Science-Art (by sarah)

I have set up a Science-Art website which is specifically designed to deal with things like my paleo-art and space man picture, not too mention Cloud Computing and my sci-tech poetry and world building stuff.

It will have regular articals/ posts and be where I collect together the pictures, sculpture and the like that is to do with science.

Check it out at:

http://www.science-art.co.uk/

The Glass Pelvis (by sarah)

Through my tears and the creation of a dark transient poem I have hit upon the concept of writing a self-help/how to survive book on chronic pain and truma during and pregnancy, child birth and the after math. It would be called the Glass Pelvis. Arrogant? Probably - something that's needed definatly.

I slipped over yesterday which would have been pain full for anyone as pregnant as me but with the seperated pelvis - I could not speak for the tears of pain. This have been quiet bad pain wise as I have had a mini pain flare up with my left arm anyway which sucks as it has ment no proper writing and no guitar practice for about a week now.

Chronic pain has many books on it - but seperated pelvises are relatively new thing in medicine. A great increase has been seen in the last ten years - I have my theories on this involving modern live style and gyms not getting to the right areas that women need strengthened and modern diet with it's additives and loss of various things like sea food.

You see I am on the crutches and it is an issue but I am not anywhere near the state I was in with Jeany and looking at how things like gestational diebetes come about I feel that management of such conditions as the 'broken pelvis' are important. Especially as it can lead to complications and more truma for both mother and child.

Now there was nothing avalible for me when I had Jean and everybody seemed quiet confused over the whole thing. I have been told this time round that even the physios are now giving up with the condition.

So I want to share what I went through, to aliviate some of the isolation that mothers in this sort of position suffer. Of course I also had lots of other things from the miscarriage stuff, to the blood clots to the pre-clampsia and pregnancy induced hyper tension. Even being in the hospital when the bombs went off in London. I think with research and checking with medical people I could produce a good guide to mother who don't have it easy.

Separeted Pelvis is termed symphysis pubis dysfunction or SPD and having seen the result of being not allowed out of bed with Jean's pregnancy (due to blood clots and what not!) I have been desperate to keep my mobility up what ever the pain levels (once I'd checked that there was no danger of baby popping out!). I have interesting comparisions but then this pregnancy has been managed much better - the only issue is that a) the pelvic pain never completely went away from Jeany and b) due to issues I've had I've had a body pumped full of pregnancy hormones on some level for well over a year now meaning that the pelvis has been far more mobile than expected.

The truth is that I didn't now that I would end up on crutches again before the baby was born - becuase I was bed and wheel chair for the last half of Jean's pregnancy the pelvic issues were only found after the birth and was told that it was from the childbirth because of an old back injury and a large baby but they have said this is wrong and it is the hormone levels and stuff. This was a bit of a blow for us but hey I can still walk (with crutches) in the week when my baby is due!

I think the main issue with producing such a book will be that I don't know what a 'normal' pregnancy and labour is like. And even the c-section is going to be interesting on the recovery side of things due to walking with crutches etc...

My mood is fragile at the moment due to the pain I'm in but what is actually concerning me is that after Jean was born I was bunged in a side room at Harold Wood with no one to talk too and depending on shifts was not even given water to drink! (resulting in dehydration and my milk drying up and me then having to suppliment and work hard at getting the milk back again!). People have said it's not like that here but the fear of hospitals is still nagging at me - I am concerned as to what is going to happen to my mood when I get the post birth hormone crash and a hospital stay. I'm hoping that I will just know how to cope with it better this time.

So in some ways I think this is going to be a self help project as well.

Wearable computers (by alaric)

One of my too many projects is to make a wearable computer.

Lots of people are interested in making wearables, but nobody's yet come up with one that hits a "sweet spot" of decent functionality along with it being unobtrusive enough to not be a pain.

Well, I'm a nerd, so I'm far happier to put up with obtrusiveness to get my pervasive cognitive-assistance fix... I've been fascinated by pervasive computers since I was a kid; I read about Steve Roberts' recumbent bicycle as a youngster, as well as plenty of fiction about brain implants and the like.

