Pilfering a tube

If you have a part of a mine that keeps dropping bits on your head you can put a tube in! That solves the problem. Or if you can't access a mine the usual way but have to dig a new entrance, a tube can keep your entrance from collapsing, as you're probably digging through unconsolidated ground. We'd done that on the North York Moors! And I know Miles and his people had put a tube into a collapse-prone part of the smoke flue, although I haven't seen that myself. So when I saw a piece of tube on the Bethesda rugby field I bike past on a regular basis my interest was raised. It looked like rubbish! We would have a use for it. So after some discussion with David I decided to see if I could have it. On a Saturday I wondered up to the rugby club, but there was noone there. Then I biked past on my commute one evening and saw there was a game on. I popped by!

The barman was a bit surprised but he had no issues with my request. He said that thing had been lingering on the field for some two years. If I had a use for it I could take it! So I walked up to it and rolled it home. That turned some heads. But it's not far and I put it safely into my garage! Not sure where it'll go; the old ThursdayNighter dig has a good spot for it but we wouldn't be able to get the big piece of plastic there. We have another project in Wrysgan but I'm not sure a tube would add to it. As it stands, 'the' dig wouldn't have a use for it. But we'll find something!

Finding a tube on a rugby field; spot the pavilion in the distance

 

Tube in garage!

Add to the furniture

After I had bought a white wardrobe and chest of drawers it became extra evident that the dark brown side table I was using as a bedside unit was looking out of place. And the lady who had sold me the other furniture had stuff for that too! So I mailed if she still had them. She did! So one Tuesday between work and Welsh I popped by again, and picked these up too. I had initially wanted just one but got talked into taking both. And now my bedroom looks more coherent! And as well, the white cupboard is higher, which makes my bedside lamp shine better on my pillow for some pre-sleep reading. All good!

Self-medicating a blocked ear

A job is easier done with the right tools! Two years ago I had had a blocked ear, and I had tried to flush out the blockage with olive oil. It had been quite difficult to poor the oil into my own ear. In the end it didn't work as the blockage was on the inside. But now my ear was blocked again! As this time I hadn't had a cold I thought the blockage might be on the outside. The blockage had been there for a while but I was so busy I hadn't got around to doing anything about that. But one day I had enough. And I decided I would go more high-tech this time. I managed to pilfer a plastic pipette (the advantage of working at a university with labs). And I figured I needed a small reservoir to heat up the oil in. An egg cup! And with these implements it is a doddle to get warm oil into my ear. Just do an oil session before you hop onto your bike to go to work! And it worked; after only a few days my ear yielded some unsightly gunk and was clear again. Hurray for self-medication!

Student conference imminent

It's a stressful time for our dissertation students! Soon they will present their dissertations to their peers and supervisors. Quite a lot of them will be happy when it's over! And so will I be. Last year I looked forward to it; it's nice to see what these students have worked on for all these months. But then I was just there to judge presentations. Well, and as a promo girl trying to convince students to fill out an important survey. But this year I had to organise the whole thing! And I'm an academic, not an event organiser. But well, a module leader's gotta do what a module leader's gotta do.

I had to book the venue. We don't do it on campus; this is a trick to encourage the students to stay all day. If it's in town they may wander off into the pub after their own presentation! And we want them to stay so they can engage in the question and answer sessions of their peers. And where we do the event there are no pubs or other distractions.

I also had to source extra laptops and projectors as the venue didn't have enough. And I had to order lunch. And make the programme. And make the conference booklet with all 127 abstracts in. And I had to come up with a marking schedule and marking sheets. And think about when, where and how to check attendance.

It's a lot of work! And I'm not trained to do these things (well maybe I am trained for the marking schedules and sheets. But not the rest). And I don't like it. And I have so much other work: organise a field day, supervise my own dissertation students and a MSc student, mark essays for my 1st, 2nd and 4th year modules (or rather, two 1st year modules), and lots of things including some I should do but haven't yet, such as come up with projects for MSci students (that's something different from MSc) and file my timetabling requests. I will be so happy when it's Friday afternoon and all of that is off my shoulders! I think I'll need a drink by then...

