Rebooting Me (by sarah)

So I have done what the Dr suggested and then thanks to responses to my other posts i.e. this one, this one and this one have no reached a situation were I can again see a future for me.

One; that involves me going with the flow of my life and not fighting against things so much. Saying - yeah ok I do actually need to do 3-4 hours of physio during the day and long hot baths to keep things under control with my back. And this goes with the science and business stuff too.

For a long time I have supressed, ignored or ridiculed my artistic self - just stuff to entertain Jean or just a way of being able to afford gifts for people. I had to choose between art and science at A'levels though I kept a toe hold with the creative writing short course.

I chose science - I chose A'levels when I could have been off to St Martins to do a Foundation course - I do and don't regret this decission. At the end of the day I have a 2:1 from Imperial College and I worked hard to get it and learnt skills that have fed into many other areas of my life. I don't think I can even be pure art in the same why I could never be a pure scientist am both.

This is my issue - I love geology and rocks and people who understand what I'm talking about if I start spouting geology terms.

And I have been assessing what I actually want out of science - what is my altermate goal?

I realised in the autum that I want to communicate science - I want to build bridges - I am not a lab monkey. But I didn't realise lab monkeys existed until I tried to go back to science. I found that during my course I loved the lectures and I adored writing the two essays on science subjects I hadn't seen before and joining it all together, pooling the knowledge that was spread out amoungst all those journals all those papers - seeing connections that others had not noticed - suggesting things to try from other branches of my knowlegde for ecology stuff and so on.

I want to write popular science and show kids that science is fun. I want to learn new things and make links that might well be lost. In a Stephen Lawhead book (can't remember what it was called but it involved Hindu gods, dreaming and Mars) they actually had a position in academia called a Bridge - a person whos job was to know a little bit about everything - to talk to people and see where the needs were and have the ability to see what connections between subjects or people needed to be made.

This is sort of I supposes Holistic stuff for science and society - looking at how it all fits together - if you are focused on one area you can't see that the answer you need is over there in the humanities departement.

I have a depressing tale where this would have been a very valuable person to have around.

At an EANA conference just before Jean came into the picture (I wont say she wasnt there becuase she was! Just!) I heard the sad tale of money time and effort and we are talking alot of money and lot of time (years) that some people spent on designing a special drill for sample return missions.

When the person I was talking too looked at what they had done he noticed that they had from first principles designed exactly the sort of thing the oil industry has been using for decades. How could this have happened?

The research group where all physists - they didn't even think to look at the mining and oil industries - it didn't occure to them that those industries had to take samples under hard conditions.

Academia at least is getting a bit better with this but only becuase inderviduals have decided to have lateral careers - ie they move from Chemistry to Physics or from Medicine to Geology and so one.

I ask myself why do I want a PhD and they answer seems to be - so that people will actually take my science writing seriously. But to do a PhD you have to be passionate about one topic, or slice of topic and be focused on that alone for 3-4 yrs. Now I still want a PhD to have tasted the science world beyound where I am now but I can't cope with doing it part time whilst trying to do everything else so I think it is going to have to wait until I am older and yes this means I am probably giving up the shining career I have gilmpsed from time to time, for the family life but hey what else am I going to do with my retirement 😉

In the mean time there is the webstuff, my blogs and art I can do in my own time at home - hopefully moving forward.

Art and writing is not just something I do to fill the time - and so I am awaiting a book of free poems becuase I happen to be one of the poets and I am going to send off more - now that I have started to have things accepted - its taken me what? 3 years from when I started submitting to things again - I have to confess I got disheartened and tend to do rashes of sending stuff off!

If I can raise the money I may go for the Craftsmen Guild - they get your stuff displayed and only demand you steward a few exhibates for a few days a year - I think I could handle that - but there would be prep work so its a maybe at the mo - I would have to get a portfolio of crafts stuff put together which would take some time I think. Plus I would like to get the dragon case mod finished before I start down that sort of root.

