Fish tank at work

The university has jumped on the well-being bandwagon. We have a well-being champion now, and there is a miniature budget to do something to boost the School’s well-being. About a year and a half ago, I was involved in realising our first initiative; the School had bought a picnic bench, and I was one of the people turning it from flatpack into functioning bench. But we seem to get this money every year, so we were wondering what to do with it next. And one of my colleagues campaigned for a fish tank. And when the project got approved, he asked me if I was enthusiastic about it. Not really, was my answer. He was shocked! 

There were hurdles along the way! We wanted it in our coffee room, but that is on the second floor, and estates said that the floor wouldn't be strong enough hold the weight of the fish tank. I was surprised about this; robustly built humans exert more pressure on the floor, and that evidently goes well every day. Surely a fish tank that spreads its weight out over a larger area shouldn't be a problem? But the decision has been made. The fish tank had to be on the ground floor.

The first thing to appear, of course, was the tank. It had sand on the bottom and chunks of dead coral stacked up to provide some topography. And when that was all sorted, the fish appeared. I did enjoy checking for any new arrivals, put my heart wasn't really racing because of the little fish. But later, I heard that there was an anemone in there. That got my attention! The next time I walked past I had a look. And indeed, there was one hiding amongst the chunks of coral! That was fab.

Then an email was sent around, by the bloke who had campaigned for the fish tank. By coincidence, it was also the bloke who had won last year's cake competition. And he said that the first round of the competition was now over, but that week he would be making doughnuts to raise money for the fish tank. He wanted some soft-bodied corals in there, but there was no money anymore in the fish tank budget. And his doughnuts are famous! So that day I went to the coffee break, had a lovely doughnut, and gave generously.

Only two working days later I happened to walk past the fish tank again. And there were new creatures in there! That must have been the coral. I didn't expect them to arrive so soon. But now that thing has my attention. I didn't realise this type of invertebrate floats my boat a lot more than some admittedly very handsome little fish swimming around. But it's clear that that's the case! I'm happy now that we have this tank. I hope our little invertebrate friends will thrive in their new home. I think my well-being has been served well by this initiative, quite against expectation…

Handsome critter! Btw the human eye does not perceive the tank as this blue…

Another critter

Two fishes swim past a third handsome invertebrate 

The anemone gives acts de présènce

Fake references

Fake references shouldn't be a thing! Unfortunately, they are. I've had to call people in before, because they had non-existent references in their reference list. And generally, it turns out that the student in question had had an attack of bad time management, and basically panicked. And involved AI. Not a good idea! And given that it is marking time again, this is the time when that sort of thing might happen again. And it did.

In this case, I had to call two students in, and in both cases I had detected the issue myself. One student only had three references, and they were incomplete. And if it is just three, you might as well check. Especially as one of the references looked like something I should know about. But looking them up didn't work. And if it's a full reference, with journal, volume, issue, and page numbers, you can just look them up precisely where the student claims they are. But with just title, authors, year and journal, you can’t. I asked that student to send me the PDFs of the articles, in case they existed. Unfortunately I did not receive such PDFs.

In the other case, I just spotted a reference that surprised me. I know the author, and I thought the year was a bit early. Was he really already publishing about this topic in that year? So I had a Google. And nothing came up. They also were two articles by an author combination I hadn't seen before. I looked these up as well. Nothing. One of them was a complete reference, and then you can check these very page numbers in that very issue. And if it doesn’t match, you have conclusive proof that the reference is fake. I checked all the other references; the student had a lot more, and the majority fortunately existed. Four didn't.

I have no idea how often things like this slip under the radar! You can't possibly check all the references of all the assignments you mark. But we would normally mark assignments in our own field. And then you get this sort of things I had. An unusual year, an unusual combination of authors, an unusual topic, might all raise suspicion. I know I'm not the only one; I remember a colleague who had noticed that there was a reference to a paper of an author writing about a particular species of fish, and my colleague knew that this person did not actually study this fish. So I think we pick up quite a lot of this kind of things. But I will never know!

