Resoluquinox

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

A couple of years ago, on a BBC Magazine article about New Year’s resolutions, one commenter opined that New Year is the absolute worst time to make resolutions. He’s right – it’s an arbitrary date, it’s all dark and cold, and it’s time better spent hibernating (or skiing). He asserted that Spring is a much more humane time to try and improve your behaviour. The increasing light and warmth, the budding leaves and flowers, put you into a much more positive and proactive frame of mind.

I couldn’t have agreed more, and instantly adopted the new tradition of Spring Equinox Resolutions. Here are this year’s.

A) CAREER

i) do everything I can to make sure I get to stay on in my job after my original two year contract expires in November.

My tracking system seemed to do its job at a couple of recent performance reviews, and people keep telling me that they’re sure there’s the will to keep me. The next step is to get an actual decision maker to say this, and then put it in writing. Clear and effective communication is in rather short supply around here sometimes.

The means to keep me is, however, a different story… the first successful grant to include a fraction of my salary (as project manager) in the budget just came in, but the budget was cut by 20% across the board, so my plan to cover as much of my salary as possible through grants is not quite on track. This salary compensation is a relatively recent innovation, suggested by my primary supervisor, and is included in another couple of pending grants, so we’ll see. Success in this department will help convince the powers that be (not my primary supervisor) that the two year experiment was financially successful.

This resolution is somewhat out of my hands, but I’m doing my best to be proactive.

ii) stop procrastinating and develop my freelance writing

Ideally this would entail making some money – not including the royalties for the still-unbloggable group project I completed at the beginning of 2008. Any month now, apparently. But if that’s not possible, I’d be happy with just getting something published. Admittedly I haven’t actually submitted anything yet (again, any month now), although I have lots of ideas scribbled in a notebook, and a couple of half-written articles. The problem is that I haven’t yet discovered the best way to integrate any serious writing into my daily schedule. At the moment I feel too burned out at the end of a work day, and tend to be very easily side-tracked into the instant gratification and feedback of blogging. I’ve bought a few books on this topic and will procrastinate a bit more by reading them instead of writing anything.

I have had a couple of phone interviews for a volunteer freelance writing position (one article per month) with a local charity who want to improve their coverage of research projects that they help to finance. They’re going to send me a couple of their most recent articles, and I’m going to re-write them in a couple of different ways to see what works.

B) HEALTH

i) Exercise more

Very original, eh?!

The exercise log and arse-kicking posts in the right sidebar have really helped, but I need to step it up a notch. After the successful implementation of the slightly-too-small-wedding-dress in 2007, I’m using the slightly-too-small-suit as an incentive this year. I want to rock that outfit, instead of just barely fitting into it, for my Canadian citizenship ceremony. Unfortunately, I have no idea when that will be. The timeline they gave me at the test last month means that I have a decent shot of making the Canada Day (July 1st) event, but honestly, who knows.

The new plan is one weights/circuit session, one swim, and at least one other cardio session per week (all this on top of my 60 hilly kilometers per week bicycle commuting). Sessions will also hopefully be longer than the current ones.

I am also planning to try – gasp! – running. Even though I hate it. Multiple people have told me that a) it’s the best way to lose weight, and b) even people who start out hating it end up loving it. Well, liking it. OK, tolerating it. Following advice from Ironman triathlete Mermaid, I’ve downloaded an interval running application on my iPhone. It has four Easy, two Medium, and two Heavy programmes, which play over the top of your music: “Start running now… start to walk… start to run… you are going too fast”. I’m aiming to complete each one twice, and if I still hate running, I’ll stop and try something else. I refuse to run in the rain though – cycling in the rain twice a day, and putting on my still-damp clothes for the ride home, is bad enough – so it might be a few weeks before I gain any momentum.

ii) stretch more

I’m a bugger for not stretching. I feel so much better when I stretch. But it’s been harder with two cats trying to sit on my head.

iii) improve my diet

It’s basically OK, but I need to reinstate the weekly vegetarian evening meal, and do better at making lunches at home rather than buying a sandwich. This week I made a rice, asparagus, cashew nut, red pepper, banana pepper, and pineapple concoction that was quite delicious and lasted three days.

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Those are the biggies… I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few of the smaller ones, but hey, I’ll put “be less forgetful” into next year’s resolutions. If I remember.

Happy Equinox!

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ETA: “Play my guitar more” and “don’t neglect the garden as much as last year” are on the list too.

Posted in career, exercise, food glorious food, personal | 26 Comments

The space-time continuum

Posted on March 20, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’m currently merging several PIs’ publication lists into one document for a grant progress report. I’m sorting by year of publication and then alphabetically by first author. It’s really, really fun, although actually not the absolute worst thing to do on a Friday afternoon.
There’s a bit of a tight character limit, and I’m wearing out my backspace key on all the completely unnecessary fluff that some citation formats use. I just need the full author list, title, journal, volume and page numbers, and year. So why do so many formats introduce the following?

