2021 Session 1, Week 16: Planning upcoming celebrations…

 Good evening to all our crew and guests! As you know our arrival on Primavera is imminent! We’re in the last week of the voyage for forward planning, so we get one more week of goals before we report on our session and pack up our cabins….

We’ve almost made it across the Expanse and travelled all the way through several interstellar clouds of dust. We hunted Demotivators, drank a bunch of random interstellar alcohol, danced with the very handsome Captain Vorpatril, shot the crap out of our floating baggage in a jettisoning ceremony, put on a few dances with appropriate fancy dresses, struggled with albatrosses, fantasized about being 19^th Century Cambridge scholars and learned a bunch of stuff about routines and habits and general survival…

One of the things that bugs me most about this endless stretch of pandemic online existence is that everything ends with a whimper. Had a student do Masters defense and at the end we told her she passed, congratulated her, and clicked out of the meeting. No coffee, no bar, no party, nothing… Same with end of classes, reviewed what we did, talked about some cool stuff, thanked students for all their work, and then waited as they all disappeared. And then nothing… And that’s been the case with everything… I’m so sick of the anticlimax that comes with every ending and every milestone!

 So for this week’s social hour and check-in see if the following list resonates with you…

How will you plan to celebrate the achievements in this session that you will tell us all about next week?

How can we make these anticlimactic endings feel a little more special?

What do you need to do for yourself to acknowledge all your hard work and enjoy the satisfaction that should come with everything you did?

How can we create a little moment of fun and levity and celebration for things that need it?

I do not know the answers for any of these yet...

 

GOALS from last week:

 Captain Daisy

1) Help grad student with proposals and grant applications
2) Society website updating and general organization
3) Make sure all committee organization is ready for 2 weeks of interviews
4) Keep working on local project, report to partner
5) Outline new grant application for work in new area
6) Final marking and grades for undergrad class if everything gets handed in
7) Field trip!!!!!

 Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (held over)

Walk 2x5.
Read 1 hour x 5 on early printers.
Edit translation sections 1 x 5.
Draft a daily schedule.

First Mate T’Melnor
Research x 6: 4 x book, 2 x revisions.
Dead language prep for group; anything on #2 is gravy.
Grade whatever there is to grade.
Prep for faculty meeting; review grad apps.
Write letter.
Gently increase activity while healing.
Do some mending.
Visit store for paint chips.

 heu mihi

1) Uncomfortable phone call with difficult colleague (planning on doing this by 9:15 this morning, just to get it out of the way)
2) Write 2 hours if possible
3) Gen Ed review!! Rapidly becoming urgent
4) Run, yoga, sit, language--as fits my schedule
5) Get to the plant store (Saturday?)
6) Get first vaccine shot! I'm FINALLY eligible (today), and amazingly, I was able to get both my husband and me appointments for later this week.

Humming42

1 Submit Because
2 Submit Young Ones
3 Write and submit next book review
4 Focus on teaching-related responsibilities
5 Also, awesome conference with Boredom presentation!

 Karen (held over)

-send around syllabi for sem 2 and draft teaching plan
-catch up on student feedback and be prepped for next week's crits
-be one week ahead in LMS content

 Susan (held over)

1. Get to be early enough to not be wrecked by Ginger George's 4 AM wake up call.
2. 2 x 2 hours on Famous Author
3. Read 3 more chapters in book for review
4. Grade papers
5. Write citations for lifetime awards for professional association
6. Go to sessions for remote conference
7. See someone for fun
8. Do stuff in garden
9. Sit outside with a drink at least one evening. Roses are in bloom, as are orange and lemon trees. It smells heavenly.
10. Float like mist and ignore the stupid

 

2021 Session 1, Week 15: Approaching Primaveran Space

Back in January, we said "We’ll go for 16 weeks, ending the first weekend in May." As I interpret this, it means that we have two more forward-planning weeks (weeks 15 and 16), followed by a final post on the first weekend in May (1-2 May), in which we wrap things up and report on session goals, but don't set new goals for 3-8 May. 

So if there's anything stored in the hold that you want to shoot out an airlock before we enter Primaveran space, this would be a good time to root it out and jettison it! Or if you want to start packing up, that is, see if there's a goal you want to move to the top of your list so you can get it done before we arrive, do that. Our midterm goal review was in week 8, if you want to check it. 

Next week, we'll have good views of planets in the Primaveran solar system. When we dock, we're going to have the ship thoroughly fumigated to get rid of the Demotivators. I wish we could leave the Albatrosses on board for that procedure, but unfortunately, while they are not endangered, they are a protected species, and we're going to have to make suitable arrangements for them.

This would also be a good time to discuss the next session: when, for how long, run by whom? Volunteers? Please let us know.