The writing is still all ticking away there and will continue to do so - but where does this leave the science and my course?

I'm not sure if college will agree to this but I want to drop down to the one year course and get a diplomer in reseach and so that at some point in the future I can go for a full time PhD (way in the future this is at the moment).

I want to do my pacing (part of the pain management) with 1/2 of sitting down doing computer stuff ie writing or websites and 1/2 up and at them with sorting the house and Jean out etc...

This has been working well the last few weeks though obviously pacing is far harder to actually do with Jean about.

School! (by sarah)

Jeany will be starting school in September at 4 and a few days old and last night was an open evening at the school.

We went there straight from the Pre-School which ment we had a tired grumpy Jean with us - not how I would have chosen the teachers to see her but never mind.

School day will start at 8:45 and ends at 3 but for the first term (might have been half term can't remember!) she will only be doing mornings and then they disguess with you about them going full time. This was a bit of a shock I thought she was going to be full time from the start - she does 9-5:45 at the nursery currently and yes that would be too much if she was doing that every day as it does make her tired but half days! that means no lunch time there either 🙁 That means that I will not have time to do anything really for that first term.

There is also no school dinner facilities there so its going to be packed lunches which is a pain in the backside as I know what I am like and sandwitches made the night and kept in the fridge are just not very nice :/

But I was impressed with the learning programme they have and went a bit - opps... as I've been doing one of the things with her anyway. For a small school it has fantastic facilities and even takes the infant class swimming! They are in 'clusters' with other schools so get to use those facilities too!

Teachers and staff seemed really friendly and I appear to know half the PTA!

July will see Jean going in for three taster afternoons which should be fun for her.

The teaching techniques are also the sort that I approve off for small children - they have themes like under the sea and animals and learning in about exploring. The litracy stuff also caters for dyslexic learners without being apparent I noticed and as each child is treated as an individual learner for those subjects this is a good thing.

They do lots of nature walks and group work too so I am hopeful that Jean will have a good time at school.

Hopscotch Poem (by sarah)

I was so fuming after the post the other day that I found myself expressing the stupidness in poem form.

Feed back welcome!

It's called Hopscotch in case you were wondering:

Here's some chalk

Now go and play

Hopscotch was fun, in my day

A small child smiles up at his mum

Then runs outside in the sun

And begins to draw

the hopscotch grid

When out pops his friend - Sid

Then there's Jane, Marther, Mary and May

They've all come outside to play

Throwing stones

to mark their place

the hopscotch moves on a pace

until that is...

sirens rent the sky

And two burly police

come to spy

And tell them that their game's a fraud

Hopscotch - it turns out

is against the law!

And so with tears

they must scrub away

Chalk with which they should play

Stupidity in huge great measure

Stealing away childhood treasure

Whilst prisons burst at the seams

Police down size crimes - to please...

Those Powers That Be

So that they can get more votes

Seizing the UK securely by the throat

Sweeping troubles under the rug

By proclaiming a 5 yr old - THUG

And so without childhood games

I predict arson flames

as our youth grows in discontent

Violence shows as angers vent

So please - I beg

Government Sir!

Why not let childhood naturally unfurl?

And all those games of yester-year

be played in our streets

without fear

Diverticulitis (by sarah)

Mum came out of hospital about this evening and it turns out that though she may well have a 'grumbling' appendix the CT scan showed that she has Diverticulitis which is were pockets and pouches form in the gut where there is pressure on the system.

These get filled with erm.. 'stuff' you find in your intestines - ie half digested food and poo. It then becomes infected and inflamed. Interestingly it normally occurs in the sigmoid colon in Europeans but mum has it where Asians and Africians get it - were it is mistaken for appendicitis!

It says that it is cuased by a lack of fibre in the diet but mum drives us all potty with her insistance of eating Brassicas all the time (stinking the house out!) so I'm not really sure how she is going to increase fibre intake - dad already adds bran to her porrage - maybe he will finally get his way and get her to eat brown bread?

