I had a baby, and have not been looking here for ages. Hi again.

So I did post today, whoops, etc. I am interested in the relationship between rationality and privilege. Before I started my scientific education I was myself tempted towards lauding irrationality as an escape from domination systems. I certainly recall perceiving the 'logic' of the white-male-lauding analytical philosophy I encountered in university lectures as a bullshit game built to keep their privilege in place. As I experienced it, any critique on the grounds of situatedness, social position, privilege and so on was dimissed with 'but that's a feminist argument, we're not doing feminist philosophy until week xx'. It looked painfully narrow as a world of thought to live in but my sympathy was not robust enough to stand next to their comfortable pay cheques and marble halls; I changed papers.

I guess I became convinced by the writing of bell hooks and others that critical thinking and good investigation in fact support revolutionary cause and are much stronger weapons against the domination system that irrationality can be. I see irrationality as valuable: as a gathering ground for new ideas, and as a precious escape for many from intolerable situations; but I find it more satisfying to lean on what can be found robust by many investigators, and in the hope for collective human intelligence.

I think I need to lock myself out of my Barbe-suit for a little while, to concentrate on getting the chapter from hell into some kind of finished form.

See you in a while.

Sail-assisted freight ship MV Beluga SkySails is at sea; two days out from Bremerhaven (DE), carrying wind generator parts to Venezuela.

The sail has been developed as part of an EU funded scheme (WINTECC), and reduces fuel use between 10 and 35%

Diagram of how the skysail works, hosted at little blog in the big woods.

Have you seen the U.S. high school teacher with his argument for significant action to address global climate change?

Looks good to me, what do you think?

By the way, if you want to do me a favour, please remind me to get back to work any time you see me doing anything else in the next few weeks.

What a terrible way to let my dear husband know. Well anyway, I read some stuff like this today:

http://yudkowsky.net/virtues/, (led from the Overcoming Bias blog, from the comments section of a recent slightlyfoxed post.)

by this person Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. Sexy huh? Happily fits with my recent Confucius-related musings about virtue, possibly triggered by a reread of Neal Stephenson's novel 'The Diamond Age'.

Well, I'm applying for a three month extension to complete my PhD. I have money from the research council for it (hurray!), and I'm in the process of sorting out the formal permission-literature access-library rights side. At the rate I've been working, a submission date in the last week of March seems plausible.

The thesis isn't finished, can you believe it? I scarcely can. How can so much hard work still not have completed this task? It's not complicated, surely: write a book for an intended audience of two about what you've been doing for the past three years, pretty much.

The results sections are largely drafted: calculations, tables, graphs, and other figures are mostly in place, with notes about what text needs to go there. What seems to take about 3 weeks per chapter is finishing each from scratchy draft to a final manuscript, and I have been struggling to maintain my concentration on that redrafting/editing/polishing stage. Keeping my motivation in order is a major task!

In spite of having already agreed to write up 'only' the actual genome project work - (leaving out entirely a time-consuming piece of work I'd completed which has to do with comparison across genomes), I'm already pushed for space, and am practicing my terse scientific lucidity. I guess 'aargh, too much material!' is an easier place to be in than 'eek, too little material'.

I have been becoming increasingly hermitlike, and enjoying the freedom of allowing myself as much solitude as I thrive on. I offer my apologies for unreplied communications, especially as I seem to have been rather disorganized and forgetful recently. I did make it to the pub a week or so ago, when the awesome zippid was in town, and it was good to see some of you there.

Well here I am six weeks later, more or less. I was counting pages drafted the other week: I think I have 90 pages drafted now, which could be seen as half done. I'm aiming at 150 pages when it's completed, on the advice of one of my supervisors. Most of what I have drafted is 'results' sections, and I might be done with those sections as soon as the end of next week if all continues well.

I find it easier to write all the other sections - introductory stuff, discussion, conclusions, suggestions for future work - so I've been concentrating on getting the reporting-of-results done now I've worked out how to, as I more or less stuck over that for months previously. I'm hoping the rest will get tacked around the edges of the results sections fairly fast afterwards. At least there's less pressure now I can be fairly sure I didn't get that early-deadline fellowship I applied for. I've agreed to a very well informed but scarily prestigious external examiner, and I'm hoping my work will stand up to that challenge.

