Anastasia - December 2010

I had a wonderful time over Christmas because my brother and his family were staying with my parents for a week, so I was able to spend lots of time with them.  Here are a few of my favourite photos of my adorable niece:

Watering the garden

At Le Pain Quotidien, Westfield Sydney

Eating a vegemite roll

Bouncing on her new trampoline - a Christmas present from her grandparents

She just has the most gorgeous smile!

Crafty Christmas - 5

The first sewing project I decided to complete for Christmas was an apron and oven mitt set for my niece.  This was actually one of the first things I made with the sewing machine I bought last January.  I made a calico version first, just to be sure it would work, before splurging on ultra cute fabric for the real thing.

This isn't a great photo - it's a bit grainy - but here's Anastasia wearing her apron and gloves to cook at her brand new stove.

Resolutions and good habits

In my first post of the year, I said that I decided not to make New Year's resolutions because I never keep them anyway.  It's a good thing I didn't resolve to blog every day, because I would have already failed that!  Instead of resolutions (and in addition to my 30 things) I am trying to cultivate certain good habits.  For a change, I'm being somewhat sensible.  I'm not trying to overhaul my entire life in one go.  I didn't expect that this year, finally, everything would change on January 1.  Rather, I'm giving myself one or two habits to work on each week.  Since I believe that the right stationery makes everything easy (well, not really, but sometimes I shop that way) I've armed myself with a Kikki K weekly habits pad.  Each page provides room to list the habits I'm focusing on, boxes to tick each day, and a reward to work towards. 

Photo from kikki k

Last week, the first full week of the year, I was working on developing habits of reading the Bible and doing the dishes every day.  So far, so good, although I did have to do four days worth of Bible reading on Tuesday.  This week I'm aiming to exercise and make the bed every day.  So far, so good, but it's only Monday!  That's still more success than I've ever had with resolutions.

Graphing natural theology

The Google Books N-Gram Viewer is a new tool for examining cultural trends by searching for the frequency of words and phrases in published books over time.  Here's a couple of results relevant to my research interests:

The first graph is based on a search for "natural theology" in books published between 1600 and 2000; the second adds "natural religion", a related term sometimes used interchangeably with natural theology, sometimes used for something quite different.  "Physico-theology", another related term, didn't show up at all, since only phrases appearing in 40 or more books are included.  The graphs are a bit small to see here, but there is a massive spike for natural theology (blue)  around 1750.  Natural religion (red) far outstrips natural theology, but by 2000, natural theology is slightly higher.

I can imagine that this could be quite interesting and perhaps useful for someone like me who is interested in the history of a concept (although I know nothing about statistical analysis).  I've done searches in Early English Books Online and Eighteenth Century Collections Online to find all uses of these terms in published works, but it's also interesting to see the overall trends.  I hope that Google Books will continue to add to the number of books included in the search results.  I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this!

Thank you!

Thanks to everyone who has commented on my latest blog posts.  It's nice to know that people are still willing to read and comment, even after an absence of nearly a year!  I think that linking from Facebook helped with that...

Thanks especially to everyone who has offered to help me with my list of 30 things to do when I'm 30.  So far I've had all these offers:

• Laurel-Li has offered to help me learn to crochet well enough to make the granny square slippers (4 and 6)
• Laetitia offered to help with my wedding and honeymoon photos (11 and 12), even though we've never met!
• Chaotic Jupiter suggested I go to some craft shows with her and Amelie&Atticus (10)
• Gin Oak offered company for all the craftiness on my list (1 to 8)
• Anne and Matt offered to help with a trip to the Hunter Valley to fulfil 19
• Graeme offered to help with 24 - travelling to some place I've never been before - if I want a trip to Bahrain, I guess!
• My brother has signed himself up for a pair of granny square slipper socks (they're just like the ones our grandma used to make us) and will also alert me to any craft fairs or markets in Canberra
• And my parents are very generously taking me to the Bather's Pavilion for my birthday, taking care of 16.

So I think I'm off to a good start!

Good advice

I found this list of advice amongst a series of unpublished drafts of blog posts.  I'm not sure where I found it, but it's good advice and even though I've now finished my PhD, it's still encouraging, especially points 3 to 5.

