Thursday, January 12, 2017

Working on ethics resubmission.  Procrastinating.

Things I did today:

Got up at six.  Slept on the couch for half an hour.  I was dreaming I had triplets.
Had a meeting with my PhD supervisor at 7:30 AM.  (2:30 in England, one of the drawbacks of distance education).
Forgot to put the chicken in the crockpot for dinner.

Went to work.  Signed numerous documents for folks.  This notary gig is almost a full time job now.
Court files.  Court is done.
Didn't get to the fingerprints again.
Printed out materials for the course I'm teaching next week in Taloyoak.  This is an exceedingly painstaking process.  Trying to get files off the internet up here is like sucking elephants through juice box straws.
Texted Rachel.  We discussed Ian's theory that Donald Trump is actually Bill the Cat.

We got a new photocopier at work today.  It's been sitting around in three boxes since Tuesday, when the police plane dropped it off.  The stupid one we had was running all the sheets through crooked so they came out like badly ironed shirts.

So the three boxes moved into the other side of the office, today, where the guys sit, with promises that they would put it together.  I have a nice little glass box to sit in, remnants I think of an old radio room but it means I can play my music endlessly without disturbing them.  Although they do sometimes come through to put things in the filing cabinet and say "are you listening to...  Eminem?  Justin Timberlake?  NWA?"  Yes to all the above.  At 3 o'clock I decided that if I didn't do something about it, the boxes would still be sitting there on Saturday when the boss comes back from his holiday.  So I got out my penknife and started opening the boxes.  Pulled out some bits and put them together.  In the end though the largest part was too heavy.  At that point the guys came back and ripped the box apart and heaved the machine onto the base I had constructed.  Then we spent about twenty minutes trying, all of us, to figure out how to get it to take legal size paper.  I mean, it has to.  You can't print legal forms on 8andahalfby11 paper.

Eventually Brandon figured it out.  He said, what if we pull the drawer out from the front.  And we had to tell him he was right.  Which he insists we need to tell his girlfriend, that he was right once.  Although it's the ugliest thing, with the legal drawer sticking out, it works.

Came home and found Miguel was making something else with the chicken.  Yay!
Watched more Vikings.  I like it that they haven't killed off Bjorn yet.
Continued the Marxism / Wages for Facebook discussion from yesterday.
Worked on the ethics.  Sigh.  I suspect they're preparing to squash part of my research.  I plan to fight.
When I could no longer think, watched the season finale of Hunting Hitler.  A guilty pleasure.

Sunday, January 08, 2017

I come and go, I know.  Been to Hawaii, and Winnipeg.  A bipolar holiday.  Winnipeg is not my favourite place on the planet, but there was a conference on Arctic research that I've been to before, and so Winnipeg it was.  Hawaii was much nicer.

I'm going back to England at the end of February, but for now I'm here.  Back in the cold and dark, with my dog.  Week after next will be Taloyoak, week after that Kugluktuk, to run some courses.  I enjoy the teaching, which surprised me.  The travelling is a bit hairy, in the north, woke up in the morning I was supposed to leave Gjoa Haven to pea soup fog, which stops the planes here, as does the brewing blizzard on the day I was supposed to leave Kugaaruk.  But both times the planes came in and I left, a good thing in Gjoa Haven as the hotel was booked up for the weekend and I'm not sure what I would have done.  I worry I've used up my luck and will get stuck this time round...

Mum and Dad are in Australia with Graeme.  Roy's thinking about moving to Vancouver Island.  Ian's got a job, he starts tomorrow at the psychiatric hospital in Edmonton, and is packing to move closer to work.  Rachel is coming home, end of April, to live with us again.  Eric mutters about going back to school in the South, Kirsten and Jorden are contemplating a move to BC.  Everyone shuffling around.  The house in Edmonton will get sold.  Time moves on.  I'm finished a year of my PhD.  Amazingly I've managed to meet all the goals set for this year, academically, and should be able to start the process of data collection and analysis this year.  Historical child sexual abuse interviews by the police.  And that's a conversation stopper, let me tell you.  People ask, "what are you studying" and I tell them, and they don't know what to say.  I think (as another sexual assault researcher said) that they'd rather I said "freshwater trout" or "boreal ecology".

The sun will be back soon.  I miss it.  There was a tiny sliver of reflected light from below the horizon, today right at noon, but it will be showing above the horizon on Thursday.  Probably be cloudy.