(Apologies for late posting - I try not to be online over the weekend, and I forget...)
So we're at the start of a summer session that will last into August, so we have about 3 months. We all did some dreaming last week, and it was good to see some old friends appear.
So having pondered, this week we will set goals for the session, as well as for the next week.
I've realized that one of the challenges now is that we really don't know -- when there will be enough tests, PPE, or a vaccine. We don't know what our campuses will do in the fall. Almost all of these things are not just out of our control, but out of the control of the higher ups who make the decisions. That we're all struggling with fuzzy guidance is real. So for discussion, what's the magical thing you want to help you through this time of uncertainty? Many of us have on occasion availed ourselves of Dame Eleanor's Mervaylous Anti-Bugge Power-Writer Spray. But my guess is that while the need for the Anti-Bugge spray is ongoing, we need a different magic. What's the magic you need?
What magical thing would I want? My first thought is an accurate and properly calibrated crystal ball! I just want to know where we will be in the Fall and what we should be preparing for… Turns out I like having plans… But in the absence of certainty I’m making the kinds of plans we usually make for long field seasons where lots of things have to go right and there are lots of moving parts that can each go in their own directions. They usually go along the lines of: For condition A, this is the plan; for condition B, this is the plan; for condition C, this is the plan… and so on…
ReplyDeleteSo if the crystal ball is not an option, I would like some Magical Mojo Powder that can be sprinkled around on days when one’s get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went... MMP would have multiple applications, it would work equally well on writing tasks and physical things and it would be that extra little push to get over the feelings of demotivation or overload and do the things I know will be satisfying even if I struggle to do them…
Session Goals
1) Focus on paper writing – I have three in progress where I’m the main author, and two with students
2) Maintain healthy habits and keep moving
3) Focus on my child and make sure she has a fun, exciting summer even with restrictions and uncertainty
4) Do one fun/frivolous/new thing every week
This week’s goals
1) Finish all accounting submissions for term
2) Make budget for new grant
3) Read and comment on student thesis – iterative project
4) Make progress on neglected paper, I had some great days a few weeks ago but then it stalled again so it needs to be a priority
5) This week’s fun thing – take-out sushi to celebrate child’s report card arrival, we always go out for that, but will do a pick-up order if restaurant is open
Oh, wow, I need the Magic Mojo Powder. Getting out of bed is sometimes SO hard.
DeleteI want a sleeping potion. Non-addictive, fast-acting, no hangover after waking up, can be calibrated to give exactly the desired amount of restful sleep (so I could get 8 hours overnight or a 1-hour nap in the afternoon), works on me or anyone I might want to give it to, allows sleep even when stressed, ill, or in an unfamiliar place. Everything is manageable when I've slept, and everything is like trudging uphill through a swamp when I haven't.
ReplyDeleteOhhh I need this.
DeleteWhat magic do I need? Hmmmmm. I like the sound of the Dame's sleeping potion, but what I need is a more potent version of Bugge Spray, a Pestilential Strength one - I think that would help reduce the number of useless days and help me deal with what is in front of me today, not what might be there tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of teaching prep: I'm assuming we'll be either online or blended (i.e. on campus for a small number of physically distanced key classes, supplemented with online materials and support). I'm designing pessimistically, assuming all on-line, with the intention of being mostly asynchronous with 1-2 'quality blocks' of synchronous time - if I'm wrong & we're on campus, that's fine, my classroom will just be more flipped than normal. But it's not pessimistic in one way as I looooove teaching design.
SESSION GOALS: (for now)
1) Self-care - assorted
2) Research Collaboration - mentoring, keeping the basics going on joint work where early career people need my input
3) Teaching Planning - have plans for everything for next semester at least, keep up with all the extra duties, summer marking etc. etc. etc.
4) A bit of my own research
LAST WEEK: I did a big self care thing - I bought myself a garden bench (local company, chose from website, paid over the phone with a credit card, left the back gate open at an agreed time and a nice man came and assembled it for me in the right place). It's not a perfect bench - one needs to sit on many, many benches to find one of those - but it's a pretty good bench and it's definitely going to increase my vitamin D intake!
This week - headless chicken impressions!
1) self care whilst
2) co-hosting a workshop on line when we don't really know how (we're the guinea pigs for a learned society - this was to have been a two day in person workshop in a lovely small town and, well, now it's three short days (to make it easier for attendees juggling children etc.) online)
3) and overseeing the launch of a community effort to collate existing online teaching materials of all sorts for one of my teaching areas plus work together to create new ones this summer and in the longer term (I have three teaching areas - one is 'skills' so pretty well found for resources, the second has two excellent learned societies with teaching sections which are already doing great work, and the third is slightly interdisciplinary, somewhat neglected, and traditionally sniffy about any kind of accomodations or virtual materials. WierdBugMan and I wrote some microscope-simulation software a good decade ago which is suddenly in demand, and so I started to talk to a couple of people about expanding the methods it could be used for, and now... well...