  • unnecessary punctuation marks. Author name and date should be “Ennis CA, 2009” rather than “Ennis, C. A., (2009)” and all possible permutations and combinations of intermediate punctuation.
  • unnecessary use of “and” in author lists. Just put a comma before the last author. Those two extra spaces really add up.
  • full journal names. We all know what the abbreviations mean. And don’t put spaces between the individual letters of acronyms (it’s USA, not U S A).
  • journal issue number. I would bet good money that most people find articles online by author, volume and page, rather than by hunting down individual print issues. I don’t need to turn 24:345-9 into 24(11):345-9. And what’s with all the additional numbers and spaces? (24: (11); 345 – 349, you can bugger right off).
  • month and day of publication. I just need the year.
  • doi or PubMed ID in citations that already have the volume and page number. WHY??!!

This is what happens when people prepare their CVs using different Endnote output styles1. (I’m assuming the typos and duplicated years in some citations are due to human error rather than software glitches). I don’t have access to the original Endnote libraries, so I’m in Word, using find and replace wherever possible, and doing the rest manually.
The attempt to create more space is proceeding slooooooowly. What a waste of time.
/rant.

1 Let’s not even get into the different order of the citation components, and different italics / bold / underlining conventions.

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Some laws are made to be broken

Posted on March 20, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Like laws that impose a statute of limitations on genocide.

They should put this guy on trial.

Posted in bad people, politics | 4 Comments

How is this a FAIL?

Posted on March 20, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

This breakfast looks full of WIN! to me.

Makes my tea and bagel look rather pedestrian.

Posted in drunkenness, food glorious food, silliness | 8 Comments

I still have a lot to learn about life in Canada

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

It snowed a lot here this winter.
In fact, the general consensus is that we had a ridiculous amount of snow. Most of it fell around Christmas, causing almost unprecedented chaos in a city that just isn’t prepared for a proper Canadian winter. The snow was eventually manipulated into massive piles and banks that no longer impeded human and vehicular movement, and we all got on with our normal lives while it melted.
Veeery slowly.
A few more snow showers1 added an inch or two here or there, but it was the sheer size of the existing piles that kept them present for weeks and weeks after the original big falls.
Gradually, the piles diminished and started to disappear. Until about three or four weeks ago there were still some small patches of white visible on the higher parts of my ride to work. But they, too, eventually melted away.
With one exception.
I kept seeing one lonely pile of snow. Every day, there it would be, on the other side of a neighbourhood park, the sole reminder of the festive chaos.
“Wow”, I would think as I cycled past. “They must have made a really, really big pile of snow for it still to be there now. Probably with a bulldozer or something, to clear the football field in the park”.
It was when the pile was still just as big after a week of rain that I really started to question things. Every day this week, it niggled at me briefly as I glimpsed it in my frozen and rain-soaked peripheral vision. But something must have been percolating away in my brain, because this morning it finally hit me:

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Much better news today

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Vancouver is getting a Major League “Soccer” team!

It ain’t no English Premier League, but it’s the highest standard of football available in North America!

My Dad took me to my first ever Newcastle United game when I was ten. I’m a third generation fan on one side, fourth on the other, and he felt it was time to begin my education (thanks for the twenty-odd years of pain, Dad). He even managed to talk his way into the dressing room before the game, so I got to meet my hero Peter Beardsley (and other members of the team, including a very young and hungover-looking Gazza), and we beat Southampton 2-0.

I instantly loved it – being part of a crowd, the singing and chanting and cheering and jumping up and down, the banter, all of it. I once took a friend to a Scotland-South Africa rugby game in Edinburgh – she hated sport but thought that she “should go and see what it’s all about” – and while she spent most of the game shivering and sulking, she came to life as Scotland pushed for the line, recycling the ball over and over, and eventually scoring a try through sheer bloody-minded perseverance. As the whole stadium leaped to its feet and roared, she admitted that she could see the attraction. But I’ve always felt it – tens of thousands of people (and thousands or even millions more in front of their TVs) uniting in one wish that, if fulfilled, causes an outburst of pure joy and elation and causes strangers to hug and grown men to declare that they love each other.

My Dad and I went a few more times while I was growing up in York, about a 90 minute drive away. An evening game against Norwich (we won 4-1) and a quite terrifying cup game against Wimbledon (we lost 3-0) stand out in the memory – the latter occasion was the one and only time I ever stood, and being at about head height to the concrete barricades, with TV images of Hillsborough still fresh in my mind, I did not particularly enjoy it. The drive back up to Ashington in my Dad’s cousin’s van was equally harrowing.

