Christmas Roundup of the Year

The year has been dominated with writing up my thesis. I got into the pattern of most days writing by hand for about half an hour before I went into work. This produced the momentum to keep going as I formally typed them in each weekend. The result is that at present I have 90,000 words for a 80,000 max thesis, and two short chapters (introduction and conclusion) not even written. It is alright. I knew that there was going to have to be major edits but I needed to write to actually get some idea what was in my brain. I am hopefully drafting the introduction over the rest of the holiday season (i.e. read through what I have written, write the reason for doing the thesis and then the route that is taken). The conclusion will have to wait until I have worked through the chapters again and got them largely into their final form. The intriguing thing is that writing has been the way that I have done most of the analysis for this thesis. Another reason for the overflow was that halfway through the year the expected number of substantive chapters doubled from three to six (introduction, methodology and conclusion takes the total to nine). Unfortunately I had already written 45,000 words in the three substantive that were written and 20,000 in methodology. So an over flow was inevitable. That said it is to be hoped that I manage to finish the revision around Easter time.

The reason for that being is that I have said from Easter time I am willing to go back onto the eldership of St Andrews URC Sheffield. I have tried to keep my commitment to the congregation limited at least timewise this last year, so as to make space for writing up. I do need to be in worship at least two Sundays a month now, one as I am working the sound system and the second as I do door duty. I am also one of the table elders and will take over as senior table elder come easter, which means I really have to be making elders meeting, as I will need to chase elders for communion duties. On top of this Sarah our minister has announced that she is leaving after Easter. The way things are run in Yorkshire at present, there will not be a direct replacement for Sarah, and we will be a largely self running congregation. Actually something which due to the long vacancies in the past the congregation is facing with a fair amount of equanimity. The other thing is when I look I around I realise that there are probably as many adults under fifty attending the congregation as there has ever been in the time I have been there. This feels strange, because while the congregation is going to grow smaller, I am not sure that I can assume that the demise is as guaranteed as the older generation have always said it was.

Work wise I have moved offices (twice) and moved teams once but am officially doing the same job. That said the workload has increased out all recognition to what it was eighteen months to two year ago. I am jolly appreciative that Maths and Statistical Help (MASH) has largely taken over the handling of queries from Undergraduates and taught Postgraduates. I still seem quite a few research postgraduates, quite often these days with them seeing MASH as well, they tend to use MASH for the basic stuff and me for the depth. I am also helping MASH tutors develop their skills in helping students and it looks as if there may be more teaching. I am still working on NVivo tutorial for online. It is taking longer for me to do than I thought, basically because it takes longer to video than I expected. I can spend five hours easily on a five minute video, a lot of the time I spend psyching myself up to do it.

Writers group is still going along, it provides a place where I am off duty and among friends. I have found with writing my thesis that I have tended to write poetry. The idea that I could cope with the complexities of writing anything much longer while trying to keep hold of all the wild horses in my thesis, just seems to me impossible. A poem, often so short that it is often compared to a haiku (it isn’t, normally too many syllables, and not the right twist at the end). However I am able to concentrate on getting the words right for just that short piece of writing. My writers group have published another collection which we launched at our annual reading as part of Off the Shelf. This is the fourth or fifth collection and the third I have contributed to. Rather  more scary was the realisation that some in the group looked up to me as a writer. I still see myself as very much a beginner, the main difference is that I am better able to tell when others are writing well and when they are not. I find the act of self criticism very difficult indeed and it often surprises me what others think of as good.

Holiday wise I spent the normal extended week at Drummore, this year again in the autumn. The weather was typical British Autumn weather and it was a matter of making the best of the weather when it was dry. That said there is now a path all the way from Stranraer to the Mull of Galloway mostly along the coast. The advantage of this from the holiday point of view is that it has opened up the track towards the Mull. Jenny and Cait are both capable of walking to the Mull lighthouse but Cait finds walking back a bit too far. Dora the dog is quite happy to go walking, will cross styles and such if and only if I have gone over first. I suspect Morag going over might also get her over but Morag was finding her hearing aids difficult and spent quite a bit of time without them in.

My sister came over with my niece and nephew during the summer holidays for the day. We are still able to pull some wool over their eyes. They were willing to believe that we walked all the way across town to have coffee at the Costas in Waterstones just because we enjoyed their coffee. Needless to say the reason was their was a Waterstones and I was pretty sure that with a book token each, that Cathy and I would have time to chat while they decided how to spend them. I also went over to them and did geocaching. Cathy is very good at finding caches if she is looking in the right place but a modern GPS really does make a difference and the sort on smart phones beat the older specific technical GPS unless you are outside the range of a signal. Sam is doing well in school with all teachers happy to have him studying their subject for GCSE, his main challenge is whether he should do Music or Domestic Science. Hannah is doing well, having recently done exam for her dance classes. She is also learning the violin like Sam but where as Sam seemed to have the knack of making his early squawking sound musical, according to Cathy Hannah is not doing as well.

My parents are getting older.  My assessment is that as a couple they manage fine as each compensates for the others difficulties. Each however would struggle very much if doing it alone. The problems arise when each tries to take over the others strengths then problems arise. Today when they were out delivering Christmas Cards around the neighbourhood, Dad decided that he would do the physical delivering rather than just making sure they went in the right address. The result was that he tripped at the first house. Nothing hurt except his pride but Mum would have done it with ease.

Next year the BIG CHALLENGE is to submit and finish my thesis. The aim is to submit around Easter time but I acknowledge that is optimistic and will take a lot of hard work even if everything goes smoothly. When that is over I am going to need to do a lot of assessing where to go next. I can’t even claim that the thesis answers the questions that drove me to study originally. It has put me in a different place from which to try and move towards a solution/answer and I am also going to have to assess whether from the new position an answer looks possible.

