After a week with rather more to cope with than planned

Right this week was more in it than I planned. There was a twofold reason for this. Firstly I had a cold last weekend and though not serious, I need more rest when I am under the weather than when not. Secondly there were builders in work knocking down walls and such. This is my idea of something that is best avoided but as I did not know until Friday I could not plan last week to make other plans.

Monday it was not too bad and I had writers group in the evening. This was a not to be missed evening as it was the rehearsal for our reading on Friday. However we rehearse on Monday and read on Friday, I for the life of me can’t get up the energy to prepare for the rehearsal as I would for the actual reading.They therefore seem to be surprised when I read much better on the night. This is ridiculous, I have been reading in church since I was around ten, I know how well I need to know a reading to read it well, whether it is a Bible reading or a piece of my own work and that really the actual preparation can only be done in the last twenty four hours.

Tuesday was down to Birmingham for a supervision, the weather was wet and blustery when I set out but by the time I had got to University Train Station it had stopped raining. I thought I might try and pay my fees in person, they having managed to at last bill me correctly. I want a bill before I pay (they usually bill wrongly to start with so paying an estimate whether right or wrong isn’t a good idea). I am actually now stopping following the alerts for new papers towards my thesis. Well I have not stopped them but unless something absolutely shouts at me I am ignoring it. That said there was an announcement on a book on Ethnography and Ecclesiology which has both American and British authors. I also need to trace at least one of the book my supervisor recommended which looks at Pentecostalism and Ritual.I have enough tangents to deal with already. What was also interesting was my supervisor and I had a post thesis chat. It is obviously time I started thinking about that. When it got to walking home I found the sun was shining.

Wednesday I had a migraine, actually I could have had it on Tuesday, but as it was supervision decided to cajole my system into working. Strong coffee and ginger seem to pretty well as a keep going if I have to, however when I woke feeling pretty rough on Wednesday I decided it was going to be one of those migraines which I could try working through but until I gave myself time actually have it I was not going to get better. The main problem with this was I needed time to get bright deep yellow paper for printing the programme for the reading on Friday. Two separate people had done the inside and outside of the programme, I just needed to combine it and print. I found a webpage that would combine two different webpages so it was just getting hold of the paper.

Thursday I made it back into work.The morning spent doing an analysis on drinks consumed in school. What seems to be happening is people are thinking that sugary drinks is mainly drinks like lemonade and coke. However there is a lot of sugar in many fruit based drinks which are seen as healthy options. On the afternoon spent quite a bit of my time with a doctoral student who is looking at green roofs and diversity with respect to time. I also printed off the programmes for the Reading the next day as I had taken the decision to work at home on Friday on thesis. I also met Cliff at lunch time to check the sound system situation. He has taken one aerial and two microphones to be fixed. We are therefore a microphone short. His view is that it is wear and tear but I am cautious.

Friday I went to Broomhall Breakfast, as this is a new academic year there are new volunteers and they are settling in. The result was for the first time ever I was mistaken for a normal breakfaster. I think I should have played along for longer but as it turned out, that was not the only mistake the volunteer was making and having a more experienced person to pick up on the other was what was needed.Then onto the doctors for a regular checkup. I got a bit worried when another doctor came out and said to someone else that my doctor could not see them that day did they mind seeing him. The idea of trying to explain why my medication was the way it was, what needed changing and what did not was going to be challenging within the consultation spell. However it must have been a one off as my GP was there and agreed to the changes I wanted. The rest of the day I had set aside for preparing for the reading and also putting together the desk with the idea that Saturday would then be free to study.

The readings went well on the whole. The room was full although it mainly seems to be family of other members of the group with one or two friends. There being about a dozen readers, then it is fairly easy to get forty people to an event. That said I did not manage to bring anyone but we shall see at other events. There were comments about how well my introductions to my poems worked. Again no rocket science, you want some hook for people to grasp where you are coming from and then a lead in. A hook is normally better if it is something personal they can connect with, a busy day, being scared as a child and so on. On the whole a good evening including going to the pub with other members of the group afterwards.

Saturday was a down day, I managed to shop in the morning and then slept but my brain would not settle all afternoon and I had an early night. I really should have just settled to reading, I suspect it was the come down from the previous week. Today I went to church as I was on sound duty and it was Jeremy Clines, the Anglican Chaplain preaching. His voice did not work well with the sound system but what he did was give more time to Bible readings so we got both the parable of the sower and the explanation, the whole of 1 Corinthians 12 and a good section from Job. Intriguingly in the parable of the sower what struck me that the seed was scattered on the bad soil. There was no careful husbanding it. A point that Jeremy then made. I wonder if we as churches have got too careful over where we scatter seed. That is we need to be prepared to sow in bad soil in order to get the harvest from the good soil.

On a second "easy" Sunday

This week has been busy but not over busy indeed the bank holiday allowed me to get on top of my next chapter which is with my supervisor now. This weekend I simply spent getting the descriptive data chapters ready to send to my placement churches. This was more complicated than I hoped as I first realised at 5:00 pm on Friday that I needed paper and then with trying to print double sided that I also needed a new print cartridge half way through printing on Saturday morning. However it all got done and I managed to get the print copies to the binders in time for them to be bound on Saturday so if I am fairly organised today and tomorrow I can send the copies to the placement churches. This is the last stage of the permissions for my thesis and I am aware that the chapters will look significantly different in the final thing but I am pretty sure that the portrayal of the two churches is not going to change significantly unless they produce something pretty startling. The accounts are all fictionalised, but people in the congregations and around them are going to have a pretty good idea who all the characters are based on. At least they should do. I also have deliberately on occasion put in detail which is aimed to mislead the casual reader.

Work wise this week I was only in two days, well not quite I did see someone on Thursday but that was because the desperately wanted to submit their masters thesis on time and the thesis was one where I was the originator and so I felt responsible for that. Ellie has been coming to the Breakfast Club and looking at the food patterns people who eat there have. I need to sit down and think whether it is worth getting the project again but looking at the people using the Breakfast club who are not homeless and why do they come. Many of these are still vulnerable people and quite often there are housing issues that need to be sorted for them. However if someone wants to do something for free for the Breakfast Club, something that created a visual image that held rapport with the clientele would be good. This would need to be largely visual as a substantial number of them can not write and one of the items would be to use it on a notice board so we could share pictures, achievements and so on with others at the Breakfast

Friday I had an Indian with Margo, it was supposed to be end of term with several students that had done the human nutrition course this year but they came in for a quick drink and then left.So we ended up looking for somewhere to deliver a curry. We eventually settled on Jannath but as I did not have a menu I ended up ordering curry and leaving it for them to choose but they just gave us the dishes in a curry sauce.

Yesterday I actually started getting ready for the trip to Maryport, so far the shopping has mainly been dog walking supplies, on the grounds that that is something I am likely to do on several days. I also finally got around to getting myself walking gaiters which seem sensible gear for walking anywhere where there might be wet vegetation as they basically cover between the boots and the ankle. I have binoculars and I also could do with a couple of trips to photograph lighthouses. Then there are geocaching trips with the girls (plus getting a takeaway) and seeing if I can find anything when my sister is not there. Together with some birdwatching, drinking coffee and writing a thesis I do not think I will have too much time to get bored.

Today I turned down the option of being on the management team at St Andrews, with the amount I need to get through in the next six months taking on anything new is going to be very difficult indeed and something else would have to go. I also do not mind doing practical things, but if it comes to managing and organising other people to do them, then I really have little inclination at all to do it.

