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.
Showing posts with label Herringthorpe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Herringthorpe. Show all posts
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
On the last lap of placement
Right this week has been a week of two halves with an evening out between the two of them. The first part of the week was dominated by the need to produce a report by next Monday, the problem as always is sorting out the data. Once the data was sorted the results wanted were so prescriptive that it was a matter of filling in the holes. However that always takes longer than you think and we did not start filling the holes to the second session. We also managed to make good progress with an article. That being said, I still ended up very drained each day.
One thing that did come through is that I needed a method for making progress on my thesis visible to me. I worked out that if I can write 400 words for 5 days a week then in 40 weeks I will have written 80,000 or my full thesis. Well that is the theory anyway. Let me first put a number of caveats around that. First writing this way means that I need to plan each chapter in great depth before starting to write it. Second, the four hundred words are first draft, a lot of the referencing and checking will be done on the second draft. Finally I know there is a lot of reading, exploring and such that has to go on concurrently with the writing. The first task is therefore to plan in detail most of the methods chapter. However this week I have been having fun, creating a mandala for me to fill with coloured balls or rolled tissue paper. I am creating a Triskele but am using a Pythagoras tree (scroll down for actual one used) which is proving fascinating to draw out but unlike the original triskele the arms interlock.
By Wednesday I was looking forward to the writers group social. In many ways writers is the group that I socialise with these days. We are on the hunt for a bug without loud music but with atmosphere in Sheffield. I think we have fairly conclusively established that such a pub does not exist in the Devonshire Quarter. However the talk was good in the first part of the evening and the company was pleasant. I must really bring something in for Christmas time as I find I never end up buying drinks at these evenings.
Thursday I did my final interview for my thesis. It feels strange to be wrapping things up after so long, it will feel even stranger I am sure when I sit down to write after the holiday. The interview went well and it is interesting to listen to what Pauline had to say. In many ways I suspect she has a very good idea how the congregation ticks. The comment by her that she would change nothing personally but that there would be change while she was there, I think shows a shrewd approach to the congregation. I think what she has probably done successfully is to persuade the congregation that doing things differently isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Indeed there probably see it as in some ways a good things but are not too sure on the principals that should guide that change. This leads to a conservatism as they have to battle issues out.. They seem to be looking seriously at taking over the pre-school group that uses their premises (its current management are retiring). At times I could see myself in Pauline. In her tendency to see a job and therefore go and tackle it; including the feeling guilty if I can’t.
Friday I served breakfast again. We served 47 or so, but at the start we were really slow having barely double figures in the door when we opened. One of the breakfasters, comes with his bike, helps set out tables, has cereal and coffee and then goes down to Waitrose for 8:00 a.m. to sell the Big Issue. Needless to say the helpers at Breakfast who see him there always stop to buy a copy. I did put my alarm on, it is a sunrise alarm (see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lumie-Bodyclock-CLASSIC-Wake-up-Light/dp/B0049AHZSM/ref=sr_1_5?s=drugstore&ie=UTF8&qid=1315763031&sr=1-5 ) and I got it while I was really battling with depression as it enabled me to get up. I did only wake once during the night so perhaps it was an improvement although I still started to wake before it started lighting as I heard it click on.
Afterwards I went to collect a prescription, I went to get it and when the second pharmacist was handing it over I showed my pre-payment card for the second time. Only he commented on it being out of date. Panic! Since I have found myself very good at not changing cards over (not just prepayment presciption cards, but membership cards , credit cards and the like) I have made the rule to immediately put them in my purse.when I receive them. So where was it, had I forgotten to pay. I decided to check my paper piles before I contacted anyone. In the one by the door, where my cleaner normally puts the post, I found it in an unopened envelope.! Obviously had arrived a day my cleaner was in and she had put it there, while I forgot to check the pile when I came in.
Saturday I went household shopping on the morning then finished the report on Herringthorpe.,The finishing of the report meant going through it at least twice. One to take account of Ruth’s proof editing and one to combine it with the fair copy from James. It is done and sent..It also decided to get warm again after being quite autumnal earlier in the week although it pelted down in the evening. The fact that the sun was shinning through the rain created quite a spectacular view out of the window, so much so that I did not go and look for rainbows that would have been out the other side of the house.
Today went to Herringthorpe, only one church meeting and one Sunday to go. Also I got stopped by two students of oriental extraction who were asking where they could get food, clothes and computers. From where they were I presume they were new overseas student at Sheffield University and they had simply come with a minimal amount. The girl did not seem to have the sort of clothes she really needed even for today which was a mild autumn day. This was at 9:50 in the morning. I just hope some of the shops open at 10:00 a.m. and they did not have to wait until 10:30. There was a panic at Herringthorpe today. by 10:15 the carpark was full and people were parking in the overflow car park. This was partly as there was a baptism and the church seemed fairly full when I got in. Then at 10:20 a coach turned up with more members of the baptismal party. There was a hasty opening of doors so as to allow for extra chairs. The Baptismal party was large I would say about sixty people. There were no less than eight god-parents. I think this says something of the parents.
One thing that did come through is that I needed a method for making progress on my thesis visible to me. I worked out that if I can write 400 words for 5 days a week then in 40 weeks I will have written 80,000 or my full thesis. Well that is the theory anyway. Let me first put a number of caveats around that. First writing this way means that I need to plan each chapter in great depth before starting to write it. Second, the four hundred words are first draft, a lot of the referencing and checking will be done on the second draft. Finally I know there is a lot of reading, exploring and such that has to go on concurrently with the writing. The first task is therefore to plan in detail most of the methods chapter. However this week I have been having fun, creating a mandala for me to fill with coloured balls or rolled tissue paper. I am creating a Triskele but am using a Pythagoras tree (scroll down for actual one used) which is proving fascinating to draw out but unlike the original triskele the arms interlock.
By Wednesday I was looking forward to the writers group social. In many ways writers is the group that I socialise with these days. We are on the hunt for a bug without loud music but with atmosphere in Sheffield. I think we have fairly conclusively established that such a pub does not exist in the Devonshire Quarter. However the talk was good in the first part of the evening and the company was pleasant. I must really bring something in for Christmas time as I find I never end up buying drinks at these evenings.
Thursday I did my final interview for my thesis. It feels strange to be wrapping things up after so long, it will feel even stranger I am sure when I sit down to write after the holiday. The interview went well and it is interesting to listen to what Pauline had to say. In many ways I suspect she has a very good idea how the congregation ticks. The comment by her that she would change nothing personally but that there would be change while she was there, I think shows a shrewd approach to the congregation. I think what she has probably done successfully is to persuade the congregation that doing things differently isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Indeed there probably see it as in some ways a good things but are not too sure on the principals that should guide that change. This leads to a conservatism as they have to battle issues out.. They seem to be looking seriously at taking over the pre-school group that uses their premises (its current management are retiring). At times I could see myself in Pauline. In her tendency to see a job and therefore go and tackle it; including the feeling guilty if I can’t.
Friday I served breakfast again. We served 47 or so, but at the start we were really slow having barely double figures in the door when we opened. One of the breakfasters, comes with his bike, helps set out tables, has cereal and coffee and then goes down to Waitrose for 8:00 a.m. to sell the Big Issue. Needless to say the helpers at Breakfast who see him there always stop to buy a copy. I did put my alarm on, it is a sunrise alarm (see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lumie-Bodyclock-CLASSIC-Wake-up-Light/dp/B0049AHZSM/ref=sr_1_5?s=drugstore&ie=UTF8&qid=1315763031&sr=1-5 ) and I got it while I was really battling with depression as it enabled me to get up. I did only wake once during the night so perhaps it was an improvement although I still started to wake before it started lighting as I heard it click on.