Well I never know? Well, I could of course do a test, and select a large number of assignments at random to check if all the references exist. If you check enough of them, you will get a statistically robust result. But this sounds like so much work! The idea is interesting, though. And it will be interesting to see if there is any pattern in what goes undetected. Hm! I might be onto something. I wish I felt I had the time to do this sort of thing. Because it is genuinely interesting to get an idea of the scale of this problem. And get a few clues on what we could do about it…

Last big teaching day of 2024

In one of my modules, we do student presentations. And that has to happen at the tail end of term. So quite often, it’s the last big thing. And big it got! There have been years with fewer than 20 students, and then it’s quite doable. This year we had loads. And then it’s such a long day! I had had to make the individual presentations shorter to fit it all in one day. 

The students uploaded their slides the Friday before. I just had time to make a schedule before I had to head for Main Campus. The presentations were on Monday!

It fit, especially given that I suspected there would be no-shows. There were quite some non-submitters. And there were two students who were allowed to record, and one who was not available on the Monday and presented the week before. 

There also tends to be an issue with the room. I remember one stone cold room, and last year a room with fine temperature but only wooden benches. This year we had a cold windowless room. Will we ever be comfortable? 

This year it went well. The level of the presentations was high, time keeping was generally very good too, and the students asked loads of questions. The students only had 7 mins each, but some had teamed up in twos and threes so they had 14 or 21 minutes for their group, and could go a bit more into depth. We had 26 students presenting overall. 

The non-submitters all failed to show up. But I later noticed that most of those were inconsistently registered. There is the module website where they submit their assignments, and the overall website with the module overviews, and they didn’t agree. So that’s a relief! A bit confusing that I now don’t know who is in my module, but probably, most of these absent people were absent because they were not actually on the module. A good reason! 

The only teaching I now still have is the presentations of my freshers! And then it’s done for 2024…

A transatlantic cable on the US shore in 1925; there were quite many talks about submarine cables

 

Another bike ride for exercise; fog edition

I'm still not running! So I still depend on my bike for exercise. And on my birthday I had been busy with other things, so the day after I decided to do the usual ride to the surge pond. And it was mild weather! But also quite cloudy.

I quite happily biked to the gate I had to lift my bike over. And then I had it for the reservoir taking the right turn to the surge pond. And then I quite quickly ended up with my head in the clouds. Which was okay! It is a bit of a pity you don't get to see the spectacular views, but there is something atmospheric about a foggy landscape.

In an hour I got to the surge pond. And after a bit of water drinking I turned around and went back. And going back is always quite quick!

The surge pond

No view; just fog

Some ruins near the road 

Ducking underneath the clouds again

Two weeks earlier I had taken my mountain bike out but I hadn't quite enjoyed that as much. (Not sure why I didn't blog about this but I clearly didn't.) It is December, the landscape is completely waterlogged. You spend too much time trying to not fall on your face in the slippery mud, and not enough making your heart and lungs work. So I think I will be dependent on my commuter bike for exercise for now. But that's OK! This is a nice ride, and I'm sure I can think of a few others. I still haven't done the full loop through Ogwen Valley and Peris Pass! That should get my blood flowing too…

Birthday walk and dinner

Sue and Dean were around on my birthday, and they were happy to do something. They knew Nick was not going to be available in the evening. And they suggested a walk and then dinner at their place. That sounded fab!

Not long after Nick left I got on my bike and biked to their place. And we pretty much immediately got into the car to make the most of the remaining daylight. We were going to do Cwm Idwal. A classic walk! We have done it for New Year's Eve as well.

It was slightly gloomy weather, with a fairly cold breeze, but we have seen a lot worse. And it was atmospheric! And by the time we reached the far end of the walk the light was very beautifully low. And we started to see little lights on the hillside. There were clearly several people out there on much more adventurous hikes than we were!

