And on that subject, let's think about making sure there's something in our TLQ goals that feeds the spirit this week - no-one else can do that for us, and sometimes the smallest thing can be like a drop of water in the desert, refreshing out of all proportion to its actual size. I know it's summer, and this is an Autumn poem, but for some reason its been in my mind this week. Something to do with the six word stories, I think, many of which had a haiku-like sense of time and place about them.
Having looked up
From the day’s chores, pause a minute,
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold
This week's topic: What was last week's mind's photograph? And/or what can you add to this week's TLQ to create an opportunity for one this coming week?
Last week's goals:
allan wilson
1. Exercise every day (habit building is the goal here!)
2. Revisions paper 1
3. Draft revisions paper 2
4.Submit overdue, boring but very necessary report
Contingent Cassandra
1. Finish grading as soon as possible (TRQ in service of expanding TLQ
time/focus).
2. Keep planning/coordinating grant project work as necessary
3. A bit of planning for the few weeks "off" (though this
will probably mostly happen next week)
Daisy [IN THE FIELD] <-envy coloured
Dame Eleanor Hull
1. Finish the MMP-1 revision (main text).
2. Read for MMP-2 revisions.
3. Correct proofs for recently-accepted article.
4. Outline conference paper.
5. Work on syllabi and/or setting up Blackboard for classes.
6. Have another go at the bellflower, and put plastic down over the
parking space to kill weeds there.
7. Plan the remaining three weeks . . . don't panic . . .
Earnest English
1. SFP/writing: Keep on going with plans. Read. Write. Enjoy. Step it
up on the 8y front and don't forget to move notes from notebook to computer.
2. Gardening: Water seeds in basement. Get stuff for blueberry planting
and begin to dig the holes. Check out elderberry planting too, get stuff, and
begin.
3. Work: Letter of rec. Some tasks and emails on Important Service.
4. LittleProject: send a packet this week to CoolJournal? To local
organization who might care?
5. Yoga/tai chi/meditate. why is this still on my list? Yes, meditation
is great. Yes, I really need some movement. But I need to really figure this
out and not just feel bad about not doing it each week. Figure this out a bit.
6. Family fun and tasks.
7. Read.
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Prepare for mid-week meeting with the Dean.
Read the Slow Professor chapter I missed last week, and catch up with
the discussion.
Write every day on Pierpont.
Set up bookcase in home office.
Good Enough Woman
1) Make appointments.
2) Finish revision of chapter 3 and make major progress on chapter 4.
3) Read 50 pages of primary text.
4) Do 2 work nights (which means staying out at a coffee shop and
skipping family dinner, or staying up later after family dinner).
heu mihi
1. Read and take notes on one (new) book that I'm teaching this fall.
2. Read VMO, which I should have read like in graduate school.
3. Meditate as is possible and strengthening.
4. Ch. 3: Rewrite/restructure/revise the whole damn thing in one week.
Do it!!
5. Paint bathroom trim (finishing up a house project).
6. Schedule gutter replacement estimate.
humming42
1 Finish Mars
2 Make significant progress on Mercury
3 Revise an RBP chapter
4 Submit unconfirmed thing
5 Write Venus abstract
6 Write Capricorn abstract
JaneB
1) complete the lists!
2) complete and submit Special Issue Paper (design and create 2.5
figures, write the intro and abstract, and edit the heck out of the thing. PDF
is in charge of references, at least!)
3) spend half an hour a day excavating and organising my desk/office at
work
4) go to the gym twice or so
5) complete travel calendar etc. for rest of summer, put notices on
door about absences etc.
6) meet with Incoming about LikesMaths problem and some teaching
matters (ugh)
Karen
- one form of exercise that isn't typing
-try long hand one page of writing on work days to start building a
writing habit
-drink water
KJHaxton [none set]
Matilda (carried over)
1) Work
on the review article I had put off for a long time.
2)
Continue to work on Chapter 2.
3) 5
minute exercise more than three times a day.
Susan
1. Begin to tidy up bibliography. Fix at least two problems I've
identified with yellow highlights.