1. Procrastination is part of being a PhD student, and waiting for your thoughts to coalesce which often delivers the inspiration can often feel like procrastination, because it seems like nothing is happening
2. Your motivation will vary in response to different stages over the course of your PhD
3. Your best work is probably yet to come (and is not going to be your PhD thesis)
4. Don't expect your career peak now
5. No PhD student is ever 100% happy with their thesis submission
6. You are not alone ... Lots of PhD students feel the same from all around the world

Crafty Christmas - 4

Bunnies for my niece!  These are from Aranzi Aronzo's book Cute Dolls.  The fabric for the bunnies was leftover from making Christmas stockings, and the dresses were made from scraps from my first Christmas 2010 project: an apron and oven mitts for my niece.  I'll post photos of those once I check with her parents that I'm allowed to post photos of her online.  I forgot to take a photo of the apron and mitts by themselves, and by the time I remembered, the apron was stained with Vegemite.  My niece loves her Vegemite sandwiches!

I think the bunnies would have looked better if they'd been made with jersey cloth like the book suggests, but I was just using what I had on hand.  And the facial features do make the bunnies look like they have moustaches.  But at least my niece was able to recognise them as bunnies!

Crafty Christmas - 3

My brother and husband both like playing Angry Birds on their iPhones, so when I saw a tutorial for making plush Angry Birds, I figured this was a suitable addition to their Christmas stockings.  I made them from felt rather than fleece, because that was what I had on hand.  I think they would be easier to make from fleece - the felt, being fairly stiff, was not the easiest to hand sew (to close the opening after stuffing, and to hand sew the beak).  Still, I thought they were pretty cute, even though one has a rather crooked beak.

Crafty Christmas - 2

In my recipe folder, I have instructions on making a gingerbread house from a 1994 issue of Family Circle magazine.  A number of years ago I wanted to try making one, but I decided to try making gingerbread biscuits using the recipe first, to see how it would work out.  Since then, making gingerbread biscuits at Christmas time has been an annual tradition.  My husband has enjoyed decorating the biscuits - he goes for elaborate liquorice allsort designs whereas I'm more minimalist with silver cachous - and he's often complained that as a guy, he's not allowed to go to those gingerbread house events that many churches run for ladies around Christmas time.  So, I thought making a gingerbread house would be a nice thing for us to do together this year.  I made the pieces at home and then we put them together at my parents' place on Christmas Eve, ready to be a decoration for our family Christmas celebration there on Christmas Day.

Note the trees along one side, the red bushes along the other, the liquorice gate and the ingenious letterbox at the front - all my very creative husband's work!  I did the Freckle tiles and Smartie trim - less creative, but fun (and tasty!)  The front looked too bare, so I added the Smartie cross and turned the gingerbread house into a gingerbread church!

Skweezettes ARE happy!

In October 2008, I posted that my husband had found a site to play Skweek, my favourite arcade game when I was a kid, online.  Fortunately, playing Skweek did not kill my thesis, and in April 2010 (after finishing the thesis) I finally managed to finish the game.  There are 99 levels in Skweek, and it's actually easier to play on random, rather than straight through from 1 to 99.  I came close to finishing once before, completing 98 levels.  When I did finally finish, it was a bit of a surprise.  Playing on random, I had no idea how many levels I'd completed.  And then all of a sudden... happy Skweezettes!

Crafty Christmas - 1

Some of the crafty things I made as gifts and decorations this Christmas just passed.  As usual, I was overly ambitious with my plans, and I decided to make embroidered Christmas stockings for my immediate family.  I made eight in total - for my husband, parents, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew-or-niece-to-be.  According to the Purl Bee, these stockings are designed to be a quick project.  Ha!  Perhaps I'm just incredibly slow (I am relatively new at sewing, and very new at this kind of embroidery), but it took me a fair while to sew each stocking, and the embroidery took me about 45 minutes per letter!  I didn't quite finish - one letter missing on my niece's stocking, several missing on mine - but oh well.  They did look nice!  Here's one of the stockings:

And here's another with the little presents I put inside:

I'm going to reuse the stockings next year - I'm not dedicated enough to make something like this every year!

30 Things To Do When I’m 30

In lieu of making New Year's Resolutions this year (since I never keep them anyway) I've made a list of 30 things I would like to do when I'm 30.  I'm giving myself a head start - my birthday is not for a couple of months yet - but I think it will probably take me more than a year to get through this list.

If I was making New Year's Resolutions, blogging more would be on the list (although that's not a SMART goal...)

