Category: Fluffy Friday

Fluffy Friday – Growing Up

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My radiator exploded tonight. Which is a convoluted lead in to the Syrian refugee crisis.

I didn’t intend on writing this post. I intended on spending tonight doing some fancy things for our upcoming MOOC. As it was a bit chilly, I put the new radiators on high and sat down to keep designing thumbnails . . . until hot water started spraying out the top of the radiator.

A few frantic googles told me what I’d already guessed, turn off the radiator and the boiler, and I phoned my amazing installation company to get their voicemail. They called me back immediately, on a Friday evening as well, and promised to be over soon.

I waited for the engineer, anxious and upset. This was so unfair, I thought, what have I done to deserve hot water spewing all over my floor? And then the engineer arrived, and very kindly completely turned my radiator off, restarted my boiler, and drained the broken radiator. This wasn’t the engineer’s radiator, or their installation, this was entirely their kindness showing up on a Friday evening to do something that any self respecting adult should have been able to figure out for herself. They calmed me down and reassured me, promised to get in touch after the weekend.

And I was left with the strange realisation that my whole life I have been coddled and protected, lived in a world where hard work is rewarded with help, and where fairness and justness matters.

The refugees fleeing Syria have tried everything they can, and there is no fair reward, no kindness shown to them. My greatest upset today, something that brought me close to tears, was having some hot water stain my carpet. The strength of my emotional reaction to a silly radiator problem is shameful, when children are drowning trying to escape a war.

I have no reference for how these people are feeling. My personal disaster scale is so completely skewed to the other side that their experience is almost infinitely impossible for me to grasp.

The Guardian has a practical advice list. I will write my MP. One of my colleagues is collecting resources to donate. But I feel very sober today as I wonder if there’s a Syrian postdoc out there, wishing that the worst problem in her life is a leaky radiator.

Fluffy Friday – Virtual Nature

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Ahh it’s the end of the week, a new paper was accepted, the exam boards are all finished up, and I’ve marked my second last thesis, time to kick my feet up and chill out with a nature documentary .  . .

A nature documentary made in Grand Theft Auto V! ‘Onto the Land’ is a lovely little piece of machinima, and it contains all the great tropes of nature documentaries. And of course, if you live in Edinburgh, you’ve got to support Rockstar North.

Watch ‘Onto the Land’ here:

Fluffy Friday – More Animal Welfare Teaching

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I am on annual leave this week, which is glorious, particularly as there are so many developments in the pipeline at work. Lots of exciting things coming up. Look out for MOOC news coming soon, as well as some news about what we’re doing for World Animal Day in October.

There may or may not be a post next week, depending on how much fun I get up to on my annual leave, so while you’re waiting, why not vote on some possibilities for the future.

Go to Strawpoll to vote!

Chronicles of Athena – One Year

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This week Athena is one year old! We went from this …

Athena 9 Weeks Old
Athena’s first day with me, discovering Netflix for the first time

To this …

Athena at One Year
Athena as a one year old, not getting into Sense8 on Netflix and very much enjoying the sunshine

 

The aging process is a strange thing, and something me and a colleague have been talking about lately. For Athena, there’s still a way to go. She still has a kitten’s energy, and still finding her own individuality. Purina has a fun age chart on their site here, which suggests that as a rule of thumb, we would consider Athena to be equivalent to a 15 year old human. These kinds of rules are sometimes confusing for pet owners. Athena isn’t likely to start using heavy eyeliner and locking herself in her room (although one night I did walk into the bedroom to find her alone, sitting beside the mood lighting and seemingly listening to the Genesis I had playing), but these companion animal aging rules are more to give you a comparison between the physical maturity and the kinds of behaviours you might expect.

For all my ideas of getting and well-socialising a kitten, Athena has developed her own ideas of how she should behave. Her personality is that of a live wire, cautious and curious bundled up with affection. When we went to stay with our lovely friend Kay while the central heating was being installed, Athena very quickly adopted Kay into the pride and spent the morning accidentally miaowing and making noise outside of Kay’s bedroom, feigning shock and delight when Kay got up (and then looking less impressed when Kay wouldn’t let her in the shower).

I’d love to ask Athena what she thinks of her life, does she enjoy it, what would she change, is she happy with me? But I don’t think she really has any comprehension of a different life, no power to imagine the comparison. What she does know is that she loves her fluffy pillow on the windowsill, she doesn’t know what hunger is, and she’s never felt much pain, and she gets cuddles whenever she asks. I think that means she’s had a good first year. Here’s hoping she’ll have many more.

Happy Birthday, Athena!

Chronicles of Athena – 52 Weeks

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Athena is currently trying to climb the bookcase in order to then climb back down the rolled up rug that’s resting against it. The rolled up rug is hugely fascinating to Athena, as are all of the many, many toys that were liberated from beneath the sofa when the rug was taken up.