2. Have fun.
Waffles
1. Work on grant.
2. Freak out about grant (might as well make some achievable goals!).
I was lucky last week, a few days off and lovely breakfasts of pastries while sitting by the sea. I can't believe it is August on Monday either but in many other ways I am very glad July is done. And in the interests of further planning, I just bought lots of fabric for Christmas crafts!
ReplyDeleteI had no goals this last week other than to finish the ones from the previous week which I did. Including something that has been ongoing since 2012 and has appeared on my to do lists in this group for many years within that period.
This coming week:
Delete1. make poster for conference and draft manuscript based on topic
2. start work revamping 1st year teaching including relevant aspect of House project
3. do some background reading for a few other projects and start making notes
4. hand crafted items, knitting, sorting through photos - something like that.
Yay for finishing the Big Thing!! :-) very exciting.
DeleteAnd also yay for breaks...
Hello! I am now starting two weeks of not being at work. I really, really want some quality small moments in them, and some productive decluttering, and I hope some perspective-gained-from-distance.
ReplyDeletelast week's goals:
1) complete the lists! nope, but they feel a bit less daunting now, and I made some progress on clearing small stuff
2) complete and submit Special Issue Paper (design and create 2.5 figures, write the intro and abstract, and edit the heck out of the thing. PDF is in charge of references, at least!) YES!!! And it grew to need one more figure, which I also had to draw. But it's GONE. I had take-out pizza from the fancy italian place.
3) spend half an hour a day excavating and organising my desk/office at work two days. And another area looks noticeably better for it. I am slowly closing in on the desk (I realised I needed somewhere to PUT the stuff on the desk as I sorted it, so have completely cleared off the top of the two short file cabinets next to the desk and begun to create some organised piles/boxfuls there).
4) go to the gym twice or so no. let myself get sucked into overwork. SIGH
5) complete travel calendar etc. for rest of summer, put notices on door about absences etc. oh curses, I forgot the door notice. Managed the rest
6) meet with Incoming about LikesMaths problem and some teaching matters (ugh) done, and it WAS ugh. As usual, we chatted about other things, and how gloomy the world is, and I said something about 'at least Hillary Clinton's speech acknowledged climate change' (deniers are something my department cares about a lot, we're beach studies, sea level rise is our bread and butter...) and he said "oh she's just not warm enough, she's so trained and polished, she doesn't smile enough, she gives me the creeps" and I said "does it matter how much a male candidate smiles, how warm they are?" and he said "of course not, but things are different for women" and I just can't. Was he trying to be funny? Realistic about gender issues? Or just not thinking about audience? I'm not HRC's biggest fan but the rally and the speeches were so refreshing after all the Brexit mess here and the orange man with the grass tussock on his head who is so terrifyingly close to having his finger on the nucelar button, and... just... GAH! Speechless gesticulating.
the week ahead:
Time off! Staycation, but I want it to have rhythm and be productive, and to not completely mess up my sleep patterns. So:
1) do some decluttering and cleaning tasks every day
2) do one fun thing (read, craft, whatever) every day
3) do one useful/active thing every day (go into town, go to the gym, whatever).
4) nap as much as I like, as long as I go to bed by midnight regardless!
5) morning pages (freewriting is a Good Thing).
Not only are the "smile" and "warmth" comments problematic in terms of their sexism, but I think they are rather wrong. I watched Hillary's speech with my daughter, who is 11. Throughout the speech, my daughter (who has not heard all of that rhetoric about Hillary's emotional failings) kept saying, "She has such a great smile. It's so beautiful," throughout the whole time Hillary was on stage. And my daughter was right.
DeleteCongrats on the sending off of the Special Issue Paper! Nice work! So fantastic. And fancy Italian pizza sounds like a great reward.
Also, yay for two weeks away from the office! And I love your goals. They sound great. I hope you have a fantastic week.
Well done on the paper! And enjoy your staycation
DeleteWell done on the paper! And enjoy your staycation
DeleteYeah, all the bits I've seen of HRC's talk showed what seemed to me a confident, happy, professional woman. She seemed plenty smiley to me, and funny, and approachable. But I guess she'd look diffrent if I was male or something?