4) and not ignoring my email completely.
And that's quite enough!!
and 4) at the weekend I will flesh out those session goals!
DeleteI'm thinking of my classes the way you are: they will be remote, only partly synchronous, and if there's a way for me to be safely on campus (high risk category) that's a bonus. (I may do individual conferences in person, for instance.)
DeleteLove the garden bench idea! Sounds like a good spot for a daily "tea and fresh air" ritual to take root... I'm impressed that even with the miserable switch to online you are finding some satisfaction in the instructional design aspect of it!
DeleteThinking about instructional design is a good way to approach this, and will help me re-frame my reactions, so thank you for that.
DeleteI need a potion/crystal/talisman for remaining focused on the present day. When I do that--which I've managed more often than not (I'm not talking true mindfulness, just dealing with the day at hand rather than thinking months ahead)--everything is fine, even rather nice. When I start thinking, Will we never be able to stand closer than 6 feet from anyone ever again?!?!?!?!, then I begin to feel...unsettled.
ReplyDeleteSession goals, as of now:
1. Reintroduce some of the good habits that I've neglected: any combination of sitting, journal-writing, waking up early, reducing alcohol/sweets, yoga
2. Required writing: -Fairy tale paper; -Nunnery paper; -Promotion statement
3. Read at a steady rate for New Project (NP), and take *sensible, ideally helpful* notes
4. Draft a grant proposal
5. Clean the workroom and figure out a better way to organize it
6. Make progress on the yard--I'm thinking that I need to pick a bucket of bishop's weed (which I've taken to calling My Episcopal Foe) a week
This week's goals:
1. Revise personal statement for promotion; scan remaining items for scholarship portfolio
2. Preliminary bibliography for NP and Nunnery; slot readings into summer syllabus (an idea from Dame Eleanor!)
3. Read grad student's work
4. Every day: 1 good-habit-thing
5. Pick a bucket o' bishop; buy plants and plant them!!!
Looking too far ahead and trying to think of the Fall and speculating about what we will or will not be able to do is so anxiety-provoking! My usual first reaction to that feeling is avoidance, so it is a lucky coincidence that it is actually helpful in this situation, instead of being a procrastination tool as it would be in "normal" times... Maybe the anxiety can be taken out on the Episcopal Foe!
DeleteI have to look up some good quotations from Angela Thirkell about hostility toward the Bishop, to use in replies to your reports on progress.
DeleteTopic: I like a large shipment of Pollyanna Elixir, which restores an ability to look at the positive side of things rather than the negative. I used to be an optimist when I was a child, and my family teasingly called me Pollyanna, after a character in a Disney movie from the late 1950’s. As I became older, I began to fit into my Irish pessimist family far too well. Lately, though, I weary of pessimism, and really appreciated the opportunity last week to look at the positive effects of the pandemic lockdown. That exercise proved that few occurrences are completely negative or, for that matter, completely positive. However, I think a drop or two of Pollyanna Elixir would help me immensely when the gray fog rolls in to surround me.
ReplyDeleteSession goals: I will probably add specifics later in the week, but here is a first shot.
Health:
Make mental and physical health strides by creating and maintaining habits--walking, meditating, eating better, contacting people.
Be kind to myself and others.
Maintain the contacts I have, and expand to some of the people I’ve neglected.
Scholarship:
Return scholarship to my schedule, rather than stuffing it around the edges.
Continue to organize and declutter paper and pixel files, keeping only what furthers my work or sparks joy.
Create an order of approach among the special issue, Illuminated, Perseverance, and North.
This week’s goals:
Update team paper for submission to professor.
Do R&R for team paper, which has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. (Insert happy dance here)
Finish review of article for the journal where I am on the editorial board.
Post the three presentations I uncovered on the repository for feedback.
Be kind, reach out.
Float like mist, everyone.
Congratulations on paper acceptance! Always a good feeling! Hope the R&R is quick and easy with sensible and helpful comments from reviewers...
DeleteHere's to the fog-dispensing elixer!
Yes, congratulations! Don't bury the lede like that!
DeleteThank you both! The R&R is mostly "make it more cohesive," which is badly needed, given I stitched together 5 team members' contributions, and can do a better job given the coming weekend to work on it.