I've been co-coaching with a friend in phone calls, which I'm enjoying and learning a lot from. I've recently read 'Time to think' by Nancy Kline, which seems like a great coaching 101 guide, and I love trying out her suggestions for how to help people identify what assumptions are causing blocks at the moment and how to get round them.

I've got a reason to finish writing my thesis in the next 8 weeks - and I'm already committed to being away for two of them! I think it is marginally possible so I am making the attempt. (There's a fellowship I'd be eligible for if I complete by then.) Fellowship application (4 page research proposal) needs to be in tomorrow. Please excuse my lack of posting.

Dear friends and underemployed geeks-of-words,
 
Siderophores seem to have names ending in -chelin and -bactin. Why? What does the difference in ending indicate?

I don't think it has a clear logic such as one group of names for catecholate and one for hydroxamate siderophore families, though perhaps I have missed something there.

Light dawns! I realised that my current state of discontent with PhD is actually a sign of my progress. I've got to a point where what I'm doing is not immediately comprehensible even to my collaborators. It's easy to feel lost because I'm the only one who can explain my contribution as important and to show how it's necessary and what it means. I've been working hard and suddenly I look round to see that I'm the only one who knows what I'm on about.

I hope I'm taking every opportunity to talk about my research with colleagues, because I want to develop my skills at explaining it and to have their help in improving my story and evidence trails. Sometimes it's hard for me to see 'from inside' what the convincing evidence would look like. I can spend hours generating graphs to prove points that everyone would be happy to take my word for whilst missing something that's an obvious gap to someone else. My aim is for that stage to be over by the time the thesis is bound.

Queries:

[1]What do you sense God is calling the Society of Friends to focus on in the next 100 years?
[2]Where in your life do you notice places of resistance to living out your calling more completely?
[3]Are you willing to let go of traditional Friends practices and forms in order to follow a prophetic new calling as a Society? What might this look like in your own life?
[4]How do you feel called to hold the tension between being both inclusive and firm in your convictions about Truth?

from her blog.

1) I want an evangelical focus on connecting all people, especially those who are suffering most, to a liberating power within them which is truthful and compassionate and graceful, which corrects and teaches and transforms and prospers us; & on meeting together to encourage each other to live in that power.

2) I have been trying to do too many things, not only what the transforming power leads me to; and I have frequently neglected my physical needs even though it's my understanding that the transforming power requires of me that I live my life from a foundation of love which includes loving and caring for my body; and I have overworked when I needed to rest, out of fear that I will not be able to face what is going on in me underneath the busy-ness.

3) Yes! So much that it's possible I'm not even a Quaker any more. Primarily, my use of ceremony: I make flower offerings, I use incense and the arrangement of physical objects as part of my ceremonial blessing and creation of positive intentions for my life. Traditionally Quaker worship has been based on silent waiting for God's instructions.

4) Communication style: I strive for a linguistic mode which is ever more truthful about my experience without presupposing anyone else's experience to be the same.

I have a hat - not the one I thought I'd like, and cheaper too which is a bonus. I don't see an illustration of it on the Lock & co website. It's large and shady, navy, packs flat and is easily reshaped. It's made of petersham ribbon, sewn in a spiral, with a large circular wired brim, so it is very light but holds a shape.

Lock & co were very friendly and helpful. The ladies' hats part of the shop is separate from the men's, it's through a door towards the right of the shop and up a flight of stairs. There is a very large selection. There are a lot of mirrors, and as well as artificial light there are several places with good natural light to check how colours go with one's skin tone. I tried on a lot of hats.

The assistant assured me they could be resized for me. She took away one I particularly liked, to steam and stretch it a little, and it fitted very well when I tried it again. That's the one I bought, but it was lovely to have such a wide range of choices, and to have her willing to reshape one just so I could try it.

I might decorate the hat with a bit of applique: I have scraps of the indigo/violet silk and I wonder about a pattern coming out from the crown, across a narrow sector towards the left- or right- front of the underneath of the brim, so it shows when I fold it up.