And here are the goals set last week. Let us know how you did, and set your penultimate weekly goals in the comments:

Captain Daisy
1) Keep all the committee discussions on the rails and focused and kind
2) Submit local project report
3) Do modelling and results for other local project
4) Final marking and grades for undergrad class if everything gets handed in
5) Final marking and discussions for grad class
6) Something fun dammit! Extra points if with kid!

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Walk 2x5.
Read 1 hour x 5 on early printers.
Edit translatio sections 1 x 5.
Draft a daily schedule.

heu mihi (held over)
1) Write 3 hours
2) Get some Kalamazoo stuff organized (register, contact panelists)
3) Write exam questions for grad student
4) Copy-edit journal article
5) Run, yoga (try for twice), sit, language

Humming42 (held over)
1 Submit Because           
2 Submit Young Ones
3 Write and submit review of already-read book
4 Write and submit T-House abstract
5 Try to focus on teaching-related responsibilities too

Karen
-send around syllabi for sem 2 and draft teaching plan
-catch up on student feedback and be prepped for next week's crits
-be one week ahead in LMS content

Susan
1. Get to be early enough to not be wrecked by Ginger George's 4 AM wake up call.
2. 2 x 2 hours on Famous Author
3. Read 3 more chapters in book for review
4. Grade papers
5. Write citations for lifetime awards for professional association
6. Go to sessions for remote conference
7. See someone for fun
8. Do stuff in garden
9. Sit outside with a drink at least one evening. Roses are in bloom, as are orange and lemon trees. It smells heavenly.
10. Float like mist and ignore the stupid

T’Melnor
Research x 6: 4 x book, 2 x revisions.
Dead language prep for group; anything on #2 is gravy.
Grade grad papers and discussion boards, start undergrad papers.
Prep for committee meeting.
Write letters.
Visit stores to look at actual washers & dryers.
Continue gentle activity while healing from injury.
Do some mending.

 

2021 Session 1, Week 14: Nurturing and feeding joy

Good day to all our valued crew members and guests. Just a few announcements today because keeping track of more than a few plans right now is one bridge too far…

Demotivators have been sighted in some parts of the crew decks. Apparently they are entering their breeding season (damned if I know how they figured it out in their climate controlled, simulated-hibernation cargo bay). They feed on fresh green sprouts of optimism and anticipation, so please be extra careful to nurture those little sprouts and keep the force-fields around them strong! You can pick up your personal spray kit to immobilize any stray Demotivators for pick-up and repatriation to the hibernation deck. Just pile them in a corner and put a blanket over them for easy storage!

Captain Vorpatril will be hosting a travelogue style slide show this evening in the forward lounge area. Some of his earlier missions have recently been declassified so he will share some of his adventures from exciting missions. He may or may not have mentioned teaching us one or more of the traditional Barrayaran celebration (aka betting on silly challenges) games from his youth… I suspect we could use some levity?

We’re doing a poll for crew and guests this week for a discussion panel later in the week! Please tell us a few things in your check-in if you feel so inclined:

A. Which of your goal tasks or ”other” tasks is the hardest one right now?

B. What is draining you of energy and joy?

C. What is feeding your energy and joy and making you happy?

D. How can you make more space for C in order to make A and B a little easier?

 

GOALS from last week:

Captain Daisy

1) Finish the computer modelling thing for local project
2) Finish the report for local project
3) Ridiculous number of committee meetings
4) Final marking and grades for undergrad class if everything gets handed in, maybe
5) Something fun maybe?

 Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

Walk 2x5.
Read 1 hour x 5 on early printers. Break out another new notebook!
Combine three different filing systems into one and shred duplicates.
Get second dose of vaccine.
Draft a daily schedule.

 First Mate T’Melnor
Something toward book-in-progress.
Dead languages 4x each.
Grade discussion boards.
Very very gentle stretching, try a short walk or two.
Finish organizing tax documents.
Research new washer & dryer.
Read something scholarly.
Pay bills.
Write letters.
Dentist appointment, and shot #2.

 heu mihi

1) Write 3 hours
2) Get some Kalamazoo stuff organized (register, contact panelists)
3) Write exam questions for grad student
4) Copy-edit journal article
5) Run, yoga (try for twice), sit, language

 Humming42

1 Submit Because
2 Submit Young Ones
3 Write and submit review of already-read book
4 Write and submit T-House abstract
5 Try to focus on teaching-related responsibilities too

 Susan

1. 2 x 2 hours on famous author
2. 2 journals
3. Get materials for next week up tomorrow so Friday is free for writing
4. Do first read of papers that are due Friday night
5. Do either shoes or blouses in great closet clear out.
6. Fertilize roses, camellias, and gardenias
7. Pull more weeds
8. Read for fun (be willing to abandon current book if it remains as bro-ish as I think its getting)
9. Exercise and food
10. Friends in various ways
11. Stay calm, be kind

 

2021 Session 1, Week 13: it all counts

A theme in last week's comments is people working on things that weren't on lists, or dealing with stuff that comes up unexpectedly, or just adapting as necessary. It all counts! These things are useful and necessary. Our lives are better with the files sorted, the garden improved, the opportunity seized. Maybe in a different year, at least some of these things would seem like distractions from the main goal, but this is 2021. We've been dealing with pandemic conditions for over a year. Any forward motion you can make is a good thing.

