Great field day near Cemaes

In the middle of another busy week with lecture preparations and marking, we would do the third excursion of our field trip module. I had been there at the first one on Llanddwyn, but skipped the second one to Rhoscolyn. Now we would do Cemaes. That is a lovely trip! Or at least, the geology is lovely. The trip can still be a challenge, of course. But this time the signs were good: the logistics had been organised in advance (unlike last time), and the weather forecast was chilly but otherwise good.

I biked in, and met Dei by one of the vehicles. and it turned out we could actually fit everything into one of them. So we left the other one behind. 

In Cemaes we first went to see a stromatolite. And some clastic rocks with a lot of dykes cutting through. I talked about the stromatolite and Dei about the rest. I had requested one of the earlier outcrops so the students would get the message early on that women have things to say. I remember one time not getting an outcrop until the students were knackered. I didn't like that at all. I am still on that gender representation bandwagon! And I think this time it went well.

Dei talking about a dyke

After that first site we walked to the beach, where we looked at the ‘white lady’ sea stack. And from there to the mélange outside the bay. And then we sat down for lunch. It was a beautiful day, but also a quite cold one, so even though it wasn't very windy we wanted to sit in a sheltered spot. And we did.

This is a beach, honest

Amazing old clasts in a conglomeritic phyllite

After lunch I showed them the much better looking stromatolite, and pointed out the thrust fault in the cliff behind Saint Patrick’s cave. And then we went back to the vehicle.

On the other side of the promontory we left all the talking to Jaco. He showed the students conglomerates plastered against a quartzite. This time we clambered over the cliff, and saw some aspects of the contact between the two lithologies we hadn't seen before. Fascinating! But then, when Jaco was explaining fining-upward sequences, it started to rain a bit. And by then I also think everyone was getting tired. So we went back to the vehicle for the final time.

Notice some pebbles plastered against the quartzite 

Dei and me watching Jaco talk from above

Back in Bangor it was fortunately dry. I managed to bike home without getting rained on too much. I was quite thirsty by then; I had biked in in the morning with two hot flasks of water. I didn't want to bring any more on the bicycle, as that would have required both pannier bags. And I also hadn't wanted to fill water containers in Bangor. And I had figured that if I would still be thirsty I could just refill the flasks in a stream. But there weren't many streams, and I never refilled anything, so when I got home I had literally only drank the content of these two flasks, even though I had left home at 8:45 and was back after 18:00. That's not good for me! So in spite of me drinking my body weight in water after coming home, I spent the whole next day still feeling the dehydration. That is why I sometimes choose to drive on a day like that. In a car you can bring all the water you want!

Dehydration aside, it had been a great day. The weather had been kind, and I felt we all had done our bit in telling the students about the geology. And I don't think anyone was stepping into anybody else's territory. So all in all, a great day!

Not racing

It was only on the Wednesday I decided I definitely wasn’t racing that weekend. I was registered for two races: the Betws Trail Challenge 10k on Saturday, and a torchlight 5k the evening before. When I had run that 3k on the Monday I had had hope I might manage a 5k on the Friday. But although the 3k had felt good, the next day my ankle sure didn’t feel good. I thought I’d go for a 700m loop, but that might still have been too much. I limped the whole way. I figured the next day I would be recovered enough to do that loop without limping. Wrong! 

On the 700m loop

By Thursday I was back to one loop on the parking lot. And on Friday I did another one of those. Quite another scale than a 5k race! And on the Saturday I did two loops. I should build it up gradually. And maybe go back to the physio. I want my running back! And hopefully get back to at least normal-ish in the new year…

Annoying IT issues

One afternoon I was ready to deliver lecture when I noticed it took the computer in the lecture theatre suspiciously long to log me in. That didn't bode well. Then it couldn't get to my desktop. I did have the bar at the bottom, so I could open programs like file explorer and web browsers, but if I clicked on a file, the computer complained it couldn't open it, because it didn't have access to OneDrive. And the browsers would open, but they wouldn't go to any of the websites I needed, like the module website. They were not working. The connection would time out.

I restarted the computer to see if that helped. It didn't! And if I  don't have a working computer I can’t really do my thing. And it was 5 pm, and the helpdesk was already closed. So I didn't really see many options other than tell the students we would have to reschedule. And we all went home!

The day after I had another lecture in the same room, but then everything was ok. I had an email from the helpdesk saying they blamed a fire in a data centre in one of the buildings on campus. That didn't sound very good! But at least the computer worked again.

When I went to the office afterwards though, and tried to log in on the computer there, I had a similar problem. I phoned the helpdesk. This time they were open! And to my surprise, the person I spoke with recommended that I take the power entirely off my computer, and then hold the own button for half a minute. I did that. It felt weird! But lo and behold, when I then switched it back on again it worked fine. And this still seemed to have something to do with that fire in the data centre.

Issues in the office too

The day after that the computer in the office was again not playing ball. I tried the same trick as the previous day again, but this time it didn't work. So phoned the helpdesk again. This time they suggested I fully unplug it. I would surprise if that would make the slightest difference. But I tried it! And it worked.

That was not the end of the problem! I later had some work that vanished from OneDrive, and a file I wanted to save of which my computer said "upload pending", and which made me reluctant shut down my computer when I had to leave. Would that upload then perhaps not happen at all?

I hope that was pretty much it when it comes to the fallout from that fire. But if not, I'll probably write another post! So for now: no news is good news…

Research on marking initiative

Once upon a time, we had a PhD student called Tom, who also worked for a while as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) in our School. He left years ago. But suddenly his name popped up again. He had got in touch because he had a thought for some pedagogical research, and figured we might be willing to team up with him.

What was his idea? He had been wondering about full marks. Here in Britain, you mark out of 100. But what does it take for someone to award the full 100%? And the answer, of course, is "it depends". We have some physical oceanographers here, who sometimes set mathematical assignments, and if the mathematics are correct I assume they award full marks. It's a completely different kettle of fish with something like an essay.

There probably is more to it though. For instance, we have an American colleague, and she was wondering about how we mark. She said that Americans do have a habit of giving marks all the way up to 100%, while here, basically anything above 85% is unusual. So it was said that if you give a British student an 85%, they are crying with happiness, but an American student would be crying with disappointment. So there is more to it than just assessment type. 

This guy, who now works for what I suppose I could explain to a British audience as the Dutch equivalent of a polytechnic in Frisia, had been wondering if there was any literature about this topic. And he found there wasn't. And that gave him the idea that someone should create it. And if not him, then who? But this didn’t sound like a one person job so he reached out to us. 

We are now regularly meeting up (online) to discuss how we will go about this. It’s all still in an early phase. I hope we’ll pull this off! But at least it’s good to think about these things!