After a Baptism

I am going to try highlights but I am trying to recall what has happened and not finding it that easy. I think this is possibly because things have been dominated quite a bit by thesis writing. The weekend before I rather got distracted. I had a recalled a quote from Lord of the Rings for my thesis and I needed to trace it. It took longer than I imagined to find it but I ended up spending quite a bit of the Saturday reacquainting myself with Lord of the Rings. I had forgotten what a rollicking good story J.R.R. Tolkien can be and would decide to read a page to check for the quote and then realise I had read twenty pages without stopping. This weekend I am at the changeover point on my second chapter. Upto now I have been writing in the current chapter the easy bits, which are the detailed description of what went on that I see as important. The big challenge with this is the selection of material. There really is far too much stuff there and that is without dealing in detail with the interviews. From the few times I have done in depth analysis on the interviews, as opposed to simple reviewing there has been tons of stuff just below the surface, at least enough for another thesis and I am having to keep myself from being distracted by it. I am however moving into doing the theory for this section. I seem to suffer a loss of confidence as I approach this, yet once I am really writing it I am able to do so. This may be the legacy of having moved so much out of the areas where I know I am capable into an area which I still feel a novice in. I have at least got through the totally terrible first draft (did not even both computerising it) but have started computerising a second draft. This coming week is going to be interesting as I try and redraft that section so that it is ready for me to fit the chapter together next weekend, all but the last section which is relating the stuff talked about back to Reformed Piety.

Meanwhile Fleur sent me a flyer on a meeting at Westminster College on the topic of Reformed Spirituality . Now it is organised by the by the United Reformed Retreat Group So I spent quite a bit of time sorting that out. I know I really should apply to the retreat group but have not got around to doing it yet and I had to pay Westminster up front.

Work wise it has been busy, the senior bosses have this last week caught onto the fact that the move is happening in the immediate future (this weekend and next) and have therefore been driving the secretaries batty with , have you thought of X. The normal reply was “Yes six weeks ago”. On Wednesday evening I was given my bit of it when one of them saw me leaving work. The fact that I had sorted out to my satisfaction most of it two weeks ago and that I knew I had lots to throw out but apart from that and packing most things were sorted, just had not occurred to him. The fact being that if things weren’t sorted by now I would be feeling very threatened given the way things were set up originally. I am jolly glad that people lower down the department have done the organising.

Last Friday as I returned from doing some shopping after the Broomhall Breakfast I spotted the police helicopter hovering over the church, this made me nervous, not because I thought there was anything going on in the church but there had been a bit of a to-do with a couple of Breakfasters and talk of sorting it out in the car-park afterwards. Any I went back to the church then walked with Mary home while Sarah I presume deliberately went the other direction. The helicopter left as we set off and there was no trouble.

I don’t think I would recall this but that evening Ship of Fools learnt of the death of Genevieve, now Ship of Fools knows it can mourn a death, and Genevieve was a shipmate who I respected hugely although with little contact. She seemed wise and intelligent. However I am realising that the circumstances of her death (she was shot in church in USA by someone the church had been helping) in close proximity to the incident in the morning just unsettled me.

Otherwise another paper has been published in work and I think another three have or are about to be submitted. I have been busy filling in forms and such. Otherwise I have been dealing with doctoral students in landscape or such with a few foreign language students thrown in for interest. There is more than enough to do.

Today was the baptism of Theo Wheat and also of Annual Church Meeting. The baptism went well and the crowd that came for the Baptism filled the church. The comments afterwards were appreciative and St Andrews members are a disciplined lot who got back to church meeting on time despite the chocolate rich tea biscuits. Sarah is impressive in her management of church meeting and managed to get through the whole ACM procedure and introduce the Church Life Review in under an hour! This is in marked contrast with the meetings I recall as a teenager which could take up a full afternoon as each committee gave their report verbally. The big problem was that as it was a small church everyone went to everything so we really did not need a report on it.

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.

Out of placement

Thesis Fractal Triskele, a photo by jengie@btinternet.com on Flickr.

For those who are interested in the mandala I was talking about last week, I now have an outline which you can see with this post , I am hoping to fill it with little balls of tissue paper representing every fifty words written, the balls will need to be quite small to cope with the complexity of the design. If I also manage to put up photos every week then it gives people an idea of how I am doing. That is the plan anyway. How I deal with the final editing and those sort of things is anyone’s guess. Actually the big first hurdle is to start to have an outline of my first chapter so that I can really begin writing. I also need to have a todo list so I get through all the stages.

For those interested in my placement church it looks as is St Andrews Chesterfield have someone preaching with a view at the end of next month. No idea who and am not going to make inquiries, I am just praying that they make the right decision about whether to issue a call or not.

Otherwise this week has been one of slowing down from the quite frenetic pace of previous weeks. Monday was the last day at the frantic pace although next Tuesday looks as if it will have it as well. So it has been slowing. There has also been a lot of last things. Tuesday we finished off drafting a paper for a masters thesis. To get a masters project from the level of a masters project and actually get it to submission level for a paper is a lot of hard work. It involves the supervisor in a lot more hands on approach and I have been involved with two this summer and probably have another one or two to do.

On Tuesday evening I went to church meeting at Herringthorpe. It was held in the church (some evening church meetings have been held in the Clynes Hall. They have just finished renovating the Clynes Hall so I was half expecting it to be there, but with the starting time it was felt that it would be better in the church itself. I had on the Monday sent through to Pauline and Tom the report to elders. Well I was not expecting anything to be mentioned about it at church meeting. After all normal policy would be for elders to digest then bring anything they thought essential to church meeting. Well Pauline mentioned that I had done it, mentioned that it was thirteen pages long (approximately 7.500 words), said it was well written (so obviously I was not going over Pauline’s head anyway) and offered any member that wanted it access to a copy. She had printed five copies out and was willing to email copies as well, the elders were instructed not to take a copy as they would get one automatically. All five copies went and there was a fair demand to have copies by email as well.

Wednesday I actually had nothing on, so I spent it trying to find all the bits and pieces I had dropped while I was frantically busy. Thursday was my birthday, it was noticeable that this year I got more good wishes via Facebook than I did birthday cards. The day was quiet and normal although a couple of books I ordered from Amazon had come. This ups the number of academic books on Reformed Spirituality from three to four and the other which appears to be an emerging church book both seems to be tackling the issue I am tackling with in a broader setting and is from a Reformed perspective. They should both be interesting. Anyone wanting details please just email me.

Friday I did my last session on the Breakfast as server. It has seen them over the summer but they really need to now move towards a more secure volunteer staffing than I can provide long term and when I am back from holiday I need to be writing and the breakfast made a pace for fridays that was distinctly different and not really compatible with writing although it did tend to clear my Saturdays nicely.

On the evening we went to Orient Express on West Street. It is very Chinese, even the bill comes in Chinese so I hope I paid the right amount (it was less than I expected and we weren’t intentionally stinting ourselves although they could not cope with giving us two scoops of the same flavoured sorbet so we ended up with two desserts instead of three, but I did take the highest price I could see on the slip). The food was pleasant and well cooked and the majority of diners were of oriental extraction. The only snag was that the sound seemed to echo around the building.

Saturday I spent largely doing bits and pieces and today was my last trip out to Herringthorpe. So I am now officially out of placement. It feels strange at present and a definite sign of moving on. They gave me three cards, what is funny is that a couple of families have managed to sign the cards two or three times! I suspect there is going to be some come back from the report and such but I will have to wait for that.

Keeping the pace going over the late August Bank holiday

Right I am trying to remember what happened this last week, certainly it was not eventful as the previous one. Monday was spent writing the final report to the elders at Herringthorpe. I learn a lot about myself in so doing as I found it very easy to write lots of words and I know there are more words just waiting to get out. I think if I was designing my study again I would shorten slightly my time with the two congregations so as to have a space to recuperate between them. I find that in getting to know and understand a congregation for two years I also develop a love for them and the ending, uprooting of yourself afterwards is actually quite painful. Rushing into the next situation as I have designed my doctorate, is not a good idea. You need time to sort assess and get your bearings afterwards.

Tuesday I was in work, Derek Collins had asked about lights on at the sound desk so Cliff kindly came down and changed the bulbs. This was not a simple tasks as the bulbs needed soldering into position. A more modern desk would just use LEDs that last forever rather than small filament bulbs. I am well aware that when I get back I am going to have to start trying things like placing microphones for the choir and see how we get on. The initial stages will be messy and it will have to be done on weeks when I am there not weeks when I am writing. Then in the end it may not work or it might only be possible for the transmitted part (that would actually mean rewiring the speaker to the creche so it takes its feed from the loop or other output and not from that to the speakers. I also suspect that I should look again at recording services. Then long term there is planning for what happens when the radio microphones give out. They must be about a decade old.

