In which Anne is allowed to keep her house

Small bit of good news! I spoke to my landlady Ellen today and she says she's fine with me keeping the house till December. YAY!!! I love my little house. I will, however, probably have to get a housemate. There isn't much room for one, but if I'm only working half-time for Jane I should probably make an effort to save money where I can. An Australian student is coming to work with Jane for three months, and it sounds like she might be interested in sharing. The timing would work out perfectly, anyway. And I would get a whole month (August) of house-to-myself first.

I went on a long LONG walk all the way around the Penrhyn Castle grounds and then back along the shoreline on the weekend. We checked on a map with a bit of string, and it was between 7 and 8 miles round-trip (between 12 and 13 km). However, I think I will try to download the photos and do a proper entry with photographs, which is a feature of Blogger that I don't take advantage of nearly enough. Coming soon! (maybe.)

I did promise to post the entry I started right after having got back from Canada, and then I looked at it and it's not interesting at all. But anyway:

"Sooooo tired - but back safely in Wales. And after an unusually pleasant trip, even. I was expecting the worst, as I had to take the 8am bus from Red Deer to the Calgary airport.... for a 5pm flight. However, hanging out in the airport for seven hours wasn't too bad, although the flight was further delayed due to lightning. But in the end we got into the air, and then the stroke of luck - the old lady with the 15 gold chunks of jewelry in the seat beside me (originally from Liverpool, by the accent and the orange skin tone) moved into an empty row of seats an hour into the flight, leaving me with two seats to stretch out on. But not before whipping out a needle and, without a word of warning, stabbing herself in the stomach. I assume it was insulin and it didn't really bother me, but I can only think what the effect would be if I had happened to have a needle phobia!

I still can't sleep on planes, but at least with room to stretch my legs out it was much more bearable. And the food wasn't burnt this time. Must learn to count my blessings.

Had such a great couple of weeks in Canada and not that thrilled to be back. Thandi's in South Africa, the fencers are all gone for the summer and even my lab will be empty. Think it might be a quiet summer. "

Affordances

I would just like to note how annoying it is that often I can be perfectly good at analyzing things - breaking ideas down logically, figuring out how machines work, and all that sort of thing. But then when confronted with the simplest objects I will be totally clueless. And it usually has to do with affordances.

I'm talking about the second Wiki definition - an affordance tells you how to use something, basically. If you see a handle, you know to grasp it. If you see a door with a horizontal bar, it's easy to know you should push it in, rather than (say) pulling on it or trying to twist it. One way of telling if something's a good design is by whether it has good affordances - you can tell by looking at it what you should do with it (even if it's totally new). Like the little wheely thing on iPods - circling your finger around it is obvious and makes immediate sense.

Anyway. I have great trouble, it would seem, with objects that lack good affordance. I couldn't make tea in the lab for months because I couldn't seem to turn the electric kettle on. I'm not kidding. I had to text Helena and ask if it was broken. (As my dad would say, "HOW much education does it take?!") In the end it turned out that you have to press the little lever up to turn it on, instead of down like every other kettle I've ever used. Somehow this totally baffled me. Is this how people become absent-minded professors?

And then yesterday I had to get my mate Lola to show me how to lock my back door. It's been unlocked for days because I couldn't figure it out. (Don't worry, my "garden" is about three feet deep, walled on all sides and looks out onto other peoples' gardens, so it would be very difficult to be burgled from that side, even given an unlocked door). Turns out you have to pull the door handle up while turning the key. Why does everyone else seem to know this?! It was a complete surprise to me. Now I'm wondering if I'm just really bad at common household objects and what is an obvious affordance to everyone else in the universe is totally baffling to me. Sigh.

The only solution is to become very rich and employ someone to make the tea and lock up from now on :)

Grade Grubber

I got my grades back... looking good! (er, if I do say so myself). Fairly pleased with all my marks except stupid Stats. The exam was very difficult indeed and I dropped two letter grades (!) from the midterms. Not cool. I've decided not to bother contesting it or following it up... if I do well on my dissertation I will do well overall, and I've already got my PhD funding. So no point in quibbling now. Man, though, if stats hadn't mucked it up I'd be gunning for straight As. Even Cognition and Brain, the worst class I've had since, er,... Cognitive Psychology in undergrad (how ironic is it that I've decided I like cognitive neuroscience? I've always detested the lectures) came out all right in the end, as I surprised myself by doing relatively well in the final. (The confusing, misspelled, badly-written final). Maybe they dropped some questions!

