From a Bright-Cold Winters Afternoon

The Monday before last I took a piece of poetry I had written to writers group as I usually do only this time the piece was written from a voice that was not my own. In this case Jack Frost, it was rather fun to do, but I do think that the cold was getting to me! Since that worked fairly well I have since written a piece that is pure fantasy, well it is a way of talking about feelings that I need to work through but being put in a total fantasy situation. I will see on Monday how well that works.

Work wise I have been busy. The work keeps coming in and every time I think it is going to ease I find something more. At present I have four long term bits of work on. An analysis that is ready to role but I am finding it very difficult to explain what the results are and this is once I have transformed into variables that are easier to interpret. Every time I think I have it sorted there is something new. I have a course which I am trying to get into videos so people can study it at their own pace and now have a new analysis which is looking at folate. Then there is the research bids. By the way for sharing documents I am finding Dropbox really good. Once it is installed on a computer it just looks like an extra folder in which you can store things but it shares those things with everyone else who has access to them. On top of this I am dealing with queries that come in and there is hidden reorganisation going on as well. I wonder how I get my department to realise that ninety percent of research computing is not done on big machines. Fifty percent of it is done I suspect using Word, bibliographic searches and such.

On Monday this week I spent sometime with someone from the the Research and Innovations Services and they were saying what I have always known, that researchers want a continuity of care when they deal with CICS, computing queries for them are not one offs but part of the ongoing research process and to have to deal with someone new each time is bewildering. On the other hand the machine room guys don’t want to be hassled with answering the phone. The thing is CICS actually do have more staff than me doing this but none of us publicise our work as their are far to few of us. The fact is that I am run off my feet doing what I do, I suspect if we had a team of a dozen of us doing it we would all be equally busy and we would find the same with some other specialised groups.

The photo is one of two I managed to take with my camera with a macro filter, I am still learning to use it particularly as it seems I need to use manual focus. I might see if I can buy a pot of snowdrops next weekend and have a go taking photos indoors where I can spend lots of time fiddling with the controls without my fingers going numb. I also got a new coffee maker called an Aeropress. This was to replace my large cafeteria that fell out of a cupboard and smashed. Unfortunately the Aeropress though it makes good strong coffee only makes small quantities. I wish I had found that website before I started trying it might have saved me a lot of bother.

This weekend and last weekend have been thesis writing ones. The result has been almost 6,000 more words onto my thesis although and I have also been trying to cut my methodology chapter down to size. It is now under 20,000 (in fact I think it is under 19000) but it could still do with going on a diet.  It was in the region of 23,000 all put together so I guess I have lost around 4,000 words. The nice thing has been despite having to cut back like this I have still managed to put in more words than I have cut. So I am getting closer and closer to my end point. I also have crossed the 30,000 point so if things keep going I may make 40,000 words by Easter (or the half way point).

I seem to have got myself a couple of jobs at St Andrews Sheffield, one is being a committee of size one (very convenient for meetings) which takes long term view on audio and media including budget (a bit like the choirs praise committee but with even less members). Then St Andrews is reviewing its committee structure and I seem to have been recommended for being on the working group for that. I hope we can think out of the box as if I and James have read the suggestion right it will be more work intensive than the present one (a single extra level of complexity) but what Sarah has talked to me about is much leaner.

From a Snowy Sheffield

This week has been cold. That may have been a good thing as it has encouraged me to spend time indoors doing research type things. The temptation to go out for extra shopping or such just did not exist. That said I still made writers on Monday. The room was struggling to get to 18°C during writers group. This is NOT due to the thermostat but to the power of the radiator and the outside walls. I suspect it would do better if there was someone in the church or there was someone other than Jugglers in the hall. The jugglers require minimal heat and often will even then leave outside doors open. The poem I took this week was well accepted, I even got thanked for bringing it. I wonder if I should put it on my good list. The one for this coming week is just fun, I took the class exercise and wrote a piece that is quite a bit outside my normal style. I was surprised at how easy it was once I got the voice. Maybe I should try for the rest of term writing pieces in other voices.