DeleteI don't understand Incoming-world, and many of my colleagues agree with me that it has little to do with reality, even the very concrete, local bits of reality such as "this space is/is not fit for purpose" (lecture space where all students have to sit at at 45 degrees or greater angle to the tables in order to look at the speaker/slides, so can't take notes. Incoming apparently sees this as not an issue - note taking is hardly necessary, is it?
Re HRC: Really? Just no.
DeleteEnjoy staycation!
Re HRC: Really? Just no.
DeleteEnjoy staycation!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a very visual person so coming up with a picture from last week is difficult. We went to a new restaurant that we really liked last weekend. Mostly we've been staying in except to get more gardening or chicken/duck supplies or books for Spirited! It's been lovely. And I'm glad to say that on the quarter system we don't go back for quite a while, though I am thinking that I'll start prepping stuff in August this year (usually in August, I'm still anti-teaching) since everyone's back-to-school blogs will probably be very inspiring.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot to feed the soul in this summer, I'm glad to say, but I'll try hard this week to find a moment for taking that mental picture this week. Also: meditation.
1. SFP/writing: Keep on going with plans. Read. Write. Enjoy. Step it up on the 8y front and don't forget to move notes from notebook to computer. I wrote/studied 5x this week, I think, which is amazing. I did move notes from the notebook to the computer. I achieved my 1x this week, but I haven't worked much on 8y. Still, I feel good about this.
2. Gardening: Water seeds in basement. YesGet stuff for blueberry planting and begin to dig the holes. Check out elderberry planting too, get stuff, and begin.yes, though it's a bit harder than I thought.
3. Work: Letter of rec. Yes.Some tasks and emails on Important Service. Yes
4. LittleProject: send a packet this week to CoolJournal? To local organization who might care? No, but for totally understandable reasons. I'll work on this differently this week.
5. Yoga/tai chi/meditate. why is this still on my list? Yes, meditation is great. Yes, I really need some movement. But I need to really figure this out and not just feel bad about not doing it each week. Figure this out a bit. nope
6. Family fun and tasks. yes
7. Read.yes
Analysis
So I know it sounds lame, but though there are very relaxing yoga classes at 4:30, the fact is I just don't want to leave the house to go to them. I have been reading and stuff. I would like to add to my list this week getting started on the massive organization projects. (Absurdist Husband is going to be so delighted!) But we're going to do this bit by bit.
Upcoming Week
1. SFP/writing: Try to write/study 4x/week. 1x and 1y this week. Enjoy.
2. Gardening: Water seeds in basement. Keep on getting stuff for blueberries and elderberries. Water. Weed. Maintain.
3. Work: Two days at work this week! Send two important scary emails. Do lots of tasks at work. Spend some time cleaning up office?
4. LittleProject: send a packet this week to CoolJournal? and to othercooljournal. To local organization who might care?
5. Yoga/tai chi/meditate. 5 minutes of meditation this week.
6. Family fun and tasks.
7. Read.
8. Some organization of the office or bedroom.
Have a lovely week full of moments worth remembering!
I guess a picture doesn't have to be 100% visual - most of my 'mind-pictures' are little sensual packages - so one of last week's would be the funny little purr-meow noise my cat makes when she runs up to me as I come through the back gate, and the feel and smell of sun-baked cat fur when I bend to pet her, and the 'aaaah' of un-noticed tensions unkinking as I come into my own space, all folded up into a piece of 'summer homecoming'. Great thing about memory, it's not bound by the limits of technology!
DeleteLots of yeses in your list, yay!
I have another 6-word story: "Red Queen jogs, dashes: same result."
ReplyDeleteSnapshots, one ugly (dentist's chair), one much nicer: watching sparrows feed their babies at our backyard feeder. I do get a lot of pleasure out of the bird feeder and even the garden (despite the bellflower battle) though I'd like it much more if our nice former neighbors lived here instead of the passive-aggressive b!tch next door who doesn't like us feeding the birds. Next time she says anything to me about them I intend to muse aloud about getting chickens, drawing on EE's experiences to sound convincing. I don't actually want chickens, and having them would be cutting off my nose to spite neighbor's face, but two can play at passive aggression.