Summary of the year or Round Robin

This is my attempt to give an impression of the past year, it therefore does not handle the news of the last week in particular, so apologies for those faithful followers of Chattering for whom much of this can be repetition. I am going to work this through on themes rather than give a month by month account.

Firstly therefore let me turn to my PhD. I am now in the final part of the process prior to submission and that is actually writing it up. This is not the same as being a student in “writing up” state, I need to get a pretty good first draft done by the end of June 2012 if I am to be allowed to be in that state from September 2012, the formal “writing up” state is for people close on submission, I am therefore still a fully enrolled student. However it does means I am no longer doing active field work and and am spending a lot of time either with pen and paper, computer or checking books. It also means I have stopped going over to Herringthorpe URC on a regular basis. It was quite a strange feeling to be leaving doing placements after four years. Herringthorpe was a good congregation, different from St Andrews Chesterfield. Some of the differences were just down to dynamics of size, Herringthorpe is almost twice the size of St Andrews Chesterfield and things that functioned at St Andrews failed at Herringthorpe. Not much with respect to the thesis, but there were times when I realised many people at Herringthorpe behaved as if it was the size of St Andrews, for instance you were expected to know who the treasurer was by just mentioning his name. Fine at St Andrews where you did not need even that often as the treasurer was the one with the cheque book, but at Herringthorpe more difficult particularly as they did not fill any sort of treasurer type roles during morning worship. Another thing which became clear is that the two strands “Presbyterian” and “Congregational” related differently to their traditions. Presbyterians were always conscious of being Presbyterian and doing things in that way. Congregationalists never named the tradition, it was always this is “how we do it”. They never felt any need to identify it as “Congregational” or “Independent” or “Reformed”. I suspect to many English Presbyterians this looked like a lack of tradition when in actual fact it is the mark of a dominant tradition. Anyway  with now writing up I have started a blog which keeps notes of my progress. If you want to know how I am doing please make a note of it. Finally as you will see there, the Society for the Study of Theology held a postgraduate meeting in Edinburgh a few weeks back and I presented a paper at that. I am not planning on writing up the paper for publication at present but might well do so once my thesis is done as it is practically publication ready.

Work wise, the year has been more of the same. That does not mean no change, it does mean that for the most part the style has not changed. Perhaps the biggest change is that I more and more being consulted and then cited as a resource during research bids. This means that I am in the process from the start. Some of this is actually down to the fact that I can talk a number of research dialects and therefore am a pretty good translator of ideas between different departments who are doing research. I think I am involved in two to three active bids. It will be interesting to see what comes out. I am also moving some of my teaching into videos just to cope with demand. I am not able (and never have been) to meet the demand for this particular course. My real reason for not trying this earlier is that I do not see it as a particularly good course, very old fashioned talking head. Anyway my hand has been forced and I now need to find the time to actually get it into a video form. I suppose equally remarkable is this year I have not moved offices but am still in the same one as last Christmas, according to estates we should be moving out of there about Easter time. This is a slight delay on the original date for leaving the offices which was sometime in mid 2000.

Health wise my energy levels are improving an enabling me to cope with both the thesis and the increased work load at work. Nothing major just the slow improvement that keeps happening, it is of course far too slow for my liking and I always have a tendency to over stretch myself. I still get migraines but these are less frequent so maybe I am getting better at pacing. Unfortunately the same could not be said for all around. The New Year started with the news on Ship-of-Fools that the person who was the brains behind the bulletin boards (Erin) died very suddenly from flu at the age of thirty-nine. Dad has also lost several  friends, this started with the death quite suddenly of Roger Tomes a long term colleague of his, then in the autumn Doug Thacker died, at a respectable age of 83, but they had known each other since University days and kept in touch and finally Fred Able died. To crown things for him his Aunt died in November. She was in her nineties and family relationships had been distant for a while but she was also the last of that generation to die.

Other family news seems to fairly mundane. Mum and Dad tick along, alternately wondering at how well they manage and at other times getting on each others nerves. Mum is doing particularly physically and Dad is doing very well mentally, but the reverse could not be said. However one compensates for the other, and they seem to keep going. They had a holiday at the Christian hotel in Grange over Sands which seemed to go well despite the weather. The advantage of doing it this was was the chance to have company in an evening. Cathy and family seem to doing fine. Adrian, Cathy’s husband, was made redundant just before Christmas and after three or four months of looking and not finding anything he particularly wanted he decided to go solo. He is picking up a decent amount of work, partly because his former firm is passing work in his direction, but he is also making contacts elsewhere. Sam is doing well at school, still very good on the violin and at swimming with an interest in astrophysics. Hannah seems to be doing well, is much better at settling to read than Sam ever was and is enjoying dancing as well as swimming although in that she will never make Sam’s class.

I spent New Year up with my God family and again went up for almost a fortnight at the end of September beginning of October. My God-daughters are doing well though both have changed schools. Jenny because she was going up to high school and therefore travels now to Stranraer everyday and Cait because she became quite unhappy at the local school. The timing of the autumn rather than spring one, was partly due to Morag’s study pattern and partly because the Wigtown Festival was on at that time. However it worked really well for me as it allowed me to have a break between placement and writing up. In some ways it was a quieter holiday than previous ones, despite there being a lot on at Wigtown, I was not in the mood for setting out at the start of day and coming in late to attend things I was only vaguely interested in. Two of the days I just spent looking after Dora their dog, combing her hair and taking her for long walks along the beach during which she chased any seagulls that decided to take off into the air. While they were sat on the shore she really was not that interested. I will hopefully be up with them again for New Year.

So now all that remains I think is to wish you all that your lives may be touched by the joy that comes at Christmas and that during the coming year you might have the energy to meet the challenges and enjoy your achievements.