Wednesday was the day that I had to sit down and write up an analysis I was doing for the department. The due date was 1st September, when I took it on I assumed I would be normally busy and that it would be relatively simple. The analysis was relatively simple but it took me a long time to prepare the data for analysing (first I had to go through and label everything, secondly I then had to calculate the variables we actually wanted, which were not the same as the variables that were there in the original data set) and then I had work through the actual presentation of the data. One of those days where the sheer absorption in the analysis is draining. I got most of the points covered and I suspect the request for more analysis is that it is making sense to other people now. The previous person did not understand that you had to give your audience a framework within which to interpret it. It meant that a number of my results looked substantially different from hers simply because I kept the base the same in graphs. So I reported estimated percentage of all students while she was reporting percentage of people who owned ipads next to percentage of people who owed laptop PCs.

Thursday got the nicest rejection letter ever for a paper sent to a journal. The response was basically “This should be published unfortunately it is not in our brief”. Also was proofing another paper., totally different subject. I am finding it odd to do this, I am not by a long way the most pedantic of grammarians as James and Ruth can vouch for. Actually although I keep trying to do better I was in the wrong generation at school, the one where they thought it all came naturally and did not need teaching. Hence I have bits but not nearly as much as I should have. This is not helped by the fact that I am a relatively late developer with writing style. I still at writers group often find it difficult to critique others writing.

Friday was the breakfast and we were down with 45 there, but this was a good number, more and we really are exhausted by the end of breakfast. The thing is numerical growth is not what we are aiming at with the breakfast. What we want is to develop is more a sense of community and relationship between those who come. One of our regular breakfasters is starting his masters (I think its his third or fourth) in sports chaplaincy. He has been appointed one of the sports chaplains in Sheffield at least in part due to the immense amount of volunteering he does at sports events. However after breakfast I go back and sleep. On a sadder note Matthew, a ltwenty year old who through most of his childhood been fostered by a local couple, collapsed shortly after the couple returned from holiday and certainly by friday had not regained consciousness. I have not sussed how to deal with my body and breakfast. My major problem is my body insists on checking every two hours during the night whether it is 6 a.m. yet. No chance of me oversleeping but by the end of breakfast I am tired. Oh I don’t think my body would cope with an alarm, it would just keep waking me every couple of hours to check how long it was before the alarm goes off.

Saturday my parents came over. Well I read a paper before they came over from a Presbyterian minister in Bloemfontein. Actually there seems to be a group of ministers doing fairly sensible Congregational Studies in South Africa although they are minister focused and therefore tend to be more managerial/action research. Working as a lay person I actually have more time to gather information but less ability to implement actions. Anyway I got it read and a couple more in store for reading on Mendeley. We went down to Waitrose to shop. Amongst the items was a new ironing board cover for me (I wanted to pick mum’s brain on putting it onto the board but my old cover had persihed) and also I needed to get a new toaster. My old one had started shorting the fuse every time I put it on and before it made toast. Fortunately Waitrose were having a bit of a sale of household goods so I got a £25 one for £17. We also bought lunch which was the real purpose and Dad boughts some coffee beans with the caffeine still in them. For lunch I got hold of same ham filled pasta, some guacamole and a a salad. I cooked the pasta and then stirred in the guacamole rather than use a sauce. It worked pretty well. I also bought the ingredients and mum made up a fruit salad. I forgot to get a fizzy drink for the syrup so had to make it from raw ingredients.

Today I went to Herringthorpe, a poorer than usual turn out possibly doe to the weather,but families often don’t ocme on communion sunday. Next week they have the dedication of the refurbishment of the Clines Hall and a gift day. I am trying to decide if I am going to their coffee morning for charities on the Saturday or if I am having a quiet day in, perhaps reading.

Visit to National Media Museum and a Hectic Breakfast

Right it will be highlights this time rather than a day by day account. Work was still busy and students were still panicking but really other than that there is no big news from most of it although for the first time ever on Monday I had to shut up the building, which required me ringing security for them to lock it as I do not know the code.

Tuesday I went to Bradford to the National Media Museum with Cathy,Sam and Hannah. The trains worked really well, I have a double train from Sheffield, while Cathy, Sam and Hannah have a single one from Rochdale. Cathy had used Red Spotted Hanky and got the fares for the three of them for about £15.00, As my fare from Sheffield cost about that much as well, I reckon she did pretty well. However not all routes are as good, there is no saving for me going to University of Birmingham, I have just checked. The centre is an easy fifteen minute walk from the Interchange Station. We got in and had a coffee, while we made plans. Cathy found a trail with questions for children, but we also decided to see Hubble 3D which tells of a mission by the space shuttle crew to repair and improved the Hubble Telescope. Sam was worried about this as it was an afternoon showing but when we pointed out that they would still have about an hour and a half to go before they needed to catch the planned train he was quite happy. Hannah was carrying a pack to see how well she did, if she managed it the prize was being able to take more toys on holiday. We went around the galleries in the morning, spent quite a bit of time looking for a story board for Bob the Builder. We overlooked it because it was not in colour, even though there was a video of the episode right next door to it. Then we went to have lunch in the picnic room. I had packed a picnic sticking pretty close to Hannah’s suggestions. Hannah had a good go on cheese sticks and Sam ate nine mini Pepperami. No I was not counting, there were ten in the packet, Hannah ate two thirds of one and Cathy the rest, but I took none home. Actually most of the food went. Hannah took one sandwich to eat on the way home and I took home a yoghurt and a couple of peaches. Sam was amazed when he said he would have a nectarine if we had a knife, and I said “who says I have not got a knife” and proceeded to get out my tool kit and take out the pen knife. I am not sure what he thought I carried in my handbag, but a tool kit wasn’t it.

Hubble 3D worked really well. Sam is saying at present he wants to be an astrophysicist (before I forget Cathy it might be worth telling Sam that Astronauts tend to be really fit Astrophysicists, admittedly we have just come to the end of a generation of space mission and we don’t know what is next but I will be very surprised if there isn’t something).. Therefore Sam thoroughly enjoyed the film including the pictures of stars as well as the story about the space walk. Hannah was wowwed by the experience of Imax but after half an hour she was bored with the film (I suspect she would have been bored by any film, Hannah is a busy person and likes to do several things at once). I was impressed with the pictures, unfortunately the sound was slightly out of sync and it was like having someone continually whispering behind me. Afterwards we came down and had another drink, after Hannah and Sam had finished theirs (far quicker than Cath or I) I gave them their packs for home which included £5 to spend in the gift shop. They raced off with it, which gave Cath and I ten minutes to talk, as Cathy could watch them from where we were seated. Cathy had asked whether I had heard of the postcard app on my phone. I said that I thought I had it there, so we looked and not only did I have it, but I also had a free postcard from them, so Sam and Hannah posed, while I took a photo and then Sam typed in the text on the back, and we sent it to Mum and Dad. Time was getting on so we headed to the station. We got the trains safely back, for the first time ever I managed to get by chance the cross country train from Leeds to Sheffield so got in earlier than expected.

Wednesday was an away day, it was partly a get to know the team session and partly a chance for the people in charge to pick peoples brains. Two things surprised me. First on our table I was second longest serving member (alright so the other person had been with the department for over a decade longer than me and the next nearest person was only a year or two behind but still). The second was how surprised people were that I did not have a TV. I suspect when you own a TV you think everyone does, but when you don’t you pick up people who like you don’t. I would be suspicious that there is at least one other person without a TV in the team (which is large) if not more.

However the real fun and games started on Wednesday evening. Mary (who helps at breakfast) had tried to take the food for Friday around to the church when she had been bitten by something and seems to have had quite a severe reaction to it. Anyway she was having difficulty standing and did not make it to the church but went home. Also David Price who was supposed to be helping found he needed to do something else on Friday morning. So it looked like Broomhall Breakfast was going to be Roy and Fleur and me. As I have very few breakfast associated numbers. I think Jean Dicksons mobile phone number was the best I had, I was not being very useful. All I really could do was say to God “you sort it”.