Um, sorry, it's fine really.
Last week's goals:
7. Plan the remaining three weeks . . . don't panic . . . NO. And YES: not panicking because TOTALLY IN DENIAL. So no planning either. It's still mid-July, right?
1. Finish the MMP-1 revision (main text). ALMOST. I need to write the conclusion. Some of the footnotes are done (moved in from old version), while others are place-holders.
2. Read for MMP-2 revisions. NO.
3. Correct proofs for recently-accepted article. NO.
4. Outline conference paper. NO. Wrote 900 words trying to feel my way into it, however, so that's some progress.
5. Work on syllabi and/or setting up Blackboard for classes. NO (see #7, above).
6. Have another go at the bellflower, and put plastic down over the parking space to kill weeds there. YES (another go), NO (plastic).
Analysis: I've been making steady progress on the MMP-1, but it has sort of taken over from other activities. My writing group is going to look at it again this week, thanks to someone else not feeling ready to submit after all. I hope that will be helpful. I started researching this piece seven years ago. Another thing I did this week---during the otherwise-dead day following the dentist visit---was finish reading a book I've been trying to get to for months. It's right up my alley, and yet because it doesn't deal with any of the texts I'm writing about right now, I kept not getting to it. It's a good book and I'm glad I finished it. I've also registered for the conference that's coming right up.
This week:
Oh, sh!t. https://dameeleanorhull.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/august-syndrome/
Try again. This week:
1. Gym every day, yoga every other day, keep eating safe food.
2. Finish the MMP-1 (except for final footnotes, grooming, and so on).
3. Work on free-writing and outlining the conference paper.
4. Garden work twice.
5. Finish and submit fall syllabuses.
6. Pay bills early because I'll be gone when I usually do them.
Wow, that neighbour! How frustrating!
DeleteAnd I love the blog-post - yes, exactly, August can so easily be about getting nothing done because everything is fretting you - much better explained, but the same set of feelings is what inspired me to be thinking about mindfulness again this week, and the need to see moments as distinct points, not as a blur... may it translate into productive work too!
The birds poop on her patio! The horror. Ours too, but you know, we like having the birds (and with all the cats on the inside, we're used to dealing with poop). We mostly get sparrows, with a couple of pairs of cardinals and occasionally house finches or goldfinches, but it's amazing how delightful the sparrows are.
DeleteI really miss the neighbors we had at the old place. I think if I ever again live somewhere with great neighbors I will not move unless the house tumbles down around my ears. People are just too unpredictable.
Topic: What was last week's mind's photograph? And/or what can you add to this week's TLQ to create an opportunity for one this coming week?
ReplyDeleteLast week’s photograph happened while talking with No. 2 son as he was putting together the desk he used when he was away at school. He was talking about how nice it was to be in the new house, and what an improvement it was over the place we had been renting. I felt such gratitude for the improvement in our circumstances.
For the coming week, I want to explore this theme of gratitude. There are all sorts of things I take for granted in modern life that I have started to see with gratitude.
Last week’s goals:
Prepare for mid-week meeting with the Dean. Yes. My dread of the meeting was justified, in that it was very negative. I am extremely glad it is over for at least another month.
Read the Slow Professor chapter I missed last week, and catch up with the discussion. No. I needed a break, it seems, since I did very little TLQ work. I decided to try not to beat myself up.
Write every day on Pierpont. No. See above.
Set up bookcase in home office. Yes, I did get my half of the study pretty well set up. No. 2 son had been using my old desk, and wanted to keep it, so he put his old one together for me at the window wall. It is a nice steel and glass desk, so I am happy with the trade.
I have most of my reference books for my writing projects up there, as well as an area for my knitting and quilting projects. I hope to put a comfortable chair there to complete the space.
Next week’s goals:
Try again with the Slow Professor.
Write every day on Pierpont.