Speaking of which (indigo/violet silk) the dress is finished, and had its first outing yesterday. It took me somewhat longer than usual to leave the house, because I was feeling excessively self-conscious about the way the taffeta rustles when I walk! And there's a part of me thinking the dress is too beautiful to wear on a bus as dirty as the ones around here sometimes are - and wondering if I could manifest an income such as to allow me to travel in first class rather than standard trains, as well.  (Well, I'd like the legroom, but I think singing lessons are a higher priority)

The dress feels perfectly comfortable, lovely to wear, and I'm pleased with it. Yesterday was a good trial day, since the weather was variable, between cool & rain showers, and hot/sunny, which is great for testing out how a garment performs in those conditions. Its next challenge is being washed, and if it passes that it will pass into the general wardrobe and I will attempt to wear it regularly. I have some internal battle still to fight about whether it's dreadfully extravagant for me to wear silk, which might also get in the way of me wearing it regularly. I was thinking that I don't judge a man badly for having a silk shirt, so why's there a temptation to harsh on myself for having a silk dress?

Next dress:

1) Magenta-violet sleeveless or short-sleeved dress. I plan to use something as close as possible to my usual pattern, but there's insufficient material for sleeves as well as a long skirt. The material's some I bought ages ago from a closing-down sale, and have only just got round to knowing what to do with.

2) Navy linen dress. This is one on my standard pattern, from a very fine high quality linen from one of my favourite suppliers, Birmingham's Fancy Silk Store, again bought some time ago and just now approaching the point of being cut.


That reminds me: I keep meaning to ask for some advice on this, any of you have experience?

How to open-source a dress pattern? I have a pattern I have developed, which I like a lot and I'd love to be able to share, but how do I get it onto the internets? Is a scale drawing sufficient, that people could print out on normal A4/letter size and scale up for themselves? I think it would take a fair amount of work to get all my knowing about how I make this dress into a paper pattern, and my memories about how to 'grade' a pattern so it's adaptable to many sizes are hazy, so it's not urgent, but I want to know how I will go forward with sharing the pattern when I do have a bit more time. Suggestions most welcome.

There will be a millinery expedition, I can feel it in the air.

Some tension occurs, between my desire for godly simplicity and my yearning for high-quality material goods.

I want a hat to protect my face from the mediterranean sunshine in Croatia next month.  Hence the proposed hat expedition, perhaps next Friday.

This hat has really taken my fancy. I am trying not to get my hopes up too much, since it says one size and those don't usually fit me (GRRR, would it eradicate your profit margin to have a large size as well as a small one??) Steam and hat-stretching might make it do, but it's a bit galling to consider such measures on top of the price.

...and she also said, "it's great to see someone who really lives their subject." Comments from one of the professors in the department, recorded here to encourage me in the future.

By which I mean, the presentation I just did to the department's staff and postgrads, went very well.

I am celebrating with peanut butter and marmite and cucumber on rice cakes, and ginger and hibiscus yogi tea.

I am so glad that's over. I mostly enjoyed it, even, and there were decent questions at the end as well.

Thanks so much to all of you who have been so encouraging. I appreciate it hugely, and especially when I am not feeling confident, your reassurances make a great difference.

Over the weekend I began making up the gorgeous indigo/violet silk dress, and if I finish my presentation early today I intend not to begin on the huge list of other pressing work stuff but to reward myself with sewing. The dress is a bit none-more-goth: deepest indigo/violet silk, full length, trimmed with navy/indigo lace?!  Somehow it just struck me as divinely beautiful in the fabric store, and it wasn't until I started making it up that I was suddenly aware how drastically goth it looked. Oh well. It's hand washable and it will pack small and be comfortable for the research summer school in Croatia next month. I hope its practicality and beauty will outweigh the implications of the colour for me.

On Saturday I was looking for tropical wool suiting, thinking I might be able to make a travelling suit/dress. It took a long time to find what I was looking for. None of the sales assistants seemed to have heard of it. When I found it, in the form of samples-to-order in John Lewis's fashion fabrics, I was horrified at the price. Tropical wool, right? Superfine worsted (worsted is the longest fibres from wool, spun under tension so it's smooth to feel - woollen is the opposite, spun from the shorter fibres and giving a fuzzier feel), hand-washable, cool and forgiving in hot climates, and creaseproof as only wool can be. Ultra practical!