The start of the walk

Birthday selfie

Fading light; Picture by Dean

Light almost gone when we get to the gate! Picture by Dean

It was dark by the time we were back at the visitor centre. And when we got home I parked myself on the sofa. I hoped to radiate an atmosphere of harmlessness! The resident cats are notoriously shy, but I have had interaction with them before, and I was hoping that it would happen again. But my efforts initially spectacularly failed. The cats clearly thought I was terrifying.

We had a drink and some nibbles, and then sat down for dinner. Dinner was fab! And festooned with cake. And then we went back to the living room.

At some point I went into the kitchen to get another drink, and one of the cats was there too. This time she seemed to be so distracted by the fact that that is where food is served, that he didn't run away. She even briefly let me pet her! Success!

Altogether it was a lovely birthday! 49 now. Next year will be a big birthday. But let's not think about that quite yet!

Finally, a Penrhyn castle (birthday) date

I had never gone and properly visited Penrhyn castle. I had been there; there is a Parkrun there, and I have run that a few times. And once we went to have a coffee afterwards in the café. But that's it! And I felt I should go and see it. In a way, it is a hated building; it was built with the profits from slave labour on a Jamaican sugar plantation, and owned by the family who were hideous to the local quarrymen. It was also the owners of the estate who inspired the Great Strike, the longest industrial dispute in British history. I have heard several people say they think it should be razed to the ground. But I don't think so; you can't blame the castle for this. You might as well turn it to your advantage now it's here anyway!

I had intended to go and see it with Tim. And we were going to do that after a run. Then that was the run during which he broke his ankle. So we never went! And I was a bit superstitious after that; would Nick break his ankle if we would try to get to the castle? But that is of course an irrational thought.

He came to visit me the day before my birthday. On the actual birthday, he had a Christmas celebration with the dojo his son goes to, so in order to be there a bit during my birthday weekend, he came the Friday evening. And he was a true romantic flowers and chocolate. Unfortunately, he was rather under the weather. So I figured an indoor activity for the Saturday would be a good idea, and the castle was open, so we went! After a birthday breakfast with a present. A book with walks in Shropshire! We'll make good use of that.

When we got to the castle we first saw a few Parkrunners leave just when we entered. I found that a bit sad. I want to be a runner! But my time will come. 

The castle

We walked up to the castle and went in. We had a look at the larder, and then came into the kitchen. And there are a lady approached us. It was Janet! From the climbing club! It turned out she was a volunteer there, and guided tourists. And she didn't have a group, so she took us on. That was fab!

The kitchen

We got a tour of some of the parts of the castle that were meant for entertaining, and some of them that were private quarters. It was not as if the latter were not opulent! But there was a difference in the levels thereof. 

Janet told us a lot about the history of the castle, and the provenance of the materials used, and the life of one particular lady who had lived there: Alice Douglas Pennant. She showed us two places where she had scratched her name into the glass with a diamond ring! Quite an act of rebellion, but now a lovely historical artefact. 

Dining room

Staircase

When Janet was done, we did the traditional loop fairly swiftly and then went to have a coffee in the café. And a nosy in the miniature secondhand bookshop. And then we are good to go back again. After all, Nick would have to leave fairly soon. 

I was glad I had finally seen the castle! And Nick loved it so much he said he actually wanted to go back some other time to see more. And we were so lucky to bump into Janet! A lovely birthday surprise. Couldn't have gone better!

History of physical oceanography in Bangor

We normally have a Friday lunch seminar. It is either internal or external people telling about their research. I go if I'm not otherwise engaged, by e.g. teaching. It's quite nice to listen to talks about things that are a bit outside your own area of expertise.

This week was a special one; it was actually a public lecture by Tom, one of our professors in physical oceanography. And he was going to talk about the history of that subject within our university, which by now spans 60 years.

He started out with Jack Darbyshire, a local and very clever lad, who was involved in predicting waves within the context of the D-day landings. He seems to have been the first appointee in this subject in the brand new School of Ocean Sciences. 