Draft two posts on gratitude.
I hope everyone has a lovely mind photograph this coming week.
What a nice mind-photograph! A new desk, being assembled for you in a new and better working place, lovely.
DeleteAnd breaks are necessary - that's one of the messages of the Slow Professor book (I'm behind too, and yet I want to read and comment - I think - I hope! - that this is going to be a Slow debate that we can all keep adding to over the next few weeks), and definitely one I need to learn.
Having to meet someone difficult is such a pervasive thing, it affects days of time all around it, I find. Glad it's over for you, and wishing you well for a lovely week to come!
My photograph for the week is just this visceral image of how lovely my mentor and some of my co-mentors have been in terms of their feedback, supportiveness, and helpfulness with my grant app. I hope I can carry that nice feeling around with me for a while.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Work on grant. - DONE
2. Freak out about grant (might as well make some achievable goals!). - mostly I freaked out about how little I had to do, and I assumed I was thus missing huge things I needed to do.
Drop dead deadline for my grant is tuesday, and I am pretty much done. If I get any late feedback tomorrow, I'll incorporate it. Otherwise, I will just proofread (again) and fuss and wordsmith. I had a couple rough spots this week:
1. Shared it with writing group, and their feedback was way hyper critical and not helpful. I talked to my mentor after, we shared a piece with multiple far more senior people, and they loved it. So, that helped. I think both my mentor and I are beginning to think the writing group isn't very helpful.*
2. My reference manager decided to stop communicating with Word. I contacted both microsoft and the ref manager help desks, and neither was helpful. So, I had to do a chunk of my references by hand. This was a total pain. Luckily, this happened after I had already gotten most of the refs done automatically, and also happened on Saturday, so I had time to work on it.
On the plus side, someone who is an NIH reviewer read my app, and said it was "spectacular." I'm trying not to fixate on that too much - more than likely it will get rejected and I will have to revise and resubmit - but it is really heartening.
* The first time I submitted something to this writing group - the senior faculty who facilitates it (who also happens to have been my diss chair) told me that what I submitted was SO bad that it was not worth the time of the group to review. I think I still haven't recovered from that (it was the first time I'd taken the lead on an empirical article - so super duper not helpful) - esp. because since then, people have submitted things that were far rougher and incomplete, and the response has been encouraging and helpful.
Anyway, goals for this week:
1. Finish tweaking grant
2. Submit it
3. Hopefully take some time to rest
4. Make to do list of all the things that fell by the wayside while I was granting.
Yay for supportive people - and seconding the 'that writing group is NOT WORKING FOR YOU' comment. You only have so many hours a week, and it sounds like that one is not being well spent.
DeleteThis may be unrealistic, but would any of your peers want to set something up informally? My real life writing group involves weekly coffee, goal setting, stickers for small goals met, and occasional requests for advice/reading and feedback (which is delivered privately rather than in the group, as a general rule), and even when I really don't want to go, I come away feeling refreshed and supported and heard, part of a community, which is a very rare thing in my current work world... and don't forget to celebrate sending off the grant, whether with your fancy food of choice or a nap, a walk, a new pen... however you mark it, mark it!
Sounds like that writing group needs some ground rules. (And boo on them for being unsupportive.) My group is now a bunch of friends who have splintered off from a couple of different university-sponsored groups, which were originally facilitated by a staff person who kept group members on track. They used a book by Elizabeth Rankin, called _The Work of Writing_, following the guidelines in Rankin's Appendix A. Basically, the group first has a chance to ask clarifying questions (such as "Did Shakespeare and Marlowe know each other?" or "What is the difference between DNA and RNA?" or "Are you writing for specialists or a general audience?"). The next round is for positive comments: everyone has to say something good about the piece, as specific as possible. After that, they have to answer questions the writer posed when sending the piece to be read: "Could you tell me if the transitions work?" or "Have I given enough background in the introduction?" ONLY when all of these points have been addressed do group members get to raise their own issues.
