{"id":400,"date":"2008-10-10T11:41:26","date_gmt":"2008-10-10T11:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2008\/10\/10\/on_correct_training\/"},"modified":"2008-10-10T11:41:26","modified_gmt":"2008-10-10T11:41:26","slug":"on_correct_training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2008\/10\/10\/on_correct_training\/","title":{"rendered":"On correct training"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re at the end of the school mid- semester<\/del> term (my inner pedant has just looked up ‘term’ and realized it has nothing to do with ‘three’) break and the two Pawns have mostly been at the childcare centre that is separate from school but takes place there (very convenient). They get to do all sorts of activities and generally enjoy it, although Rachel (the elder Pawn) is looking forward to going back to school so that she can be with children her own age again.<\/p>\n

\nThe convict<\/del> Australian Government gives us back about half what we spend on childcare (a strange arrangement that results in certain Centres putting up their prices to match what the government will pay. Ha): even so, today’s activity was rather expensive\u2014a trip to a water park about three hours’ drive. And the younger pawn doesn’t take kindly to coach trips so we decided to look after them ourselves (yes, both parents work). I had a medical exam this morning (because the convicts<\/del> immigration office want to make sure everyone coming into the country is healthy. This presumably is to offset the unhealthy natives) which meant that their mother had to bring them into work.<\/p>\n

\nAs we work in the same place this is a reasonable arrangement: sometimes I’ll work at home in the morning and we’ll exchange hostages around lunchtime and they’ll go back home with mum in the afternoon. So I got back to work, they got in, and started amusing themselves on the internets while their parents earned a living wage.<\/p>\n

\nI had to run a column again<\/a>, for which I needed 1.7 ml tubes with the lids cut off. So I took a pile of tubes into the Pawns, and asked who’d like to do something for me.<\/p>\n

\nRachel stepped up to the plate, and cut off all the lids for me, and<\/em> loaded them into the rack for the fraction collector. Then they both came with me and I explained what the column was going to do for me.<\/p>\n

\nWhich was cool, and they both seemed interested\u2014and Rachel was happy to be paid in left-over eppendorf tubes.<\/p>\n

\nAfterwards, certain members of the lab accused me of child slavery. I pointed out that no one seemed to be upset by the exchange. They then claimed I was giving my children the wrong idea of science, and perhaps putting them off a scientific career.<\/p>\n

\nI said, jolly good show<\/a>. They can become “sports stars”:http:\/\/network.nature.com\/people\/UE19877E8\/blog\/2008\/09\/29\/in-which-science-becomes-a-sport-\u2013-hypothetically-speaking and pay back what they owe us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re at the end of the school mid- semester term (my inner pedant has just looked up ‘term’ and realized it has nothing to do with ‘three’) break and the two Pawns have mostly been at the childcare centre that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}