Soup, and other conflicting emotions

Andrew used to make soup quite often.

Yummy vegetables, ready to become soup.

He made it today for one of Lori's homework activities. We have just had the following conversation.

Lindsay: Mmmmmm. This is my best meal this month.
Andrew: It's just soup, and a roll.
Lindsay: No, it's your soup. And my roll has butter on it, real butter. I don't know why you don't make your soup more often.
Lindsay (following Andrew through to the kitchen): Your soup is the best soup ever. I hate you [for not making soup], I love you [for the soup].
Andrew: Well, you're just a whole bundle of conflicting emotions, aren't you?
Lindsay: Yes, yes I am.

For the record, it is the most delicious vegetable soup that you will ever taste. I suspect a flavour enhancer. Either that, or I am just very, very hungry today, and thus an easy lay [for the soup].

Introspection vs. Extrospection

If you know me, then you'll know I sometimes tend towards introspection. Sometimes, when I'm reading, or thinking, I don't really hear anyone else. It's not that I'm ignoring them purposefully, more that I am ignoring them accidentally. Other times, I just drift away into a world of doodles and thinkings. That's okay when you're at home. Not so okay at work.

Lately, though, I've taken to thinking about diversity. Since I took the role of Focused Women Chair I've been trying to foment a strategy that will actually have a long-lasting impact on the organisation. I thought I'd start with Technology Services, the area I work in, and build from there.

I reasoned: there are fewer women taking Science, Engineering, and Technology (SET) degrees, and even fewer who end up in SET jobs. Wouldn't it be great if women working in SET could get out and mentor the young women on those university course to encourage to utilise their degree in  the same field?

Role modelling is important for increasing representation of any group, and so....my mind wandered...thinking about student mentoring schemes, and how we could deliver something that would actually be useful.

Then, I started thinking about what I'm going to say in St. Andrews. I was asked to speak about my dissertation, which was about women working in a male-dominated field, but I started to question myself.

Was it really still dominated by men? Was I making too much of this? Hadn't things moved on since I wrote it? Would the students look at me and think I was making it up?

I started to feel doubt, as though I was calling out something that didn't exist.

Then, tonight, I attended an event for Edinburgh University students. They had self-registered to come along and find out more about the Royal Bank. There was the opportunity to chat to people who worked at the bank already, and then they had to do some team games.

I chose my first three students at random from the 20 or 30 who were there.

"What area do you work in?" they asked.
"Technology," I answered.
"Isn't that where mostly men work, like, isn't it for men?"

Those exact words.

If perception dictates reality, then there was a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever I heard one.
Introspection: 0 Extrospection: 1

Looks like someone else might be prone to a little introspection too.

I then spent the better part of the networking session changing their mind about Technology, and why it might be for them.

I hope they listen.

As for me: introspection has its place.

It lets my mind wander away through flights of fantasy in which my work in diversity and equality changes not only the organisation, but also government policy, and builds a fairer, better future for my children and yours. It lets me run free from the shackles of what must be or should be, and lets me explore what might be and what possibly could be. In my dreams I reach far further than I ever can in life, but in aiming for that, perhaps I'll get just a little bit further than if I hadn't bothered to dream at all.

Sentences I dread...

Josie: Mummy! Mummy! We really need to start working on an extremely complicated costume for Hallowe'en.
Lori: Why, Josie? I have a bumblebee costume [see below].
Josie: Because you have to have a complicated, home-made costume so that you can win a prize.
Lori: Oh yes, my friend Orla won a surprise. She was a cardboard box. A cardboard box! It was on her head, and her feet stuck out the bottom. She got a pens and pencils surprise. We need cardboard boxes.

Oh. My. God.

Children don't understand the concept that there are 120 children in P1 - P3, and only 2 prizes. When am I going to make a costume? What am I going to make?

Ideas, anyone?

This is what she means by Bumblebee, of course. A Transformer, not an actual bee.

A view from the inside

You might be interested in a view from the inside of something, but you're not going to get it.

Why?

Because I wrote that blog title this morning and now I have completely forgotten what it was going to be about.

Nothing to see here. Nope. Nothing at all. I look naughty? No. Not me!

Today was an interesting day. I'd share it with you, but it is all TOP SECRET. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to tell more, or there will be nothing to tell. One or the other! Let's hope it's the one, rather then the other.

I was hoping to be able to share some other exciting news, but it seems that that has started to fall through too.

Oh, and before anybody gets excited/worried, I am not pregnant, not do I intend to be. None of the news is baby related at all.

So, where does that leave us with regards to something interesting in this blog post today?

Absolutely nowhere!

Normal service will be resumed imminently.

