Sunday, July 22, 2012
Around the time of year of my annual review
I don’t think this will be long. The week has been pretty mundane with slightly more excitement over the weekend. Church meeting went without a hitch, but the comment of the life review people that they felt they had to reassess their opinions every time after coming to St Andrew’s threw Ian slightly. St Andrew’s is St Andrew’s and on Sundays, particular Theo’s baptism they are putting on a performance. They can do, in some-ways it is their default setting but the idea that you are gaining insight into how the church is by attending that Sunday is daft, unless you already know them. The impression is of a highly functional church which is largely content with where it is, maybe too many grey haired members but otherwise not doing too badly. Its true up to a point. They would have gone onto Annual Church meeting and St Andrew’s still functions on “how quick can we get to lunch” mode at such events. Then elders where I suspect they saw some real discussion and finally a church meeting where what must have appeared out of the blue the congregation were reorganising the whole committee structure. Of course it was not out of the blue, it had been around committees and actually there had been a working party busy with it while they were around, but because it was behind the scenes work, nobody was talking about it. They technically do not need to attend more but have indicated at least one Sunday of normal worship (they have not done a communion yet) and we did suggest that they came to the Breakfast which will make them reconsider again. Oh well we are now officially moving from a many committee structure to Elders and Management both reporting to church meeting with a sort of exec to coordinate what comes to Church Meeting. Also some scope on management to co-opt people who are not members of the church for a year. We will see what will happen.
Work has been busy but I was able to work around the mild migraine that came on Tuesday afternoon (helped by the fact I was officially working at home because I had something I rather do at home which had to be done for work). Well lets be honest it was my annual review preparation or SRDS. Its a fairly tedious task where I have to work through the year and decide what I want to achieve next year. Actually the second part is still to do but I will try to make some notes before I see Cliff to look at the sound system tomorrow. Otherwise it has been work as usual.
Friday I went to the Dickson’s for evening meal. We had a pleasant evening an article had been going between me and James and he was being a good editor only he put back things I had removed as corrections before. Anyway I think I am beginning to get the stage where it is ready to go out, and I have started drafting the next one, we shall see. The next thing to consider is where to go after that. Choice between the Bible and the nature of God, don’t worry I am only trying to get across the uncomfortable otherness of God, not actually try and say “God is like” because “God is like...” always seems to end up in absurdities.
Yesterday went for a meal with Margo, she had a french exchange pupil staying with her and it was the case that my rudimentary French and sometimes she wanted really complex sentences translating like how do you say “I was telling the dog that as she (dog) already had you stroking her she did not need anyone else to stroke her as well.” Its not the vocabulary particularly I was struggling with but stroke/pet/fondle were not in my vocabulary but the complexity of the sentence structure. It however is an enjoyable evening. Today has been keeping quiet and catching up with my thesis.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
On a dry day after much rain
Right,
the supervision went well although I found it more tiring than usual,
the travel just seemed to take it out of me. I was dodging showers
rather than walking around in glorious sunshine but that said I hardly
got very wet. Graduation seemed to be happening around Birmingham and
there were quite a few people wearing gowns and having their picture
took. An intriguing episode when I was going through possible papers for
the thesis and a couple came in worried that their account had been
deleted and therefore they could not access the email with the booking
details for their gowns. I knew from experience how slow computing
services are to delete such accounts, I can remember the caution that
happened the first time we ever deleted any accounts. They had to not
have been used for six months, not just the person had left the
University. We are quicker these days but there is a generous overlap
between finishing your course and your account being deleted. Anyway
another chapter of the thesis has been placed as in main draft.
Then on the Thursday evening I went across to my parents hoping on the Friday to go to Martin Mere. It was quite late as I was teaching that afternoon and as it was my last day in work for the week I needed to also do the end of week tasks such as fill in my notes on what I have done that week and also write the work blog. So there were things to be done. Anyway Friday it rained, the sort of rain that you do not want to go out in and though it cleared towards late afternoon Dad was not going to be coaxed out of the dry comfort of his home although I think Mum and I were more up for it. So we spent the day inside, I had taken a bit of thesis work, mainly reading but I spent the day finishing an amigurumi sheep for a friends granddaughter. It is very different making something for a toddler and making something for an ornament. for starters I had to embroider the eyes and I was much more careful about finishing off. I put in the last of the ball of wool just in case the child does manage to pull something off as it is easily fixable with wool. The funny thing was when making it up rather than following the pattern I started thinking about how a sheep really do look and as a result the sheep had a much more life like face than the one in the book.