He also spoke of the first research vessel that we had, and what research people did with it. And he mentioned another early researcher, John Simpson, that we seem to have headhunted from Liverpool right after his PhD, and who would stay on to become first professor and then head of school. He has long since retired, but is still active! And I noticed he was actually attending this talk online.

A whole parade of faces came past, including my old line manager James. And a lot of people who are still here. It was a genuinely entertaining and informative talk. I will even forgive Tom for calling benthic foraminifera (that were mentioned within the context of James) phytoplankton. They are neither phyto nor plankton!

He ended this with mentioning another local and very clever lad, my office neighbour Iestyn, who we recruited a few years ago now. We had come full circle!

I hope that in another 60 years’ time, the situation will be such that someone will again be doing a seminar like that. We have survived so far; made that long continue!

Tom standing by his opening slide. By coincidence, the backlit head in the foreground belongs to Iestyn

Improvised solution to IT problems

It was some two weeks ago that I blogged about my computer being work-shy since a fire in a university data centre. I figured it would all have been sorted by now! But no. Things got worse. 

The next day neither of the solutions that had sorted me out before worked. So I was back phoning the IT helpdesk. And they said: unplug everything including the network cable, leave it for five minutes, then plug everything back in, leave it at the login screen for an hour, and then you should be fine again. So I did.

I had this enormous pile of marking to do, and this was really something I could do without! But what was I going to do? When I had plugged my computer back in, I decided to go to the computer room of the master students, down the corridor. That's not ideal; I can't talk to these computers, so I have to read off the screen and then make notes on paper. I would then later dictate these notes to my computer when it was working again.

There was only one student there who didn't seem to mind my presence. But I was aware I shouldn't be there! But I also had a few options.

When I came back after an hour, my computer indeed worked, and I could resume my normal business. But it was annoying. And it happened again.

The next step was that the helpdesk said the problem basically came through the network cable. If I was just not using one, that would circumvent the issue. So they were going to get a Wi-Fi adapter ready for my computer, that I would have to pick up from main campus. They also said that there were people working on the root of the problem, but it was unclear how long that would take. So this at least would keep me going until it was properly sorted.

The next time the problem presented itself, I switched my computer back off, unplugged the network cable, switched it back on, connected the adapter to the university’s Wi-Fi, and I was rolling! 

It would be nice if this problem would get properly solved. But for now I can work again with not too much inconvenience. And that matters…

The temporary solution

Still not racing

Instead of doing the Betws Trail Challenge I did two loops of the parking lot near my house. That was all I figured my ankle could take. And I didn't want to build things up too fast. And that was late November.

It is now mid December. How are things? Well! I built things up to 5 loops of the parking lot. That is some 380 m. So the good news is that I am indeed not building it up too fast now. But it also means that it took me two weeks to go from about 200 to less than 400 m. That is really slow. If I keep that going, it will take me two years to get back to 10 km form. I think it's time I see if I can get back to the physio. I hope he has ideas! Because this is frustrating.

The moon over the parking lot 

I am also now missing The Christmas fun run of the running club. So what's next? I don't think I'm registered for anything at the moment, but the next race in the general running agenda is the Nick beer 10k. It's on February 9. Could I possibly get my ankle back in shape on time for that? I have no idea! The next one along the line is, I think, Ras Llyn Trawsfynydd, a14k race, on April 13. That's four months away. I really hope I can do that! And also, it is a lovely race. I suppose time will have to tell…

Third batch done

I finished the second of the three big piles of marking on a Sunday morning. And after breakfast, I just started on the third. It had crept close to the marking deadline, so I had better get going. And it was a large cohort. 

The assessment was quite straightforward. I had given the students a pile of data, and the idea was that they select some of that data, plot it up, use these plots for answering the research question, explain why they came to that answer, and then compare that answer to other answers out there in published literature. And marking the plots is very quick. And the rest took more time, but still less than the other assignments I had marked. 

