Holy December Batman, this time next week I’ll be in England!<\/p>\n
Yup, a 10 hour flight, 3 hour layover, 1 hour flight and 1.5 hour train ride await, starting on Tuesday night. A total of ~7320 kilometres (~4550 miles)<\/a> lie between “home” in Vancouver and “home<\/em> home” in Yorkshire.<\/p>\n I know that many (most?) of you are also a long way from home, and possibly from aging parents. And, like me, I’m sure that many of you live in fear of the call.<\/p>\n You know – The. Call.<\/p>\n The call from home that means “you need to leave for the airport now”.<\/em> Stepping out of the shower at work, I realised that my phone was vibrating in my bag. I frantically started to dig for it under the clean clothes, towel, spare shoes, lunch, and other assorted crap that I haul to work every day. I just <\/em>missed the call.<\/p>\n Hmmm, I thought, wonder who that was?<\/p>\n My “Recent” list showed that the missed call was from my parents. And that, during my bike ride into work and nice hot shower, I had in fact missed a total of nine calls from my parents.<\/p>\n NINE!<\/p>\n I talk to my parents at noon PST (8 pm GMT), almost every Sunday. And at no other time during the week. This is the way it has been ever since I moved here almost seven years ago1<\/sup>. So nine calls at 8.45 am on a Thursday meant one thing.<\/p>\n The Call.<\/p>\n At this point, a voicemail message alert popped up.<\/p>\n The message was two seconds of silence, and a click.<\/p>\n So clearly this was not the kind of thing that could be left in a message, but rather had to be communicated in person.<\/p>\n It was The Call. It had to be.<\/p>\n I frantically started to punch in my parents’ number. (Have I ever mentioned that I’m a bit of a panic merchant?). I misdialled the first time, and got someone else’s answering machine. I redialled, even more frantically, and my Mum answered.<\/p>\n “Hi, Mum, it’s me – you were trying to reach me?” I said.<\/p>\n (Actually, it probably came out more like “Himusmee, tringrichmi?”)<\/p>\n “Oh, hello love”, came the cheery reply, “thanks for ringing back so quickly! Your Dad thought you’d be at work. I was just wondering, what size feet does [Mr E Man] have? I think I might get him some socks as part of his present. He seemed to like the ones I got him last time”.<\/p>\n “…”<\/p>\n When my heart stopped pounding, I told her that “Oh well, it’s not really urgent, just let me know before you come over. Oh, and I got him a [thing], but I don’t know if he’ll like it, so I kept the receipt. It’s from [shop] and it’s [colour] – do you think he’ll like it?”.<\/p>\n “Mum… seminar…”<\/p>\n “Oh, right, I’d better let you get on then. Sorry for scaring you. What’s the seminar about?”<\/p>\n “Genomes2<\/sup>. Bye Mum, talk to you Sunday”.<\/p>\n I love my parents, but they are obviously in need of some retraining. Starting with the existence of time zones3<\/sup>, cell phones, and email.<\/p>\n —————–<\/p>\n 1) With one exception… this story really shouldn’t have come as THAT much of a surprise to me, as something similar happened a few years ago. <\/span> 3) My sister will probably want to help with this – they once called her in London at 3.30 am on a week night, because they were in Canada and got the eight hour time difference the wrong way round. My Dad is still <\/em>amazed that it’s only noon in Vancouver when I call them on a Sunday. Mind you, he has also – more than once – responded to news that it’s sunny in Vancouver with a surprised “Really? <\/em>It’s raining here”. And these are smart people. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Holy December Batman, this time next week I’ll be in England! Yup, a 10 hour flight, 3 hour layover, 1 hour flight and 1.5 hour train ride await, starting on Tuesday night. A total of ~7320 kilometres (~4550 miles) lie … Continue reading
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Last week, I thought I’d had The Call.<\/p>\n
a) she’d scared the shit out of me,
b) yes, I’m at work, and in fact this phone call is making me late for a seminar, and
c) I have no bloody idea what size feet he has.<\/p>\n
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2) I’m sure most of you are aware of the recent heated blogosphere conversations about the representation of women at conferences and seminar series. This “seminar” was actually a full-day forum, with nine (almost all local) speakers and a panel discussion. Five speakers were women – including the keynote speaker, and also the recipient of a Young Investigator award. Yay! I bumped into the event’s chief organiser the next day, and congratulated her on an excellent event. “It was especially nice to see so many female speakers”, I said. “Oh, you’re right! I hadn’t even noticed!”. Double yay!<\/p>\n