Afterwards I went to collect a prescription, I went to get it and when the second pharmacist was handing it over I showed my pre-payment card for the second time. Only he commented on it being out of date. Panic! Since I have found myself very good at not changing cards over (not just prepayment presciption cards, but membership cards , credit cards and the like) I have made the rule to immediately put them in my purse.when I receive them. So where was it, had I forgotten to pay. I decided to check my paper piles before I contacted anyone. In the one by the door, where my cleaner normally puts the post, I found it in an unopened envelope.! Obviously had arrived a day my cleaner was in and she had put it there, while I forgot to check the pile when I came in.
Saturday I went household shopping on the morning then finished the report on Herringthorpe.,The finishing of the report meant going through it at least twice. One to take account of Ruth’s proof editing and one to combine it with the fair copy from James. It is done and sent..It also decided to get warm again after being quite autumnal earlier in the week although it pelted down in the evening. The fact that the sun was shinning through the rain created quite a spectacular view out of the window, so much so that I did not go and look for rainbows that would have been out the other side of the house.
Today went to Herringthorpe, only one church meeting and one Sunday to go. Also I got stopped by two students of oriental extraction who were asking where they could get food, clothes and computers. From where they were I presume they were new overseas student at Sheffield University and they had simply come with a minimal amount. The girl did not seem to have the sort of clothes she really needed even for today which was a mild autumn day. This was at 9:50 in the morning. I just hope some of the shops open at 10:00 a.m. and they did not have to wait until 10:30. There was a panic at Herringthorpe today. by 10:15 the carpark was full and people were parking in the overflow car park. This was partly as there was a baptism and the church seemed fairly full when I got in. Then at 10:20 a coach turned up with more members of the baptismal party. There was a hasty opening of doors so as to allow for extra chairs. The Baptismal party was large I would say about sixty people. There were no less than eight god-parents. I think this says something of the parents.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, August 29, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, August 22, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
When even quiet times are busy
Monday my writers group met despite it being bank holiday, actually I spent most of the day doing practical administrative work for my PhD, getting copies of the recordings made while based at Chesterfield ready to send to the interviewees. This includes finding out what I had done previously, summarising content and making sure I have CDs, preparing covering letters and so on. It is also amazing how many mistakes you can make doing it. In the evening however I walked out through the Collegiate Campus of Sheffield Hallam University and on through Endcliffe Park to the home of Jenny one of my writers group. The walk out was good after the day doing admin and a small group of us meeting around Jenny’s dining room table was also nice.
Tuesday was back to work and I needed to finish off work I had intended to do on Thursday but the computer had been playing up. I sincerely hope the new computer comes soon. Tuesday evening I shopped as I did not need to go to bible study. Wednesday was also quiet with just seeing a single student but I had work that needed to be done. Thursday I joked with Margo after her first appointment of the day that I would get the piece of work I had been doing the previous day finished if there were no emergencies. My computer heard me because the keyboard promptly stopped working. I am pretty sure it was completely knackered as at one time the computer thought it was a mouse rather than a keyboard. So despite the fact that I have a new computer coming I had to get hold of another keyboard. They gave me what I suspect was old stock from the workshop which worked fine with my computer.
On Thursday evening my supervisor emailed me about making a study day at the start of July. There are three people associated with him who are all finishing ethnographic placements over the summer so the study day is to discuss finishing placements. Actually I would like some advice on balancing PhD with home church demands. It is very clear St Andrews is counting the weeks until I get back, but it is also clear that I need space to work on my PhD as I will only have a year to get it into a full draft.
Friday was my day off and I just carried on with doing the admin by early evening I had got them mostly finished. I still need to do this for all but one of the Herringthorpe ones. Anyway by afternoon they were ready and I went out to get them posted. So that is one admin job out of the way. There is plenty more to go before I can get writing. However chance to do some reading. So I took the plunge and started Jonathan Edwards “The Religious Affections”. Two things I have been reminded of in reading it. Firstly that by affections Jonathan Edwards does not mean affectations nor emotional responses. He means something much closer to purposeful intentions. That is not to say the emotions don’t have anything to do with it. For example if your intention is to visit your Grandmother, there is one thing that that is certain and that is it is not unaffected by emotions. Your emotions may be indeed very strong. In other words the will is affected by emotions. What makes these different from just assent is that it intentions that are strong enough to be followed through on. The second point is Jonathan Edwards is steering a middle course. He is not saying reason bad, emotions good; nor is he saying reason good, emotion bad. Rather he is saying that at the heart of religion is a synthesis of the two which leads to the development of the fruit of the spirit.
Saturday I went shopping, most of it was routine but I had seen a nice set of clothes in Marks last week and I decided that I would treat myself to this. I have really not had going out clothes for a while and there are a few things coming up where I could do with something smart but not too showy. Other than that I spent quite a bit of time curled up in the back room in a space I had cleared on the sofa trying to read some more Jonathan Edwards. Actually started enjoying it once I had actually got onto his own writing rather than the academic preamble. I am reading the Yale version.
Today was a normal Sunday. Herringthorpe seems to me at times to be a hyperactive child. To my knowledge today there was there was morning worship, pastoral visitors meeting 12:00 noon, pre-baptismal lunch-discussion, music group meeting and evening service. I suspect some people were here for three or more of those and NOT JUST THE MINISTER. That must be an exhausting pace to keep. Oh well I have got another interview set up.
Tuesday was back to work and I needed to finish off work I had intended to do on Thursday but the computer had been playing up. I sincerely hope the new computer comes soon. Tuesday evening I shopped as I did not need to go to bible study. Wednesday was also quiet with just seeing a single student but I had work that needed to be done. Thursday I joked with Margo after her first appointment of the day that I would get the piece of work I had been doing the previous day finished if there were no emergencies. My computer heard me because the keyboard promptly stopped working. I am pretty sure it was completely knackered as at one time the computer thought it was a mouse rather than a keyboard. So despite the fact that I have a new computer coming I had to get hold of another keyboard. They gave me what I suspect was old stock from the workshop which worked fine with my computer.
On Thursday evening my supervisor emailed me about making a study day at the start of July. There are three people associated with him who are all finishing ethnographic placements over the summer so the study day is to discuss finishing placements. Actually I would like some advice on balancing PhD with home church demands. It is very clear St Andrews is counting the weeks until I get back, but it is also clear that I need space to work on my PhD as I will only have a year to get it into a full draft.
Friday was my day off and I just carried on with doing the admin by early evening I had got them mostly finished. I still need to do this for all but one of the Herringthorpe ones. Anyway by afternoon they were ready and I went out to get them posted. So that is one admin job out of the way. There is plenty more to go before I can get writing. However chance to do some reading. So I took the plunge and started Jonathan Edwards “The Religious Affections”. Two things I have been reminded of in reading it. Firstly that by affections Jonathan Edwards does not mean affectations nor emotional responses. He means something much closer to purposeful intentions. That is not to say the emotions don’t have anything to do with it. For example if your intention is to visit your Grandmother, there is one thing that that is certain and that is it is not unaffected by emotions. Your emotions may be indeed very strong. In other words the will is affected by emotions. What makes these different from just assent is that it intentions that are strong enough to be followed through on. The second point is Jonathan Edwards is steering a middle course. He is not saying reason bad, emotions good; nor is he saying reason good, emotion bad. Rather he is saying that at the heart of religion is a synthesis of the two which leads to the development of the fruit of the spirit.
Saturday I went shopping, most of it was routine but I had seen a nice set of clothes in Marks last week and I decided that I would treat myself to this. I have really not had going out clothes for a while and there are a few things coming up where I could do with something smart but not too showy. Other than that I spent quite a bit of time curled up in the back room in a space I had cleared on the sofa trying to read some more Jonathan Edwards. Actually started enjoying it once I had actually got onto his own writing rather than the academic preamble. I am reading the Yale version.