Saturday was fine and sunny! So we set off to Martin Mere . The journey there was uneventful but took us through Ormskirk as that was how the SatNav worked it out. The centre was by far the largest one I have been to since I went to Slimbridge while at Reading and I never really got to see around Slimbridge. There is a huge children’s playground just by the entry but it was pretty busy when we arrived and even busier when we left. The cafe was pleasant with a view overlooking one of the ponds. There are lots of ponds at Martin Mere. After coffee we went out to the nature reserve side as Dad enjoys watching birds in the wild. We saw a fair few waders and a couple of butterflies. I really do need to improve my recognition of waders. All right I got the Oyster Catchers but saw Ruff ( and did not recognise them plus other waders. I also think we might have taken the wrong set of hides for good views. We then had lunch and went to look around the collection for a bit. We really only saw about a fifth of the collection but we did get to see where the Beavers live and because we timed it for when someone is talking about beavers Mum and Dad got to feel a real beaver skin. However we did not get to see beavers as they are nocturnal and therefore not about when the visitors are there. You can see them on the Beaver Camera . Finally as we walked back we got to see the Asian otters feed. I bought myself a good quality pair of binoculars, something I have been toying with for a while and I am hoping to use them when I am up in Wigtonshire at the end of September/start of October.
We were I think all tired and though the journey back was straightforward and the SatNav decided to guide us through the back lanes of that part of Lancashire including through Parbold which was pleasant but the motorway was a major part of the journey and Mum fell asleep during it and woke feeling that she had been travelling forever when in fact it was only a relatively short spell of time, just over an hour. Motorways are monotonous and we were tired. I went home that evening so as to be able to spend Sunday working on my thesis.
This week has been quieter, with not nearly the same amount of travelling around. I saw Sarah for coffee on Tuesday. It was a useful point to catch up and think about how things are going. I think I have set myself a rather hefty challenge, in that I am going to try and write a set of short articles about Reformed Piety alongside the writing of the major chapter on Reformed Piety for my thesis. There is a tension in the Reformed Tradition between the normal inward looking nature of spirituality and the very worldly-practicality that is valued. We tend to ask what purpose do many of the spiritual practices of other traditions are and be highly sceptical when they seem to be concerned with the individual sanctity of the practitioner. In that sense the Reformed tradition actually agrees with James 2:14-25 although not seeing works as guaranteeing salvation, but rather as the necessary outcome of a lively faith. It should therefore be an interesting exercise.
Work is busy but nothing exciting at present. I am beginning to wonder what will happen at my annual review. It should be an interesting one, not because of the grade I expect but because I want to see what my boss has to say. My illness rate over the last year has been substantially lower than previous years and I have been noticeably more proactive. I suspect that because of when she start supervising me, she thought that my performance which was not bad was perhaps a bit slow for me but largely fine. There is a change and I know it and she will know it. Other than that I think I have drawn the long straw with the Royal Statistical Society chartership renewal, they have chosen to look at just the years 2012-2014 for me. Of course that is the time that will cover me getting my doctorate. I suspect it will be hard to argue that that does not constitute professional development.
This weekend I have spent mainly doing catch up on my thesis due to the fact that last weekend I was doing detailed analysis and did not get much written so not much news there unless you want to check my thesis blog . Today I went to church partly as I was doing the sound system. I seem to have a mild ear infection which made this interesting, as at times I was hearing an echo on the sound coming through the speakers. I checked with Ian Cooke and he did not hear this. The whole system seemed to be very sensitive indeed so I am wondering how much was due to the infection and how much was genuinely there.