Anyway they are not going to opperate but will do if it comes back - they said that she also has the grumbling appendix but again they don't opperate for it grumbling and they wont touch the hernia either - mainly due to the risks of surgery and the anasthetic.

Still she is out - on yet another lot of antibiotics - I am starting to get worried that they will run out of ones they can give her - these are broad spectrum again - she must have bacteria resistant to alot of antibiotics in her system by this point which with super bugs infecting her surgery wounds and the cellulitis etc...

So fingers crossed its all ok anyway.

Hopscotch (by sarah)

I found some chunky chalks for a pound in Stoud and bought them to draw hopscotch for Jean along the drive.

This was a resounding success - she loves it though she doesn't entirely get the games you can play. Of course this was before The Rains that visited upon us the last week or so but is is now drawn back on in pink this time.

I got Jean to pick which colours to draw the outline in and then we did different colours for odd and even numbers - interestingly she pointed out that I was colouring the 1 of 10 the wrong colour as its an odd number - this took some explaining and I don't think so go it but I was impressed that she recognised a one to be quiet honest.

We took some of my nice ornimental pebbles from off of the rainbow/space garden I made last year and used them as our markers - mainly Jean just threw stones onto (or at least attempted too) the hopscotch.

When Ted the Taxi Man and Mary came to visit they were impressed with the hopscotch and said that your not allowed to play it on the streets anymore - that it counts as criminal damage and two kids have recently been fined! That is quiet frankly rediculous - please I thought tell me its a joke or scare mongering...

So did a google search:

This one was in 2007 and involves the perants being told off for allowing the children to play in the streets - even though they were obviously keeping an eye on what was happening other wise they wouldn't have noticed the police :/

Now its not so much the police over reacting as they were doing there job - and they say once they realised what it was they knew it wasn't criminal damage as it was chalk and therefore not perminant - but why did the neighbour report it in the first place?

Can't they kids playing from thugs? This lot weren't even teenagers just littlys 🙁

This one on the other hang is quiet scary - did they really arrest a 12 yr old and put her in a cell for hopscotch?

People complain that kids are playing innocent games and are vandalising the street like they are not citizens of this country too and don't deserve to be allowed use of the facilities - a pavement is a facility provided by the council for goodness sake. Something is very very broken when hope scotch is band! Griffiti - really?

Both these reports are from a few years ago and I couldn't find any mention of the local incident where the kids were reputedly fined like £80 i think Ted said it was in Cotwold Life Magizine or something like that - if anybody could shed more light on this I would appreciate it.

If I had lived in a street I probably would have been sitting outside with Jean chalking the hopscotch onto the pavement - would I have then been made to scrub it off as Jean is under 10?

Chalk washes away for goodness sakes - when we played in the street there wasn't chalk in ready supply and the kids including me used to scrape the hopscotches onto the pavement with stones - no-one ever complained and I remember the police man who did live down our street giving us chalk so we wouldn't damage things.

People moan about teenagers and even kids doing actual criminal things but if we wont let them do the kid things then what do people actually expect to happen.

Plus we are breeding discontent in the youngster and how are they suppose to respect the police when the police are telling them off for playing hopscotch?

I try not to go on about politacal things too much but I'm mean really - how can we live in a society like this? A society that bans children from being children - they are kids not minni adults - they know more than previous generations it is true but they are still kids and they need to explore the world through play.

They need to be part of a society not seperate from it and if they are not allowed to at least interact with each other and learn how to be part of a social group then we are heading for trouble. I see this building on many sides with age ghettotization springing up - single mothers on the council estate and rich olds in retirement villages many of whom have never had proper social interaction with children.

We are human we are disigned to live in communitees with all ages mixed in together - seperating people into groups always leads to trouble or is this another case of use not learning from the past?

Sarah takes a deep breath and walks away from the computer muttering