Today was a normal Sunday. Herringthorpe seems to me at times to be a hyperactive child. To my knowledge today there was there was morning worship, pastoral visitors meeting 12:00 noon, pre-baptismal lunch-discussion, music group meeting and evening service. I suspect some people were here for three or more of those and NOT JUST THE MINISTER. That must be an exhausting pace to keep. Oh well I have got another interview set up.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Recovering from the bigness of last weekend
Let’s see about this week. Well it has been quieter or at least I have been quieter during it. Then that was not difficult after the presentation last weekend
Monday I was going to go into work as I had a meeting with my boss, even though I had an essay to write and knew I also should be calming down after my presentation. However when I checked my work email before going in I found she had postponed the meeting. Therefore I decided to take the day off and get on with the essay. The essay was easy enough to write, well what I was writing of it. It is often only when you start writing about a topic that you realise the background that you need. In this particular case, it was hymns. I decided on a very broad brush strokes approach to classification and am now wondering on going back and reclassifying the revival based hymns. I will need to spend some time on the history of hymns, main problem is that there is a clear content difference between the top hymns as Herringthorpe and the top ones at St Andrews, this may be largely a construct of the fact Herringthorpe uses far more from the Charismatic’s stable while St Andrews uses far more Modern ones. I am at present struggling to classify it but I suspect broadly speaking Charismatic ones tend to focus on the work of God while modern ones tend to focus more on our response to the work of God. Anyway I got it finished and to writers group that evening which was good.
However having had an unexpectedly good day on Monday, Tuesday hit me for a six. I think I had a migraine, I also lost my voice. I lose my voice less often these days than I did a decade ago so it was a surprise to find I suddenly had no voice. Having had this originally as my day off I had no appointments so did not feel too bad over ringing in sick. It also meant that I did not make Bible Study on Tuesday evening. There may be no need to speak at Bible study but there is an need to respond to people when you socialise around it and I have yet to find a way of being in public space and not talking too much for my voice when it fragile.
Wednesday I had a frail voice back so went into work. However I had a meeting I had missed the previous time it was on and then prayer meeting so I went. The first meeting suggested that it would be a good idea if the department knew how many papers we had published. It does the department some good as it shows we are supporting researchers. However whether I should have done is a mute question as my voice was still very frail and had disappeared completely by the end of prayer meeting. However knowing that I had no voice on Wednesday afternoon I put things together so that I could do my SRDS preparation the next day at home. This included going through various work records and also getting hold of departmental plans. They always say they are assessing against departmental aims but then I usually find that they are assessing me against institutional aims.
Thursday I worked at home, first doing the SRDS and then submitting my papers for my supervision. This was a quiet day in and was exactly what my voice required although I went to the doctor’s for a routine visit and then onto work to lend Rosie my album from the time I spent as a volunteer on Iona because she is going up there at the end of this week.
Friday I had my voice back, which is good but with not having it earlier in the week I had deliberately been making appointments for this week rather than for Friday. I also had an email I needed to respond to and also an analysis I needed to do. I however also went and checked for papers I was either author on or acknowledged. I found that I was author on 17 papers and acknowledged on another 25. The biggest number that is missing is the number of theses I am acknowledged on and I suspect that would quite possibly take me close to a hundred or so. The problem is that the theses are rarely online so the only way to find out is to go to the library and check all the theses. On the evening I went out the Herringthorpe’s Ladies’ night. I thought this was going to be an art evening in the practical sense, but no it was a demonstration by a lady who has been an art teacher for ages although she herself is self taught. She chose to do an autumn scene in pastel, it was interesting watching her work but pastel is not my thing although I have had some fun with it.
At the weekend I was over with my parents. They are chunttering along as usual. Ruth came over on Saturday and helped tidy the garden. It now needs some fresh flowering plants in it to bring colour in amongst the green. However I am not sure what is the best way of getting such plants into the garden. It is not enough just to buy them as mum could really do with someone coming along to plant them as well. At present I think immediate colour is probably more important than longevity. Today I did the routine checks on Dad’s computer that I try to do every time I am over. He has Anti-virus and I try and also do a couple of scans for malware and spyware plus checking to see if his version of Windows is up to date. The later is not usually necessary, but Dad tends to only have the computer on for the short times he is actually using it and I suspect that sometimes when this is the case the computer does not always up date when it should. I had planned to do this while they were at church but they decided with the showery weather that they would go this evening in the car instead of walking this morning. So after a while Dad came down to join me basically to see how I was getting on. Anyway he stayed for a while until when the last download was taking slightly longer I suggested we went up for coffee rather than wait. Mum had decided as she had nothing better to do that she would cook dinner which was therefore would have been ready about 11:30. Anyway we persuaded her to come through and have coffee with us although she was cross with us for leaving her alone for so long (about an hour for me, less for Dad).
Monday I was going to go into work as I had a meeting with my boss, even though I had an essay to write and knew I also should be calming down after my presentation. However when I checked my work email before going in I found she had postponed the meeting. Therefore I decided to take the day off and get on with the essay. The essay was easy enough to write, well what I was writing of it. It is often only when you start writing about a topic that you realise the background that you need. In this particular case, it was hymns. I decided on a very broad brush strokes approach to classification and am now wondering on going back and reclassifying the revival based hymns. I will need to spend some time on the history of hymns, main problem is that there is a clear content difference between the top hymns as Herringthorpe and the top ones at St Andrews, this may be largely a construct of the fact Herringthorpe uses far more from the Charismatic’s stable while St Andrews uses far more Modern ones. I am at present struggling to classify it but I suspect broadly speaking Charismatic ones tend to focus on the work of God while modern ones tend to focus more on our response to the work of God. Anyway I got it finished and to writers group that evening which was good.
However having had an unexpectedly good day on Monday, Tuesday hit me for a six. I think I had a migraine, I also lost my voice. I lose my voice less often these days than I did a decade ago so it was a surprise to find I suddenly had no voice. Having had this originally as my day off I had no appointments so did not feel too bad over ringing in sick. It also meant that I did not make Bible Study on Tuesday evening. There may be no need to speak at Bible study but there is an need to respond to people when you socialise around it and I have yet to find a way of being in public space and not talking too much for my voice when it fragile.
Wednesday I had a frail voice back so went into work. However I had a meeting I had missed the previous time it was on and then prayer meeting so I went. The first meeting suggested that it would be a good idea if the department knew how many papers we had published. It does the department some good as it shows we are supporting researchers. However whether I should have done is a mute question as my voice was still very frail and had disappeared completely by the end of prayer meeting. However knowing that I had no voice on Wednesday afternoon I put things together so that I could do my SRDS preparation the next day at home. This included going through various work records and also getting hold of departmental plans. They always say they are assessing against departmental aims but then I usually find that they are assessing me against institutional aims.
Thursday I worked at home, first doing the SRDS and then submitting my papers for my supervision. This was a quiet day in and was exactly what my voice required although I went to the doctor’s for a routine visit and then onto work to lend Rosie my album from the time I spent as a volunteer on Iona because she is going up there at the end of this week.
Friday I had my voice back, which is good but with not having it earlier in the week I had deliberately been making appointments for this week rather than for Friday. I also had an email I needed to respond to and also an analysis I needed to do. I however also went and checked for papers I was either author on or acknowledged. I found that I was author on 17 papers and acknowledged on another 25. The biggest number that is missing is the number of theses I am acknowledged on and I suspect that would quite possibly take me close to a hundred or so. The problem is that the theses are rarely online so the only way to find out is to go to the library and check all the theses. On the evening I went out the Herringthorpe’s Ladies’ night. I thought this was going to be an art evening in the practical sense, but no it was a demonstration by a lady who has been an art teacher for ages although she herself is self taught. She chose to do an autumn scene in pastel, it was interesting watching her work but pastel is not my thing although I have had some fun with it.
