18 March 2024

Renewed family links

Every year, we have a family reunion with all family from my father’s side. I try to make it; it’s special to spend time with people you have either known your entire life, or their entire lives. But I don’t only have a father, of course. What about my mother’s side of the family?

That family meets every year as well. It’s a bigger group; my dad has only two siblings, while my mother has eight. I remember attending these meetings as a child. And I once went as a teenager. But my mother herself hasn’t been going since my childhood, and then you get into the habit of not going yourself. And when you don’t go, you lose connection. So hence that you won’t find a report of such a family gathering on this blog. 

Then my sister phoned, and said she had connected with a cousin of that side on LinkedIn. And that had lead to them, plus an additional cousin, going for lunch. They all live fairly close together. That helps! 

I had told my sister that I was interested in jumping on the bandwagon, and not much later, I got an invite from my cousin, Jennifer, as well. And we started exchanging messages. The plan is that we will go for lunch next time I'm in the Netherlands. I'm quite excited about this! I feel there is some untapped connection there, and who knows what will come from it…


17 March 2024

Field days battling tides and weather

It's another fieldwork tradition: a day on the beach with the first year students and my colleague Lynda. This always falls in February or March. The weather can be interesting! This year, though, our first concern was not the weather. It was the tides. They would be unusually high. And low water would be at awkward times. And that led to an unusual situation: we would go out on two afternoons, rather than one whole day. Normally, we split the group in two; half the group first go surveying at Gallow’s Point, and after lunch join us on the beach, and the other half does it the other way around.

Not looking good

My task is to get to the beach before the students do, and demarcate nine sections on the sediment cliff they will have to log. So I travel independently.

This year I had kept an eye on the forecast. It looked absolutely awful! Luckily, the first day, which had initially been forecast to be rain, rain and more rain, became a bit drier. So that was good news. Regarding the tides; I knew that the students would reach the beach while water would still be quite high, so I depended on Lynda to do a sizeable introduction, while I would do what I needed doing.

An hour before I would get there, a student who would drive himself sent us a picture of the flooded road. Oh dear! But I would travel up in a big truck that isn't scared of a bit of flooding. But by the time I arrived, you could tell the road had indeed been flooded in places, but no longer was. Good enough for us! And together with that student I waited for the coach to arrive.

The plan worked! By the time we had given all the students the materials they needed, the tide had dropped so much it was physically possible to get onto the beach. And I could go around and create my sections.

Access (or lack thereof) to the beach, looking back 

Some of the crazy sediment 

The students listening to Lynda’s spiel; notice how far out the tide already is 


It was mainly dry and not particularly cold, but there was a rather chilly wind, and if you were out in it, you would get cold sooner or later. But the students were in fine form, and promising logs were created of the nine sections. When we noticed the first group had done them all, though, we got ready to gather everyone for a bit of a spiel at the end. This was not weather to hang around doing nothing! And I left the sections as they were.

Lynda talks to a student while a fossil coral attracts my attention 


The next day I would pick up a student who had reasons to not travel on the coach with the other students. We left a bit after the coach. The coach would get there when the water levels would be even higher than the day before. No point getting there before them. But that did complicate things!

Shortly outside Beaumaris a man was blocking the road. He said there was a flood, and we couldn't go on. I didn't think my car would struggle with that. And he said he had let the coach through! If a coach can go through, surely my rugged big-wheeled pick up truck would be fine? But I think the point was more that I could physically take a detour over narrow windy country roads, and the coach couldn't. So that's why he had made an exception for Lynda and her crew. I would have to go around.

Me and the student then hit the tiny little back roads. And it wasn't long until we hit a logjam! These roads are not made for traffic going in two directions. Normally, you wouldn't get so many cars there it would be a problem. If you encounter another vehicle, someone just reverses into the nearest passing space, and the problem is solved. But get too many cars in a heap and it doesn't work anymore! So it was a bit of a struggle to make it. But in the end we did.

Lynda had to start talking on the part of the beach where there isn't an exposed cliff face, because we couldn't yet get to the next part of the beach. I splashed through; I've practised this, and I was wearing welly boots. Quite a lot of the students were wearing hiking boots. Not a good idea to wade through seawater with those!

Access to the beach: day 2


I could check the state of the first three sections, and then I had to Wait a bit before I could go around the promontory. Then I could check two more sections. Some needed touching up. And then I had to wait several minutes to make it to the last part of the beach. It was not even unpleasant. The sea is quite mesmerising. I was just standing there, looking at the misty hills of of Gwynedd, listening to the lapping waves. Could be much worse!

Second bottleneck; I had to get past that promontory with the flat rock on top


I then checked the last sections and went back. It turned out I had failed to notice one section had completely vanished. Oh dear! I quickly improvised new one. 