DeleteI realize that I'm a bit "aw, shucks," about the paper, since it is in a highly respected technical journal, I'm first author, and feel a total fish out of water. I suppose I subconsciously buried it!
Placeholder post: Just wanted to drop in and say my grades are due tomorrow and I'm working urgently to finish. Will be back with session goals and celebration of semester-ending!
ReplyDeleteAll the best with grading!
DeleteIt's still hard to think about my summer goals, both because I feel so brain-dead and because moving & everything associated with it is starting to take over my life, and I know it will just get worse as we get closer to M-Day. So here's what really has to happen, plus some research goals that I think are small enough to be realistic:
ReplyDelete1. Health/self: exercise & stretch daily, eat safely, get sufficient sleep & down time.
2. Moving/life stuff: Pack, move, unpack, other house-related tasks, as efficiently as possible.
3. Service: Evaluate promotion packet.
4. Teaching: prep fall courses thoroughly.
5. Research: brief but regular dead language review; read & take notes on 4-6 books; make plan for finishing my own book.
I'm dividing the summer into 5 zones. Zone 1 is this week, in which my main goal is to relax and start sleeping better, though I have a lot of house-related tasks to take care of, and also some work administrivia to knock off. Then I have 3 weeks in Zone 2, during which I plan to work 2 hours a day and spend the rest on Life Stuff (mainly house/move related); work can be research or class plans, whatever I feel like. Zone 3 is the 3 weeks around the move (roughly 2 before & one after), in which I really don't expect to do much besides pack, run around on essential errands, and unpack. In Zone 4, I'll go back to working 2 hours a day (and try to expand to 3 or so by the end of that section), with the rest on unpacking and settling-in tasks. Primary goal in this time is the promotion evaluation. Zone 5 is the last month or so before I'm on-contract for the fall; I'll hope to have the new house mostly sorted and spend about 4 hours a day on work, primary goal getting my courses fully planned. Starting 17 August, I'm on-contract and will try to work fairly full days, making sure classes are ready to go, and dealing with whatever else comes up.
Research is not my main focus this summer. Too much else going on. However, with the help of this group, I hope I'll be able to put in 30-60 minutes a day during Zones 2, 4, and 5. The service and teaching will have some overlap with research, as well, which will help keep things going.
Your goals seem wise. Moving is overwhelming, and you shouldn't be beating yourself up about research while doing it!
DeleteI agree with Susan, and I will be happy to help with Zones 2,4,and 5 in any way I can. You've given so much support to this group, I doubt I am alone in that .
DeleteThe zones are a great approach, I like that! It recognizes that some parts of the summer will be less conducive to particular kinds of work, and gives a nice framework to an uncertain time. Little bits of research is always better than no research, we'll try to help with that!
DeleteHi All,
ReplyDeleteI need a magic anti-anxiety wand that works in many situations- when I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot sleep, when I worry about fmaily members, when I worry about my eating and my weight, when I worry about the writing of the book, when I worry about the state of the world and our leader. In place of the wand I tend to use walking and working in the garden, but sometimes I fall into bad tv watching and eating too much.
My goals for the summer are:
1. Finish Ch 7 and 8 of book and be done with it!
2. Advise two graduate students and undergrad in summer research
3. Maintain healthy habits- exercise 3x a week, cook and eat as well as I can
4. Work in the garden and make my own DIY compositng bin
5. Maybe try to learn Tahitian??? I have DVDs somewhere but no way to listen to them now. There might be online sources or someone I could Zoom with.
Goals for the week:
Delete1. Finish grading
2. Start data crunching for next section of CH 7
3. Develop calender of writing/tasks for the summer
4. Exercise x 3
5. Get my taxes and my aunt's taxes in
Dying of curiosity here... Would you be comfortable sharing why you are choosing Tahitian to learn? It is so cool, definitely not a language that comes up in conversation frequently! How hard is it relative to other languages do you think? And now I'm going down the internet rabbit hole of looking up Tahitian language facts!
DeleteHope the outside activities help with the worrying!
A few weeks ago some friends and I had an online substitute for a fund-raising auction, and I auctioned off an invisibility app, which rendered invisible administration emails you didn't want to see. I need it. (Along with the super Bugge spray, the Magic Mojo Powder, and maybe the Pollyanna Elixer...) I'm not feeling well today and it's just overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteSession goals will be more or less what I wrote last week. I think being general will allow me to make progress without getting stuck.