Sunset over the North Sea; the setting for this assignment

 

I basically marked all day Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, only taking off the Monday evening for the dinner in Llanberis, and 7-9 pm on Tuesday for Welsh class. And then I was done on Tuesday 11pm. I was so relieved. But also dead tired and with sore arms. 

I can now finally do other things again! Not a moment too soon. I have student meetings coming up, and student presentation sessions to organise and attend, and an exam preparation sessions, and a list of academic integrity cases to deal with, and loads more. And more marking, but not such big piles anymore this semester. I feel a whole lot better now that this is behind me…

Tom & Siobhan back

Tom and Siobhan, who had spent a year on the other side of the globe, were back. And almost immediately, they went to collect their cat again. Pwd’s stay with Martin had come to an end! And only a few days later we all came over for dinner. 

I had been very hesitant about anything that consumed time and wasn’t marking. But because I had marked the entire weekend, I decided I could afford an evening off.

It was good to see them again! And it seemed reciprocal. Especially Pwd when he spotted Martin. He immediately went in for pets! That was cute. And when we all sat down, he didn’t waste time and sat on his lap. Tom looked on with hurt in his eyes. But it was quite sweet. And I really should have taken a picture.

There was a lot to catch up on. A lot had happened! Mostly with Tom and Siobhan, who had been up to all sorts of adventures. But things had happened in our lives too. And discussing that over dinner was really nice. 

After dinner we went back to the comfortable seats. And after a while, Pwd wandered over and actually sat on my lap. Very peacefully. He had never done that before! Again; I should have taken a picture. But I didn’t. 

Then it was time to leave. It had got late without me noticing. I wrestled myself out from underneath Pwd and put my shoes back on. And I yawned the entire way home. 

It was good to have them back! I hope this will be the first social engagement with this lot in a series. And the community will grow. Since they left, both Martin and me have started new relationships, so hopefully, we will meet up with all eight of us in the not too distant future. It might require some interesting logistics as that is a number that doesn’t automatically fit inside a living room or kitchen! But I’m sure we will make it work…

Second batch done!

When storm Darragh kept me at home, I took advantage of that by making progress on my enormous marking load. And it worked! By the evening I had done the marking, although I had not yet put the grades and feedback on the assignments. I figured I could do that the day after. 

Is that reasonable? One could argue not. What about taking the Sunday off? But what I had done after finishing that batch was check when the next pile was due. And the answer was: pretty much immediately afterwards. So I had to keep going.

That happened sooner than I intended. When I went to the kitchen to give the cat her last meal of the day, I was reminded of the fact that I had started defrosting the fridge. And it was mostly done! Just not entirely. And I didn't want to leave the fridge defrosting overnight. It would leak water everywhere. So I figured I couldn't really go to bed yet. What do you do if you can't go to bed? You go back to your marking! So I put some of the grades and feedback where it needed to go. But then I finished the defrosting I went to bed. And the next morning, before breakfast, I finished it off.

I then still had to look at the few academic integrity cases resulting from that assignment. I didn't want to give the students their grades and only afterwards raise the possibility that not all these grades were definitive. So I wanted to at least tell the people involved what was hanging over them. But when I had that ready I could ask my moderator on Monday morning to do the moderation. He had been warned it was coming! And as soon as moderation is done, it can be released to the students. And then it's properly sorted…

Picture from the field trip in October; the marking had been the field trip report

Storm Darragh

I was going to go to see Nick! But then storm Darragh appeared on the horizon, with an amber weather warning in tow. The trains already struggle to run in fine weather! No way you could get to England in an acceptable way with that kind of weather. And driving in a storm means risking flooding your car or ending up stuck behind a tree that had fallen over the road. I really hadn’t enjoyed driving through Storm Isha. So I decided to move my trip back. 