1. Sew a quilt
2. Sew a skirt
3. Sew a dress
4. Learn to crochet
5. Crochet an amigurumi
6. Crochet slipper socks
7. Learn to knit
8. Knit a scarf
9. Have all completed cross-stitches framed
10. Go to a craft market and/or craft fair
11. Choose photos for wedding album
12. Print honeymoon photos and put in album
13. Eat at a restaurant I haven’t been to before
14. Have cocktails at bar I haven’t been to before
15. Have fish & chips on the beach at Manly
16. Have lunch at The Bather's Pavilion, Balmoral Beach
17. Get a massage
18. Get a facial
19. Go to a winery
20. Go bushwalking
21. Go bike riding
22. Go to the zoo
23. Go to Melbourne for a weekend
24. Travel some place I haven’t been before
25. Unclutter my life
26. Implement “Getting Things Done”
27. Submit an article to a journal
28. Write a book proposal
29. Start researching something not directly related to my PhD
30. Have my PhD degree framed

A question...

In Exodus 9, God sends a plague on the Egyptians that causes all their livestock to die. Later in the same chapter, he sends another plague, this time of hail. The Egyptians are told to bring all their livestock in from the fields, otherwise the hail will kill them. But aren't all the Egyptian livestock already dead? Is it understood that a significant time has passed between plagues? Or did the Egyptians pinch livestock from the Israelites?

Unclutter Your Life - Day 1

Day 1 of Uncluttering Your Life in One Week involves uncluttering three areas:

1. Your wardrobe
2. Your office
3. Your reception station

Wardrobe

The basic process to purge wardrobe clutter is simple - start at the top of the pile of clothes and sort them into three groups: items to keep, items to purge, and items requiring extra attention, like repairs. The tricky part is deciding which items belong in which group. Erin suggests a few main guidelines

1. Only keep items that fit you now. Like many women, my weight fluctuates. Well, really, over the course of the PhD, it's just gone up. Erin would advocate getting rid of all the clothes that don't fit me at the moment, but I just can't bring myself to do this. I have so many lovely things that I still hope will fit me again one day. I generally try to buy clothes that are stylish but not too fashionable - I don't like to buy things that will only last one season. So many of the clothes I have that are too small at the moment will potentially still look ok (and not too out of style) if I can lose a bit of weight. That might be a vain hope, but I did manage to lose some weight after I submitted my PhD thesis last year. I put some back on over Christmas, but if I can get back to my healthy eating and exercise routine, there's a good chance I'll fit into these clothes again. So I've made myself a deal - I'll toss anything that I don't fit into by the end of the year, and I've tried to keep only the nicest of the too-small clothes.
   
2. Purge seasonally. I'm putting off my purging until the end of the year, due to the weight-loss possibility, but if I get to the end of summer and find that I haven't worn an item, it will have to go. The same thing will apply to winter (but not until 2011). So uncluttering my wardrobe will be an ongoing process.
3. Consider your personal style/uniform. An example of a "uniform" would be Steve Jobs with his black turtlenecks and jeans, but I haven't yet figured out how to apply this to myself. The problem is that most people would have a number of roles, and perhaps need a different uniform for each - suits for the office; track pants for doing the housework; casual gear for weekends; nice dresses for weddings and other special occasions; exercise clothes for going to the gym... I think this will be taken care of by the "purge seasonally" requirement - it will just take a bit longer.

I've been through my wardrobe at home and ended up with a bag of clothes to donate to the op-shop and another to take to a charity bin for rags. I still need to work on all the clothes that are lingering at my parents' place - things that don't fit but I'm hoping will some day. If I stick to my plan, these will definitely all be gone by the end of the year - either taking their place in my regular wardrobe or being uncluttered out of my (and my parents') life.

Office

According to Erin, " In a competitive marketplace. a clean, organized, well-decorated office might be the key to keeping your job, earning a raise, retaining a client, or being promoted, irrespective of the quality of work you actually do" [44]. I don't have a job at the moment (not a full-time paid job, anyway) so I don't really need to worry about the perception people will have of me from my office. However, I do know that having a tidy and organised workspace is extremely conducive to productivity, and conversely, I feel I cannot do any real work if my work area and my thoughts are in a mess. Monday's job is only to deal with the physical space of the office - the filing problems are taken care of on Tuesday.