Because the weather would be a lot worse than the day before, we had told the students to only log half the sections, and then do a bit of a data exchange. So we were quite fast this time! Which was great. When Lynda did her spiel, it was raining. So we were glad to get away while we were still relatively warm and dry.

Gloomy skies


We got back without traffic hassle, as by now it was getting closer to low tide.

I must say, I quite liked doing it two different days. Both us and the students used to get quite tired in the morning, and then had to do and afternoon session as well. And for me the challenge always was to bring enough water for the entire day. Maybe we will do it on two different days again next year. We'll see! But at least I was glad we had somehow managed to pull this off in spite of the spring tides and the awful weather forecast. And of unexpected travel challenges…




16 March 2024

Promotion application progress

It was somewhere when I last spoke of my intention to apply for promotion to senior lecturer. These things take time, and there is little! So I took the opportunity of the summer lull to write the bulk of the application. In early December I sent it off to the Head of School and Dei. HR had said there would be a January promotion round. But in January they declared it would open in February, and close in March. Fine! It's a bit awkward that the deadline is about a week before the deadline for the Athena Swan application. I think I feel like how the students are feeling when they have bunched deadlines!

Both John and Dei are very busy, so it was difficult to get any feedback out of them. Until one Friday evening. I had seen John's car when I left to go home; he was clearly still at it. (I would work a bit more that evening, but at home.) And he had got around to having a look. Great! It took me a while to get him to support me, but he is doing it.

My intention had been to work on the Athena Swan application that weekend, but I only did what I needed to do in that context to prepare for a meeting I would have Monday. The rest of the time when I wasn't doing weekend necessities such as shopping and cooking and dishes and the recycling and repairs and cave rescue admin, I incorporated his comments.

That Monday I was seeing John about matters of Athena Swan. While I was there anyway, we also discussed my draft application. He said it was all very factual, but that I did a poor job of emphasising what it was I had done. Where I had taken initiative, where I had shown leadership, where I had made a difference. I do mention in the application, for instance, that I am in the University Senate. But he said that I was only the second woman in history to represent the School in that body, and that presenting the results of the Senate meetings to the School is a big responsibility. I should shout that off the rooftops! So after that peptalk I spent a few evenings trying to pump some adrenaline into my application.

Soon I will have to submit it. And then I can only keep my fingers crossed!





15 March 2024

International Women’s Day 2024

When I saw the announcement of the Bangor University International Women's Day celebration, I was a bit underwhelmed. It was basically just one hour in a big lecture theatre; there would be a talk by two speakers, and then the opportunity for questions. The speakers were fabulous; they were both from the School of Oceans Sciences. They were one of our new professors, and one of the students. And they would talk about encouraging diversity in science. So as the EDI lead in the school, and as a person who finds this sort of thing important, and as someone who likes to stand by her fellow female ocean scientists, I decided to go.

When I was looking for a place to park my bike I saw the lady from HR, which is the one who is helping me with my Athena Swan application, approach the building. She had organised the event, so I knew where she was going. So a bit later I walked into the lecture room. I was a bit early, but that was okay. But I was a bit shocked by the big echoing hall, with up until then only two people in it. Ali from HR, and pro vice chancellor for EDI: Andrew Edwards. Only these two! That was not very promising.

Soon a few more people appeared: one of the speakers, the EDI lead of the College, the Head of School… all people who basically couldn't not be here because of their function. And after that, a few people came in who were just there because they had chosen to. But this was one of the biggest lecture theatres in the university!

Something unexpected happened; Andrew is not only the highest authority on EDI in the university, but he is also the father of the colleague who had recently gone on parental leave! And he was bursting with pride when he showed me a picture of the baby asleep on his lap. That was so sweet.

When it was time, Andrew opened the event. Bilingually, of course. Then Morag, the EDI lead of the college, introduced the two speakers: Yueng and Kodi. And Yueng went first. By that time, there were about 25 people in the whole room, and that included everyone who was part of the organisation. I'm not quite sure how many staff and students we have, but my guess is about 1600 and 10,000.

Yueng basically talked us through her life, with her youth in Singapore, her PhD at Scripps, and her landing in Wales. And how her career progressed there. And she talked us through the composition with regard to gender and ethnicity of the communities involved, and what that had meant to her.

Yueng speaking, with Kodi waiting her turn

Kodi, who is from the Caribbean, had a (so far) shorter life and career to reflect on, but she also talked to us through it. And then she, Yueng and Morag sat down on stage for a question and answer session. I kept track, and it its peak, we had 30 people in total in the room. It's a bit sad! And the ladies did an amazing job, but few people were there to appreciate it. The university still has work to do increasing its diversity, but I don't think this event made a noteworthy contribution to that!