I got a second call from Mary on Thursday as David although not able to come on Friday had offered to take the shopping around to the church for her but she was not getting a response when she rang his number. She wanted to know if I had a more up to date number. I said no but suggested that she rang St Marks. Why I had not thought of that before I do not know. Anyway she must have got in contact with David because he did the bulk of taking things around to the church and there were only a couple of things she had forgotten.

Anyway Friday came and Stuart who cooks often came as did Ollie so although perhaps lower staffed than we would have liked, were very efficiently staffed. Not only that but one of our regulars who help set up the chairs brought a bunch of flowers so at the end I sent the flowers round with Ollie to Mary. We served fifty all told although the list only has forty eight, Stuart and Roy had breakfasts but are not listed. We ran out of almost everything, though I went down to Spar to buy enough to keep us going to the end. Roy and Beryl decided to ask me .

Today I went to morning worship at Herringthorpe and conducted the interview with the current church secretary, it was perhaps the shortest interview I have done but it certainly was not uninformative. I am still trying to think through what was going on though I have written up a report. On the surface it looks like someone who is busy fitting me into a tight schedule but there is something deeper going on, in many ways I felt as if I was working through a minefield and as much for my own sake as for his I needed to keep pretty strictly to the path. He displayed a much deeper emotional attachment to the congregation than any I have seen, and I have seen some strong ones.

A day late, last week was so busy!

Actually at least Sunday was, I got this written late last night but have not had chance to post it until now.

I am trying to think back to Monday and it seems a long way away now and having checked my diary nothing too eventful happened which is probably as well. Tuesday I had a day and a half of life, the first part of the morning was spent preparing a bid to the Leverhulme Foundation for a major research project involving human nutrition and computer science, trying to use computer models of language to understand what messages are going out about nutrition over the web. Then onto a talk with someone from the URC who wanted to consult me about a survey. Then Stuart came round of the evening, the first time since I stopped him coming around for a chat on a Friday night. He had managed to break the shower in his house, while drunk and wondered if he could have a shower.

My body had had enough excitement for the time being and decided a migraine was the only way to stop me from having more. Fortunately for once it decided to be unambiguous and I had classic migraine symptoms right from the start.This time I actually understood I had a classical migraine headache, other times I have only realised that that is what is going on when I find myself totally unable to think straight enough to get up.

Thursday was a quieter day with just spending the afternoon sorting out a paper. In the morning I discovered Mendeley which I think is really something. It gives me about ninety percent of what I have been looking for in citation software. That is it allows me to handle pdf copies of papers, make notes on them electronically and cite them. It also imported my Endnote citation database. Now all it really needs is a proper classification tool that allows me to make notes on a paper and then classify it to a category, so that then I can look at the category, see the where the notes link to and build the argument from that. I have been playing with it and so far am impressed. I am wondering about the social networking side of it, it might be useful for one other of my supervisors students especially if it would allow us to share useful papers to both of us.

Friday was the breakfast and we had forty-eight to dine. Ollie who often helps out was down again and he said that the University rag had been asking him if he knew of anyone requiring funding. So I suggested he might put in a bid for the food for several weeks. By talking to Mary and such we came up with a suggesting that perhaps £600 would pay for three months food. In some ways we would like to reach out further to the University. But the couple who were cooking caught onto this conversation and suggested that they also brought the breakfast in front of St Mark’s PCC as a possible local charity for the church to support. I then went on and shopped at Waitrose having not got on Wednesday. On the evening Stuart came around for another shower and to borrow the keys for church so he could do the photocopying for the next two weeks. The really good news was that his Doctor had told him that he needed to stop drinking and he seemed if anything relieved about this. Also Judith had volunteered to do the photocopying for him and he had instead said no and was going to do it himself. As he did not come around yesterday evening for help I suspect he has got his head around it.

Yesterday I kept quiet, I went to town and got a few things, then came back and did some work on the report to Herringthorpe. This is the indepth report to elders. I am not sure how much to put in on my thoughts and am still working my way through that.

Today had morning worship at Herringthorpe, then came home, ate lunch and went back to help set out chairs for an Ecumenical Songs of Praise. One of the surprises at the Songs of Praise was that Karen who was chaplaincy assistance a good while back is now the local vicar. So had a chat with her. Then came home.

Still busy but seem to be coping

It has been a busy week but I am getting used to busy and I think managing to pace myself better than previous years. Some of this is to do with the fact that I actually have more stamina. I therefore don’t have to drive myself with adrenaline so much to achieve the tasks I need to achieve. That makes a huge difference at work as I am able to carry a heavier work load than I have carried for years.

My writers group had two meetings this last week again. The one on Monday I got the whole group laughing with the poem I brought. I am not sure that it would be funny to those outside the group as it was based on our own behaviour around the start of term although fictionalised. The second one I actually took a re-write of the poem I took last week which was aimed to now have a clear point to it, as what had previous been a purely descriptive poem was changed to say something more without being didactic.

Tuesday I was supposed to go to the party to mark the end of the Bible Study year only for once my subconcious decided quite definitely against it. I not only forgot to book the car but I managed to think I could set off at 6:45pm for a 7:00 pm party. That is not start the car at 6:45 but leave the flat at 6:45p.m which means at least another five minutes walk. As I would have had three really heavy days I was not altogether sorry.

Friday I did breakfasts again. This week I think we served 44 people. At one stage one of the guys, I think Alan called me “Sarah” I replied I wasn’t. Given that if it was Alan he had been calling me “Jean Jeanie” the week before I was not being too sympathetic. He then called me “Mary” which meant I think that he was just muddling me up with other people who regularly helped. That’s okay, I am still learning their names and its not helped by have several Daves, Johns and at least two Philips/, the distinctive ones such as Uri and Stephan tend to stick. Oh and one who came this week was a David Hill so I am hoping that the Rev David Hill does not decide to see what happens one week when he is here, it could lead to confusion.

Friday evening I went to see Calendar Girls  which was what I hoped it would be. That is a good human story told with a lot of laughter. To my delight the vicar’s daughter at one time said “I’m a vicars daughter, a single mum and a church organist!” There is just something so true to life about that statement and it is not necessarily based on the real ladies of the WI who made the calendar, for starters there were eleven on them and only six in the show yet the story is believable.

So Saturday was the day I was going to really write the essay, well I got some of the writing done, indeed more than I expected, but felt slightly off colour all day. Fortunately for some reason my brain had been particularly clear on Friday and I had a rough plan of what I was to write. It is so much easier if you have an idea of where you are going. As I was writing about church meeting I thought I better get the relevant pages from the manual. It was quite interesting to read what is actually there and analyse them. There is a clear split of duties between the Church meeting and the Elders meeting. Church meeting has responsibility for mission and for the practical matters of running a church, finance, buildings and so on. Elders on the other hand has pastoral care and worship as its two prime areas of responsibility. What appears to have happened is the Deacon tasks from the Presbyterian Church have been assigned to church meeting while the elders meeting was brought in intact. Of course I have never come across a church that keeps to this boundaries.

Today awoke with the remains of a migraine at least I judge it as such as I did not want to keep my eyes open. So I slept in to 10:00 a.m. then got up and sat down and wrote. I finished about six O’clock but am aware that as it stands it is very much a collection of ideas around church meeting.

So tomorrow I am redrafting and also meeting Sarah for coffee. Not teaching this week, nor do I have Bible study but there are still plenty of people wanting to see me. Friday will be interesting as someone wants to seem me in work just after Broomhall Breakfast.

Teaching, an interview and a study day makes for a busy week

Right the past week has been busy. Monday was fairly normal Monday, indeed I had a bit more spare time to myself because the morning meeting I was expecting took only 15 minutes when I was expecting it to take an hour. Perhaps just as well as I had managed not to print out some output for people when they were with me the previous thursday and it was needed for a talk this thursday day so that gave me time to redo the analysis, print the output and send it over to them.. The afternoon was spent preparing to teach the course I was giving the following day.

