I guess we had forgotten about the blog because it was originally set up to keep people in Aberdeen(shire) up todate with our goings on in Loughborough and now that we are back in Aberdeenshire we didn't see the need, but I guess a quick post wouldn't go astray!!
Sandy and I have been back in the area since Wednesday, we are staying with my parents for now. The drive was massively uneventful (which we are pleased about) and the snow didn't really slow us down at all, although the cold did as we couldn't get any water out our windscreen washers through freezing and had to stop at every other garage to pour water onto the screen so we could see! Apart from that the only issue is that the baby didn't take kindly to me being sat in essentially the same position for 9 or 10 hours and made this known by beating me up from the inside out!
Today is Christmas Eve and I will catch up with my good friend from school, Alli, and later my parents' next door neighbours are coming over for a wee "party" with their kids, if nothing else it will be good practice for me to have some mayhem to contend with!! We might go to the watchnight service at Howe Trinity later on, I'm not sure Sandy and I are particularly fussed, but this is the last year we will be able to do it without a big fuss, at least for a while!!
Tomorrow, being the big day itself, will see us open our presents with my parents, then after the service at Howe Trinity we will drive over to New Deer and see everyone over there, it will be great to see everyone again, we haven't seen them since we moved, although Sandy is getting a sneak preview today when he stops by on his way home from the dentist!
The rest of our holiday is about ctaching up with as many people as possible, we will spend a few days staying in Aberdeen with our good friend Liz so that we can see more friends more easily, we have missed everyone so much and having left in such a rush we don't feel like we got to say goodbye to everyone properly!
So, let us know if you want to catch up at all, we are around until 3rd January when we will drive back to Loughborough, and I will be praying the baby still hasn't come, I will be a few days short of 37 weeks pregnant at that point!!
Happy Christmas everyone!
Jay (and Sandy and bump!)
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Friday, 24 December 2010
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Pleased
I'm having this peculiar feeling. I'd want to say it's some kind of satisfaction or something, but I'm wary of being too pleased with myself. Suffice to say I'm happy! Last week I was given an introduction to the university's library services, and part of it was a tour of the search engines available for following up references and academic texts. I'm reasonably familiar with this stuff but it's been a couple of years since I had proper access to such things, and egotistical though it may be I immediately did what everyone does when presented with a search engine and had a look for myself. I know what publications I've written (more or less), but the nice bit for me was seeing that several of them have now been referenced by other researchers. It's way cool to think that my work is having an impact on others!
On Friday I was at a training course for both RAs (that's research staff like me) and PhD students. It was telling us what one could expect after getting a job as a lecturer, as well as how to go about applying for positions and what experience is needed. All very useful stuff for my long-term plan. I found myself at a table of all students; I felt a little guilty telling them I'm done with the thesis writing etc which they've all still got to go through. This is odd as it was the complete opposite of the way I've been of late; I've been rather defensive over being not a student. I don't insist on being called "Doc" or anything - this is just good sense in case I ever end up inventing time travel and need to stay hidden from the guys who supplied my plutonium. I do though find myself making it quite clear that I'm an RA and already had a PhD - I'm sure it's quite insufferable.
It has also been quite fun starting to provide input into student projects. It looks like a lowly computer scientist is highly sought after in this department :)
On a vaguely related theme, a student came up to me the other day to talk about something, but soon after arriving had to shoot off for Prayers, which as it happens seem to take place in a communal area not far from my desk. I remarked to Jay later on that I've got a lot of respect for the discipline that Muslims have for regular prayer; there is of course a careful line to tread between spiritual discipline and it becoming "just time to do it" but I wonder if it's something that Christians can learn from.
This is turning in to a longish post so I'll leave talking about our delightful trip to the BBC at the weekend until later. Suffice to say our proximity to London has some major perks :)
On Friday I was at a training course for both RAs (that's research staff like me) and PhD students. It was telling us what one could expect after getting a job as a lecturer, as well as how to go about applying for positions and what experience is needed. All very useful stuff for my long-term plan. I found myself at a table of all students; I felt a little guilty telling them I'm done with the thesis writing etc which they've all still got to go through. This is odd as it was the complete opposite of the way I've been of late; I've been rather defensive over being not a student. I don't insist on being called "Doc" or anything - this is just good sense in case I ever end up inventing time travel and need to stay hidden from the guys who supplied my plutonium. I do though find myself making it quite clear that I'm an RA and already had a PhD - I'm sure it's quite insufferable.
It has also been quite fun starting to provide input into student projects. It looks like a lowly computer scientist is highly sought after in this department :)
On a vaguely related theme, a student came up to me the other day to talk about something, but soon after arriving had to shoot off for Prayers, which as it happens seem to take place in a communal area not far from my desk. I remarked to Jay later on that I've got a lot of respect for the discipline that Muslims have for regular prayer; there is of course a careful line to tread between spiritual discipline and it becoming "just time to do it" but I wonder if it's something that Christians can learn from.
This is turning in to a longish post so I'll leave talking about our delightful trip to the BBC at the weekend until later. Suffice to say our proximity to London has some major perks :)
Finally, this is in the lift in my building:
The notion that a lift could be much other than civil entertains me - perhaps one day it will cease being civil and I'll be presented with this when I push the "1" button?
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