The day before I would travel, the weather warning turned red. Red! Really not travel weather. And when I was just calmly eating an orange that evening, I received the alert from the government. My phone made the most hideous noise. And a warning message appeared. Not really necessary; I had kept a close eye on the weather and already changed my plans. But now I know what the government does when there is such a weather alert out. And I was lucky; friends of mine were either trying to have a phone conversation or driving when that thing went off. Scares the shit out of you!

Serious forecast

I had made sure to take a vulnerable plant inside, close all my windows, and secure the bins even better than normal, to make sure nothing would start flying around. And then I went to bed and hoped for the best. The winds were forecast to be stronger at about 7 am.

When I woke up the next morning it was clearly windy, but nothing out of the ordinary. I was relieved! I had been a bit worried about storm damage.

As the wind didn't seem to be too bad I went to the shop before breakfast. I could go and get myself my Saturday newspaper. Or so I thought. And then the first storm damage became apparent: the supermarkets hadn't had their normal delivery of newspapers! Oh dear. I tried the other shop later in the day, and that was successful. And I admired the wildness of the river on the way.

No newspapers! 

What the village looked like

The river a bit upstream

I basically spent the whole day marking. It was rubbish weather and it needed doing. And it needed doing even more as on Monday evening I wanted to go and have dinner with friends. But I didn't feel like I could take the evening off without getting some of that marking out of the way beforehand. And I made good progress!

I did do a few loops of the parking lot, but I didn't do anything in the way of proper exercise. I didn't fancy going out on my bike in that weather, and that is the only type of exercise I currently have available to me! So it was basically a very dull day, but there was also something snug about staying indoors with the cat. 

Funnily enough, all was well here I was, but Nick had both a (long) power cut and no water. And his weather warning had only been amber or yellow. I jumped that gun! 

I suppose that was a very unspectacular report of my first red weather warning. That day without a named storm two days before had better stories! But as far as I am concerned any weather warning can turn out unspectacular. I'm not a big fan of storm damage! And I'll probably sooner or later will get some of that anyway…

A very wet commute

Spoiler alert: I've recently been doing very little other than working, commuting, sleeping and eating, so some of my blog posts might be a bit trivial. Including this one. Which speaks of a day that had strong winds and rain forecast for the middle of the day. So I made sure to time my commute well.

In the morning I managed to get in before either rain or strong winds started. Success! But in the afternoon, the rain was slamming so hard on my velux window I didn't think I would be that lucky in the afternoon. So when I heard the rain stop, I quickly decided to go home, and do the remainder of the working day in my home office. But that meant I got onto my bike not long after the rain had stopped.

I got to Hendrewen Road, which gets me out of Bangor, without problems. And also to the top of the hill. But on the way down I noticed a lot of water running over the road. And I am a bit weary of that. Sometimes, that water freezes, and then the road becomes terrifying. If I think this might be the case I take the long way around. At least it was fairly warm this day, and I wasn't worried about ice.

I know there is one dip in the road that collects water in high rain. And I wasn't surprised to see that that had indeed happened. But there were no cars around, so I just biked in. What else can you do? Normally that goes fine. This time I was surprised to see the water was so high it came over the top of my shoes. That is the deepest I have ever seen it!

Water running down the road in one direction

Walter running down the road in the other direction

That second stream had created an impressive puddle

Me after I came through on the other side; you can't see the tide line on my trousers, but I think you can see my shoes are soaking

If I would have been in a car I might have flooded it, but of course you can't flood a bike. The worst that could happen is that the floods have brought in debris you bike into, and fall over. But that didn't happen. So I just got to the other side with wet socks and shoes, and an interesting tide mark on my trousers.

When I got home I just hung out socks, shoes and trousers, and the next day everything was dry again. But I do think it would be a good idea if the council increased the drainage of this road. You could wait for it to indeed flood someone's car! And that it is full of black ice when temperatures drop below zero is not without risk either. I'm not going to hold my breath. But I suppose it is good I found out the easy way just how deep the water can get on this road!