At the weekend I was over with my parents. They are chunttering along as usual. Ruth came over on Saturday and helped tidy the garden. It now needs some fresh flowering plants in it to bring colour in amongst the green. However I am not sure what is the best way of getting such plants into the garden. It is not enough just to buy them as mum could really do with someone coming along to plant them as well. At present I think immediate colour is probably more important than longevity. Today I did the routine checks on Dad’s computer that I try to do every time I am over. He has Anti-virus and I try and also do a couple of scans for malware and spyware plus checking to see if his version of Windows is up to date. The later is not usually necessary, but Dad tends to only have the computer on for the short times he is actually using it and I suspect that sometimes when this is the case the computer does not always up date when it should. I had planned to do this while they were at church but they decided with the showery weather that they would go this evening in the car instead of walking this morning. So after a while Dad came down to join me basically to see how I was getting on. Anyway he stayed for a while until when the last download was taking slightly longer I suggested we went up for coffee rather than wait. Mum had decided as she had nothing better to do that she would cook dinner which was therefore would have been ready about 11:30. Anyway we persuaded her to come through and have coffee with us although she was cross with us for leaving her alone for so long (about an hour for me, less for Dad).
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The week leading to presentation at Herringthorpe
This week has been dominated by the fact that I was giving an initial report to church meeting at Herringthorpe today. In some senses even when I write now of other things that was still going on in the background.
Monday my writers group started again. This is good news as in some ways this has become one of my safety valves, a place where I go not to talk about thesis but to discuss other things and for which I have to be creative in a different way. Actually the big discipline that comes with this is that I have to actually stop and look at something rather than presume I know what I see. They also are a group with which it is pleasant to hang out with. It has become another non-negotiable of my life. In work I repeated an analysis I had done about three times already, finally sorting out what I wanted to do. The funny thing was that the results came out for what the original topic of interest was.
Tuesday was a fairly busy day in work. We had a team meeting with the head of department at ten O’clock where she talked about Lean process management. It is something that vaguely interests me. It Looks at redesigning processes so as to make them more efficient by removing stuff that does not provide value to the customer. What is important is to realise that backup/fallback procedures do provide value.
Wednesday I decided to work at home as I desperately needed to get the report into slides. I had actually finished preparing the handout first as I found working in Publisher easier for ordering ideas than working in Powerpoint. Actually the putting together of the slides was relatively easy. You just had to design the slide to portray the idea. I kept the slides visual and short.
Thursday in the morning I spent time dealing with a bright student who really needed to be told to do a qualitative approach at least to start with. Once they have the coding sorted then hopefully we can export to SPSS. Then on the afternoon did a run through of my presentation with my boss in work so I know that I had made it understandable to people with no background in the social sciences. I deliberately tried not to do anything that evening
Friday was my day off. In the morning I had coffee with Sarah, I had a strange feeling that neither of us really wanted to get up from it and do other things. For Sarah it was probably a good chance to sit down after the business of Broomhall Breakfast, with me it was partly coming back to thesis although I was actually noting what hymns the churches had used while I was there. From fairly early on while I was at Herringthorpe I have kept a note of the hymns that were actually used as there was a dispute over their use. St Andrews Chesterfield printed theirs on their weekly newsletter. So I have this information for both churches. It was a matter of abstracting it and then categorising it. I had to develop a coding categorisation, because of the congregations I have used a four part code characterisation. I picked any material pre 1840 as traditional; this is set as the start of Queen Victoria’s reign. Then for material between 1840 and 1960 I called it hymnody, this was to reflect the high number of hymns written between those times and in use. Later material was not classed on a time basis rather I distinguished what I call Modern Liturgical including many modern hymns but it is broader than that, which is material written for use in formal worship since 1960 and Charismatic which is material coming out of writers identified with the charismatic renewal. If I was studying this in-depth I would want to subdivide all four categories. For instance I have metrical psalms put in with translations of ancient hymns with the hymns of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley. In the next I have Revivalist hymns aside high Anglican ones and so on.
On the evening I made a big mess. I managed to book a Tesco’s delivery for just the time I was at the Dicksons. Not just that but I also managed to get into my head the wrong time so it was only when it did not arrive by seven that I checked the times. In the end Tesco’s very kindly agreed to redeliver today and James came to pick me up. Very thankful for people’s considerateness over what was completely my mess up! The evening was enjoyable as ever.
Saturday was just more work on the hymns followed by setting up the sound system at St Andrews so that a guitar could be played through it, I hoped it worked ok as though the technical solution was in place, it also required the operator to balance the levels of the voices and the guitar! Something no operator had done previously. On the morning a quick run to the shops. The rest of the day was thesis both working on the hymns and today’s presentation. Unfortunately by this point I realised that nerves were taking over and needed some controlling
Today presentation day! Actually things went pretty smoothly only I had put too much in. I turned up at the church only to find that it was parade and the car park was full. God must have heard my heart cry because a car promptly pulled out of a parking space! Not usual ten minutes before worship in the church carpark! I got asked on entry to the church whether I was rehearsing my presentation, no I replied thanking God for providing a parking space. The idea of having to move the car in the time between worship and church meeting just felt too much! I got through three quarters maybe more of the presentation. The moderator commented that on there being not enough time to do this sort of presentation in church meetings. I don’t think people understood that I was hanging around to calm down afterwards, I have been so intently involved in doing this presentation and so focused on presenting it well, that I was quite sure that I would technically not be in a good state to be driving on the roads immediately afterwards. Anyway came in had a bacon sandwich and a glass of wine and went to bed for an hour and a half.
Monday my writers group started again. This is good news as in some ways this has become one of my safety valves, a place where I go not to talk about thesis but to discuss other things and for which I have to be creative in a different way. Actually the big discipline that comes with this is that I have to actually stop and look at something rather than presume I know what I see. They also are a group with which it is pleasant to hang out with. It has become another non-negotiable of my life. In work I repeated an analysis I had done about three times already, finally sorting out what I wanted to do. The funny thing was that the results came out for what the original topic of interest was.
Tuesday was a fairly busy day in work. We had a team meeting with the head of department at ten O’clock where she talked about Lean process management. It is something that vaguely interests me. It Looks at redesigning processes so as to make them more efficient by removing stuff that does not provide value to the customer. What is important is to realise that backup/fallback procedures do provide value.
Wednesday I decided to work at home as I desperately needed to get the report into slides. I had actually finished preparing the handout first as I found working in Publisher easier for ordering ideas than working in Powerpoint. Actually the putting together of the slides was relatively easy. You just had to design the slide to portray the idea. I kept the slides visual and short.
Thursday in the morning I spent time dealing with a bright student who really needed to be told to do a qualitative approach at least to start with. Once they have the coding sorted then hopefully we can export to SPSS. Then on the afternoon did a run through of my presentation with my boss in work so I know that I had made it understandable to people with no background in the social sciences. I deliberately tried not to do anything that evening
Friday was my day off. In the morning I had coffee with Sarah, I had a strange feeling that neither of us really wanted to get up from it and do other things. For Sarah it was probably a good chance to sit down after the business of Broomhall Breakfast, with me it was partly coming back to thesis although I was actually noting what hymns the churches had used while I was there. From fairly early on while I was at Herringthorpe I have kept a note of the hymns that were actually used as there was a dispute over their use. St Andrews Chesterfield printed theirs on their weekly newsletter. So I have this information for both churches. It was a matter of abstracting it and then categorising it. I had to develop a coding categorisation, because of the congregations I have used a four part code characterisation. I picked any material pre 1840 as traditional; this is set as the start of Queen Victoria’s reign. Then for material between 1840 and 1960 I called it hymnody, this was to reflect the high number of hymns written between those times and in use. Later material was not classed on a time basis rather I distinguished what I call Modern Liturgical including many modern hymns but it is broader than that, which is material written for use in formal worship since 1960 and Charismatic which is material coming out of writers identified with the charismatic renewal. If I was studying this in-depth I would want to subdivide all four categories. For instance I have metrical psalms put in with translations of ancient hymns with the hymns of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley. In the next I have Revivalist hymns aside high Anglican ones and so on.