Guess how much though? The samples I found, £56 a metre. Hmm. And I thought silk was extravagant. I was not prepared to drop upwards of £300 on spec. I guess this might be the point at which I decide to commission again. If it's necessary to empty a savings account to get the dress I want, it might be worth doubling the outlay to get it made by a professional. I'm not sure I could approach a bolt of cloth that costs £56 a metre with a pair of scissors - it's hard enough to cut a fine linen or a lower-end silk that cost less than a third of that. (Perhaps it could be my post-viva treat, if I land the cushy fellowship post.)

I also found what I guess would be a lower-budget alternative to tropical worsted: 50/45/5 polyester/wool/lycra blend. It was a similar weight to the 'cool wool' but they only had it in black and I wasn't keen to spend £21/m on a second best option in the wrong colour.

There are other options for a travelling dress: I could take a linen dress and trust to being able to find an iron at the research centre accomodation; make one out of cotton jersey which would be hard to sew though relatively cool and creasproof (though high intensity cotton production's ecological impact is dire; might look to see what organic cotton jersey costs these days); or find out how well my black worsted dress stands up to mediterranean temperatures at the end of June - it might be okay with judicious choice of base layer.

I've been reading Beth Allen's book written to accompany her Swarthmore Lecture at the annual Quaker Gathering this year, 'Ground and Spring, foundation of Quaker discipleship' Quaker books, 2007. There's a lot of good stuff in it I think, and she writes about evil, which is welcome since a lot of Quakers just avoid ever talking about it. I like her use of the words 'rotten stuff' to describe what is painful, injurious, damaging, in our lives.

I like her explanation of a section in the scriptural letter of Paul to the Romans (Ground and Spring, p51 - the section 'Bringing darkness to light'). In chapter 7, verses 13 to the end of the chapter, Paul is writing about why he still does what he doesn't want to do. I feel like I have a sense of that condition. I think I have a fair grasp of what's right for me but I don't always do it. The translation talks about 'sin, wishing to look like sin, used goodness to do the work of death in me so that sin might reach the height of sinfullness.' That stuff had never made any sense to me before but something's dawning now.

This week I think I'm getting some insight about how it works. Each time I find myself doing something which doesn't fit in the picture of me moving towards all goodness, it's an opportunity to observe something which needs fixing at a deeper level. When I'm doing something a bit bad, all it means is it's time for that badness to be brought to light and sorted out. That impulse, that compulsion, that fear, that drove the contrary action, is the patient that has turned up at the door. No recrimination necessary: my job is to reach for the source of life, to apply its justice and mercy, to act with the wisdom that soaks down to the root of the problem and pulls out whatever is no longer needed, whatever is contrary to love's purposes.

That action is the wrong-doing - the inner darkness in me - reaching out into the world. The ego serves its divinely-appointed purpose in bringing to light what next needs work - making 'sin look like sin' so that my attention is brought to bear on the real problem, to whatever fear is at the root of that wrong-doing.

It seems to me it's only by compassionate detachment that I can bear to see all this going on. I used to be so anguished at seeing myself doing stuff I didn't agree with, I couldn't learn from it but just had to find another way to avoid seeing it or push away the symptom. Now I think I am learning to see myself as just another learner, no more or less worthy of compassion than any other, and that enables me to see life's perfection working in the process of undoing the fearful and outdated thought processes I'm discarding.

I like this model because it brings restorative justice home. The point is not to punish myself, but to learn so I feel I have real choices, and so I'm better equipped to live with integrity and holy intention.

As lovely slightlyfoxed  pointed out not long ago, there's a feast of Dorothy Sayers mysteries on BBC 7 at the moment. Thanks to the marvel of Listen Again, I am adequately entertained whilst wrestling adenylation domain sequences this afternoon.

This is more surprising to me than you might expect: I have not enjoyed radio drama before, but I like Dorothy Sayers so much I can even enjoy her novels as radio plays.