Then on the Thursday evening I went across to my parents hoping on the Friday to go to Martin Mere. It was quite late as I was teaching that afternoon and as it was my last day in work for the week I needed to also do the end of week tasks such as fill in my notes on what I have done that week and also write the work blog. So there were things to be done. Anyway Friday it rained, the sort of rain that you do not want to go out in and though it cleared towards late afternoon Dad was not going to be coaxed out of the dry comfort of his home although I think Mum and I were more up for it. So we spent the day inside, I had taken a bit of thesis work, mainly reading but I spent the day finishing an amigurumi sheep for a friends granddaughter. It is very different making something for a toddler and making something for an ornament. for starters I had to embroider the eyes and I was much more careful about finishing off. I put in the last of the ball of wool just in case the child does manage to pull something off as it is easily fixable with wool. The funny thing was when making it up rather than following the pattern I started thinking about how a sheep really do look and as a result the sheep had a much more life like face than the one in the book.
Saturday was fine and sunny! So we set off to Martin Mere . The journey there was uneventful but took us through Ormskirk as that was how the SatNav worked it out. The centre was by far the largest one I have been to since I went to Slimbridge while at Reading and I never really got to see around Slimbridge. There is a huge children’s playground just by the entry but it was pretty busy when we arrived and even busier when we left. The cafe was pleasant with a view overlooking one of the ponds. There are lots of ponds at Martin Mere. After coffee we went out to the nature reserve side as Dad enjoys watching birds in the wild. We saw a fair few waders and a couple of butterflies. I really do need to improve my recognition of waders. All right I got the Oyster Catchers but saw Ruff ( and did not recognise them plus other waders. I also think we might have taken the wrong set of hides for good views. We then had lunch and went to look around the collection for a bit. We really only saw about a fifth of the collection but we did get to see where the Beavers live and because we timed it for when someone is talking about beavers Mum and Dad got to feel a real beaver skin. However we did not get to see beavers as they are nocturnal and therefore not about when the visitors are there. You can see them on the Beaver Camera . Finally as we walked back we got to see the Asian otters feed. I bought myself a good quality pair of binoculars, something I have been toying with for a while and I am hoping to use them when I am up in Wigtonshire at the end of September/start of October.
We were I think all tired and though the journey back was straightforward and the SatNav decided to guide us through the back lanes of that part of Lancashire including through Parbold which was pleasant but the motorway was a major part of the journey and Mum fell asleep during it and woke feeling that she had been travelling forever when in fact it was only a relatively short spell of time, just over an hour. Motorways are monotonous and we were tired. I went home that evening so as to be able to spend Sunday working on my thesis.
This week has been quieter, with not nearly the same amount of travelling around. I saw Sarah for coffee on Tuesday. It was a useful point to catch up and think about how things are going. I think I have set myself a rather hefty challenge, in that I am going to try and write a set of short articles about Reformed Piety alongside the writing of the major chapter on Reformed Piety for my thesis. There is a tension in the Reformed Tradition between the normal inward looking nature of spirituality and the very worldly-practicality that is valued. We tend to ask what purpose do many of the spiritual practices of other traditions are and be highly sceptical when they seem to be concerned with the individual sanctity of the practitioner. In that sense the Reformed tradition actually agrees with James 2:14-25 although not seeing works as guaranteeing salvation, but rather as the necessary outcome of a lively faith. It should therefore be an interesting exercise.
Work is busy but nothing exciting at present. I am beginning to wonder what will happen at my annual review. It should be an interesting one, not because of the grade I expect but because I want to see what my boss has to say. My illness rate over the last year has been substantially lower than previous years and I have been noticeably more proactive. I suspect that because of when she start supervising me, she thought that my performance which was not bad was perhaps a bit slow for me but largely fine. There is a change and I know it and she will know it. Other than that I think I have drawn the long straw with the Royal Statistical Society chartership renewal, they have chosen to look at just the years 2012-2014 for me. Of course that is the time that will cover me getting my doctorate. I suspect it will be hard to argue that that does not constitute professional development.