Why are the walls bare and the floors littered with toys you may ask? I wish I could explain to Athena how much she’s going to love what’s coming. You see, we’re getting central heating installed next week.

This is very exciting for me, never mind Athena. It’s been over five years since I’ve lived somewhere that has central heating, or even a combination boiler (this is Edinburgh, it’s how we roll). The thought of having hot water on demand is pretty intoxicating. As Athena has lived most of her life in a pretty cold environments, I’m not sure how she’s going to handle it, to be honest. But next time she watches the snow from the window, she’ll be able to gently toast her bottom on a radiator. As Athena loves toasting her bottom on laptops, I think she’ll be pleased with the developments.

Chronicles of Athena – Fifty One Weeks

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Let me tell you the story of Athena and the big storm.

You see, on Wednesday night we had a big storm. The storm went on for hours, lots of bright, flashing lightning (Theenie loves lightning she has discovered), followed intermittently by rolling, deep thunder (Theenie . . . less sure about that part). And accompanied with not very much rain, which meant that it was still hideously hot afterwards.

Athena woke me when storm started, bouncing between the windowsill and the bed and talking to the lightning in a manner that was suspiciously like “Wake up! You’re missing it! Looooook!” But her tolerance for the storm was such that after about fifteen minutes of watching the lightning she got much too overstimulated and had to come into the bed for a cuddle (of course, she needs to be right on top of me even though it’s roasting), and then once she was reassured enough to be purring loudly and painfully kneading my arm, she was brave enough to go back to the window and watch the storm again.

Rinse and repeat for two hours.

We didn’t sleep well on Wednesday night.

As AskReddit is back after Chooter-gate I’ve been entertaining myself with this thread asking: If your pet took you to the human vet, what would they be worried about?

Best entry so far…

“Doctor, he pees in the drinking bowl! IN THE DRINKING BOWL! I don’t think he’s all there, mentally. He’s like 20 and still not house broken.” –pickmetoo

Chronicles of Athena – Fifty Weeks

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Last week, I was in Aberdeen for my sister’s graduation, which meant that Athena had to spend her first ever day away from me. My mum came over to stay at my flat while I was in Aberdeen, and was left with a long list of instructions about how to attend to Lady Athena in the style to which Athena has been accustomed to.

Here are some of the things Athena got up to while being looked after by her granny . . .

  • Athena stole her granny’s toothbrush, taking it into the bath to play with it. She has never stolen a toothbrush before.
  • While granny slept, Athena sat on the ottomon beside the bed and watched . . .
  • When granny was working, Athena got so annoyed she deliberately pushed all of granny’s papers off the table.
  • Then lay on her laptop
  • Athena got lots of treats.

So this week, Athena has been quite affectionate in her own way, as talkative as ever, wanting to be beside me (if not actually wanting to sit on me – my Theenie is not a lap cat, despite a promising start as a kitten), and generally looking terribly cute and behaving like a terribly spoiled princess. I have a cold which has made me lose my voice, which means she is immune to being told off, because apparently I’m not at all intimidating when croaking.

Fluffy Friday – This is How Girl Scientists Talk

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I love group messages. Me and some of the other female scientists I work with have a longrunning chat going on about general life. It’s mostly talk about Orange is the New Black and Orphan Black because women. But our conversation took a sexist turn earlier this week, and we started discussing the Tim Hunt scandal.

So this is what some women scientists thought. Prepare yourselves for tears.

FluffyScience: Love me some of that dna

BustyLabWench: How do you know, jill? We are too busy in the lab knocking shit over with our boobs…no work is ever done
FluffyScience: Sorry I’m too busy falling in love with my professor
Feminist #3: Does anyone else feel a little bit bad for that guy? Like, he’s 72. It’s like your granddad saying something racist and getting yelled at for it. I know he definitely should have known better, but I feel the backlash has been a bit ott :grinning:
FluffyScience: Nah
FluffyScience: His apology was sorry but I meant it

BustyLabWench: Yeah I agree with jill. If the apology was sincere and he just thought it was a funny comment which he retracted, then fine.
BustyLabWench: But he be like “bitches were falling to their knees when I came into da lab”
Feminist#3: But how can you sincerely apologise if you don’t grasp what you’ve done? You can’t rewire an old man’s brain overnight
BustyLabWench: My grandad is a giant racist, but he would genuinely be sorry if he were to learn that he upset someone.
FluffyScience: Then the answer your give is “I’m sorry I don’t actually understand why this is wrong so I’m going to do some training”
FluffyScience: “Find out why I’ve upset people”
FluffyScience: The guy is a fucking genius. I’m sure he can comprehend some sensitivity training