Sunrise

As I mentioned in a previous post, Josie has been going to choir. I was going to show her progress with a new song that she learned, but instead she asked to do her "performance piece" on the piano.

Therefore, without further ado, I present the pianist:

The Playfair Library

It's all very well packing my weekends full of classes, trips, review adventures, book research, Dr. Who, and roleplaying, but sometimes I get back to work on a Monday morning and just feel like having a whole other weekend.

My Weekend Notes reviewing is coming on very well. Edinburgh is shooting up the table with a whole 19 articles. Wow! 19. Here's a link to my profile, where you can sign up to become a subscriber:
http://www.weekendnotes.com/profile/222833/

One of my latest articles might be interesting to my running friends, a Hallowe'en-themed 5k in Holyrood Park. Perhaps one to do with the family?

It's not going to become my new job, ever, but it is good practice. 

And that's how I've been viewing it: practice. Which is all very well, but if you don't actually write anything on your book, then the practice is actually pretty pointless.

So, I stayed on at work for an extra half-hour earlier this week and squeezed in some writing while all the experiences of last weekend were still fresh in my mind.

We were at the Playfair Library on Sunday as part of the book research.

Who else took finals there? 

I haven't been back since, but I could remember it vividly. Sitting under the archway and doing some final cramming. Chatting with friends about how the last exam had gone. It was cold, even though it was spring. I correct myself: it was cold, because it was Spring. The Library amused me, even through the fug of stress of finals, because of all the busts on their plinths. Who were they? Did anyone still remember why they had been put up there? Did they watch student after student passing in front of them, and smile benevolently down. Did they nod to each when everyone was gone, and say, "That's another year, then. I hope they do well." Of course they didn't, but when I was struggling for inspiration in The Psychology of Adolescence, I looked up at of them and found my thoughts anew.

Unlike during my exams though, they were all tucked away in the alcoves, not sitting on the end of a pillar each.

As well as the busts being hidden in corners, there library presented some other useful, and unexpected, surprises. When I was writing about the it, I didn't expect it to be so filled with light, I'd envisioned a darker place. Indeed, I remembered it being much darker than this, but perhaps it was a cloudy day when I did my exams. 

I wanted to check who all the busts were, but I was also interested in what books were still in the library. While I took pictures of the busts, Lori and Josie wrote down some book names. Lori was much more interested in this than Josie, surprisingly. This is her, diligently writing down a few titles, letter by letter.

Lori Law, little law student.

Then, research started to get a bit boring and tiring, so they ran up and down the library until they collapsed on the floor, giggling and gasping.

I have written and written and written, and now I am very tired.

I was quite pleased with the visit to the library. It set my imagination alight, all those years ago, and last Sunday it did that again.

On that note, back to redrafting!

Lip Gloss. Really?

Last weekend we went to the final event of Stockfest, which was a fair at Broughton High School.

There were lots of activities, stalls, food, and fun things to do. It was a beautiful day, as summer made a last hurrah and the sun deigned to shine down warmly upon us.

Here are some highlights from the day:

Shortly after this picture was taken, Josie uttered the words: "I can't drink out of that cup because my lip gloss will come off." Those are not words that should spill from an 8 year-old's lips. However, it was my own fault because I'd let her have a makeover from the lovely Miss Sutherland, an English teacher.

This is Lori shouting at the top of her voice, " I can't get any higher than this!", as the helpful man tried to encourage her to climb. He brought her straight back down.

This cygnet has had bread rain down from the heavens onto his feathers, but he just didn't care. Too warm. Too cosy. Must sleep now.

Just finished a double scoop icecream. Happy. 

Magical Mr. Mistoffelees. Not Mephistopheles, which is what I wrote first time. He's a demon. And certainly not a magical cat, or a Lori.

It's not ironic. It's just coincidental.

I didn't get an interview for the job I went for. On reflection, that's not unexpected, for a number of reasons that I will not go into here.

However, on the same day (i.e. today) I did get asked to go and speak at St. Andrews University Gender Equality Week about my Masters thesis and my role as chair of the Scotland branch of our Focused Women's network (a network to attract, develop, and retain talented women in the organisation).

My thesis was an ethnographic study on gender issues in project management. I am quite excited to go, but also a little nervous that I won't live up to their expectations. I completed it more than three years ago. I need to go and re-read it!

They described me as "a successful woman". I suppose that is true. I have the required physical attributes of a female, and I've never really tried to have a go as a man. I have had some success at maturing from girl to women.

Some people might say it was ironic that I was invited to the conference as a "successful woman", on the day I failed to get a job interview. It certainly isn't. It's just coincidence. How easily the two are confused.