On the evening I made a big mess. I managed to book a Tesco’s delivery for just the time I was at the Dicksons. Not just that but I also managed to get into my head the wrong time so it was only when it did not arrive by seven that I checked the times. In the end Tesco’s very kindly agreed to redeliver today and James came to pick me up. Very thankful for people’s considerateness over what was completely my mess up! The evening was enjoyable as ever.
Saturday was just more work on the hymns followed by setting up the sound system at St Andrews so that a guitar could be played through it, I hoped it worked ok as though the technical solution was in place, it also required the operator to balance the levels of the voices and the guitar! Something no operator had done previously. On the morning a quick run to the shops. The rest of the day was thesis both working on the hymns and today’s presentation. Unfortunately by this point I realised that nerves were taking over and needed some controlling
Today presentation day! Actually things went pretty smoothly only I had put too much in. I turned up at the church only to find that it was parade and the car park was full. God must have heard my heart cry because a car promptly pulled out of a parking space! Not usual ten minutes before worship in the church carpark! I got asked on entry to the church whether I was rehearsing my presentation, no I replied thanking God for providing a parking space. The idea of having to move the car in the time between worship and church meeting just felt too much! I got through three quarters maybe more of the presentation. The moderator commented that on there being not enough time to do this sort of presentation in church meetings. I don’t think people understood that I was hanging around to calm down afterwards, I have been so intently involved in doing this presentation and so focused on presenting it well, that I was quite sure that I would technically not be in a good state to be driving on the roads immediately afterwards. Anyway came in had a bacon sandwich and a glass of wine and went to bed for an hour and a half.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Two Weeks trying to get back into an even pace after Easter
I am going to need a long memory to remember back to the Easter bank holiday, I expect because it was fairly quiet.. Work was quiet with a lot of people taking advantage of the two double bank holiday weekends but I still ended up with plenty of work to do.
So will you excuse me while I move quickly onto that Thursday which was a supervision date in Birmingham. The supervision was as early as I can really make in that it was at 12:30 and the first train I can travel on gets me in at 11:30. Yes it is only a fifteen minute walk from the University station but I don’t like to arrive anywhere with less than an hour before an appointment if I am travelling by train. The campus was being host to a large number of school students who were taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to eat their packed lunches outside. My supervisor had two more theses bound upon his desk. He is supposed to be rationalising the number of students he supervises as the central system noticed suddenly he had far more than they expected staff to. This might not totally be his fault, he had when I started inherited rather a lot of students from a former colleague who had left to work elsewhere. He also has a fair number of students who have been in the system for rather a long time. Then the two students graduating may well only reduce his numbers by one as one of them was seriously thinking of returning for a doctorate.Anyway the result of having a fairly early supervision meant that I spent a fair time checking papers and still managed to get the 4pm train from Birmingham New Street and therefore bought myself a meal from Marks and Spencer and walked home.
On the Friday my parents came over. We did not do anything spectacular. My hairdresser was open so I had my hair cut and there was a street party on the road outside the shop. Not really your traditional sort of neighbours all joining in, rather a group of market stall holders got together to put up some tables and people could buy food off the food stalls and eat it at the tables, I think there probably was a TV screen up somewhere and there were other stalls selling stuff. Maybe even a small stage. However the hairdresser informed me that there was a flower market on in town so when I had collected my parents from the coffee shop in West One and then wandered down. The market was a general one although there was a large area selling plants. Anyway Mum bought a decent macaroon and a not so good chocolate brownie.
Saturday was a quiet day. That is my decision was to basically havea normal Saturday and to try and start putting together the presentation for Herringthorpe. Now there was an alternative. I could have decided to go the Herringthorpe Royal Wedding party, but that just seemed like too much for me. I believe it was a really splendid affair and the photos which I saw on the following tuesday seemed to indicate many people enjoyed themselves.
Sunday last week was very hectic. There was church in the morning which had quietened down somewhat from the pre-Easter frantic activity, but still a good turn out. Then I nipped home to get lactase tablets as I had forgotten to bring them, what I did not realise was I also needed to change. Then it was off to have lunch with a family. This family has been missionaries in Pakistan and are still in contact with the Christian community out there.After talking with them it was clear that the problem is not so much the blasphemy law but a societal behaviour that makes people over zealous for the honour of Islam and where the slightest suggestion that you may have done something dishonouring will lead to mob violence. This plays into the hands of the unscruplous, who can make allegations without really having to face consequences if the are wrong. Afterwards dinner which was delicious, we went for a walk around Uley Reservoir which is pleasant place for a walk. There was a cott with chicks just by the nest. Some of the chicks were in the water and some were on the nest. The coot seemed to be adding extra material to the nest, I wonder if this was to accommodate her growing family. There was also thousand of tadpoles at the side. As we past the boating house the girls heard wind chimes. This reminded me that Stuart had told me the previous evening that he had been out to visit a friends grave there in a woodland cemetery.
After that I went home changed and then back out as evening service had been cancelled so one of the normal attenders was having a social at her house. The main topic of conversation when I arrived was the Royal wedding, both the actual event and the party the day before. The hosts son and a friend who is the son of head of the local Christian Homelessness Project were playing in the back garden. They had “put up” a tent intending to sleep in it and got bedding down from the sons bedroom. However I would not have put much money on the tent staying up and the father of the visiting lad had said he would not spend the night outside.
At this point I felt that was enough socialising for me plus presentation was calling but the next day a group was also going out to Rufford Country Park. So Monday was spent in largely being fairly quiet indeed I had over done it and as much of the presentation as I would have liked did not get done.
Tuesday I was in work and had a very bitty day. nothing major, meeting in the morning, a missed appointment in the afternoon and four papers fighting for attention including one on which I am sole author. My liturgy paper should be in Anaphora I am glad to have done it. Then there was house group on the eveing. One of the leaders defined being spiritual as being Christian, that is not how the word is used in wider society!
Wednesday brain through a wobbler and I had a migraine which was most uncomfortable. I am used to the sort that lands me in bed and asleep pretty quickly but this timeit just made everything uncomfortable.
Thursday I got through a major analysis but I still have to write it up so will have a go next week. Then I will have to see if the student can make any sense of it. Otherwise an uneventful day with nothing much to report.
Friday I think I broke the back of the handout for the presentation. That might sound odd, but I had to find something to put my thoughts in order. Too many ideas not enough narrative. I have lots of ideas of ways to put across themes, it is just putting them into a form where I can present. I actually am finding publisher more useful for doing that than anything else. Part of the problem with Powerpoint is some of the visuals are not computer based and are better presented by other means but powerpoint does work for things that are computer based.
Saturday was quiet and fairly productive. It almost fell into a routine with two hourly slots. Cooking 9-11, shop 11am-1pm sleep 1pm to 3pm PhD work 3pm -5pm and so on. It was quite funny how the pattern appeared out of nowhere.
Sunday is today and I spent this morning watching the Sheffield Half Marathon. I’d checked the route yesterday and it was situated in such a way that I had two choices, set out half an hour at least early and see if I could find a way around it through Sheffield back streets (it ran from Don Valley Stadium to at least Hunters Bar on the Ecclesall Road through the centre of Sheffield. It was like having a major line drawn between me and Rotherham. It also closed the route north to the M1. Well as Jon the youth and children’s worker at Herringthorpe was running I thought I would go and watch it instead. It really is quite impressive to watch with the hordes of runners taking over an hour to pass once they had got to Devonshire Green.
