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.

Of Internets and Appendixes (by sarah)

And so continuing in the vain of my general bad luck field - I was here on my own with Jean this week from Wednesday when Alaric headed off to London.

I had decided to stay here to try and get stuff done when there was a phone call from my Dad saying Mum had been rushed into hospital with a suspected appendicitis but that she was ok and not to worry - she's in with the surgeon.

Eeek and arg!

I stayed awake waiting for news but eventually fell asleep just after midnight - at some point during the early hours my brother phones me to say that they can't operate on mum as her sugar levels were too high and she'd been put on an insuline drip (she is a type 2 diabetic). He also said there could be complications with all the cancer meds and that she's on so they were waiting for more tests and things to be done.

One thing they did discover however was that she has a huge hernia across the middle of her stomach that has been there since she had David over 20 yrs ago :/ How the hell has that been missed for so long?

Anyway I got up the next day and as always it was absorbed with entertaining Jean which included us learning about the Aztecs and Mayans via Mysterious Cities of Gold and doing lots of glueing and sticking with abit of 'helping' Barbara in the garden.

Barbara wanted me to help with the Goose grass pulling but I had to refuse - I was already in alot of pain from having to deal with the getting Jean dressed and loo stops and getting into bed and being jumped on and I can not risk anymore of a flare up than I have already when in sole charge of Jean. The other thing is that the goose grass pulling definatly acts my shoulder up as we've discovered in previous years and Alaric has actually band me from doing the task - this didn't make telling Barbara who naturally didn't believe me, any easier.

I did however discover that putting a film on for JEan ment that I could have my afternoon nap - but only becuase shes a good girl and I dislike doing it - I look the door so she can't get out and she knows shes not allowed downstairs under pain of no films in future.

Dad phoned to say mum was waiting for a CT scan and that Alaric shouldn't try and come and visit becuase of the way the hospital are being militant about visiting hours :/

I went to blog about the fact mum was in hosptial and lo! No internet - I phone Alaric in a panic and he talks me through things that should work - ie the power connecter to the wireless hub thingy - but I couldn't get the lights to shine on the front of the thing no matter how I wiggled the connector and then stuff with my laptop to try and use the ethernet with the cable - but alas and alack - it turns out my laptop is slightly broken too :/

So no internet which also ment no tweaking of websites, no blogging, no photo sorting, no instant info on things Barbara wants too know, no free communication including video calls with Alaric and no blogging - oh sorry already said that 😉

Also it ment no kitten cam which made me very sad though I did get a kitten pic texted to me 🙂

So I felt stranded and like I really couldn't even attempt to do any work which was frustrating.

Anyway back to mum...

The results show that it wasn't an appendicitis but that she has a pocket in her gut that has developed which traps digestive waste and has become infected - she is still in the hospital being thourally fed up from what dad saids 🙁

I just feel that everytime I resist going to London becuase I'll be on my own here stuff goes wronge - ie internet goes down in one way or another - if Jean's around and if she isn't I get sick sick ick!

If I was paranoid that is...

... you know I think the little green men are stealing the rubbish 😉

Realism and Neck Specialists (by sarah)

Today saw me at the Drs again and we disguessed how things were and I spoke of how I saw things and that I had come to the realisation that I can do stuff and be productive but not in a normal way.

The medical restrictions on me are just too big to be ignored - I tried ignoring them and getting on with things and the result has been the last few months of one medical thing after another.

I said about having just been jumping from one crisis to another without looking at the underlaying problems but that these needed to be addressed or this was just going to carry on.

He agreed and said I was being a lot more realistic than when he first saw me over what is achivable and that thinking in terms of having a 'normal' life is a bad thing to do. I'm just a variation. So I am basically back to pottering around doing me craft stuff as and when I feel like it and trying to look after house and garden.

Mainly I've been making things with Jean and watching films with her though oh and reading the complete works of Winni the Pooh!

The only way I have of controlling the back pain stuff is doing several hours of the physio stuff a day and having hot baths - when you add in the afternoon naps at the moment time starts getting scarce. He prodded and poked my back and made me move my head and stuff and said that he thought that the reason the shoulder surgeon had been so negative about it all is that its not actually a shoulder problem but possibly something to do with my neck.

He thinks I need to be refered to a specialist for MRI scans and stuff but apparently my notes are all in box files up stairs (why on earth they are not in a nice searchable format on the surgerys computers I do not know). He needs to go through all my note (good luck as half of them went missing between London and Gloucestershire) to see what has or hasn't been done.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up that something might actually be done and I might be fixed this time - it only leads to crushing disappointment.