Tuesday started with a team management meeting. I have the great management role of managing exactly one person, myself. This of course is anomalous but I actually find that work seems to quite value someone who is out of the power structures. When a debate is getting heated I can often reflect on what is being said and thus provide a different perspective. However this is the last meeting of the management of our team in this form, this is due to the team being expanded. On the afternoon I was giving a course on SPSS. I had one guy who had signed up hoping to learn about Excel. I am not sure where he got that idea from, the course is titled “Entering data into SPSS” and I teach exactly what it says. Over the years we have put a lot of effort into communicating this to people who come on the course. I stayed in on the evening.

Wednesday I took the day off work. This was to allow me to conduct an interview in the morning, to write it up and get to Birmingham in the afternoon. The only thing was that I got the time wrong in the morning and set off too late. What is more annoying is that the earlier time would have suited me better with the journey down to Birmingham. The result of which is that I will finish the interview next Tuesday. I seem to have a very considerate supervisor. I planned to get down to Birmingham for 7pm at Woodbrooke Hall, but knowing this was around supper time I bought food at Marks and Spencers but did not eat it, expecting to eat it either in my room or outside in their extensive gardens. Instead I found that my supervisor had booked me in for supper. So rather shell shocked I found myself in the dinning room of the hall amongst mainly Quakers who were there for a meeting on Peacekeeping.

Actually there are some things worth saying. I was the only person staying overnight from my supervisory group. I would guess most non-Quakers who stay there would be in groups. As I was one on my own, I was more mixed in with the other people around. Somebody asked actually on the Thursday morning whether I had found it strange. I replied no, I had found it right. I had been shown into a room with a bed and a desk and thought “this is my kind of place”. She commented that others might find that weird. The other was my supervisor asking whether I had been well looked after, I said “of course, this place is Quaker and I have always found them a hospitable people”. I have told my Dad that if he needs a place to stay in Birmingham it is a good place to stay.

The study day itself was interesting. I was surprised how close two of us were in what we were tackling. In a sense it works because both of us are approaching it from different angles and it is only a small part of either of our theses and we are coming from different directions. He is also two years behind me so I get to publish first if I stay the pace. The other guy had just finished spending time in Bromford which when he talked about it reminded me somewhat of Blackbird Leys but more cut off and isolated. He was asking questions about his responsibility to the very marginalised youth he had worked with and what was he to do.

Friday I was at Breakfast again, this time we had forty two but there were already over a dozen diners in the hall when I turned up. Next week I need to be more wide-awake when I get there, as it is clear that I need to supervise them putting out tables so that all the tables have chairs and also so the sign goes out. Oh well. The day in work was relatively quiet which it needed to be.

Saturday was quiet, the big news was that during the week I got back my backup drive (actually they have sent me a 2TB in replacement for a 1TB which I think means that there may be problem with the 1TB disks. I also am trying out Carbonite  and if I like it will use it as a remote back up for my thesis machine. I am fortunate and have never lost something hugely important on a computer, but there is always the first time and I don’t want that first time to be my thesis. I will consider whether I do it on my laptop as well when I know how it is working. Other than that I did a shop and some reading.

Today I went to morning worship, at 10:15 the car park there was full to overflowing. The church was very full, with two baptismal parties as well as the normal congregation. They also had three people brought into membership and a meal afterwards for people who were relatively new to the church. I was reading the lesson Romans 8:1-17, I had prepared it from my copy of the Good News Bible. Unfortunately my copy is first edition and the ones in the church are second edition and so use inclusive language.

This week is still pretty busy although quieter than last. I am finishing an interview on Tuesday, teaching a course on Wednesday and my writers group has some extra sessions starting on Wednesday as well. Next Sunday Herringthorpe is holding its church picnic.

So busy I almost did not have time for a migraine

This week has been busy. Monday saw me in work early for an appointment with Margo and Toni, but Toni failed to turn up so we decided to change to looking at some work for Hilary. Only the work for Hilary threw a wobbler on us. It gave an unwanted result and when we unpacked it, it was obvious that we would need to analyse as two cohorts to explain what was going on. The biggest surprise was that it was showing a difference between ex-smokers and non-smokers. This is something that is totally counter-intuitive. The accepted wisdom is that as soon as you stop smoking your health starts recovering. On the afternoon I saw my boss for a monthly review and then it was writers group on the evening. The new light at the corner of the church is confusing us as it seems to switch itself on and off (well I have not found the switch). It keeps being suggested I should produce a pamphlet of poems but I just feel as if that is too much work at present.

Tuesday I saw Margo and we sorted Hilary’s analysis. It was not as tidy as I would have liked but as it was done in two hours that was the best I could do. My PC at work is also bugging me as it regularly hangs for no apparent reason. I know some of these times it is due to downloading over the internet but it really can be appallingly slow. On the afternoon I went over to see Kate, she is in education and is doing a project for a major art gallery on working with young artists. They wanted a pictorial presentation of the findings and my job was to show Kate how she could go from NVivo to the start of a pictorial presentation. What I suddenly realised half way through was here was something at which I was going to be rather good at. Not sure if I can produce these for my thesis. My supervisor would be highly supportive if I did, but I am not that far down the line. In the evening I was across to Herringthorpe for a Bible study.

Wednesday was quieter in work. I only had a query from a doctoral student from dentistry. These days these are the easy to do, although I know when I started that they used to produce interesting challenges. Things like people being interested in variability rather than absolute results. Dentist are culturally interesting; they are precision freaks, measuring everything several times and normally the biggest challenge is to sort out what level of variation is relevant to the particular difference. The evening it was time to go shopping and to get ready for going to Birmingham the next day.

Thursday I was off to Birmingham. It was a showery day but I seemed to have a good day for missing them. Supervisions tend to be huge moral boosters. I go in feeling as if the stuff is getting out of hand and come out feeling as if it tameable. Maybe that is a sign of a good supervisor. I need I think to tackle Jonathan Edwards on the Religious Affections next, well there is that and hymns. I also found a paper that looks as if my spatial models may be fairly well developed in America for Congregations, this is useful, especially as I seem to have most of the books and read quite a few. The chapter on space is coming along quite nicely apart from the fact it would be useful to find some text on a Reformed understanding of space. There is little there, although I have found some with respect to worship.

Friday was a day of happenings. Firstly I turned up at the Breakfast early as I had a 10 a.m. appointment, to find 18 or more hungry breakfasters and a short staffed kitchen. We got out another table as all the seats were already full and I did some time on the hatch. Shortly after me Kay came in and she had slightly more leeway but again needed to be off before the end. Then into work to see Ahmed and Alireza about study I had done. They wanted different estimates. In actual fact I had them although my computer was going slow so I only got one set out. I have another two or so to do. That evening I went to pick up my regular prescriptions from Boots. They are in charge of re-ordering. The only thing was that the prescription had not been dealt with so it was a matter of waiting while they rang the surgery for them to fax the prescription, then prescribing it and finally getting it filled. It was by then so close on closing time that the security guard was offering me free sandwiches. They had a number of sandwiches that were on their sell by date so if I did not take some, they would just go in the bin. However by the time I got home my head was definitely having a headache.

I woke up on Saturday without a headache but feeling out of sync with the world, as if it had spun a half degree further than I had. Anyway I got up and went into town but then messed up paying in cheques at the bank. At which point I decided that my brain was probably still fuddled and the headache was probably a migraine. Anyway shopped at Marks and Spencer and then caught the tram home on the grounds that I was not safe to be out. The shopping only came first because it was groceries for the weekend and no I could not face the walk up to the Co-op (Somerfield). I then went back to bed and slept for two plus hours. Why I could not do that first thing in the morning I do not know. Anyway sorted interviews from Chesterfield and know what processing I need to do to get them ready for sending out. In the evening Stuart came around and we went out to the Devonshire Cat. It was pleasant enough but they had music on and conversation tended to boom.

Today I was at Herringthorpe for morning worship, first time since I reported as I was at my parents last weekend. The feedback was actually very positive. One person apologised for not staying, another asked for a copy of the handout (all but one were taken on the day and I did about 45 which was 5 more than Pauline suggested) and then one person totally unsolicited said that I had got it very accurately. With my supervisor being impressed with it and saying that I had not only got the important things in I had also got the balance exactly right. I think I am counting it a success, of course it is a real success if it actually changes things.