Tuesday my body through a wobbler in the morning. I will probably register it as a migraine which is close enough. Basically not wanting to cope with things like light and sound or any other stimulus. All I need is time keeping quiet and my body will normalise and I can cope. I come out of such episodes far quicker than a migraine although they can cause quandaries for those watching. I thought I was going to have the afternoon to prepare for the course I was doing the next day and also to pick up other things only to find I was suddenly in demand at all directions at once. This included a useful contact and also another research proposal. On the evening Mum and Dad rang to say Aunty Jean (or Granny Jean for Sam and Hannah)  is coming over this summer during July

Wednesday I had a session working through a paper in the morning and then went onto teach the final course of this set. I had a turn out of 125% i.e. four said they were coming and five turned up. I told the group that they were responsible for their learning and that if they wanted something repeated, or me to go slower or such, just to ask. It proved one of the most engaged and demanding groups I have had for a long time. I finished at 4:30 but had to turn them out at 5:00 p.m. (I am pretty sure the Hicks building starts closing then). I suspect given the opportunity they would have happily stayed until 6:00 p.m.

Thursday I was in to present a review of an analysis and then to recreate a data set into Nvivo 8 which we already had in NVivo 9 and see what it brought up. This was because the people who were supposed to do it were finding that NVivo 9 was not stable on their machine. This is typical of the medical school which has a lot of under spec machines around and is not helped by QSR saying NVivo runs on machines where it clearly does not with any reliability. Anyway I hope the girls have been able to do the little bit that I left them to do.

Friday I went to breakfast, first time in a few weeks for various reasons. The numbers were down we suspect due to the cold. If you are somewhere warm, coming out even for a fried breakfast is not necessarily going to be your top priority in temperatures like those on Friday. There was a girl from Ghana asking whether England ever got warm. It is such a difficult question to answer. Yes it does but it might well not be the sort of warm you are expecting, really does not cut much ice. Anyway afterwards I went down town to basically food shop. I must admit I have a weakness at present and that is for cheap scarves that a market vendor has started selling outside Boots. Two of the stalls are staffed by girls of oriental extraction who seem to have very limited English. Anyway they sell large very fine (as in thin) scarves and always seem to have a different selection. As they are relatively cheap I normally end up buying one or two. Part of this is that after years of earache I like having a warm neck (hence to polo-neck jumpers) but the other thing is that the scarves soften what can be a rather harsh look. So at present I am playing with using them. The only problem is wine and chocolate are not the in colours at present. The rest of the day was spent on bits and pieces including doing some writing up for thesis.

Saturday was a thesis day, the morning was spent finishing the writing up from the week. There were bits of analysis to do and other things to track down. I am beginning to wonder if former Presbyterian churches are more dispersed than former Congregational ones or whether that is just a mark of how they relate to the area around the church. They feel more disconnected so they must be more dispersed. There is no evidence of an actual difference in the distance members travel to either of my placement churches. The thing was I think that St Andrews Chesterfield would be surprised at how far people were travelling to come to Herringthorpe. Feeling as if the congregation belongs to a locality does not mean that the majority of the congregation live within a mile of the church. Actually though I removed them from the analysis, some people were travelling from Retford to Herringthorpe! On the afternoon I started to put together my dataset. This thing is both boring and addictive. I thought I would stop at seven in the evening so as to do chores only to find I had continued doing it to eight! The snow started coming down early evening and continued well into the night. It was funny as it was fine snow and a lot of the time it did not look like it was snowing but it the snow on the ground kept getting deeper and deeper.

This morning I was watching to see if church was on, well waiting to see a car in the carpark. People were estimating about 6 inches for this area of Sheffield. The communion service was done on reduced numbers but the Dickson’s did two runs to get people to church bringing David, Derek, Sarah, Aileen and John as well as being duty elders. The service went well. Fortunately the Cookes offered to take Sarah and David home which meant only a single trip home. Maybe the church should buy them a four wheel drive minibus. However Mary came to St Andrews as she could walk to us but was not sure whether she could get up the hill to St Marks. the snow has been slowly thawing and is due to continue doing so until tomorrow night (see XCWeather although I have also checked the Met Office and the BBC weather forecast)