This weekend I have spent mainly doing catch up on my thesis due to the fact that last weekend I was doing detailed analysis and did not get much written so not much news there unless you want to check my thesis blog . Today I went to church partly as I was doing the sound system. I seem to have a mild ear infection which made this interesting, as at times I was hearing an echo on the sound coming through the speakers. I checked with Ian Cooke and he did not hear this. The whole system seemed to be very sensitive indeed so I am wondering how much was due to the infection and how much was genuinely there.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
After a larger than expected communion
Lets see if I can recall what has been happening. The first thing must be the Reformed Spirituality Conference at Cambridge. The room at Westminster was fine, the gathering select but I expected that when it had both “Spirituality” and “Reformed” on the flyer. You have to be both sympathetic towards spirituality and towards Reformed Christianity to go. That is a small subset of christians who are both interested in the Reformed tradition and in spirituality. There are different ways of constructing the subset and I come with one that I suspect has its roots in Iona that is one that alters the meaning of spirituality to fit in with the meaning Reformed, then look for how that works rather than those who try to create a “Reformed flavoured” spirituality. That said I don’t think I realised how “at home” I am with many of the things other see as distinctive of a spirituality, but that is down to my character, I am an introvert and I have a strong tendency to enjoy regular practices and low stimulus situations. I do not like entire regularity but routine is the basis on which I build the resources to respond to the chaos of life.
The conference was held at the same time as the last couple of the May balls. The result of which was that at about 10:00 a.m. at night for the first two nights magnificent firework displays happened. Fine, if as I was the second night, coming back from the pub, but I had fallen asleep fairly exhausted the night before only to be woken by what sounded like a symphony orchestra backing a firework display and if I was more of a musician I would be able to tell you what the orchestra were playing. After the second night you could actually see the students returning home as I got up for breakfast.
Yes that was me going to the pub, it seemed the natural thing to do with this group and normally it isn’t. I almost went the first night but was too tired/withdrawn to cope with it so went to bed. There were three students from Westminster at the conference so we ended up at a rather better class of pub than is usual for escape committees from Westminster. It also happened during a brief interlude in the wet weather so one evening we spent the evening sitting out in the pub garden. There were plenty of other people there but it was nice to be sitting outside for a change this summer.
One slight thing was I was surprised at my irritation at people who keep creating the same two or three labyrinths. The most common one tends to be Classical Labyrinth because there is a set way to draw it. The second type because it is famous is the Chartres, but the Labyrinth society has many more labyrinths, however even that is limited. There are technically an infinite number of labyrinths based on the Classical pattern that you can draw quite easily, there is a spiral pattern which is also quite easy and actually the simplest of the Chartres style but also infinite, then there is the Chartres style which rely on transit lines and divides, there are again technically an infinity of them. This leaves us with the question why do we just stick to two of them. My response was to draw one that as far as I know has never been drawn before. It belongs to the classical family as they are the simplest to draw when you have only basic tools i.e. a pencil and a piece of paper. Sometimes I am going to have to write up how to create a classical style labyrinth as it comes to me at least with a nice set of images. I do spiral ones but rarely do Chartres style or others as I need a good clear space to do those time wise.
The weather broke on the last day and started raining which made the journey back harder to cope with especially as the last train was packed with commuters all the way. I also think I was pretty exhausted but I had a departmental meeting at work the next day so I basically just headed to bed. That evening was the Broomhill Festival dinner. I was asked I think to make up numbers as several people who were thought to be coming could not make it. I was happy to go, and they coped admirably with the fact that I was lactose intolerant despite the fact they had not been forewarned. I had told Derek who was doing the booking but I do not think he understood what I was saying, Jean Dickson also meant to remind him and I also managed to leave my lactase tablets at home. However I was very tired and I think that largely wiped out Saturday with the result I was having to write on Sunday Afternoon last week despite doing the sound at St Andrews in the morning. Sheila had found that she could not do the table elders bit so James at the last minute had to stand in.
Monday it was back to writers group and taking a piece of writing from the spirituality event. I have a second and I need to sort them both. I can’t recall anything else dramatic happening this week, work was busy and such but nothing major going on.
The weekend has had two themes running through it, thesis writing and communion service. I needed to submit my latest chapter to my supervisor this weekend and I also was table elder 2 at St Andrews. This means I officially am supporting table elder 1. I had dinner with the Dicksons on Friday and we arranged to meet at 5 p.m. on Saturday as contact centre was on. I need to get my head around the process of preparing because it and tidying up afterwards takes a considerable amount of work by two people and I am quite sure it should not. I made one simplification today partly because Lesley Green was taking it and that was to move the elders meeting to the committee room rather than going upstairs to the Elders room (Elders do not meet normally in the Elders room these days anyway and more and more elders are finding the stairs tricky, Lesley is older than most of them and I suspect would do also). The only problem was, because it was Lesley, James did a thorough run through so the choir had difficulty getting hold of their books. Next change is to buy new pins for the table cloth. I know what I want and I know they will be easier to handle. We were worried over the size as Margaret had organised a trip over this weekend and therefore there were likely to be fewer members but we ended up with 43 taking communion which is the usual number.