So will you excuse me while I move quickly onto that Thursday which was a supervision date in Birmingham. The supervision was as early as I can really make in that it was at 12:30 and the first train I can travel on gets me in at 11:30. Yes it is only a fifteen minute walk from the University station but I don’t like to arrive anywhere with less than an hour before an appointment if I am travelling by train. The campus was being host to a large number of school students who were taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to eat their packed lunches outside. My supervisor had two more theses bound upon his desk. He is supposed to be rationalising the number of students he supervises as the central system noticed suddenly he had far more than they expected staff to. This might not totally be his fault, he had when I started inherited rather a lot of students from a former colleague who had left to work elsewhere. He also has a fair number of students who have been in the system for rather a long time. Then the two students graduating may well only reduce his numbers by one as one of them was seriously thinking of returning for a doctorate.Anyway the result of having a fairly early supervision meant that I spent a fair time checking papers and still managed to get the 4pm train from Birmingham New Street and therefore bought myself a meal from Marks and Spencer and walked home.
On the Friday my parents came over. We did not do anything spectacular. My hairdresser was open so I had my hair cut and there was a street party on the road outside the shop. Not really your traditional sort of neighbours all joining in, rather a group of market stall holders got together to put up some tables and people could buy food off the food stalls and eat it at the tables, I think there probably was a TV screen up somewhere and there were other stalls selling stuff. Maybe even a small stage. However the hairdresser informed me that there was a flower market on in town so when I had collected my parents from the coffee shop in West One and then wandered down. The market was a general one although there was a large area selling plants. Anyway Mum bought a decent macaroon and a not so good chocolate brownie.
Saturday was a quiet day. That is my decision was to basically havea normal Saturday and to try and start putting together the presentation for Herringthorpe. Now there was an alternative. I could have decided to go the Herringthorpe Royal Wedding party, but that just seemed like too much for me. I believe it was a really splendid affair and the photos which I saw on the following tuesday seemed to indicate many people enjoyed themselves.
Sunday last week was very hectic. There was church in the morning which had quietened down somewhat from the pre-Easter frantic activity, but still a good turn out. Then I nipped home to get lactase tablets as I had forgotten to bring them, what I did not realise was I also needed to change. Then it was off to have lunch with a family. This family has been missionaries in Pakistan and are still in contact with the Christian community out there.After talking with them it was clear that the problem is not so much the blasphemy law but a societal behaviour that makes people over zealous for the honour of Islam and where the slightest suggestion that you may have done something dishonouring will lead to mob violence. This plays into the hands of the unscruplous, who can make allegations without really having to face consequences if the are wrong. Afterwards dinner which was delicious, we went for a walk around Uley Reservoir which is pleasant place for a walk. There was a cott with chicks just by the nest. Some of the chicks were in the water and some were on the nest. The coot seemed to be adding extra material to the nest, I wonder if this was to accommodate her growing family. There was also thousand of tadpoles at the side. As we past the boating house the girls heard wind chimes. This reminded me that Stuart had told me the previous evening that he had been out to visit a friends grave there in a woodland cemetery.
After that I went home changed and then back out as evening service had been cancelled so one of the normal attenders was having a social at her house. The main topic of conversation when I arrived was the Royal wedding, both the actual event and the party the day before. The hosts son and a friend who is the son of head of the local Christian Homelessness Project were playing in the back garden. They had “put up” a tent intending to sleep in it and got bedding down from the sons bedroom. However I would not have put much money on the tent staying up and the father of the visiting lad had said he would not spend the night outside.
At this point I felt that was enough socialising for me plus presentation was calling but the next day a group was also going out to Rufford Country Park. So Monday was spent in largely being fairly quiet indeed I had over done it and as much of the presentation as I would have liked did not get done.
Tuesday I was in work and had a very bitty day. nothing major, meeting in the morning, a missed appointment in the afternoon and four papers fighting for attention including one on which I am sole author. My liturgy paper should be in Anaphora I am glad to have done it. Then there was house group on the eveing. One of the leaders defined being spiritual as being Christian, that is not how the word is used in wider society!
Wednesday brain through a wobbler and I had a migraine which was most uncomfortable. I am used to the sort that lands me in bed and asleep pretty quickly but this timeit just made everything uncomfortable.
Thursday I got through a major analysis but I still have to write it up so will have a go next week. Then I will have to see if the student can make any sense of it. Otherwise an uneventful day with nothing much to report.
Friday I think I broke the back of the handout for the presentation. That might sound odd, but I had to find something to put my thoughts in order. Too many ideas not enough narrative. I have lots of ideas of ways to put across themes, it is just putting them into a form where I can present. I actually am finding publisher more useful for doing that than anything else. Part of the problem with Powerpoint is some of the visuals are not computer based and are better presented by other means but powerpoint does work for things that are computer based.
Saturday was quiet and fairly productive. It almost fell into a routine with two hourly slots. Cooking 9-11, shop 11am-1pm sleep 1pm to 3pm PhD work 3pm -5pm and so on. It was quite funny how the pattern appeared out of nowhere.
Sunday is today and I spent this morning watching the Sheffield Half Marathon. I’d checked the route yesterday and it was situated in such a way that I had two choices, set out half an hour at least early and see if I could find a way around it through Sheffield back streets (it ran from Don Valley Stadium to at least Hunters Bar on the Ecclesall Road through the centre of Sheffield. It was like having a major line drawn between me and Rotherham. It also closed the route north to the M1. Well as Jon the youth and children’s worker at Herringthorpe was running I thought I would go and watch it instead. It really is quite impressive to watch with the hordes of runners taking over an hour to pass once they had got to Devonshire Green.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
From Moderator's prayers to Salsa Classes
So what has happened this week. Well Monday was quiet I think. I know I was busy in work but apart from shopping and such I can’t remember anything major happening. On Tuesday I finished the backlog at work and saw a PhD student who is the sort who seems to suspect statistics are very delicate electrical circuits and if you don’t treat them just right they are liable to give you an electric shock. She first presented the data as two t-tests. However on typing in the second set of data I spotted one group was identical to the previous study. So I went and redid the analysis using oneway ANOVA. Then spent fifteen to twenty minutes repeating again and again the same information on how to read the output. I also suspect I signed up for Linkedin, now I must admit at some stage I really should do this, but at the present the real reason was just to see an article. Unfortunately the sign up seems to involve providing contacts and the time I wanted to spend on it was not that much. I tried to remove from the list it found the obvious distant contacts but thinking through it at the time was beyond me. I will sort it at sometime and some stage just not at present.
However that evening I went to a prayer meeting called by Kevin Watson. Well it was one of those times when someone decides to ask relevant questions for my research and all I have to do is sit back and listen. He wanted to know what had been happening and what was God doing at Herringthorpe. Great questions from my perspective and it was worth listening just to hear what people thought God was doing at Herringthorpe. Yes they came out with the story that I was familiar with, but they could have come out with other stories, there was also one cryptic comment by a church secretary who commented that God is changing Herringthorpe’s attitudes. Well the result was I came back and wrote up immediately.
The price came the next day when I had a migraine. Actually it was strange in that I did not wake with it, but as soon as I got to breakfast I started feeling very tired. So decided to see if an hour back in bed would clear it, only for me to realise as I got into bed there was a headache and other migraine symptoms as well, so I got up, rang into work and then crashed for four hours.
However was back in work on Thursday and trying to catch up on time missed on Wednesday. I had a data set that had been problematic. I thought I knew what was wrong but it was going to be a lot of work. I tried it and it did not work. So I sat back and suddenly the obvious popped into my brain. What people had eaten for breakfast might just effect the results of their pre-race test! and that would cause problems when dealing with the post race test and altering for pre-race performance. It worked and I finished the report and got ready for a meeting with my boss on Monday.