Academic integrity back on the scene

When I am spending my time frantically marking, it is likely that the same holds for my colleagues. And with marking comes checking for issues with academic integrity. So now that first semester marking has properly kicked off, the emails have started coming in with request to check various submissions.

So far it hasn't gotten out of hand, but that might just be the calm before the storm. I could imagine that I might get inundated a bit closer to the marking deadline. For now I have checked my own assignments (which had very few issues), and have been alerted to three other assignments. And one of these had only one case, and I figured we could just let that rest. Yes the suspicious paragraph was a bit weird, but not in a way I figured breached academic integrity regulations. And the other two assignments just had some students who had stayed a bit too close to the source texts they had used. Standard stuff! But I am braced for more to come. In a way it helps that I have all my marking coming at the same time; I should be close to being finished by the time the suspected tsunami arrives…

Anonymised snapshot of some student submissions; all of them looking impeccable

First marking batch done

Having three big batches of marking on your plate is quite exhausting! But I just ploughed on and now the first batch is done. And that feels good. It has been done OK. There is always a bit of spread in the grades, but I’m satisfied with how it went. 

I am a bit worried about my arms now. The software we use is not very compatible with my voice recognition software. So I can’t really not use my arms. And I can feel that. And I still have two big batches to go! 

I’ve already started on the second batch. That is fortunately quicker. I hope I can get that out of the way soon, and then onto the last batch. And then hopefully tired but satisfied into the Christmas break! 

 

Example age vs depth plot from Miao et al., Mar Geol 2017. Making a similar age-depth plot was part of the assignment I just finished marking. 

 

Walk with Katie and the gang

A few weeks ago I had gone for a walk with my fairly new colleague Katie and her dog, and my slightly less new colleague Claire. And it was great! We thought we should do such things more often. And so it happened that I planned another walk with Katie. This time Claire was not available. We had also invited another colleague, Winnie, but she wasn't available either. But this time, her partner Grant would be there.

She wanted to do the loop through Cwm Bychan and past Llyn Dinas. Fine with me! And we agreed I would go to her house first, and we would car share from there. I had heard about her a cottage in was keen to see it.

I drove through the enchanting-looking misty landscape to the remote spot where she lives. I parked up where the rough track to her house starts. Katie was waiting for me. And we first went to her place for coffee. When we got through the door it was clear the dog, Skipper, remembered me from last time. I got lots of kisses! Which immediately made a good impression on Grant, Katie's partner.

First we had coffee and cake, and she showed me the house. It is the sweetest cottage imaginable! And the views are amazing. I think she won the lottery there.

In spite of the weather we kitted up and headed for our walk. We started at the lake, and went anti-clockwise. Beddgelert was very quiet on this grey November day! And it rained when we were heading up Cwm Bychan. But it was a beautiful atmospheric walk. And then we drove back and had some more hot beverages. 

The start of the walk

 Making friends with Skipper over lunch (pic by Katie)

Skipper LOVES the river

Autumnal views

Rainy Llyn Dinas

 

It was a lovely day! Next time should be near my place. Katie wanted to see the Carneddau. That can be arranged! 

The track to Katie’s house 

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! 

Ankle test

With my ankle still not being happy I had to resort to getting my exercise on my bike. But I was really keen to make some strides towards getting my running habit back. And I started with a little loop around the parking lot near my house. It was about 130 m. But my ankle felt okay the next day.

The next day I dared do two loops. And that was still ok. The day after that I wondered if I could do three. But it didn't feel good enough so I stuck with two. And I did three the day after. I did that for two days, and then I did four. Then the day after, it felt really good, and I did six!

By then I decided I might want to venture further away. That parking lot is a bit dull. And I had reached the weekend. So on the Saturday, for the first time since the start of the experiment, I actually put on running gear. Until that time, I had only put on a running bra and running shoes. If you only do a few hundred metres you don't really need the full kit. But now I was venturing further out, and I wasn't going to do that in jeans and a cotton T-shirt. 