For a change of pace, this week I offer a view of the schedule kept by Cambridge scholars in the middle of the nineteenth century, taken from An American in Victorian Cambridge: Charles Astor Bristed's 'Five Years at an English University,' ed. Christopher Stray (University of Exeter Press, 2008). I love writers' accounts of how they spend their days, so this is the sort of thing that amuses (and sometimes inspires) me.

The young man is expected to attend Chapel at 7:00 a.m., for about half an hour, so he rises by 6:30 to get ready. After Chapel, he walks in the college grounds for 15 minutes or so, to allow the bed-maker to do her work in his rooms. "By eight, he is seated before his comfortably blazing coal fire, with his kettle boiling merrily, and the materials for his morning meal on a diminutive table near him. These are of the simplest description---rolls, butter, and tea: an excellent preparation for a morning's reading." Lectures (if the young man attends them) take place from nine till noon. "It is generally some time before one, when the student resorts to his private tutor. . . .From two to four is the traditional time for exercise," and dinner in Hall is at four. "After Hall is emphatically lounging time, it being the wise practice of Englishmen to attempt no hard exercise, physical or mental, immediately after a hearty meal. Some stroll in the grounds . . . many . . . glance over the newspapers . . . and many assemble at wine parties to chat over a frugal dessert of oranges, biscuits, and cake, and sip a few glasses of not remarkably good wine." Evening Chapel at 6:00 is not so well attended, and after it "evening reading begins in earnest. Most of the Cantabs are late readers, so that supposing one of them to begin at seven, he will not leave off before half-past eleven, thus clearing more than four hours' consecutive work" (16-22). 

Later in this work, Bristed writes of these men's care of their health: "His seven hours of sleep are always the same seven hours of the night. . . . His breakfast is light and simple . . . and while he is at it he does not worry himself about anything else. He is discreet in his position when at work, and knowing that he has to stoop forward in writing at the examinations, does most of his reading leaning back in his arm chair or standing at a high desk where he strengthens his legs and eases his chest at the same time. After he has dined you could not bribe him to engage in any exertion of body or mind for at least two hours. . . . Bur above all, his exercise is as much a daily necessity to him as his food" (291).

Since Bristed endured a serious illness after arriving at Cambridge, he also has some comments on how he lived while recovering, when work had to be limited to under four hours a day (102). I'd like to know more about the lives of the tutors and masters, but he was experiencing Cambridge as an undergraduate, so I can only glean bits about the masters' lives between the lines.

If you feel like it, comment on your schedule, either actual or ideal! Or just get down to reporting and setting new goals. Here are the goals from last week: 

Daisy:

1) Do the computer modelling thing for local project
2) Write the report for local project
3) Finish and return marks for undergrad class
4) Check in with all students in program I run about summer and advising
5) Have difficult association conversation with important person
6) Do at least two coffee walks with friends
7) Last day of skiing for the season

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell:

Mail off passport application.
Attack the remaining scary box under the desk.
Walk.1 x 5
Make remaining doctor’s appointment.

heu mihi:

1) Write 3 hours
2) NOTES ON NunG
3) Read a bunch of Parzival and Equiano
4) Order books for Fall 2021
5) Read journal article
6) Run, yoga, sit, language

Humming42

1 Submit Boredom conference paper
2 Select and submit creative piece for MV
3 Submit review of smol book
4 Make significant progress on Because (due soon)
5 Make significant progress on Young Ones (due soon)

Karen:

- finish and publish feedback on AT1
- catch up 2 x weeks of online material, and set up AT2 online
- move offices/flee building works
- make test box

Susan

1. 2x 2 hours on famous author
2. 3 journals
3. Record next week's lecture
4. Do the sweaters and blouses in the great closet cleanout
5. Finally fertilize, plant seedlings
6. Have a good Easter.
7. Do things with friends online and in person
8. Keep up with exercise and healthy eating
9. Don't get stressed

T'Melnor:

Complete the "what I have" outline of book-in-progress.
Dead languages 4x each.
Grade discussion boards.
Daily stretching & cardio, weights x3.
Collect tax documents.
Tidy study.
Research new washer & dryer.
Read something scholarly.