The conference was held at the same time as the last couple of the May balls. The result of which was that at about 10:00 a.m. at night for the first two nights magnificent firework displays happened. Fine, if as I was the second night, coming back from the pub, but I had fallen asleep fairly exhausted the night before only to be woken by what sounded like a symphony orchestra backing a firework display and if I was more of a musician I would be able to tell you what the orchestra were playing. After the second night you could actually see the students returning home as I got up for breakfast.
Yes that was me going to the pub, it seemed the natural thing to do with this group and normally it isn’t. I almost went the first night but was too tired/withdrawn to cope with it so went to bed. There were three students from Westminster at the conference so we ended up at a rather better class of pub than is usual for escape committees from Westminster. It also happened during a brief interlude in the wet weather so one evening we spent the evening sitting out in the pub garden. There were plenty of other people there but it was nice to be sitting outside for a change this summer.
One slight thing was I was surprised at my irritation at people who keep creating the same two or three labyrinths. The most common one tends to be Classical Labyrinth because there is a set way to draw it. The second type because it is famous is the Chartres, but the Labyrinth society has many more labyrinths, however even that is limited. There are technically an infinite number of labyrinths based on the Classical pattern that you can draw quite easily, there is a spiral pattern which is also quite easy and actually the simplest of the Chartres style but also infinite, then there is the Chartres style which rely on transit lines and divides, there are again technically an infinity of them. This leaves us with the question why do we just stick to two of them. My response was to draw one that as far as I know has never been drawn before. It belongs to the classical family as they are the simplest to draw when you have only basic tools i.e. a pencil and a piece of paper. Sometimes I am going to have to write up how to create a classical style labyrinth as it comes to me at least with a nice set of images. I do spiral ones but rarely do Chartres style or others as I need a good clear space to do those time wise.
The weather broke on the last day and started raining which made the journey back harder to cope with especially as the last train was packed with commuters all the way. I also think I was pretty exhausted but I had a departmental meeting at work the next day so I basically just headed to bed. That evening was the Broomhill Festival dinner. I was asked I think to make up numbers as several people who were thought to be coming could not make it. I was happy to go, and they coped admirably with the fact that I was lactose intolerant despite the fact they had not been forewarned. I had told Derek who was doing the booking but I do not think he understood what I was saying, Jean Dickson also meant to remind him and I also managed to leave my lactase tablets at home. However I was very tired and I think that largely wiped out Saturday with the result I was having to write on Sunday Afternoon last week despite doing the sound at St Andrews in the morning. Sheila had found that she could not do the table elders bit so James at the last minute had to stand in.
Monday it was back to writers group and taking a piece of writing from the spirituality event. I have a second and I need to sort them both. I can’t recall anything else dramatic happening this week, work was busy and such but nothing major going on.
The weekend has had two themes running through it, thesis writing and communion service. I needed to submit my latest chapter to my supervisor this weekend and I also was table elder 2 at St Andrews. This means I officially am supporting table elder 1. I had dinner with the Dicksons on Friday and we arranged to meet at 5 p.m. on Saturday as contact centre was on. I need to get my head around the process of preparing because it and tidying up afterwards takes a considerable amount of work by two people and I am quite sure it should not. I made one simplification today partly because Lesley Green was taking it and that was to move the elders meeting to the committee room rather than going upstairs to the Elders room (Elders do not meet normally in the Elders room these days anyway and more and more elders are finding the stairs tricky, Lesley is older than most of them and I suspect would do also). The only problem was, because it was Lesley, James did a thorough run through so the choir had difficulty getting hold of their books. Next change is to buy new pins for the table cloth. I know what I want and I know they will be easier to handle. We were worried over the size as Margaret had organised a trip over this weekend and therefore there were likely to be fewer members but we ended up with 43 taking communion which is the usual number.
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