Then, when I was eighteen, I moved back to the region of my birth to attend Newcastle University, and lived within sight and sound of the magnificent St James’ Park stadium during the Keegan era of the late 1990s. I was in heaven, even though it was almost impossible to get tickets and I only got to go to a game once a year or so. (My favourite experience was when a friend of my then-boyfriend asked me, in a very patronising voice, “is the stadium bigger than you’d expected?” His expression got more and more surprised as I answered “well, it’s really improved since I first came here nine years ago, the corners have filled in, they’ve added the extra tiers, and of course there’s no standing section any more. And I hear the dressing rooms have really improved since the time I got in there to meet Peter Beardsley”).

The only time I’ve ever got tickets since, with Mr E Man in tow for his first ever Premiership game, the fixture was cancelled 20 minutes before kick-off, due to snow. We got to see Alan Shearer throw a snowball though. Mr E Man opined that he threw like a girl, which almost caused my Dad and me to abandon him to his fate at the hands of 50,000 irate Geordies, but we chose the path of light and my Dad explained loudly “it’s alright, he’s Canadian”.

In contrast, the Vancouver Whitecaps have never aroused the same feelings of tribal passion, despite links to Newcastle through the likes of Beardsley, Bobby Robson, and (much less impressively, although he’s a decent keeper), Tony Caig. I’ve been to a couple of special occasion games – the Beckham spectacle, and a pre-season visit by Newcastle’s bitter rivals, the Mackem Bastards Sunderland. Bolstered by body guarding support from Mr E Man and another burly friend, I wore my Newcastle shirt, and with one exception (the drunk angry guy who tried to write on my shirt in red pen), had a grand old time bantering with the opposing fans (best observation: “did you know you’ve got shit down your shirt, love?”). The football has always been of poor quality (although the ‘Caps destroyed Sunderland – heh!) and of secondary importance to other distractions. Including the fact that you’re allowed to drink beer at your seat!

But my one experience with MLS – a Columbus Crew game in 1997 – leaves me optimistic that the standard of football in Vancouver is about to improve to the extent that I will actually want to go and watch a regular season game. (Back then I found the MLS standard to be somewhere between Newcastle and York City, who I’ve seen once, and never again, although hopefully the MLS (and York City) standard is rising). I’ll definitely give it a try, dragging friends and/or nephews along with me if necessary. No doubt the new team will be significantly cheaper and easier to see than the Canucks (who are hopefully streaking their way into a decent play-off run as we speak. Getting to the second round this year would be nice, guys…)

To be continued… in 2011…

Posted in embarrassing fan girl, family, sport, Vancouver | 6 Comments

Three people…

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

…who I wish would shuffle off into the obscurity of history.

The Pope, for speaking out against condom distribution in Africa (abstinence is the answer, apparently).

Canada’s Science Minister, Gary Goodyear, for showing the tell-tale signs of being a creationist (H/T Ryan Gregory)

Some US Immigration agent for not letting a Canadian into the country to attend a tradeshow on the grounds that he was “stealing American jobs”. Seriously, weren’t they supposed to be cutting down on shit like this? I suppose he should count himself lucky he didn’t get pepper sprayed*.

Bugger off, all three of you.

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*I should say that I consider anyone who “repeatedly” asks a border official to do anything to be an idiot. But still.

Posted in bad people, Canada, creationism, politics | 7 Comments

I like to ride my cell cycle

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Have any of the musicians and assorted other live music fans on here ever noticed anything… familiar about published cell cycle analysis data?

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Agnostic about Humanism

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I don’t really like labels.

Why do I have to be “a Liberal” rather than “a Tory”, “an atheist” rather than “a Christian?” I prefer to think in terms of my stance on individual issues – politically I usually agree with the Greens, and often with the Socialists, but I disagree with both platforms in some cases, and sometimes even (gasp!) agree with a right winger. So my vote goes to whichever party in a given election best represents my attitude towards the issues I deem most important at that time. (It’s a shame, because other than effectively having to be part of a specific political party, politics sounds like a decent career option for me).

Labels can sometimes be useful though. (Even the “anti-label” label doesn’t fit me all the time). They’re a short-cut, a way to describe the essence of my views without spending too much time on lengthy explanations.

As I’ve written before, I’ve labelled myself in the past as an agnostic, and then later as an atheist. People (well, most people) understand what both those terms mean. If the conversation develops, then you can get into more detail, but often it’s just a brief question and answer from a casual acquaintance (e.g. at a recent baby shower: “How about you? Do you go to church?” “No, I’m an atheist.” “Oh….” (lengthy pause) “these mini quiches are great, aren’t they?”). However, the term that fits me best is the mixed-label “agnostic atheist”. What I mean by this is that in the absence of any evidence for the existence of gods, I’m fairly convinced that they don’t exist; but I accept that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, that I can’t ever know for certain, and that I will change my mind if evidence arises. Try dropping that into casual conversation though.