Bangor's kind of nice with all the undergrads gone. The other day I had a 20-minute conversation with a nice man called Bill who appears to love people and be desperately bored. (He told me he's 78). All the shop assistants are a lot nicer now too. Such a strange town - it's like two different places when school's in and when it's out. I'm enjoying the out, but will be very, very happy to see my fencers again.

Ooh, and last but definitely not least - my mate Jo got a job! She'd applied for loads and finally got an interview in London. However, she was nervous about interviewing so I sat down with her on Monday and spent hours going over E-Prime (experiment-writing program) and giving her mock interview questions. She's got all the qualifications but tended to answer questions with one word and not really sell herself... so we worked on that, she went down to London, ACED THE INTERVIEW and got the job! I am so pleased. It's a six-month post as a research assistant on a project with alcoholics, just the sort of thing Jo will shine at and useful experience. Yay!

Things I learned this week

The guitar shop in Bangor is called Bron-yr-Aur, which is also the name of a Led Zepplin song (Bron-y-Aur Stomp), although the song is misspelled. It also means "Breast of Gold" in Welsh. I have all this information reliably from my mate Lee from Rhyl, although he did contest my opinion that this means the Welsh are obsessed with breasts (he seems to think it refers to golden hills. I have my doubts).

Bangor was bombed once during the war. Only one person died. Due to the fact that no one really wanted to bomb North Wales (go figure!), the BBC moved all its operations up here for the duration of the war. I learned this from Phoebe, who is cool. She is one of the women that comes to my friend Jo's coffee morning she runs in conjunction with a charity called Contact the Elderly. I'd been meaning to go for months but never quite managed it, and now I'm so glad I finally did. The guy who died in the bomb was a taxi driver, and a friend of Phoebe's.

Jo's coffee morning runs once a month on a Sunday, and it's a great idea. Contact the Elderly pays for a taxi to get the women there, and then they hold a raffle (a pound each to get in on it) that generally covers the cost of tea and cakes for the next month's event, plus raffle prizes. The prizes this week were: two china cats*, a packet of biscuits, a packet of chocolate biscuits, a bag of potpourri, and a can of soup. All the ladies who won were thrilled to win, and quite happily carried home their cans of soup saying things like, "Wow, I usually never win anything!" It was really sweet actually. I get the impression some of them are REALLY bored, especially Phoebe, who lives five miles out of Bangor by herself, can't afford a taxi in, and spends all day watching TV. Jo and I are trying to scheme a way to either go visit (if Contact the Elderly thinks it's ethical) or get her out more. Imagine being stuck inside all day by yourself - EVERY DAY! yuck. Everyone else in the village works elsewhere (there's only about 12 houses) so she is really stuck for companionship.

I think next month I might try to convince Old John from fencing to come be a guest lecturer. He is our 78-year-old fencer, but he is also an expert in archeology and classics. I have had some fascinating conversations with him at the pub after fencing and am dying to hear him give a talk, so if he agrees to do it for free this might be an ideal opportunity. Plus the ladies would probably be interested. Plus he speaks Welsh, and as about half of them are Welsh speakers and the volunteers are all English, it might be nice for them to have someone else to converse with in Welsh.

Have to say I really admire Jo for starting this group. It seems like a really positive thing! And a great way to get a cup of tea, a biscuit and some interesting stories.

And finally, I've learned that fencing TOOK UP A BIG PART OF MY LIFE! Are you surprised? But I have to say, I feel kind of adrift without somewhere I'm supposed to be three evenings a week. And my fitness level has really shown the difference. So I've decided I need to try something else. Aonghus says there's karate and they teach beginners... as long as it's not expensive I might give it a go. Besides, Kevanne the fencing women's captain is a black belt in karate (at the age of 21, sigh) and you can really see how it helps her fencing. Couldn't hurt, anyway!