The Q&A session: Morag, Yueng, Kodi

Ali takes a picture of the speakers with Andrew and Morag, with the VC looking on

14 March 2024

Checking the exam questions

I seem not to have mentioned we have a new tradition in the School. Between uploading our exam papers onto a OneDrive folder, and letting the External Examiners loose on them, we go through them ourselves. We did that for the first time this academic year. Towards the end of the first semester, we got a lot of academic staff together, got split into groups, and then each took a selection of the exam papers under our wing. And the purpose was twofold: firstly, check if there was anything amiss with the questions. Were they clear? Were there accidentally any confusing typos left in them? If they had several sub-questions, was it indicated what proportion of the grade depended on which sub-question? Would someone with dyslexia struggle disproportionately with this question?

The second objective was to check for questions that would be too easy to answer correctly using AI. However; going through every single exam question in quite a number of exams is quite time-consuming. Pulling them all through AI was a bit much. But at least we could flag up questions of which we suspected it would be too easy to have AI answer them satisfactorily. 

It sounds like a very dull task, but actually, we ended up rather giggly. It can be quite funny to let your full language pedant loose on someone else's exam questions.

This year  we knew the drill. To my dismay, only five people showed up for the session, even though we have about 30 academic stuff! So we split into two groups, and set to work. And, surprise surprise; we got a bit giggly. I was quite enjoyable.

It is also just interesting to see what other people actually ask the students. There is such a range! Some questions go completely over your head if the topic is not your specialism. Questions about the details of certain geophysical pieces of equipment, for instance. If that's not your thing. I noticed my biological colleagues had no idea what I was talking about if I was asking questions about climatically significant geological events/periods back in time. They don't tend to think outside modern times! But some questions you can just do with a bit of common sense and some basic arithmetic.

I think the previous semester we ran heavily over time. This time, we were more of a well-oiled war machine, and we got all exams checked by the time we were supposed to be finished. All except one exam, that had not yet been uploaded. One of our staff members is a scoundrel!

I hope that now we have had a detailed look at all of them, the external examiners won't have that much to complain about anymore. We will soon find out! The exams are in May. And I think so far we seem to be skipping ahead of AI. But will have to keep an eye on the situation and not become complacent. I don't think any of us will be spectacularly increasing our level of skill, but AI is doing just that as we speak! But I'm sure we'll find a way to deal with that. At least for this academic year I think we're fine. And I'm quite happy with this new tradition…

13 March 2024

Last post of the series filled?

After all the other rounds of presentations associated with job vacancies (like this and this and this and this), we had one more session to finish it all off. My colleague David, the only geochemist in the School, will be retiring in summer, and we need a replacement. So I was glad to see presentations scheduled. There were only two shortlisted candidates. 

Given the small number of shortlisted candidates I figured we would get an email quite soon about the outcome. But a week later, there still was no news. Nothing still two weeks later. The grapevine had been buzzing frantically since the day of the interviews! The first candidate seemed to have accepted and agreed to start in July. But why was there no official news? Especially with David retiring in June already! Three weeks later: nothing. Now that I post it, it’s been almost four weeks. Still nothing. No idea what is going on...

Marine pollution. Pic by Rey Perezoso


12 March 2024

Best possible day for a trip on the beach with students

Every year, my Earth, Climate and Evolution module has two field trips; one to Red Wharf Bay, and one to Cwm Idwal. And I quite like them. But they are a bit weather dependent! The trip to Red Wharf Bay can be a lovely sunny walk on the beach if the weather is cooperating. There are years when it is rainy and windy and altogether not very pleasant. Geologically, there is a lot to see! But it is nicer to see it under comfortable circumstances.

The Cwm Idwal trip is a bit more spectacular, landscape-wise, and I mind the weather a bit less. But it still really makes a difference. 

This year, the trips fell quite early in the season. And then the risk of bad weather is extra big. But in early March, we embarked two coaches going to the Bay, and the sunshine was glorious and there was no wind! It couldn't possibly have been better. Because we have a very large cohort in the first year, we had rather large groups, so it was quite pleasant that it wasn't windy; your voice reaches groups of up to 20 people a lot more easily on a calm day.

It was a great day for it! Everyone seemed to have had a good time. The only disappointment seems to have been that Lynda seems to have been reminiscing about buying ice cream after the trip last year, but this year it was so early in the season that no one in the area was selling any. A pity! But otherwise; great trip! There is no way we'll get similar conditions for the next trip two weeks later, but that's OK!

Red Wharf Bay

Glacial striations on Carboniferous limestone 

Walking back to the coaches