More recently, I’ve started reading a little about Humanism. It’s come up in conversation a couple of times recently with agnostic/atheist friends who self-identify as Humanists, so I thought I’d better investigate.

From Wikipedia:

Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationality, without resorting to the supernatural or alleged divine authority from religious texts. It is a component of a variety of more specific philosophical systems. Humanism can be considered as a process by which truth and morality is sought through human investigation and as such views on morals can change when new knowledge and information is discovered. In focusing on the capacity for self-determination, humanism rejects transcendental justifications, such as a dependence on belief without reason, the supernatural, or texts of allegedly divine origin. Humanists endorse universal morality based on the commonality of the human condition, suggesting that solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be parochial.

From the British Humanist Association:

Humanism is an approach to life based on humanity and reason – humanists recognise that moral values are properly founded on human nature and experience alone and that the aims of morality should be human welfare, happiness and fulfillment. Our decisions are based on the available evidence and our assessment of the outcomes of our actions, not on any dogma or sacred text.

Humanism is a naturalistic view, encompassing atheism and agnosticism as responses to theistic claims, but is an active and ethical philosophy far greater than these reactions to religion.
Humanists believe in individual rights and freedoms, but believe that individual responsibility, social cooperation and mutual respect are just as important.
Humanists believe that people can and will continue to find solutions to the world’s problems, so that quality of life can be improved for everyone.
Humanists are positive, gaining inspiration from our lives, art and culture, and a rich natural world.

The difficulty for me is that while I agree with all of the above, it’s hitting me on a purely intellectual level. It makes perfect sense to me. BUT it’s not reaching out of the page and grabbing me by the throat, it’s not punching me in the gut and making me shout “YES! This is what I’ve been looking for my whole life!”

So am I a Humanist? (And does that word require capitalisation? Usage differs…) Luckily the British Humanist Association website has a quiz, imaginatively titled “Are you a Humanist?“

I took it. I got about 60-70% Ds, the rest were Cs. For some questions, I agreed with answers C and D equally.

From the answer key:

All or mostly Cs: Your answers are fairly neutral, perhaps a bit dependent on authority or other people or pure emotion. Humanists try to think, and to think for themselves. You may be an agnostic or a humanist or vaguely religious, depending on what your other answers were.

All or mostly Ds: You are a humanist or very close to humanist thinking. Many people are, often without even knowing it! Humanists don’t agree about everything, and you may have collected some other answers too, though if they include As and Bs you’re unlikely to be a humanist.

So… I guess I might be a Humanist. But then again, I might not.

Yeah, I know, it doesn’t matter. It’s just another label. I’m not planning to join any groups or attend any meetings anyway. But for some reason, I’d like to know.

I’m only human, after all, even if I’m not (necessarily) a Humanist.

Posted in atheism, humanism, personal, politics | 16 Comments

Cushions!

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Here’s my addition to the baby photos meme that Professor in Training started. The only photo I could get my hands on was the one my oldest cushion* posted on Facebook last year:

From left to right: Cushion 1, Sister, Cushion 2, Me

Comments from Facebook:

C2: ah, dont we all look sweet! thought id start the ball rolling on this 1! my hairstyle in this certainally leaves a lot to be desired! x

Me: Does [C1 & C2’s Mum] still have the pudding bowl she used for [C1’s] hair?

C2: no, she passed it on to him as an 18th birthday present to be passed down to the next generation of [surnames!] im pleased to say that it sits in pride of place on his mantlepiece!!!!

Sis: Don’t you think [C1] looks a bit like [C2’s daughter] in this one? (no offence to [C2’s daughter], that is!) Cath – you’ve hardly changed!

C2: no offence taken lol! but yes i think ur right, there is a small resemblence but luckily [my daughter] has avoided the pudding basin look!

C1: Hello everyone, and what is wrong with pudding basin haircuts!?!?!?!?! Anyway [my daughter] likes using the bowl as a crash helmet. And what about all our lovely clothes!!

C2: im glad to hear that and im sure [your daughter] is proud of her family heirloom!

C1: She most certainly is :o)

Sis: Cath and I had pretty similar haircuts at one time soon, in fact I think there’s a photo of the pair of us with that beautiful hair in pride of place in mum and dad’s living room!

Me: I don’t know what [C2] was doing to me, but I don’t look happy!

C2: I was just being a good big cushion! maybe it was just your shock at mine and [C1’s] groovy haircuts!!

My family is Teh Awesome.

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*This is what my sister and I called our cousins when we were little, and the name stuck. So now we have a group of six thirty- and forty-somethings shouting “CUSHION!!!” at each other whenever we meet.

Posted in family, meme, photos, silliness | 7 Comments