Friday was supposedly a write day, but at least the first part was interrupted . I turned up to breakfast to find not only had some of the food not made it, but they were short staffed and the Archer Project had decided to shut without telling us. So I did breakfast duty for a while on an ad hoc basis i.e. I was both sides of the counter doing what was required. I therefore went about 8:30 and got back about 10:15. I had also picked up Philip Benedicts book “Christ’s Churches: Purely Reformed - A Social History of Calvinism” and I realised not only was the last section on “New Calvinist Men and Women?” which picks up Max Weber’s contention that Reformed Christianity brought in a new “psychological” understanding of what it meant to be a person and explores the historical evidence for this. His results would not be conclusive for two reasons., Firstly the he would not want his carefully nuanced academic tome to be read either as simply full agreement or disagreement rather as interesting hints and such. Secondly the data is largely external data such as the percentage of illegitimate children born during that time. It is quite a big jump to go from practical workings out to internal understandings. However Philip Benedict is also a good writer and I found the work intriguing. Needless to say I spent the rest of the morning reading that. The result was I only got around to writing in the afternoon and in the evening Herringthorpe ladies were having a Salsa night. The lady teaching was good and she made it simple enough that we managed a form of Salsa dancing. I had not realised you needed shoes that could slip. It was good fun. It sounds as if a group of the ladies enjoyed it so much that they will be going to her regular class on a Monday night. Unfortunately that clashes directly with writers so is not on for me.
Saturday I spent writing. Unfortunately I have not finished the essay yet. It is going to be a long one and I think it is important enough to write the extra. There seems to be some hidden rule of writing that the more time available the more time it takes to write.
Today I went to Herringthorpe for the Palm Sunday service. Junior church is definitely down on normal weeks although the creche was up due to grandchildren. This year they sort of managed a procession (last year if I recall the crosses were given out at the end of the service as Pauline had forgotten to do them). Evening service was cancelled due to the fact that two families would be away so I have only had to do the church heating this afternoon.
However that evening I went to a prayer meeting called by Kevin Watson. Well it was one of those times when someone decides to ask relevant questions for my research and all I have to do is sit back and listen. He wanted to know what had been happening and what was God doing at Herringthorpe. Great questions from my perspective and it was worth listening just to hear what people thought God was doing at Herringthorpe. Yes they came out with the story that I was familiar with, but they could have come out with other stories, there was also one cryptic comment by a church secretary who commented that God is changing Herringthorpe’s attitudes. Well the result was I came back and wrote up immediately.
The price came the next day when I had a migraine. Actually it was strange in that I did not wake with it, but as soon as I got to breakfast I started feeling very tired. So decided to see if an hour back in bed would clear it, only for me to realise as I got into bed there was a headache and other migraine symptoms as well, so I got up, rang into work and then crashed for four hours.
However was back in work on Thursday and trying to catch up on time missed on Wednesday. I had a data set that had been problematic. I thought I knew what was wrong but it was going to be a lot of work. I tried it and it did not work. So I sat back and suddenly the obvious popped into my brain. What people had eaten for breakfast might just effect the results of their pre-race test! and that would cause problems when dealing with the post race test and altering for pre-race performance. It worked and I finished the report and got ready for a meeting with my boss on Monday.
Friday was supposedly a write day, but at least the first part was interrupted . I turned up to breakfast to find not only had some of the food not made it, but they were short staffed and the Archer Project had decided to shut without telling us. So I did breakfast duty for a while on an ad hoc basis i.e. I was both sides of the counter doing what was required. I therefore went about 8:30 and got back about 10:15. I had also picked up Philip Benedicts book “Christ’s Churches: Purely Reformed - A Social History of Calvinism” and I realised not only was the last section on “New Calvinist Men and Women?” which picks up Max Weber’s contention that Reformed Christianity brought in a new “psychological” understanding of what it meant to be a person and explores the historical evidence for this. His results would not be conclusive for two reasons., Firstly the he would not want his carefully nuanced academic tome to be read either as simply full agreement or disagreement rather as interesting hints and such. Secondly the data is largely external data such as the percentage of illegitimate children born during that time. It is quite a big jump to go from practical workings out to internal understandings. However Philip Benedict is also a good writer and I found the work intriguing. Needless to say I spent the rest of the morning reading that. The result was I only got around to writing in the afternoon and in the evening Herringthorpe ladies were having a Salsa night. The lady teaching was good and she made it simple enough that we managed a form of Salsa dancing. I had not realised you needed shoes that could slip. It was good fun. It sounds as if a group of the ladies enjoyed it so much that they will be going to her regular class on a Monday night. Unfortunately that clashes directly with writers so is not on for me.
Saturday I spent writing. Unfortunately I have not finished the essay yet. It is going to be a long one and I think it is important enough to write the extra. There seems to be some hidden rule of writing that the more time available the more time it takes to write.
Today I went to Herringthorpe for the Palm Sunday service. Junior church is definitely down on normal weeks although the creche was up due to grandchildren. This year they sort of managed a procession (last year if I recall the crosses were given out at the end of the service as Pauline had forgotten to do them). Evening service was cancelled due to the fact that two families would be away so I have only had to do the church heating this afternoon.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Teaching week with some research reading time
Right this last week has been busy. This is always the case when I have a teaching week. The nice thing was that due to the way I had paced myself the week before and the fact that I had spent quite some time checking that things were sorted before hand.
Monday was relatively quiet, in that the morning was fairly routine although I ended up showing a person NVivo. I have found that when I start showing people what that computer program does, particularly those on the more literary-qualitative based research they are delighted. I am then honest with them and say that such programs come at a cost and the cost here is not the software but the hardware that you need. I am for instance using the software for my Reformed Spirituality part of my thesis and am linking it to the relevant books on Google or elsewhere but also quoting bits and coding the bits I am quoting. Thus I hope that I will have the ability to produce quite a nuaunced explanation of what is actually going on. By the way can anyone give me a brief explanation of how piety differs from spirituality? This is a very light way of doing this. There was no writers group in the evening.
Tuesday was the first of the taught courses. I was in work finishing off slides. This time I have taken responsibility for updating the course material. This is not hard work as it is not like many courses where it would mean I had to keep up with the latest reading. Rather all that it means is that I have to check that the latest software runs as I said it did two years ago. This is easy because I actually open the software and use it practically every day. The other thing that has changed is that responsibility for looking after the room and making sure it is ready for courses has been given to one person. This meant that I was able to ask for a check of things and to make sure things were working before I went up. So the course went well and I even had the energy to go to Bible Study afterwards although it was obvious during that that I was tired.
Wednesday was a sunny day, indeed it has remained sunny right up to today. The afternoon I spent on a study of cognitive performance by participants in a race. It was interesting. I have sat down and I think there is probably something there, but it is tricky to get it out. The main problem being that it is a relatively small data set and therefore many things are strongly correlated.
Thursday was the second course day, in someways simpler, but wish I would remember to get in as early as I did on the first. Admittedly I got distracted at lunch time. I pointed out on Ship of Fools that discernment of the Word of God is communal in Reformed theology and somebody wanted me to back up my assertion. Well I have gained much of my understanding by talking with people who are Reformed rather than from reading the texts. So I had a moment of doubt. However that evening I had assembled in less than an hour a number of statement that clearly indicated that an individual on their own was not sufficient an interpreter of the Word. These included quotes directly from Calvin’s Institutes (his section on the Church as our mother is useful) and the Westminster Confession. I could have looked further and I undoubtedly would have found more. I of course know that they placed centrally the teaching role of the cleric within the congregation but still it is interesting to see how easy it was.