DeleteSince my group is now a batch of friends with fairly similar interests (broadly speaking, anyway . . . European literature covers it well enough), we are less formal and have fewer clarification questions, or maybe I mean more focused questions. The rest of the discussion is more free-wheeling. But I think we've internalized that notion of being positive and helpful. We have one member who can be fairly critical, in a way that sometimes makes me squirm in the moment, but her comments are invariably really helpful and constructive when I can get my ego out of the way. She has given me consider help in re-structuring pieces where I couldn't see forest for trees. And I have been able to do the same for her! This is a lovely thing about working with the same people over a long period. I know it's a truism, but it really is true: a great editor isn't necessarily a great writer; and also, we can see others' writing as we cannot see our own. So it's now easier to take the criticism when I know it's from someone else who works hard at writing and needs helps sometimes.
I hope this isn't too long, and that it may be helpful!
"given me consider help" => considerABLE help
DeleteJaneB - I think the tricky thing is that these are sort of my peers. My actual postdoc peers are non existent, so this is the closest thing. Some of them are also my friends. But I am uncomfortable with how we interact in this forum.
DeleteDame Eleanor - I have been thinking something similar, but as the newest member of the group, I am hesitant to suggest this. The senior faculty member starts each group with, "What is the biggest problem with this paper?" and it devolves from there. I tried this time to be very explicit with what I needed from the group when I emailed out my writing - I made it clear the timeline was tight, so I was just looking for suggestions related to clarity and parsimony. One person questioned the entire central focus of my research idea. This was not at all helpful. Each time I share something, I vow that it will be my last. One thing that also doesn't help is that the most critical member of the group never shares anything - which feels unbalanced. I'm stuck in the group for the time being, so am trying to make the best/most of it.
Ugh. In that case, I'd say keep your head down and protect yourself; and when you can, find another group, knowing that they don't have to be like that.
DeleteOr leave a copy of Rankin's book, anonymously, for the group leader.
Congrats on getting such great feedback from you mentor and other senior scholars. It sounds like you might need a new writing group.
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoy your rest and recovery after Tuesday. Kudos!
I wish I could get a new writing group. Unfortunately, it is part of my postdoc.
DeleteMaybe you could have two -- the one you do because it's good politics, and the one that's actually helpful?
DeleteMind photographs: Well, I have a couple images:
ReplyDelete1) Kids, dogs, and walking by the bay.
2) My daughter and I sitting together as we watched Hillary's speech.
Last week's goals:
1) Make appointments. DONE! And my dermatologist had a cancelation for tomorrow morning, and my daughter's dentist can see her later this week. So proud of myself.
2) Finish revision of chapter 3 and make major progress on chapter 4. WELL, I did this, but then, while doing additional research for chapter 4, I found stuff to strengthen chapter 3, so I'm back to that one now.
3) Read 50 pages of primary text. YES, I did this, but some of it was re-reading.
4) Do 2 work nights (which means staying out at a coffee shop and skipping family dinner, or staying up later after family dinner). DONE.
5) Walk to the bay 7 times. DONE, and then some! I think I might have gone 9 times--which might be more times that I've gone the whole summer up to this point. I was motivated to get the dogs extra tired (since I have an extra this week), and the kids were game because there are lots of Pokestops along the way.
I'm kind of freaking out about my thesis, thinking that I'm not going to get feedback on my drafts before I have to submit. My submission date is Sept 30th. I sent the intro and two chapters to my supervisor around June 20th. She contacted me about two weeks ago and said she'd get back to me at the end of July or before. I haven't received anything, and I saw a post from her that she's sick and has tons of work along with trying to move to a new country in the next 10 days. Her contract at my university ended this week.
I haven't heard anything from my secondary supervisor since I sent the draft in June. I had hoped to send of get feedback on my revisions to chapters 3 and 4, along with my first draft of the conclusion before submission, but I'm not feeling too optimistic.
At this point, I'm thinking I'm just going to have to do my best on my own, and get some feedback from my local friends and colleagues. I guess the worst thing that can happen is that I fail the viva but get feedback about what I need to fix. Right?
Just keep working, just keep working. Hubby and kids are gone until Tuesday, so these are good work days.