There is the point as well that things that were tested 8-5yrs ago now may not have shown up stuff that has since got worse.

So I am armed with more pain killers and stomache liners and play the waiting game once more - he's even going to chase up the acupuncture they said I could have!

Cheltenham Science Festival 09 (by sarah)

Last year I missed the Science Festival which was a shame as aparently there was a scientific poetry event which would have been right up my street - they didn't appear to be doing that this year (probably due to entry by a graphic gay poet who enjoyed the topic of taboo and writes to shock! It was actually him who told me about the science festival and I am very embarrassed not to recall his name when he has been at several poetry event with me and I think chips in the pub may have occured at some point).

We got into cheltenham and parked close to one of the most bueatiful cars ever - a Ford Mustang!

We then discovered that Aliens had taken over the Town Hall again - these inflatable waving around tubes really excites Jean and we had trouble getting her into the hall past them!

It turned out that we were just in time to catch a circus skills workshop - under 8's had to be accompanied! She loved this and was indignent everytime we wanted to look at something else! She went back three times I think! She wouldn't go on the stilts initially and then I realised that she had bought me over a purple plate to spin and given Daddy all the blue things she could find so I found a pink pair of stilts for her which she loved!

Eventually I remembered how to spin a plate though I couldn't get the diablo to do much nor the devil stick! I realised the last time I had done circus skills properlly I was actually pregnant with Jean! Though very early on 🙂

We bumped into on of our cubs - Holly who was getting wobbly on the monocycle!

Inside there was a large hall full of fun interactive stuff like drum machines and steroscopic viewing of landscapes and many other things! A nice man with piercing spoke to me lots as Jean played with beads and various glasses that cuased optical illusions or made you see as bugs do! Though I think I might have offended him by asking if Gloucester Uni did Science as I'd heard it was only Softy science (then spotted the Gloucester Uni t-shirt!).

For some reason you weren't allowed to take photos in there - I took a sneaky one anyway!

We got icecreams and Jean was very concerned, 'They don't have purple ones I'm afraid mummy, no icecream for mummy! I'm having pink icecream mummy, you pink too?' She didn't quiet get why I wanted green icecream when my favourite colours purple and the concern was quiet touching!

Between goes on the circus skills we found UCL chemists doing some fun things with test tubes, washing powder and zeolite! And hydrophobic sand. Jean wanted to do the test tube stuff but there were too many people there and so we did the sand instead - she didn't want it in her hands but wanted to watch my do the experiment so out went my cupped hands for some sand and then water was added to each hand. One lot of sand was hydrophobic - which as I mentioned it I had to explain what it ment - ie water hating, to the group of kids and perants. Basically one lot of sand mixed with the water and one lot the water just ran off of!

They told me at the end that the sand is basically coated in Scotch guard!

Then to cap the day off we found an ecological arts cornor just beyound the Environment Agency Cafe where the artist and scientist Dr Lizzie Burns was getting people to paint on a large white column with a clay/water mix. It had to be something enviroment/ecology based so Jean painted her tadpoles and I added the pond and then she added her ducks and then the apple tree and then the nesting blue tits and would have carried on forever I think. The Lady running the event was a biologist and makes really cool [molecular earringsand other jewellery}(http://www.molecular-designs.com/), and said she even embroiders ties and things which is so cool! Of course that does mean that another one of mine and Ella's bright ideas has been done whilst we were thinking about it!

There was a guy called Matt with her who was explaining to the children about seeds and trees and how they grow up into trees and stuff - Jean having already grown her own plants from seeds looked at him like he was being a bit silly but then he asked her if she wanted to make seeds out of clay to go in the collection - she earally agreed and chose brown instead of white clay! She was very sad to leave so we had to explain thats why its not a good idea to spend all your time doing one event! ie circus skills!

We got soaked in the rain on the way back to the van and were starving so went on a hunt for chips which resulted in Jean's first ever photography!

Voting (by sarah)

Barbara gave me a lift up to vote - now I'd read the stuff that had been sent through but realised I had decided who I wasn't going to vote for ie all those nasty fascist parties that seem to be creeping out of the wood work but hadn't actually gotten around to deciding who I was going to vote for.

So I had to recall on the spot who has promised what and hope I got it round the right way and feel sad that no one actually represents what I want - there is no one I agree with entirely so have to go for close as without being scary - this does not strike as a partically good way of running things but never mind - at least I got to vote and used the right people died to give me.

I would also like to point out that going up in Mag (the sunshine yellow MG convertable) with Barbara felt I was risking life and limb as she doesn't wait for you to strap in ectera!