Great place to do an exam feedback session

In my student days, we would get our exam papers back after they'd been marked. We could read the feedback on them and then either archive them or bin them. Nowadays things work differently! At least here they are. The students get only one chance to see their exams and the feedback on them: during an exam feedback session. These are 1 hour slots, organised by year. You just plonk the module organisers at a table with a pile of exams in front of them, and then the students (the whole year!) pile in and ask to see their exams one by one. We're not supposed to let them rummage through the pile themselves; the grades are confidential and they're not supposed to see other students' grades on the other exam papers. So you spend most of the time looking for the right paper. The students don't often have many questions! Just showing them the paper tends to be enough. This year I fielded none. My feedback must have been clear. And there were no issues with erroneous totting up the points. This can happen! And that's the sort of things the sessions are for.

When the students have seen their feedback they hand the paper back and move to the next module. And at the end of the hour they all get collected and stored away for the external examiner.

This time the second year's session was in a glamorous place. The zoological museum! We have one. Pretty cool to be surrounded by skeletons and jars and taxidermy and whatnot while waiting for the students to have a question. I should go there for real one day. Soon it'll be Easter and 'll have time! And maybe even an interested guest!

New furniture for bedroom

Once you live in a house you want to stay in for a while, you can invest in furniture you really like! I am not a big fan of large furniture as it tends to take two to move around, and I am only one person. Hence my habit of using simple shelving as places to put my clothes. You can take them apart and they become very easy to lug around, even up and down stars! I did buy a wardrobe to hang clothes in but that gave me enough headaches. But now I live in a house I don't want to leave for a long time so now I can consider having big lumpy furniture. If I can get it into the house I'm sorted! And a nice wardrobe looks better than bare shelving.

I had been having a look at furniture. Nothing floated my boat until I saw an advertisement for a whole set of home-made furniture, sold nearby. It was solid wood, it was white (which goes well with the blue bedroom), and it was the right style to fit. Not so old it would only look good in the old part of the house, but not so new it would look out of place in my house no matter what! So I responded. And we agreed I would pop by after the Open Day (I would be nearby anyway) and have a look.

I drove to the tiny village (I had run there once or twice) and had to phone for directions. The Google van doesn't go down such minute roads! But I got there and all was well. The lady was nice, the house was right beside a derelict windmill (great!) and the view was amazing. And I liked the furniture! I had my eye on a small wardrobe (I had done enough lugging of large wardrobes recently) and a chest of drawers. That should sort me out entirely! But then the question was how to get these into the car.

With taking the doors off the wardrobe, placing the drawers inside it, and strapping the door closed-ish we managed. And I was on my way! Very carefully.

When I got home I parked with the boot of the car close to the door. Bringing the chest of drawers in was easy. The wardrobe was a bit of faff but I did it! Then I had to decide where to put them. I did a bit of trial and error and got to a conclusion.

They were in position now but that wasn't all. I knew the wardrobe had a rail, but I already have a wardrobe with a rail. I was after shelves! So I took the rail out, and started on making shelves. I still had wood left over from my cupboard project; I used that for supports the eventual shelves would lie on. And I had lots of slats left over from doing a similar conversion in Plymouth. I had used some for my electricity-stuff-cupboard too! I sawed them to size. It worked out fine! but I had just enough wood for one shelf and I wanted two. I would have to pop to the nearby timber yard! So stay tuned; this is not over yet. But it's only finishing touches now!

The derelict windmill

Furniture in position!

The wardrobe on the inside at the end of the first day

Last one of a series of four Open Days

It's almost over for the spring! We had four open days in February and March. I had to organise them all and attend them all. But they're all done now! I can get a bit more weekend to myself. They're not too onerous really; the organisation is difficult the first time around but once you've got the hang of it it's OK. And they don't even last long; they roll from 12.45 to 15.30, but if you organise them that means 11.00 to 16.00. Still better than the autumn ones though, which start in the morning. Then we get two batches of visitors; the morning round and the afternoon round. In spring we only get one!

We'll only know in summer how successful we've been. We hope that all of the prospective students that come visit actually choose Bangor and show up in September for Welcome Week! Or at least a fair share. We'll see! And then we only have one strange mini-open day in April. I don't quite know yet what shape that'll take!

Jaco getting prospective students enthusiastic about geology