This week's goals:
1) Finish revision of chapter 3.
2) Finish revision of chapter 4 (this will really be a stretch).
3) Do some prep work (!!!): Student reading packets to reprographics. raft syllabi.
4) Walk to the bay 5 times.
5) Go to appointments.
6) Do financial thing for daughter. Order stuff for son.
That first image was supposed to say, "kids, dogs, and I--walking by the bay."
DeleteAs someone who is currently falling into the inadequate supervisor who never replies (but is being saved by a great co-supervisor), you have my sympathy!
DeleteIf it helps, the point of the PhD project is that by this point, you are the expert in your topic in a way that your supervisors are not. And you and your colleagues know what good academic writing looks like. You can do this
What karen said - can you think of not getting the feedback as in part a mark of their confidence in you? I'd drop everything for a student who was going to embarrass themselves and me, but admit to being a bit more laggardly with those who are doing fine at times (though not this bad... yet... there again, I'm also not moving country!).
DeleteYou're incredibly unlikely to FAIL. In the UK we call anything short of an outright instant pass (pretty unusual, as in, maybe 1 out of the 50 or so who've been through my department in the last 5 years got that) a 'referral'. The candidate is referred for award of a PhD subject to corrections - which can range from three or four typos to being asked to add an extra chapter - and given a set time period to do those in (with a detailed list of what actually needs doing). To fail the viva you'd have to give the strong impression that the work was written by someone else, which... you aren't going to do.
Hope you get lots of lovely positive comments, but you WILL BE FINE. As Karen says, YOU CAN DO THIS!
Thank you both for your comments. JaneB, your comments are reassuring. I don't expect to pass on the spot with no corrections (but wouldn't that be lovely), but I haven't been really sure what it takes to fail without a "referral." I know someone who did fail (and then fixed things and resubmitted a year later), so I have worried about that. I figure I'll have some major corrections, but I'm hoping they won't be too extensive and that I won't be too embarrassed.
Deletekaren, I'm definitely becoming clearer everyday about how to improve my drafts, so I hope you're right! :)
Thanks, guys!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOops, my reply went into the wrong place.
DeleteAnyway, my image for this week is my children running around with their cousins at my sister-in-law's 40th. Even though I've had to fring the laptop and work late each night, I'm very glad we made the time to travel and visit family for the weekend. Now I'm currently in transit heading back home for the week of simultaneous deadlines and hopefully child-free productivity while they stay behind.
In the spirit of this week's prompt, I will make the time to go outside and check the garden each day.
Last week I:
-did a gym session and my body definitely felt it after a month off.
-did drink water
-didn't do my long hand writing
Next week:
-survive simultaneous deadlines; set task list each evening for the next day and hold those priorities
- breath, move like water
- use some of the extra time from only having to look after myself to actually look after myself - stretching/exercise, some minor therapeutic decluttering.
Yay for visits and cousins having fun!
DeleteI'm really late, so I'm just going to do a quick basic check-in.
ReplyDeleteLast week's goals:
1. Read and take notes on one (new) book that I'm teaching this fall.
Read, notes not taken. On this afternoon's schedule.
2. Read VMO, which I should have read like in graduate school.
Ugh, so slow! I'm about halfway through it.
3. Meditate as is possible and strengthening.
I managed two times, I think. I haven't been sleeping well, so getting up early is a drag.
4. Ch. 3: Rewrite/restructure/revise the whole damn thing in one week. Do it!!
DID IT!!! I feel less thrilled with myself than I should about this, however. I'm generally pretty down on my project these days--I need to shake myself out of it, somehow.
5. Paint bathroom trim (finishing up a house project).
DONE
6. Schedule gutter replacement estimate.
DONE. Does $1600 seem high? Second opinion also scheduled.
This week's goals:
1. Read up on, and draft definition of, core term for my project
2. Read and take notes on one book for new class
3. Select and arrange pictures for anniversary book
4. Start cleaning up and conducting additional research for ch. 3. Maybe make a to-do list.
5. Run at least once. Meditate at least twice. (Setting the bar low....)
Hey, you did a lot of stuff! Congrats!