Friday and Saturday were research days. I got through quite a bit of reading despite the ease with which I get distracted. I managed to read the crucial chapter in Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”. I am not interested in his economic argument but about how he discerned or understood the “Protestant Ethic”. It is interesting, partly because he does focus on what I think is going to be my argument about what Reformed Spirituality actually is. However I suspect he made a mistake and chose to focus on the English speaking Reformed tradition with particular relationship to America. That he is not well read in this shows at times, he quotes the Savoy Declaration and not about church government. He also quotes the Westminster Confession. They are both Reformed documents but you don’t normally quote from both if you have read them thoroughly. The Savoy Declaration is for large parts lifted verbatim from the Westminster Confession. He also wants to hang everything on predestinarianism, I suspect in this case if I have to hang it on one of the pegs of TULIP I would hang it on Perseverance of the Saints (intriguingly in the TULIP summary of the Synod of Dort there is no P for Predestinarianism). The haunting question is “How do you know if you are saved?”. I also finished Howard L Rice’s book on Reformed Spirituality and reviewed it on Amazon. Next books up are “Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed” by Philip Benedict, Michel Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison” and Jonathon Edwards “The Religious Affections”. Ideally all should be read by next weekend, this will not happen.
Friday night I went to the Dickson’s for a really pleasant meal.They were just back from Norfolk on one of Margaret Fall’s trips. Their major grumble was that they spent too much time on the bus getting brief limited glimpses of many things when they would have preferred to have seen fewer places but had longer to explore them. It was also nice to get there in the light. I got asked about when I was coming back and they were surprised to find out that it is as soon as October.
Today Herringthorpe had the Watoto Children’s Choir and you can hear snippets of them. They are lively and explosive in their performance. I turned up at 10:10 and the car park was already full, people who are late to such services are going to struggle to find parking! I better start checking out the side roads and yes I think the congregation size has grown over the time I have been there. I also got my parking permit for the church and it is now in my bag in case I need it. It only functions for one car unfortunately so here is hoping that if I need to go during the day that that car is available. I must admit I came away early, I had enjoyed myself but I had also over done it.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Thinking on Church Websites while on strike
This week has been odd. I am hoping that one of these weeks I will get a week in which I am able to be in work for four days, however the reason this week was strikes. Now I am not a great fan of strike action, but the UCU rarely uses it (I think this means I have withdrawn my labour for one working week in the nineteen odd years I have been in HE). In this case, I suspect the jobs issue is a no win one but perhaps an idea of feelings, Pensions is a bit more about fairness, when the stockmarket was doing well the Universities as employers took a holiday from contributing, now it is doing badly they don’t seem to understand the quid pro quo for having taken that. However my main reason for striking is I belong to the Union, I appreciate the work the Union does on my behalf (having been regraded un-unionised and regraded unionised I can tell you which one was the better outcome), and I also believe that if ever things came to a dispute between me and the University I would want the backing of the Union. Given that I don’t believe in being a fair weather trades unionist and only belonging when I want to, so I was on strike. So although I was in work on Monday, which was quite quiet and Wednesday but I was off Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (Friday being my day off).
I am afraid striking and research do not mix. Tuesday was the sort of day where if I would have been in two minds about whether I could work or not. I was feeling off colour but nothing very specific but as I was on strike I went back to bed and slept it off. I then spent quite some time reviewing Herringthorpe URC website ( but it has been updated since and is updating) for the church. I am surprised myself in doing this. Firstly there are some things that have not changed. Much of what I thought was appropriate for the front page, is still what I think is appropriate for the front page. However my focus for the site has changed. As far as I can see for communication within the congregation there are better ways such as email or Facebook (if the congregation has enough young members) and the older ways bulletin sheet, newsletter, notices and the good old phone call all still work. So it is a noticeboard or a shop front. So what are we selling, well the services yes. But rather than just the name time and place, how about something telling them what a service maybe like?
I have this little script going through my head for Herringthorpe:
(IA is a member, VB is a visitor)
IA: People tend to be slightly early for church, this is often so they can have a natter and so with their friends, you are given a notice sheet when you come in and there are notices up on the projector screen
VB: So how do you know when worship is about to begin?
IA: Well at about the time the Bible is brought in!
VB: is that the start of the service.
IA: No, its a mark of respect for the bible and a sign to shut up, because then further notices are given from the front
VB: You do seem to put an awful lot of effort into notices,
IA: Well there are always last minute alterations and the in case of fire notice, but when they are finished they ask for silence
VB: So that is the start of the service?
IA: Well no, the real start is when the minister stands up afterwards and says the opening sentences
VB: the what?
We need to stop assuming people know what happens in church and start trying to inform them.
Christianity and if so what form and style? Why us and not the next church down the street? Try and give something that has a personal touch, something that says “ours” rather than try to compete with the highly skilled apologetical sites. What they can’t do is give the view from the point of view of a person people might know a normal person. Alright so it might be a normal person like the individuals granny but still not a celebrity or a theologian. The thing is the issues talked about are likely to differ as well. You do really need a very skilled apologist to explain the Trinity, but why someone enjoys singing in the choir on a Sunday, is surely not within their brief.
Other are perhaps more mundane. Do we have good child safety polices, disability awareness? Where do we stand on inclusion? but there are other things that people might be looking for, they maybe looking for a venue for a wedding or somewhere to have a child baptised (yes I know the problems but it might be as well to give them something to think about before they approach rather than leave it all to the minister). Then there is room hire and other activities. Do you perhaps want to recruit people for social outreach project or raise awareness of certain issues?
It took longer than I planned but my brain has obviously been thinking. I also had to get onto thinking about what I was going to tell Pauline on Thursday. On a sadder note I discovered that a member of my writing group had died on Sunday night. She had been suffering from Breast Cancer for the last nine months but was suddenly in great pain last Sunday evening and died that night. If you have spare prayers could you pray for J and her son T and daughter A. The funeral is on Friday, I am still deciding whether to go.
Wednesday was very ordinary, although coming back from prayer meeting at St Andrews I think I saw a buzzard soaring on the thermals above the buildings on Glossop Road. Now I am not sure. The soaring behaviour was clearly there but at first I thought rook or crow, but rooks and crows don’t usually do that. Then a couple of gulls came past and they were clearly smaller.
Thursday was a big thesis day. I went to see Pauline for lunch and then to talk about reporting back.They have a young golden Labrador called Emma and she was very suspicious of me at first but once she had established that I was not a threat to her directly and none of the humans regarded me a threat she went and slept in her cage while we ate lunch. Then spent an hour or so talking with Pauline. Pauline definitely deliberate over her choice of space. That is not a problem so am I. This time we were in the music room, which has a couch that just seats two people. This says something quite clearly about equality and closeness.
Then it was on to interview Henry. This was really one of the most important interviews of my time. In the end for very different reasons to the interview with the equivalent person at St Andrews Chesterfield. Henry is 99 and has been with the congregation for close on ninety years. He became church secretary a very short time after he joined and served for 17 years. During those years the congregation would have gone from being Congregational to URC. Henry came from another Rotherham Congregational church. All this is true but Henry does not really live in the past, he seems to live in a continuous present. His relationship to Herringthorpe is rather like a man who has been married for fifty years and can’t see the changes in his wife. It is not that they haven’t happened it is that the changes have happened as much to him as to the congregation. That at least is my tentative understanding. Oh and what would he like to have happen, more people worshipping particularly more young children in the Junior Church. He did lend me a history of the church, interestingly over ten years old.
Friday was the sort of day when I got things done simply because I was at home. Time of the month came and it was uncomfortable most of the day. However as I was largely in I could sleep when I wanted to and work when I felt able. Saturday was also quiet although I got some PhD reading and Stuart came around in the evening and we shared a bottle of Ame and hot cross buns. I got reheating them right this time and they were warm without being too dry. By the way I think my favourite Hot Cross Buns are Marks and Spencers Cranberry and Orange. If I am in Waitrose I get their saffron buns instead.
Today morning church with another Baptism, Herringthorpe does seem to get a good number of baptism. This family clearly had church contact, were singing along to the hymns and as they were mainly fairly new ones out of Songs of Fellowship, this suggests recent as well. They indeed did know one or two members but did not really seem to be part of the Herringthorpe wider community. Other than that resting and generally not doing much.
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