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A Recipe for Riot (by sarah)

1. Take one apathetic, peaceful, book-loving student body intent on learning

2. Tenderise with cuts and broken promises

3. Optionally add agent provocateur/thug type - this speeds the reaction but is not necessary due to using the kettling technique - guaranteed to bring anyone to a slow violent boil

4. Sprinkle in a portion of police - ill-equipped and vulnerable causing the trigger happy reactions that seem justified - adds flavour

5. Leave to simmer with the odd bit of bait/sacrificial target to get the crowd proving

6. Knead in naive youth quick to follow the flow - after it swells to double the size - bash it down

7. Season with paparazzi to bring out the 'incite to violence for the perfect photo' flavour

8. Add a match and Voila! The Social Flambe - Riot

9. Garnish by only reporting the juciest politically-approved bits to the general public

10. Serve piping hot and full of bias and lies

Astrobiology Blues (by sarah)

So as many people know I wanted to be an astrobiologist and I got quiet close and then a combo of things got in the way - the main one was not actually Jeany but rather the health complications before, during and after the pregnancy. I tried to go back when Jeany started pre-school but again this ended in disastor both financially and again medically. It then became clear that there was no way even if I sorted out the instant issue of me having to pay 'top-up' fees and took another break to completely recover, I still couldn't do it due to Alaric's job and Jeany care.

At the time my mother was going through her second lot of cancer treatment and a few other issues had popped up. I had reached the glass ceiling - I had reached it probably as soon as I got pregnant with Jean but was still determined - now the decission was clear - family verses career.

And so I stopped kidding myself that I was on a 'break' from science and faced up to facts. It didn't help that I was failing at being a web-designer at the same time - a career I had thought should bring in money and be doable from home - except.. except people still expect you to turn up to meetings and things and then I was just shunted to the side by people offering shoddy but cheap web-development and I ran into people assuming I can't do things 'properlly' cos I'm female - I'm sorry but I did get this several times. So travel and child care for no contracts = FAIL. Add in clients refusing to pay for months and it was another no go.

And so before I am 30 years old I am basically on my 3rd career and not with nice financial boosters from the previous ones :/ But rather stupid amounts of debt.

But I thought I'd got over all of this - thought I was being happy with what I am building - having sold a painting, having stories accepted, getting poems short listed etc... I'd even stopped crying everytime I looked at my minerallogy texts books and started reading the texts I'd gotten to help me become a good Astrobiologist. I had and have for a long time had some vague notion of being able to write popular science books - to bring it to the public and when I run the Scouts I spent ages making up projects for their science and astronomy badges etc.. both scientific and craft (like loo roll hubble which I really need to put the how-to instructions up for!).

But I get told - you can't do that unless you are part of the science world. I have also got an issue in not having access to the journals I want nor could I even contemplate a subscription. I don't think I can belong to alot of the groups as you have to be put forward by peers which I now do not have and those I did have either forgotten me or are peeved that I let things get in the way.

And so my science - all that hard work is generally used for what? Advising the odd writer on how to build aliens and alien worlds convincingly, similar with gaming both role playing and computer games and my tentative steps into things like the paleo-art. Most of the time I convince myself that this is all fine - that this is me still being part of the science world. My science/tech poetry etc... the same.

But then there is an announcement about NASA and astrobiology and a deep depression feels me. I wanted to ignore it - after all what was I going to get if I even tried looking into this? Pain over being excluded from the actual scientific community, of not having access to papers nor people to chat about them over coffee or my standard pint of OJ in the bar. No debates, just my mum looking at me slightly blank and my little girl drawing me pictures of 'germs' to cheer me up.

So I tried to ignore it - thinking how stupid it was that I was crying over not being a scientist and putting it down to this lot of pregnancy hornmones.

And then some how from this I found myself scouring the net for any info and finding just how much the general public had got their knickers in a twist with info that was being reported wrong and that there was going to be a press conference live from NASA.

So I rearranged the family evening to watch it and snapped at my family that no they couldn't have my laptop and then spent this morning writing about it on my rarely updated Astronomy blog. This made me feel better - but I still haven't got the paper to read :/ And I'm not even sure why I took notes of the press conference and why I had to write about it.

Part of it was a friend telling me Carl Sagan would be sad if he knew I was hiding from science because I can be active in it. Alaric keeps telling me it's not too late for my science career but really it is. And I have to think like that or I will just be 'waiting' to do real things and miss out on my lovely family. I'm also generally being moppy at the moment - I am stuck - I have a sprained wrist and there is ice so going out even with crutches, even with car is not happening, writing and art are at a minimium and guitar and drums completely out.

I'm afraid I have the Astrobiology Blues and a case of the green eyes of research envy (put it this way I planned an experiment during GCSE biology to try and force microbes to use Si instead of C my reasoning was that they could both form chains and sheets and things - I was going on valencies - I wasn't allowed to run the experiment as it would take to long and be too expensive!).

There isn't really a point to this post by the way - it's just another - this is how I'm feeling.