My first run after the car park just went over the nearby field where people walk their dogs. A loop of some 900 m. And it felt ok! It felt a bit precarious in the beginning, but I had the impression that when my ankle warmed up it was getting better. And the day after that I did 1.5 km, still ok. And the day after that I wanted to do 2 km, but things felt good and I stretched it to 3 km. Not bad! My shortest regular run is just over 4 km. With the progress I am making now I would probably be able to do that the next day.

Venue of the 3k run

This also means I have a chance of running the upcoming 5 k. Everything I have been doing recently was a fairly gentle jog, but it is tempting! Watch this space. Would I be able to get myself to 5 km race mode in very limited time? 

Dathliad Cymru Affrica

Susan had spotted Ibibio Sound Machine coming to Neuadd Ogwen, and she suggested we went. They would play in the weekend festival that celebrated African music. Ibibio Sound Machine would play on the Saturday. Nick would be there that weekend, and he was up for it too. 

We wanted to know what time Ibibio Sound Machine would play, but that information seemed to not be available. So I decided to just go and ask on the Friday, as the festival would already have started, so there would be someone at the door. And there wasn’t, but there was a poster outside that gave the times. That was good! What wasn’t was that Ibibio Sound Machine wouldn’t start until 10pm. That’s bedtime! 

The plan was that Sue and Dean would come down to mine at 18:30, we would have takeaway together, and after dinner we would just go. And we did it that way. 

It was exciting to introduce Nick to Sue and Dean. A pity Martin hadn’t wanted to join. And we could go and pick up the food we had ordered online. It was a veritable feast! And I made sure to drink a lot of tea afterwards. Then we tidied up and went next door. 

We got in when the second-last band: Sabary Kagnin, was starting. After getting drinks we went in. They were really good! They were a large band from Guinea, with a modern drum kit and bass, but otherwise African instrumentation. And a dancer. And they rocked it! I wasn’t in much of a dancing mood, but that totally wasn’t their fault. 

Sabary Kagnin

When they were done there was a break. Ibibio Sound Machine started a bit later than scheduled. And they were good! But I had to admit they weren’t quite as exciting as the previous band. I did recognise several of their songs this time though. That was nice! 

Ibibio Sound Machine

At some point they were done. And of course they came back for an encore. I was sure it would be their current hit ‘17,18,19’. But it was ‘pull the rope’! Surely then they would do two songs in the encore? They walked away again. And a bloke in the organisation climbed on stage and tried to incite the crowd to incite the band to do one last song. And that would surely have been ‘17,18,19’. But other people appeared on the other Side of the floor, yelling at him and gesturing at him that he couldn't do that. They really had to stop! That was a bit of a pity.

When we brought our glasses back I saw the man who had been at the door. He confirmed that their license still only allowed them to make noise until 11 pm. It was 11:30! Oh dear.

We were all well and truly ready for bed. All of us are early sleepers! And Sue and Dean still had to walk home, in the rather inclement weather. I don't think any of us were up at our usual time the next morning. But I know now what band to keep an eye on for next year’s episode of this celebration. It would be nice to go see Sabary Kagnin again, and then be mentally prepared! 

Sea zoo with Nick

Two weeks after his birthday, Nick was coming to Wales again. Beforehand, we had decided it would be good to explore a bit more of Dinorwic. But closer to the day it was clear his visit would coincide with that of storm Bert (which turned winter straight back into autumn). And a day with a weather warning for wind and rain is not a good Dinorwic day! And we had better to do something indoors. And we settled on the Sea Zoo. I had never been, and felt bad about that. 

We got there without incident. No trees on the road, no floods. And we enjoyed it! I was looking forward to some good anemones. Nick was looking forward to sharks. And we both got what we wanted! And bucketloads of other creatures such as lobsters and crabs and starfish and whatnot. A nice day out! 

Lobsters! 

And anemones! 

A sea urchin that camouflages itself with rocks and shells!