The most obvious thing, of course, is the desk. I've had an Ikea desk that's just a basic rectangle with a pull-out side panel. I didn't work at home for my PhD, so it's not until recently that I've found it's not really the best set up for me. I much preferred the corner workstation I had at uni. We also needed to buy a new desk for Matt, since the keyboard shelf from his computer workstation mysteriously vanished during our move. So, we took the plunge and bought a new desk from Officeworks and another Billy bookcase from Ikea to store all the books and papers from my PhD (until today they were sitting in two large piles in the corner). I now have a corner desk with a raised shelf for my laptop and extra shelves underneath for storage (handy for things like the external hard drive). According to the principles of uncluttering, I only have things on my desk that I use regularly, and just two decorative objects - a photo of Matt and the paperweight the university gave me as a gift when I submitted my PhD (not sure why I want that one on my desk...) I have a few books that I refer to often, and an in-tray. Erin's obviously into the whole Getting Things Done system, because she says that the inbox should be processed a few times a day, and action taken on each item the first time it's touched, and the inbox should be emptied at the end of the day - no exceptions. I'm leaving this step for next week...

Reception Station

This is basically the entry point to the home, and should include the following:

• Somewhere to remove and store muddy and wet shoes
• Somewhere to hang jackets/coats and store hats, gloves and scarves during winter
• An area to sort through mail, with a shredder to immediately shred things like pre-approved credit card offers
• A trash can
• A place to put coins
• An inbox
• A designated space for a backpack, purse or briefcase
• A space for keys
• A space for charging cell phones and other electronic devices

We just simply don't have anywhere we could possibly fit all these things together. I can see how it would be handy - it would stop me from dropping the mail on the table, my handbag on the floor, my cardigan on the bed, my phone remaining uncharged in the handbag, etc - but I just don't know how to do it. And I don't really see why it's necessary to have a second shredder - why not walk to the study and shred the papers there? Perhaps if your house is really big this might be difficult, and then you might have room for all this. I think what I'm going to try to do instead is to develop routines. Mail goes to the inbox in the study. The handbag goes to the shelf in the wardrobe, after the wallet is cleared of receipts, the phone is checked for charge and any other clutter is cleared out. The keys stay in the door, or in the bowl on the bookshelf near the kitchen. The jacket gets hung up in the closet, or over the back of the chair in the bedroom if it needs airing. Rubbish goes in the bin in the kitchen and shoes are left outside the front door. Done. Now, if only I can keep to this routine...

Tasks for tomorrow

• Bathroom
• Files
• Routines for household chores
  

Unclutter Your Life in One Week

I'm on an organisational spree at the moment. The new year always seems like a great time to get my life in order and to change my habits so that disorder does not return. I've never been good at keeping New Year's Resolutions (but who is, really?) so this is not a resolution - just a desire for change.

And even more than desire, a plan for change. I enjoy reading "life hack" blogs, as part of my ongoing journey towards organisation and better time management. I don't remember why/when I first started reading, but one of my regular haunts is Unclutterer.com. It's a combination of the age-old mantra "A place for everything and everything in its place" and the newer (or perhaps just renewed) emphasis on minimalism (also seen on blogs such as Zen Habits). The editor-in-chief of the blog, Erin Rooney Doland, has recently published a book called Unclutter Your Life in One Week, which provides a week-long game plan for removing clutter from home, office and life. It seemed like a good way to start getting myself organised for the new year (the second step will be David Allen's Getting Things Done - incidentally, Allen wrote the foreword for Unclutter Your Life).

A review I read of Unclutter Your Life on another of my favourite life-hack blogs, The Simple Dollar, provides a glowing recommendation. Trent describes it as " This is the single best book I’ve ever read on organizing your life." However, he does acknowledge that accomplishing all of the ideas in the book in one week is impossible. The value comes in the detailed advice as well as the progressive steps Erin outlines. Even if it can't be done in one week, following all these steps should lead to a less cluttered (and therefore, according to Erin, more "remarkable") life.

I've read through the whole book, and now I just have to try to apply the advice and the steps outlined. Each day has three tasks: one at home in the morning; one at work during the day; and another at home in the evening. I'm going to try to complete the whole process in one week, but I have cheated a little - I started, somewhat half-heartedly, last week. From my overview reading, there are two main frustrating things I've noticed:

1. To begin with, Erin has a rather odd view of work-life balance. For work life to be in perfect balance with personal life, a person should be at work the exact same amount of time as they have free time. Obviously, no one really wants to be at work 84 hours a week. So, Erin advocates "work-life symbiosis", which is "what you achieve when all aspects of your life exist together harmoniously" [7]. I would have thought that this is what most people mean by "work-life balance." But that's really just a small point.
2. The fact that it is impossible to complete this process thoroughly in one week is a little frustrating, given that the title is Unclutter Your Life in One Week. The problem is that the processes outlined would take far more time than allowed. For example, the task for Monday morning before work is to unclutter your wardrobe. As this involves getting all the items of clothing in one place for sorting, first "Wash everything in your dirty clothes hamper and pick up any items that maybe at the dry cleaner" [20]. While all the clothes are out of the wardrobe, this is a good time to "repaint, repair, dust, hang hooks, replace rods, or change your wardrobe storage in any way" [22]. How can that possibly be done Monday morning before work? Perhaps the seven days are not meant to be taken literally as seven twenty-four hour days, but instead refer to periods of time, or ages - convenient marking points for outlining a process. A literary device or metaphor. Hmm. Where have I seen that before?!

All in all, this seems like it will be a very useful book, and if it can motivate me to unclutter and organise my life, I'm not going to complain that it takes longer than a week! But I'll reserve my final judgment for the end of the process.

2010: A Return to Blogging

A new year; time for a new start. It's about time I got back into the habit of blogging. After all, it's not just about procrastination. It's also a good way to ensure that I write regularly. If I'm going to be a writer (as all academic researchers are), then I need to write. Of course, I'll have my big writing projects - journal articles, trying to transform my thesis into a book - but I think it will be helpful to write smaller pieces more frequently, to ensure that my creative juices keep flowing. At least, that's my current rationalisation. But surely it's a more productive method of procrastination than Skweek!

I've been trying to develop a few ideas for blog entries. I've written a few over the years celebrating the birthdays of important people in the history of science and religion like Galileo and Samuel Clarke. I'd like to make a regular habit of that, though I've already missed one of the biggest ones. Hopefully I can pull something together on that super quick.

To ease my way back into blogging and writing more generally, and to motivate myself to actually complete this project, I'm also planning to write a little about my attempts to unclutter my life in one week and institute David Allen's "Getting Things Done" as a method of organisation.

So that's my plan. Only time will tell if it actually works out in practice!

A return to blogging

I was surprised to see that I haven't posted since April. I guess that means for the last 5 months of my thesis, I wasn't procrastinating as much.

Yes, that's right, the thesis is finally done. Well, submitted, anyway. I still have to wait for examiners' reports and the almost inevitable revisions. In the meantime I'm catching up on life, and I'm planning to restart this blog. I'll have to change the tagline though, since I'm no longer a procrastinating PhD student. Procrastinating, always; PhD student, just about done!

I have a dilemma, though. I'd like to write more about science and Christianity topics, as well as more general Christians in academia stuff, but I might also like to continue with the random snippets about my life. If I decide I want to put my name to the more academic posts, is it worth starting a new blog, and keeping this for the more mundane, personal stuff?

Thoughts, anyone?

1. Leaving on a Jet Plane

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE
John Denver -Cherry Lane Music Publishing Co., Inc. -ASCAP

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go
I'm standing here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin', it's early morn
The taxi's waiting, he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could cry.

Chorus:
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go.
I'm leavin' on a jet plane
I don't know when I'll be back again
Oh, babe, I hate to go.

There's so many times I've let you down
So many times I've played around
I tell you now, they don't mean a thing
Every place I go, I think of you
Every song I sing, I sing for you
When I come back, I'll wear your wedding ring.

(Chorus)

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time let me kiss you
Then close your eyes, I'll be on my way.
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times, I won't have to say,

(Chorus)

2. The Cruel War

CRUEL WAR
Yarrow/Stookey © Neworld Media Music Publishers- ASCAP/Silver Dawn Music- ASCAP

The Cruel War is raging, Johnny has to fight
I want to be with him from morning to night.
I want to be with him, it grieves my heart so,
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

Tomorrow is Sunday, Monday is the day
that your Captain will call you and you must obey.
Your captain will call you it grieves my heart so,
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

I'll tie back my hair, men's clothing I'll put on,
I'll pass as your comrade, as we march along.
I'll pass as your comrade, no one will ever know.
Won't you let me go with you?
No, my love, no.

Oh Johnny, oh Johnny, I fear you are unkind
I love you far better than all of mankind.
I love you far better than words can e're express
Won't you let me go with you?
Yes, my love, yes.

Yes, My Love, Yes.

3. Blowin' in the Wind

BLOWIN' IN THE WIND
Bob Dylan- Special Rider Music - SESAC

How many roads must a man walk down
Before they call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
How many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
The answer is blowin' in the wind.