SugarTits: I feel a bit like he got bashed for more than he meant but at the same time yeah agree with Jill about dealing with it in the right way and making the effort to learn why people thought it was wrong…
Feminist#3: Yeah definitely. But I also don’t believe you should be sorry just because you’ve offended someone. If I say ‘god damn’ I could genuinely offend millions of people, and I might apologise but I won’t be sincere. I’ve basically offended (in my opinion) an imaginary friend.
FluffyScience: The difference is you saying God damn isn’t going to reinforce a section of the population being systematically degraded
FluffyScience: His comments did damage.
FluffyScience: He is a respected leader of his field who promoted the idea women were too emotional to work with
FluffyScience: That’s not just offence it’s damaging

Feminist#3: In his mind he’s massively clever and he’s just been told his way of thinking is completely wrong. In his mind that is probably preposterous. Inconceivable He has to genuinely understand why it’s so wrong before he can sincerely apologise.

FluffyScience: And that is a supremely poor position to be in as a scientist
FluffyScience: You must always be open to being wrong
FluffyScience: I have no sympathy for old white straight men who don’t know how to be challenged

Feminist#3: Most of his life people have been hideously sexist, and then to make it worse everyone has probably kissed his ass for at least 20 years. And as for being wrong, we all know scientists with a small fraction of his fame who are totally opposed to the idea 😄

SugarTits: I just can’t comprehend why he doesn’t get it! Yes relationships can complicate things but this is something that comes with every single workplace, and it’s a drop in the ocean of all the other shit that can make life at work harder than it needs to be!
FluffyScience: But he is an honoured fellow who is supposed to represent his community (UCL) and he clearly doesn’t
FluffyScience: He is in no way doing his job
FluffyScience: They sent him there to support female scientists
FluffyScience: He did not fulfill that contract

Feminist#3: I totally agree that what he said was full on crazy train. I just didn’t find it surprising or very upsetting. I just accept that old men are often sexist and racist. Yeah he’s intelligent and should know better. He should never have been sent to talk to people. It’s more worrying if people knew what he was going to say and found it fine.

FluffyScience: I don’t accept that science ambassadors are too inflexible to even comprehend when they’re wrong

Feminist#3: Dawkins comes out with this shit all the time. On one hand says Muslims are shit and on the other says western women have no right to moan compared to what ‘Muslim women’ have to put up with. Man that guy’s a prick! It’s the typical old white, Oxbridge educated idiot view. They all think that because they’re so clever they can’t be wrong.

FluffyScience: And I think he should be publicly denounced too
Feminist#3: It’s weird, some sexist shit makes me want to really hurt whoever’s saying it, but I genuinely laughed when I read what this guy said. It felt too preposterous to get angry about.

FluffyScience: I think that’s what makes me so angry
FluffyScience: The complete normalcy of it
FluffyScience: I’m not angry at him. I’m angry at the system
FluffyScience: I consider him a people eater. Just minding his own business while I drive a war rig through his perceptions of the world

BustyLabWench: …this is deeper than our usual chat

FluffyScience: TITS!!!
FluffyScience: I actually want to transcribe this and put it in a blog

Feminist#3: Haha, you can as far as I’m concerned. I can be ‘Feminist number 3’ :innocent:
Feminist#3: Saying that, I can totally get behind mocking him. #Distractinglysexy might be my new favourite hashtag (yes I have favourites) http://mashable.com/2015/06/11/female-scientists-responses-tim-hunt-distractinglysexy/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

Chronicles of Athena – 47 Weeks

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Things Athena truly, deeply believes:

  • Jill has the power to summon fun creepy-crawleys. Sometimes, when Jill is so inclined, she will call my name and a bug will manifest at her fingertip.
  • Sometimes I eat these bugs.
  • Sometimes the bugs will escape and crawl over my lip.
  • Sometimes I need help when this happens.
  • Jill has the power of Sheba.
  • The food in the yellow packets is WAY better than the shitty stuff I used to get.
  • Somehow, Jill has barred my entrance to the Forbidden Cupboard of Mystery.
  • Jill still has not figured out where I’ve stashed my paper straws. Ergo, I can bring her straws to play with.
  • When I am sad about the world/because I can’t reach a bug on a wall/am slightly malcontent, I need only cry for Jill to pick me up and make it all better.
  • Cold mornings mean cuddles beneath the duvet.
  • Warm mornings mean sleeping in the sunbeams on the windowsill.
  • If I am bored, I can get a toy from my toybox. Jill will want to play with this toy.
  • Jill knows when I want to scratch the carpet
  • And the mattress
  • And the curtains
  • She is magic
  • Jill also controls the Hidden Cupboard of Secrets
  • And the Fridge of Wonderful Smells

Things I truly, deeply believe:

This kitten is spoiled beyond belief.