Preparing for Supervision during Holy week

I thought I would start this weeks blog off with something different so here is a picture. These are primroses that are at present in flower in Gell Street Park just close to my flat the picture was taken this morning on the way to church.

Monday seems a long way a way. The day was unremarkable, although I saw my boss at 11:30 which would have been the first time in about six weeks, other than passing in corridors or on the road, these two are infrequent as she works in a different building to me. We quite often buy each other coffee at these meetings, she started it. Oh the really good news is that actually I am now off being watched for the number of days off sick. I spent the evening with my writers group in The Frog and Parrot. The last time we were quite a crowd and it worked well despite the music. This time however when the music was turned up with their being fewer of us, it drowned the conversation somewhat. Neither myself or Neil the leader particularly like talking against background noise. However they did put on hits from the 1970s so at least quite a few in our group recognised the music.

Tuesday I was off work and writing, I managed to finish the essay about lunch time, but I agree as Ruth commented that it is a heavy essay. I suspect any of the three or so ideas in there could have done with a full essay on their own. It is part of thinking myself clear about the Reformed tradition and is basically my defence for putting up what I know to be a limited and personal account of that tradition. Basically I suspect that to do an authoritative account is such a major piece of work that it is beyond the scope of any doctoral student and probably would need to be a collaboration between a wide number of scholars from a variety of subjects and with differing perspectives. So not even one persons magnus opus. This is particularly true when you move outside the debates of theology.

Wednesday I was busy sorting out the exercise dataset. The previous set of results had given back an answer that was the wrong way around. As this particular result was maverick, it took me some time to track down what was going on. The answer seemed to be that it was not directly about quantity but when the carbohydrate was eaten on the day of the race.

Thursday was last day in work. Spent the morning discussing the data with the guy in charge of the exercise then finished the book; Resonate by Nancy Duarte . It is very good, it talks about giving presentations and before anyone thinks of it as about slides, one of her examples used is a sermon by a Presbyterian Minister John Ortberg. So forget slides, this is about communicating a message and putting in appropriate emotional content. I am going to try and apply some of it when I give my talk at Herringthorpe.

On the evening I went out to Maundy Thursday service at Herringthorpe. It was a communion service but the Methodist Minister decided to lead the first part with a presentation on the Jewish Seder. Not an actual seder but to present elements of the seder. What really surprised me was that Pauline had never been to such a service before. He also wanted to know who was the youngest. There was another woman there who has been coming to the church for about six months. Now I knew without a doubt that she was a good deal younger than me, but even Pauline would not accept that. So we had to go into declaring ages. I am thirteen years her elder. I am wondering how much this age thing has played into their perspective of me. As I was at in my mid thirties a lot of what they suggesting would have been a lot more appropriate, although i also acknowledge that the person I was in my thirties was even more highly strung than I am at present, but in my mid forties I am far more settled and formed in my own mind.

Friday was busy. Broomhall Breakfast had been rather struggling staff wise the previous week due to the Archer project closing on Friday, as it was closed again this week, I volunteered to be a general extra person around the place. I turned up just before 8:00 a.m. to find no Ollie and no Sarah (buses were running a Sunday service hence her late arrival). There were plenty of kitchen staff, five I counted including Mary. However I could not see any of them doing in front of counter jobs, so I took and served over thirty breakfasts between 8:00 am and 10:00 am. Then helped set up for the Good Friday service. Photocopying extra service sheets and setting up the projector. I stayed for the service as did about three other people from the Breakfast (not including Sarah and Sam who had to). This was rather than heading across to Herringthorpe to help hand out hot cross buns with serviettes and cards which explain about Easter. I went to bed and slept for an hour or so, then got up and got the papers ready to send to my supervisor.

Yesterday was quieter. I shopped in the morning and then tried to copy CDs of interviews I have done so I could send them to people. However the drive was faulty and when I went out there was a black cloud and thunder rolling around. So I went in, switched off my computers and got my coat. Then went into town to get a drive. On the way back it came down pretty heavily. At one stage I took shelter under some bushes hoping it would go over. This was a mistake as it then took to hailing and the stones were the size of sugar cubes and stung when they hit me. I don’t think I have any bruises but I have not checked.

Today I went to the morning service at Herringthorpe. Pauline has developed a tradition of throwing what I suspect was originally cream eggs but this year was just bars in chocolate, into the congregation. However she wanted to make sure the children had them first so they had to come out and collect theirs although she gave Henry (96) one as well. It is funny as it loosens the congregation up a lot and generally gives a good shuffle space. I think that the blessing of water the Orthodox way may have a similar effect if they are liberal with the sprinkling of water. I guess it is something like when a congregation laughs wholeheartedly.

On the way back I unfortunately hit the curb at quite a pace and ended up with a flat tyre. I pulled in at a bus layby not thinking to pull in on the side road to check. I then went to ring the car company on my mobile only for that to be dead, I think my mp3 player also discharged at that point, which all seems somewhat odd. So I had no choice but to go looking for a phone. Unfortunately there was no a public phone at the shops just up the road, but I saw a man clipping his hedge. He lent me his mobile and then when it was clear that the company was going to take a while to get someone out, he offered to change the tyre and I accepted. Unfortunately I was unable to ring back to tell them from his phone. However at that point my brain had calmed down enough to realise that it might be a connection that was causing my phone to blank. I took out the battery and jiggled around the sim and memory card and then put back in the battern and suddenly it was working again.

Supervision in the midst of a cold

Right this has been a mixed week. I really have little recall about Monday, I went to writers group and took a poem which I wrote when I was playing. This was a one off and when I say playing I mean playing, I was building a tent in my main room made of blankets and clothing horses. Something I used to do a lot of as a kid, and this one evening decided to do so again. What was interesting was how other writers picked up both the child and the adult in the situation.


Tuesday I was struck down with another cold lurgy, I decided to take the day off and as I was going to Birmingham for a supervision the next day I felt staying in was sensible. Actually on the Wednesday the lurgy was kept under control quite well with cold supressants and caffeine. If only the previous one had been so amenable! I have covered a lot of ground this last month, I am still stumbling for a language, metaphor or analogy to use to explain what I am covering. I am thinking that I will probably end up talking of technologies within the Reformed Tradition, meaning technology in the Foucauldian sense (must read Discipline and Punish the birth of the Prison because I suspect we are adopting “softer” technologies of that sort). Actually I suspect society is moving towards softer technologies so it is not surprising that the church is. However what is it a technology of, I alternated between being a technology of self (see Weber) and a technology of faith. Other options considered are culture, (I would say many of the current technologies are cultural but to call them culture seems wrong, something to do with the relationship between culture and the individual), spirituality (in the sense the way to be a Reformed Christian, what sort of behaviour is expected), tradition (how is the Reformed nature of the congregation created in this setting and why is it Reformed and lets say not Anglican), ecology ( how do things work in this setting). However by the time I got home on Wednesday (I actually spent quite a time after the supervision working through papers, some interesting but when will I get around to reading them) I was caffeined out (i.e. taken in as much caffeine as I could) and still not feeling if I had the energy for getting home. So I decided that treating the next day as still cold was probably essential.



 
Friday I was at the Broomhall Breakfast, I picked up an email on the morning from Sarah saying would I do a computer consultation at breakfast. It actually turned out to be a misunderstanding. The reports were Excel spreadsheets but because they had been called reports Janet’s supervisor had thought that they would automatically given him the figures. This had never been as far as I know in the work flow. The workflow was for the data to come to me and then that to be turned into figures, the advantage being that I can turn around data in about 24 hours if I don’t have to enter it. If I enter then at least a week is needed. Ah well. I also went into work. Not sure I did much more than catch up but anyway.

Saturday I had a quiet day, shopped, mainly food. I also realised that I have spent around £250 on books with Amazon this last month. I know that is a lot, not all those are for reading, some are background reference but when someone in one book refers to another I need to be able to trace. Often it is only sections of books. A lot of what I am buying are scans of out of print books. However it was good to have a lazy day.