1. Finish book ms, writing 3000 words a week.
2. Redesign course for remote or semi-remote teaching
3. Maintain physical health by keeping up with walking
4. Maintain mental health 1: get regular sleep
5. Maintain mental health 2: read for fun
6. Maintain mental health 3: keep in touch with friends in whatever way possible.
Goals for the coming week:
1. Finish writing current chapter
2. Keep walking
3. Try to identify books for fall course
4. Get regular sleep
5. Read for fun
I have a sick cat (he had an absess on his chin that burst, and infection, huge wound under his chin, and a $300 vet bill), I'm not feeling well, and I just learned that when the campus told us they were migrating our websites to the new platform, they didn't tell us that all design features -- layout, backgrounds, etc. that we had spent time doing -- would not migrate too. And "here are the tutorials so you can re-do on this new platform the work you did on the old one." So I'm in COVID primal scream territory, and my goal is to survive the week.
Am heading to amazon to order the magic mojo powder and the Pollyanna Elixer.
Sorry to hear you're not feeling well. That affects everything, especially mood. I'll send a drone to drop off some Pollyanna Elixir.
DeleteThat is a lousy week, so sorry you are feeling awful, and that kitty is sick too. We'll send over as much of the elixers and powders as we can source from the magical providers!
DeleteWill also add some "permission to scream and rant and take a day off" sauce to add to the week too...
THanks for the screaming permission! (And I should say, the person in charge of the website was extremely understanding -- I told her that I knew this was COVID overwhelm -- and said they were hiring students to help on this and I'd be on the list to have a student work on my site. Kindness is not expensive, but oh, it helps.
DeleteDamn. We're going to be online in the fall. I want something magical that will make teaching online as much fun as teaching live and in person.
ReplyDeleteBummer. We are still poised between hybrid and completely online, so I hope we can find that magical something!!
DeletePlease can I have some too?? We just pulled the plug too, fully online Fall, Winter will be decided some time in the future... I hate that prospect even though it is 100% the right call to make, but I think we're allowed to mourn that the best parts of teaching are the in-person connections and moments that will not happen...
DeleteI think I would also like a Time Turner so I can take all my colleagues to the pub (some time in January!) and collectively drink away our terror at the idea of doing all our classes online... Of course if I showed up in January and told everyone why we're drinking I'm not sure they'd believe me!
Thank you both. I'm going to help myself to some of that '"permission to scream and rant and take a day off" sauce' that Daisy gave to Susan. It all hit me hard yesterday--the cancelled conferences, the loss of face-to-face contact with students, the inability to do ordinary things. At the beginning, when other people were freaking out, I was calm and flexible and rolled with the punches, but I guess I was really counting on "going back to normal" by September, and the news that that will not be happening just loosed all the feels I haven't been feeling.
DeleteSympathies. I wrote a long twitter thread yesterday on teaching and technology (going back to the invention of the printing press) and part of what I wrote about was that I don't do a lot of traditional lecturing, but I have mini-lectures that I do to illustrate a point, and that's a response to students. Teaching is a dialogue, and it's MUCH harder to dialogue via zoom.
DeleteI miss ordinary life, and conferences, and hanging out without worrying about 6 foot distance... I miss people.
Would like to order a Time Turner too, Daisy. I'm torn between flipping back to December when I visited my parents and had a real vacation, or flipping forward to late fall for a concert adventure I hope but doubt will still happen. I swear I will try not to be like Hermione and use the Time Turner to write an additional essay!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI would like one of heu mihi’s focus talismans. Now that I’m done with the spring semester, I thought that I could ditch my time tracking methods because it’s summer and I should not hold myself to such high standards. I rethought that, because I’ve learned that if I don’t do careful planning and time tracking, I will let distraction run the day.
ReplyDeleteSession goals
1 Write and present at PH online conference
2 Write and submit four book reviews
3 Submit three conference abstracts
4 Write and submit Square
5 Revise and submit two online courses
6 Finish Perform
7 Write 20000 words for Tiny Project
The next few days goals
1 write and submit 2 overdue book reviews
2 submit 2 essay peer reviews
3 submit short adapted article
4 meet daily writing goals for Tiny Project
I’m teaching two online summer classes, intro classes I’ve taught a lot that don’t require much engagement from me. We’re in an uncertainty spin for Fall, hoping to be fully face to face but knowing that we might be partially or fully online for the whole semester. So I’m thinking toward a hybrid model to begin with. But I’d prefer not to think about Fall too terribly much right now!
I love time tracking normally, and have tried to transfer it to the current situation. And failed miserably, it did not work for me at all and only made me feel miserably inefficient. Then I tried writing down what I was working on each day, and that didn't help much. I finally settled on an on-going to-do list that is completely task-based and that is working much better. It is satisfying and using a combination of small and large tasks works well for disjointed days.
DeleteGood luck with the goals for the week!