ReplyDeleteI’m going to follow heu mihi’s lead and just list goals. I will show up better next week, when I hope I won’t have back pain issues to fend off.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1 Finish Mars: yes
2 Make significant progress on Mercury: no
3 Revise an RBP chapter: no
4 Submit unconfirmed thing: yes
5 Write Venus abstract: yes
6 Write Capricorn abstract: no
This week:
1 Finish and submit Mercury, now TRQ
2 Make a list of RBP tasks
3 Email RBP editor re photographs
4 Read 50 pages for book review 1
:-( sorry to hear about the back, no fun - let me know if it might get in the way of doing next week's check in post, I'm sure you have other priorities & it's no bother!
DeleteI see 50% yes on last week's list, all of which are actual 'finish' things, so that's especially great with a bad back!!
Thanks, JaneB! I am good...back pain has been relieved and I am happy to do the post tomorrow.
DeleteAnother latecomer.
ReplyDeleteSo, an image from last week: mountains and sky, and then seeing a wolverine walk across our campground.
For this week, it's just homecoming.
Last week's goals:
1. Begin to tidy up bibliography. Fix at least two problems I've identified with yellow highlights. DONE -- actually more than two, as I took one class of problems and worked through them.
2. Have fun. DONE.
Analysis: I got a fair bit done before I flew home, and then camping in the back country was fun, and the weather cooperated. Alas, I came home with a cold, so catching up on coming home is SLOW.
Goals for the week ahead: NB I found a great "paper mouse pad" that says "Let's do this" with categories "Gotta do, Do or Die, Oughta Do, Wanna Do and Never Ever Do. It allows me to write weekly goals and cross them off! Very excited to see if this works.
1. Finish revisions to bibliography
2. Begin reading for tenure review
3. Begin syllabus work
4. Start thinking about conference talk in two weeks
5. Go outside and enjoy the garden
A great up date. I love the paper mouse pad, very tempted to look for one for myself! Let us know, stationary is ALWAYS a good thing.
DeleteAnd a WOLVERINE, wow, I'd love to see one - somehow they seem far more exciting to me than bears even though those are what people often get excited by. There again I'd rather cuddle a wombat than go near a koala, so...
I got the mousepad at the British Library shop, FWIW. I'm liking it so far! It means I don't have lots of sticky notes around, and I always lose the index cards or note pads where I write down lists. So this keeps it visible.
DeleteAs for the wolverine, I didn't know what it was but my friend did: it was about 20 feet away from us, but it was closer to 5 feet from a third member of our group. We'd been sitting quietly, so we thought s/he didn't realize we were there, or the llamas... it definitely signified that we were in the back country!
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ReplyDeleteAnd a *really* late check-in (from someone who's been making much too much of a habit of it).
ReplyDeleteThe prompt poses exactly the question which I need to answer right now, but I haven't found enough of a real pause to find an answer. I've been either scrambling to finish something or basically collapsing/vegging all week. I really need a bit of time in a state that is neither overwhelmed nor exhausted to think about things, prioritize, etc. -- so I guess that's my answer for the moment (and maybe a longer-term answer as well, especially since there's some vice-versa involved: the more more tired I feel, the more overwhelming things seem, the more overwhelmed I feel, the more tiring things seem, and so on).
Goals for last week:
1. Finish grading as soon as possible (TRQ in service of expanding TLQ time/focus).
2. Keep planning/coordinating grant project work as necessary
3. A bit of planning for the few weeks "off" (though this will probably mostly happen next week)
Accomplished:
1.Finished grading (early this week; more or less by whatever deadline exists, but later than I'd hoped/planned)
2. Yes, but I have some work of my own to do.
3. Just a bit
Goals for (okay, what I've done) this week:
1. Actually finish grading
2. Coordinate grant project
3. Do my own contributions for this stage of the grant project
4. Planning for the next few weeks (at least begin)
5. Begin catching up with household tasks neglected during summer term (grocery shopping, laundry, etc.)