Today worship in the morning was all age and very noisy parade service. At one stage they had us singing along to a CD that was so loud I had to cover my ears as it was painful, alright I was directly beside a speaker but a bit lower volume would have been a good idea. Had an equal opportunities moment, there was a dramatised session on Ruth and I think they had not managed to find anyone to be Orpah’s husband. So they asked who was willing to hold someones hand look blissfully happy and then die a horrible death on stage. The only volunteer was a girl scout who is regular member of Sunday School. So we had the story of Ruth with a civil partnership!  Then back again this evening for a session on being guided by the Holy Spirit. Now was the Holy Spirit guiding this morning if so why did  the Holy Spirit let people forget to have a technical rehearsal? Oh the imponderables of life.

Evacuating buildings and meals out and that's just Tuesday!

There was slightly more happening this week as I did not sleep through a couple of days of it. Monday was largely uneventful although I got to my writing group and thoroughly enjoyed that. However I may well have to go this week without anything written, or bring one from a couple of weeks back which is in my opinion really weak.

Tuesday morning I was organising for the middle of my three SPSS classes having missed last week. I got up there and only four of the class remained. I am not sure whether this was because they forgot, life intruded or they all fell foul of a dreaded lurgy. However this time we had a fire. Oh not in the room we were in, just one in the building but it was the Hicks Building and we were on the top floor. It is a long story of why my department's teaching room is on the top floor of the Hicks Building, partly it is history and partly it is inertia. There was no real panic, first assumption was that it was someone testing the alarms, second one was that it was either a practice or a false alarm and it was only when I went back in to tidy the room after getting the all clear, I overheard porters talking of the smell of acrid smoke. So there must have been a fire somewhere in the building. Fortunately I had finished teaching for the day but the building catching fire is yet another new one on me. I had to create an evacuation plan on the spot and I may have sent people to the wrong fire exit as I sent them automatically to the main stairs rather than the set of stairs at the other end of the building which is possibly nearer. In the Hicks they have installed a lift for use in case of fire by the disabled, but it is so poor that Derek Collins has been recommended to come down after all the rest down the flight of stairs. Part of me wonders if it is due to some students trying to use it when they are able bodied.

In the evening I went out with CICS Prayer Group to Las Iguanas to mark Lynn and Cliff's retirement. We all made it except Mike who had managed to get his wires crossed with his wife and was needed at home to look after their children. The set menu was not as good as a few years back, when you could get several course that were imaginative for a very reasonable price, the set menu was largely standards that you can get at a lot of other places. They also had cut their fresh fruit options to one but then as I had taken a lactase tablet I could have IPANEMA MESS: Layers of sweet guava, creamy mascarpone & crushed meringue, I might even have got away with it without the tablet, but it would have been pushing it. Malcolm a former member of the group who retired about a year ago was there and looking well despite battling quite serious stomach cancer.

Wednesday was the first meeting of the NVivo users group, a group which I have thought of as necessary for the University for years but which I did not know any way of setting up. I started teaching it last April and it just seems to have attracted people. I will run at least three courses this academic year (1 run, 2 booked) and from one of the courses last year, someone decided something needed doing and got onto someone who knew who to contact. So the group has started. I have since created a mail list for them and need to get started on updating the course.

However by thursday a query I had been given by Patrice had started to bear fruit. Many years ago I wrote reports on the data from Petrmetr. Then people stopped using them (licensing software got better and the techie boys decided that immediate reports were better for their part). The result was that I dropped it. There is no point in doing a report if no one is going to look at it. Only we are back needing to have the reports again. Fortunately the software is still there. However I no longer have the ability to easily access the data. So another member of staff writes a report to extract the data, then I do some wizardry on the data and produce the graphics and measures we actually need for people to make sensible decisions. Meanwhile on the morning my cleaner was doing her fortnightly clean (or the family was as both her sister and mum came to help). The mum has the same attitude to my bath mat as my mum and asked permission to put it out.

Friday was a fairly normal day. I went to the Breakfast first thing, and had bacon and mushrooms on toast. It looked fairly busy although on later inspection people had just chosen to spread themselves around the room. Sarah was having a conversation with Phil on one table, on another Janet and Jean Dickson and a couple of others were talking. Legend/Peter was on the third and decided to call me over to talk to him. So all the tables were in use but people were spread out. Got back and did some more transcribing. I hope I can finish a second interview this month by transcribing on Monday and Wednesday. Then I must really look to getting them out. Went into work, and even though I had only one thing planned for the afternoon I ended up jumping in a number of different directions. So it was after five before I left.

I got in did a quick turn around and went back out again as the Dicksons had invited me for dinner. The traffic was awful even though it was approaching 6 p.m. when I got to the bus stop. It was not helped that it decided to rain, not a full scale Sheffield downpour but it was still pretty wet. So there was a wait for the bus. I think if I had known how soon the next would be I would have got it, but the traffic did not seem to clearing, although it cleared within minutes of getting on the bus, and the idea of being somewhere dry was rather tempting even if it was crowded. I was damp by the time I got to the Dicksons. It was pleasant after the business of the week to sit down with friends. Although when Jean decided to send me home around 9p.m. I was more than willing to go.

Saturday my parents came over. Mum had been struggling with sewing up the cardigan she had knitted me and had wanted during the week for me to help her with exactly how the pieces fitted together. The problem was that she'd lay them out in from of her and say something like does this go so to this. As I had no idea what either "this" was nor what shape they were it was very difficult to answer. She had asked my sister about it during the week but Cathy had been racing around keeping her household on track, she did not feel as if she had had a proper conversation about it. However she had sorted it by the time she had got here and I just had to try it on. She still needs to knit the collar and the facings for the jersey and I got a button for it while they were over. We also went down town, partly to get me a replacement bath mat, which dad decided was to be the surprise part of my Christmas present.

Today I went to Herringthorpe for both the service and the following church meeting. The thing that struck me once again is how much new stuff they are taking on. It is a very "can do" and "go ahead" congregation. This included voting to support the setting up of Street Pastors in Rotherham, voting new elders, choosing a charity to support as well as quite a debate about how to charge for use of the buildings to charities. The congregation got really quite involved in the deciding how to charge charities. It was one of those cases where church meeting over turned the decisions of elders. I came in and went to bed and slept for another couple of hours.

This coming week, I am going to try going to their bible study on Tuesday and also have a trip down to Birmingham on Thursday plus the two mornings typing up transcripts. Then next weekend hopefully a quiet weekend in.

Of normal days and fixing computers

Monday last week I at last got to writers group. I am suspicious that there is some angst over one of the people who left last term. This is coming through in suggestions of ways to do things differently. The thing is the suggestions at present are pushing it more the direction that caused the person to leave. Her reason for leaving was that she was a poet and it was getting too novel orientated. This is not nearly as crucial for me who mixes short stories and poetry. I have ideas for novels but never the time to write them nor actually the confidence to give myself that much to the writing. Also on Monday I again taught the NVivo course, there were about eight there. Only problem I had was that the files I asked to be converted to Word 2003 were not. This means I had to teach the class how to convert which just takes time. The room is designed on a talk and do basis but people today seem to insist on doing as I talk.

Tuesday and Wednesday were a normal days, nothing special happened, I went into work and I worked. Actually for the first time in months this last week I got to do development work in work. Mainly putting a piece of software on my computer and sitting down and working through the introduction. I think I next must ask for a text book on the software and work through the exercises in it. Statistics software is expensive, the average price for a package at commercial rates is around £500. The one I have installed on my machine is probably the one I would buy if I ever went into freelancing. It has a good reputation, is sophisticated and does statistics well. It does not have the nice user interface of the main one I support and there are other little quirks that I find annoying. For instance its menus are really code generators and its help system is non-standard. However so far I have got on with it fine.

Thursday Stuart came around. I think because he wanted someone to listen. His friend Simon who lived in the same house as he did had died I think from lung cancer but I am not sure. Stuart when Simon was in the Hallamshire (one of the big hospitals in Sheffield) had been next of kin and he had continued to visit Simon while in St Lukes Hospice. At one stage shortly after Simon's death he ended up talking about it to his mum. His mum had sent Simon a get well card just before he died so Stuart was somewhat uncomfortable with this. Stuart's sister rang him no more than six times the following day, Stuart felt to give him earache over upsetting his mum.

