise she will need to enter several questionnaires again.

I also need to get my head down with some NVivo course development. The document is basically written and I am going through and making adjustments to it so as to get towards a final version. I should start videoing after Easter (ugh!)

With being ill I missed writers group two weeks ago but made it this last week. We are now off until 16th April and then have another ten week term. I actually enjoyed this last term very much and it has given me more confidence to write poetry from other points of view than my own and/or the all seeing narrator. Doing a couple of fantasy pieces, one as Jack Frost and one about an apprentice was great fun. The poem from a close point of view I found much harder. The final piece of term was to write a monologue with internal thoughts and I have ideas for that, or something I want to explore where the monologue would be a good way to do it. Writers group is also thinking about doing some sort of web publishing.

Today being palm sunday I went to church. Sarah had asked me on Friday if I would be there and I said I would. She also asked me to be on standby in case a reader dropped out as she had a drama for the service. I hope she puts it up on the web as it was very good, if she does it will appear Worship section of St Andrew's website but Holy week and ministers putting up stuff on the web are not a good mix. There was also an URChin service beforehand and there must have been about a five or six families there. Anyway I ended up taking a part at very short notice. In fact neither Sarah or I knew I was taking it was time to read and the person expected did not come up. So very, very short notice indeed and I was working from Sarah’s script which was not the best. The other thing was it was Mary Stark’s ninetieth birthday yesterday and she was in church today. Christina had arranged for their to be birthday cake and bucks fizz after the service. There really seems to have developed a trend of having celebrations after church when members reach a significant milestone. Dr Sloane made ninety earlier in the month but had been ill at the time so there was no church celebration. The other noticeable change is people tend to sit down for coffee, I am not finding this easy to adapt to, I have spent probably thirty years drinking coffee after church standings and I really feel uncomfortable sitting down.