Had a post somewhere about the trip back from Canada. If I can find it I'll post it (out of order, but at the rate I post nothing is news anyway!) Think it's on my laptop. Anyway, the trip was amazing and I'm so glad I went. The houseboat was glorious, of course, and I got to see all my family and a good portion of my friends. Also (in the less fun category) got a lot of admin done: sorted out my RRSPs, did my taxes, sold Mabel. Nothing in Bangor had changed when I got back, and mom said my visit was like a dream. At least she didn't say nightmare...

My supervisor has wandered off to France for two weeks, but before she left she dumped a project in my lap. Luckily it's not mine alone (a postdoc called Madge is actually in charge of it). I should get a couple hours pay a week out of it - I hope - and Madge is a down-to-earth Scot who I immediately got on with and who seems very with it. So while the project may or may not go well, at least I get to work with someone cool! all good...



* The most hilarious moment of the coffee event was when a blind lady called Ruby won the raffle prize of the china cat. She obviously couldn't see her prize, so she was sitting there saying, "Oh, let me touch the pussy! I need to have a feel of the pussy!" while Jo and I stared at the ground so as not to catch each others' eye and burst into hysterical laughter.

when lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed

Things I missed about Alberta: lilacs. Perogies. That accent. The big huge sky. Cars that stop and wait patiently for you to cross the street.

How come I never realized that there are no lilacs in Wales?

Of course the main thing is the people. It’s been great seeing everyone. I spent yesterday sitting on patios with people whose company I enjoy. Life is good.

The trip over was long but kind of hilarious. The plane was furnished with the usual orange flight attendant (only one orange one this time) with peroxide-white hair. However, I was also sat next to the most hilarious possible seatmate – a Geordie who was at least six pints down and hadn’t slept in 24 hours. He started off the flight in fine form by doing an increasingly jiggly dance in his seat as the plane waited to take off. Finally, with six pints straining at his bladder, he could stand it no longer and made a dash for the loo… just as we began taxiing down the runway. A series of increasingly stern messages was broadcast over the intercom: “Passengers are reminded that the fasten-seatbelt sign is on…” Eventually they caught him and frog-marched him back to his seat. As soon as the plane was in the air, he was off like a rocket, running back down the aisle toward the toilet.

By about Hour Three he had hit the sentimental stage, and was telling me (actually quite touching) stories about his “wee bairn” who got leukemia at only three years old. Eventually he went back to listening to music and I was half-watching the film (Dumb and Dumber, inexplicably) when he leaned over and poked me and whispered something about the toilet. I looked back, and sure enough the flight attendants were gathered around the back loo. Turns out he had been caught smoking (!). Sure enough, the stern announcement came over the intercom: “Passengers are reminded that the toilets are fitted with sensitive smoke alarms… passengers caught smoking may be removed from the flight, have their passports confiscated and may be refused passage on the airline”. Then one of the stewards came marching down the aisle with a long legal document and read it (ALL of it) out to him. He seemed very contrite. He wasn’t a bad guy, just a drunken dumbass.

Once off the plane, things got far more annoying. It is always my nightmare that my luggage won’t arrive, and this time it came true. There were only about twelve bags with Vancouver tags left on the luggage thingy, and my bag had not appeared. (The plane was to fly onwards to Vancouver after dropping us in Calgary). Several large scary Aunt Agatha-style Englishwomen were in the same boat. We went and badgered an airport employee, and it transpired that they had accidentally unloaded some Vancouver bags and left the same number of Calgary bags on the plane. They loaded the Vancouver bags back on – and then took off with our luggage! Turns out there was a Globespan executive on the plane, who told them to IGNORE US AND FLY OFF TO VANCOUVER WITH

Anyway, I got a trip to Tim Hortons and a new dress (two, actually!) at Winners courtesy of Mom, so I wasn’t as upset as I might have been.

The high school reunion was weird. Loads of people have barely changed. They nearly all have kids, though. I was told that I have changed completely, that I never used to wear dresses, that I should be in jeans and a t-shirt (thanks Jonathan), that I have an accent, that I don’t have an accent, and that I’m way more outgoing now than previously. Looking at the little slide-show of high school life… I HOPE I’ve changed! There were a couple of extremely cool people to hang out with, though, and some interesting conversation was had. Better than the first half, which was all, “Sooooo…. What have you been up to for the last ten years?”

