the grid

the grid

Sunday 8 May 2022

Intersession check-in

If anyone wants a place to check in, or chat, before the next session starts, here you go! Imagine you're sitting on the deck or in the garden of one of our retreats created in the last session, with a mug or glass of your beverage of choice. The air is exactly the right temperature for your comfort, the view is soothing, and the companionship is congenial, gently stimulating, never draining. Thanks to Daisy for helping us imagine our ideal writing house!

11 comments:

  1. First, I apologize for disappearing — my end of semester became compressed when I (rather late in the day) found out key members of committees were leaving the country 2 weeks prior to the deadlines for many reports I have to write, so the past week has been meeting hell. Add to that a wrenched back and a husband with a kidney stone flare-up, and it’s just been delightful. So, I really need to retreat to that lovely cabin Dame Eleanor describes!

    On the bright side, tests done yesterday revealed, despite a previous doctor’s report that I had more kidney stones, I do not; and, on another front, that the osteoporosis medication is working. On the intellectual front, my rooting around in my paper files has unearthed several things for my idea file, and sparked a small flame of interest again that I plan to nurture this summer. I have to raise my cup of mint tea to that!

    I do face some disruption this summer, beyond needing to support my husband through kidney stone surgery. Both sons are moving away–one will still be somewhat nearby, but the other is moving several states away. While I am happy they are forging a path for themselves, it is hard to stand in the driveway and wave goodbye. There will also be some work disruption – the library administration has crumbled with unexpected departures, and no one really knows what to make of the rubble as yet. So I face exciting, nerve-wracking, and emotional times ahead.

    So, I happily sit in the sun outside the cabin, listening to the sound of nearby water, and treasure the respite from the storm.

    Thank you, Daisy, for the wonderful prompts. And thank you to all of you for sharing your advice, suggestions, and practices. Float like mist, everyone.

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    1. Hi, Elizabeth, I am so sorry to hear that your husband's kidney stones are bad enough to need surgery. And it sounds like you have a lot going on besides that---interesting times can be very tiring! But I hope the new ideas and opportunities will work out well. Flow like water, float like mist, stay cool as ice. Best wishes!

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    2. I love the image of small flames of interest. I hope you can find some cabin-esque respite to ease all of you have on your plate this summer.

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    3. Thank you both! I will endeavor to foster the flames of interest while remaining cool as ice.

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    4. Hi! Glad you are getting some metal respite out of the fantasy cabin! May the flames of interest provide just enough heat and light to be comfortable and cozy! Good luck with the uncertainties ahead, we'll be cheering for you...

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    5. Thank you, Daisy! Your support means a lot.

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    6. It sounds like a somewhat tumultuous summer ahead. Let the research pleasures carry you when they can!

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    7. Thank you, heu mihi. At its best, research can be a real escape.

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  2. I can't remember when the next session begins, but Kalamazoo is over, my grading is *almost* over (I'm waiting on two students, sigh sigh sigh), and I have only one more meeting (Friday) and a mentoring tea (Thursday) to go before the semester is well and truly behind me.... My immediate projects are (1) preparing for tomorrow's colonoscopy (why did they lower the age for your first one to 45 in the year that I was/am 45? Why? Why?), (2) caning a chair (which is coming along well, but going verrrry slowly, and I have both diagonals and the edge left to do), (3) attempting to wrap up paperwork for Bonaventure's French school registration (new papers to fill out keep coming our way, new emails to test my French bureaucratic vocabulary), (4) addressing a spot of mildew in the bathroom as part of our fix-everything-before-we-go-to-France project, and (5) reading some stuff. That's what I'll be working on this week. Looking forward to seeing you all here again soon!

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    1. You're so close to finish line, heu mihi, hang in there! I hadn't realized they'd lowered the age for colonoscopies--I always wish they would give me an amnesiac before I had to drink all the stuff the night before, as well as during the scope.

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  3. Times are definitely interesting here - I am still on sick leave, but agreed to do a small amount of work:
    ** marking (honours projects I supervised on topics where no-one else left has the expertise to mark knowledgably)
    ** remotely give a few talks at a training workshop which would otherwise have had to be cancelled (which is kind of flattering? although if my work is THAT niche, does it actually mean anything?)
    ** put together the timetable requests for the skills modules I teach
    Now there is DRAMA because the director of teaching has decided that one of the requests is unacceptable and is redesigning my really important new first years in the discipline module for me - I have to have fewer contact hours, not ask them to do small pieces of work each week, cut all repetition, cut the acculturation content (e.g. where do journal articles come from, how to find them, how to parse a marking rubric for something like an open ended essay) because "that's the tutors job" (it's in the module because tutors weren't doing their jobs consistently and therefore students were getting different amounts of information and quite rightly said that wasn't fair, but apparently that's not needed), the bit of how to write an essay content ("they can go to the writing centre if they need help"), and all the content we added as a team about case studies so that students weren't just learning a statistical method or how to use lab equipment, but had some place and problem context to engage them in the learning (I am keeping one day of field work, but it's a HUGE amount of work for me to make EVERYTHING about that one day for context, and students come to us with very varied levels of prior knowledge about our area and field sites....). So I'm super stressed about that and have been told I can either get involved in the remodelling to meet the new requirements or she'll do it and I can lead the module she creates.

    She hasn't taught first year in over two decades. She has never taught these core courses - for perfectly good reasons. She's not in STEM and often wonders aloud what the point of doing three lab reports is if students are only summatively assessed on the final report, or why we have multiple-practical sequences for a report (why can't we just do all the methods in one lab session, it would be efficient). GRRRR.

    Ironically, I won a Faculty award for contributions to education during the pandemic a couple of weeks ago, and we've been transforming our programmes for over two years, but this week the Director of Teaching noticed this.

    I've asked if I can just not lead the module (after all, it's been 6 or 7 years now, at least, & other colleagues who think they know better should surely have a go at it, plus teaching this module makes me the preferred contact & source of support and information for most of the students across three programmes which generates a lot of unrecognised, unworkloaded labour which I am struggling under) but apparently that isn't an option...

    So I am drinking tart home made lemonade with fresh mint and a few raspberries bobbing in it (we're having a couple of hot days here - rainy, but hot, so humid, so cold lemonade is currently appealing) at my imaginary cabin with the imps of irritation and irascibility firmly encased in a crate at the end of the drive (with chocolate to pacify them)!

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