Friday I went to breakfast at church. I was slightly earlier in than usual but there was a big turn out from the alcoholic community that day. Not quite sure why this friday they decided to see if we were open. We get both drug community and alcoholic community but quite often they will not turn up together or to be more exact the alcoholics avoid the drug users. There has been a crack down on drug users in that there are now notices saying that drug using is not permitted on the premises. This may well be encouraging the alcoholic fraternity to see it as a more friendly place. I have quite a bit of time for the alcoholic community when they are reasonably sober. That is not sober but it is close enough to it to be amenable to normal control measures and making sense when they talk. I ended up on a table with John, Sarah and James. Initially there was a homeless couple where the woman was heavily pregnant. I think they were really struggling but seem to have found a church that would support them including buying what they needed for the baby. Sarah is still going to see her parents every fortnight which must be draining for her as they live down in Poole and the Rail Network in its wisdom has taken this time to stop direct trains, I think due to major building works at Reading Station. The works appear at least as big as Stockports so I would expect at least a couple of years of disruption. If people could remember her and this travelling in your prayers. I got cold going to the breakfast so went and curled up in bed afterwards for about an hour.

On the evening I went to Dicksons for dinner. I went early as James wanted me to fix his computer so that it would read Word 2007 files. I did it, but exactly how I am not sure. I also introduced him to Zamzar as a way to get other office documents into Word 2003 formats. It is annoying that microsoft have not made their 2007 Office products backward compatible so if you get a file from a newer one then you have to find out how to read it. The approach I took and tried on James' was to download the converter for Office 2007. This works fine on my machine but James' version of Office had not had the patches mine had and it did not seem to take. I put another converter on that just did Word and I am suspicious that this must have somehow interfaced with Office but that surprised me.

Yesterday was quiet, did an extra Waitrose shop and bought a pie for my main meal. This seems to be a good idea for Saturday, which is a mixed sort of day. Did some sorting of files and some reading. Oh I cooked and froze rice. I loke to eat brown basmati rice, especially as I buy it from Traidcraft, but cooking it on an evening takes 40 minutes in the microwave. I find that too long as I am getting out of work later. I cannot buy already cooked rice in that form. So I decided to have a go at cooking it ahead and then freezing. I will have to see if I can get the reheating process right.

Today went to Chesterfield, came back in a slight snow storm. They were very welcoming but there were fewer people there this week I think due to illness and the weather. Coffee was served after worship and Helen and Patrick Lidgett were doing it. Rosehill's Burns Night has led to a second invite to the church on 15th when Rosehill will have the Palm Court Trio to play with a tea. This has been taken up by a number of St Andrew's members after the Burn's night. I am pretty sure Rosehill invited St Andrews to the Burn's Night as it needed the expertise in the congregation and then when there was a good response, have started to ask them to other events.

Chattering (24 Jun 07)

Tuesday 19th June

Well it is Tuesday and I have started this letter. Yesterday was a busy but good day not least as my neck has just reminded me I learnt how to avoid neck ache. When it comes sore it is just a sign that I need to sit straighter in my seat. Simple really only that you need to have built up the muscles in your lower torso so you can remain erect. Its funny once you learn a trick like that it is easy to do but until you do it remains so very very difficult. Other things include getting Cliff into inspect the electrics in the cellar apart from the heating stuff. I wanted to be sure that anything apart from the heating stuff was safe. I was pretty sure the lights were as they looked as if they ran along the ceiling but if there was anything else down there I could not be certain. As things was there was only an electric fan heater, which I think Barry must have put down there to stop people using. Either that or the Dickson's had it down there to help dry the place out. Then I managed to transcribe three sections of the interviews. If I manage that again and on do some serious work on it I will be getting ahead. Unfortunately Stuart rang me just as I settled to sleep.


Today after getting into work pretty well on time, I did some work on SPSS 16. No do not go and look in the shops for it, its a beta and I only have the copy until August when I need to send it back to the US. Whoever has been distributing beta's is onto a hiding for nothing. They can only really be used by people who are not worried by oddities. SPSS opened and it looked so like the old Unix version which was very clunky that I was quite worried. However although it runs noticeably slower that SPSS 15 the clunkiness isn't too bad.


Then on this afternoon to a meeting of the local community, well at least part of it. I am going to have to see if I can get hold of other bits as some sectors that are normally well represented weren't there. The West One development for instance, Gell Street and the Glossop Road Baths. However there were also local people who do not usually come. The Somali community seems to be reluctant to come unless there are interpreters. The problem is persuading them that there will be interpreters. I have been to meetings where there have been interpreters and no Somali's. I wonder what we need to do to do that.

Sunday 24th June

Heck, I have not written anything since Tuesday and my brain has gone completely blank on the rest of the week. Wednesday was a fairly normal day I think. Saw Theodora for what was a fairly straightforward session as sessions go. Then came home and I think did some transcription. Maybe around 6 minutes. By the way Lynne some years ago you gave me a wheat filled bag that you heat in the microwave for two minutes and it becomes nice and warm. It is the most useful thing. I have used it for multiple aches and pains over the years, the latest being that I put my shoulders when I am doing transcription and it stops them becoming quite so tight.

Thursday was also a very very normal day. I cannot think of anything special happening unless you call the mundane like talking to my parents and such. Wrote some wording for the Website but there is still a lot to do. Finally the person at Insight got in touch and I was able to say that I did not have the ability to do give the go ahead she wanted.

Friday was my day off, so went to Breakfast at Hanover. Then I came back and sorted things out at home, before going to St. Andrews to help set up the boards. James and Jean were back, James had been waiting for the boiler men to come, who had come early and condemned the electrics due to flood damage. That means no heat in the Church, Elders Vestry and Ministers Vestry for several months as we need to sort out both the boilers and the causes of the flooding. Evidence seems to be stepping up for a blocked outlet but where? The water having been stationary since Saturday suddenly dropped on Thursday night! Where did it go? Anyway James, Ted, Sarah and myself got the display boards up in record time. Jean Dickson returned from shopping expecting to have to help and found we had finished. Then Ted Sarah and I retired to my place to do some Greek. Took us around an hour to do four verses but we are getting there. Sarah is now talking of getting us to do Hebrew in a couple of years time. I want to leave it until then. Then went into tow to shop, and not think. I came back and did more transcription.

Transcribing an interview is very slow process. I work at about 1:10 on the interview:transcription time ratio. I am not really sure I ought not to be keeping a diary on transcription decisions. I am well aware I am sometimes consistent and sometimes I am not. One thing I have learnt is that emotion can get in the way of transcription.

Saturday was the day of the Mind, Body and Soul exhibition at St. Andrews. There were certainly lots of things on display and this time we did actually have several exhibitors who were not church members. Sarah certainly seems to be a lot better at getting us to go beyond our immediate community. There were fantastic painting in the hall and we had two gentlemen from the Muslim Welfare house doing scripts. Drinks and cakes were supplied by church ladies, Sarah having been let down at the last minute. Perhaps the hit this time was not Alan Sandland with his violins, impressive as that still is, but Elizabeth Cousley with her hats. She seems to have been going to Leeds to learn millinery and her hats were worthy of being worn to Ascot. Mrs Fotheringham was amongst the painters who displayed work. There also were a couple of taster sessions at the church, I went to the one by the local writers group which was probably 50% the normal group and 50% people trying it like me. This also included two Muslim women. There was a singing group held as well and a beading activity for children. Then there was stuff going on at the Broomhall Centre as well.

Today the activity of the last two days caught up with me and though I did make it to church I spent most of the afternoon in bed with a migraine. That meant that I did not help with the clearing away of the exhibition but then with a migraine I would have been a hindrance rather than a help.

Coming week

Well I am down to see Stephen Pattison on Wednesday, then have a reminder driving lesson on Thursday. I think I should be ok. Its a reminder less as I have my driving license but it is about ten years since I last drove and I will need something to get my confidence back up.