Have spent the last week in Rocky and Edmonton. Rocky was mostly sorting out my affairs (the financial kind, not the interesting kind) and have been having a slow start in Edmonton as I always forget to warn people in advance that I’m turning up. But there is a dance tonight and a tea party tomorrow, so should get to see a fair few people.

all work and no play

Have only been updating when fun things are happening, so thought I ought to drop by to mention that it's been 13-HOUR DAYS ALL WEEK! (Er, except for Tuesday, which was 3 hours work and many more hours on the beach with the fencers). We are giving our final thesis presentations tomorrow and we're all stressed.

My stress is compounded somewhat by the fact that I only sorted out my results, er... today. Had a pile of data and no idea what to do with it, and the supervisor's been off gallivanting lately. But Jen the PhD student came to my rescue yesterday. We spent 4.5 hours looking at it last night, with an additional four or so hours this morning. This is merely a drop in the data-analysis bucket, but I am so grateful it is done. And.... it was kind of fun! We are both nerdy nerdy nerds and both extremely curious to see what would come out, so the time flew by. Dear lord. I have been forgetting to eat and everything! PhD studenthood, here I come.

Have also been chairing 3rd-year undergraduate presentations (and marking them). This was more fun than it sounded, plus ten quid a go, so I've done a lot of them this week. But perhaps I need to learn to say no...

The fencing beach BBQ was awesome, though. Proper British seaside fun. The fencers are all leaving this week and I'm going to miss them horribly....

Summer Ball baby!

I finished my last final exam on Friday afternoon. It was horrible (confusingly written, badly spelled and the "multiple choice" section included random short answer questions. And they accidentally printed the answers to one of the questions on the exam. "Excuse me, it says to draw a diagram, but there's a diagram already there!" "Oh! Er... maybe just don't answer that one." "Maybe you should tell the rest of the students?" "Oh! Right. Er, do you know where your colleagues are?" ). (oh yeah, and the lectures were given by two lecturers. However, only one was there at any given time. I asked one to clarify a definition, and she told me, "Hmmm, I don't know what that means. It was Martin's question. Just answer it as best you can." Yikes!)

Ooops, that was a longer rant than I intended. It really was a horrific exam, though, to cap off a really rotten module.

ANYWAY. Point being: the weekend was free! And man was it fun. Friday night one of the cute li'l fencers cooked me dinner. Saturday was the last fencing session of the year (sob) but it was a good one - I finally seem to have got the hang of timing my lunges properly and did really well in all my bouts. Very depressing that this didn't happen until just about too late - it's only been in the last month that I've gotten past my plateau - but at least it DID happen and I now feel like I can hold my own.

Saturday night was the Summer Ball, which is sort of a Brit equivalent of the prom, only more so. They cordoned off the Main Arts complex (the old and pretty bit of the uni) and had several marquees, bands, a disco ball, and a FERRIS WHEEL! The evening starts at 9pm and ends at 5am. Everyone gets dressed up - like REALLY dressed up, we're talking ball gowns - and it's actually really cool. It was expensive, but I reckoned it was my only chance to check it out, so in the end I decided to go. I didn't have much time to throw together an outfit after fencing, but I gave it my best shot and the end result did not look out of place.

The ball was a spectacle. I think it was worth the entry cost just to see the sheer number and variety of frocks! (The men in kilts did not hurt matters either). There was a free casino, several bands (Athlete, the Fab Beatles and the Cuban Brothers), a couple of cocktail bars and that sort of thing and the ferris wheel. The best part, however, was being declared a VIP. I was hanging out with some of the fencers, one of whom has political aspirations and is mates with the AU (Athletics Union) president. Somehow the AU president ended up producing VIP passes for me and the other fencer. This allowed us into the VIP tent and to sit in the balcony of the hall where the bands were playing. It was great - swanning my way past the massive bouncer, flashing my VIP pass. The balcony had seating (carved benches covered with red velvet, naturally) and a great view of the stage.

I did manage to stay till the very end. We danced to the Beatles tribute band until 5 am, at which point we were booted out to full daylight. Heck of a night, though.