2022 second session - wrapping up

 Well that flew by!  It's still hot and summery here, but in the US I know some schools are going back and others preparing, and there's a definite make the most of the dregs of summer feeling around.  In the Celtic Year, the month of August is in autumn, although in meteorological terms in the northern hemisphere it's usually the last month of Summer, and in astronomical terms Summer doesn't end until the Autumn equinox, September 21st.  All of which is to avoid saying - we're done with this session.  Thank you all for your company!  

Like all breaks, much as we enjoyed taking a break in our journey, the time to get packed up and moving has snuck up on us, and it's time to discuss how we got on.  We have two things to review this week, last week's goals and (collected together at the end) our session goals.

This week's discussion points are two-fold, and we do encourage all readers to join in, whether you checked in regularly or not!  First, we've talked a lot about what we want to leave behind and what we want to bring with us to bring summer into the academic year.   Let's treat this as the new start it can be, and make a new academic year resolution or two - or of you're not a resolution kind of person, set an intention, pick a word, or choose a mantra or motto for the year.  Essentially, in whatever mode suits each of us, let's share our main wish or intention or request for the academic year we're going into.

Second - the next session!  Does anyone want to host?  When should we start?  I'd be willing to co-host again unless someone or two someones are keen!

LAST WEEK'S GOALS:

Daisy

• Get ready for vacation trip!
• Get ready for field course teaching immediately after trip
• Edits for old paper after coauthor shreds it again
• Course outline for new class, and first 5 lectures
• Work through first 2 labs for new course
• Turn paper notes into something less random
• Read/edit giant report

Dame Eleanor Hull

• -daily yoga, walking, safe eating, work bedtime back to 11 at latest
• -finish planning one class and set up its VILE site
• -research at least 1 hour/day
• -dentist, walk w/friend, daily weeding, replace another electronic gadget, other Life Stuff as possible

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (carried over)

• Outline two female patrons.
• Outline two female translators.

heu mihi

(no goals set, but in France!)

JaneB (carried over, because she forgot)

• 1) work my contracted hours (nominally 22.5 in August . . . will either be working M-W or . . . M-Th but as four short days)
• 2) do some things on the lists -
• 3) replenishment: back to basics - keep it up. Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily.
• 3a) substantial house projects: make the main downstairs room and the hall not too embarrassing before my sister 's visits
• 4) pressure reduction: apply for the administrative role, work on the honours module
• 5) fun/creative: do something social beyond the basics/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D, write another job board game or do other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times.

Karen (carried over)

• -teach the five classes I'm down for this week
• -keep just-in-time VILE content ticking over
• -mark and release first assessments
• -get to one yoga class

SESSION GOALS

Daisy

• Pack up my entire life and office (ten years of rocks is a LOT!) and move…
• Get child settled in new place…
• Adopt cats
• Finish one almost complete paper, preferably before the moving stuff really hits the fan and I start field work again because then everything else is off the table.
• Do a decent job on new project paper with colleague I really want to help.
• Finish conference finances and wrap-up reports for giant and totally awesome conference that just finished.
• Write conference how-to guide with all new hybrid meeting stuff.
• Field work and all attached writing things with student.

Dame Eleanor Hull

• - keep regular office hours for research/writing and teaching prep
• - keep moving forward, rotate projects, don't get stuck
• - do one significant Life Stuff task per week
• - plan weekly Fun Activities

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

• Communicate
• Cogitate
• Coordinate
• Create

heu mihi

• Work:
• 1. Revise intro for WH and resubmit manuscript.
• 2. Messy zero draft of chapter 1.
• 3. Substantive notes regarding what might find its way into the other chapters.
• 4. Letter of recommendation; tenure letter.
• Life:
• 5. ... all the things. Touch up paint here and there, paint counters, clean garage, clean workroom, dispose of all recyclable/donate-able stuff, thoroughly clean Bonaventure's room, wash windows and screens, make steps and path in the garden, stack firewood, clean EVERYTHING, and pack stuff away to make it hospitable to the renters.
• 6. Car inspections, wash cars, possibly get "Real" driver's license (finally), move secondary car to mom's house.

Humming42

• Teaching
• 1 edit summer online class
• 2 outline fall online class
• 3 complete spring online class
• Research
• 1 submit abstract for lit-lit
• 2 finish food chapter
• 3 outline boredom
• 4 lit review for dark
• 5 draft cfp for mind
• 6 write proposal for DQ
• 7 write presentation for Life

JaneB

• 1)    Personal replenishment household rescue, reviewing my finances, thinking through some things, getting some counselling, moving more and eating better and working on my sleep schedule
• 2) Reducing the pressures next year - I need to do as much teaching preparation as I can, in a more systematic way, especially for the heavy points in the trimester - whatever I can do to not have to work quite such long hours. If it happens, I will also be applying to be Teaching Tsar, which would come with a lot of work but also teaching reallocation. This one will also involve working on my campus space and on feeling safe and confident on campus, which is both about never having liked or enjoyed my current office which was never properly unpacked when I moved into it multiple years ago and the whole lack of COVID precautions and greater awareness of how unhealthy our indoor spaces on campus are (and worse anxiety about windowless teaching rooms).
• 3) Minimising my research expectations I'm part of two research grant applications which will hopefully get submitted this summer, and have one paper where I'm lead and need to do a last round of edits/comment incorporating before it is submitted. I'd also 'like' to write a PhD student project application for later summer but that's not essential.
• 4) Write for pleasure, read for pleasure, do something crafty, and play D&D.

Karen

• - Complete first draft of KL article
• - Grant application done
• - Start semester 2 with VILE eight weeks ahead
• - Keep attending to self-care

2022 Second Session, week 12

Last week, JaneB called August the hinge of the year: for you, does that mean the door is closing, or opening? Perhaps it's a swing door that will go back and forth for awhile before it stills, if it does.

In May (remember May, when the season lay ahead of us?), we said "This session runs until mid-August, which makes it a 12 week session (mid-point = 2-3 July, last goal setting post = 13-14th August, wrap-up session = 20-21 August)." So set goals for this week, and next weekend we'll meet again to reflect on how we did, both with the week and with the session. 

We should also think about the next session: how long, starting and ending points, and who will host it.

A prompt, if you feel like addressing it: what do you need to close down, what do you need to open up? Are you packing up a summer cabin and taking things home, leaving a weekend cabin in good shape to visit again soon, looking forward to seeing your usual places refreshed by absence?

Goals from last week, unless you were traveling and didn't post; let us know how you're doing with either goals or travels:

Daisy

Something fun with kid
Do a few more things with old paper
Book vacation places and organize trip
Finish setting up new office computer
Renovation appointments
Read/edit giant report
Turn paper notes into something less random

Dame Eleanor Hull

(no goals posted; on vacation)

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

Outline two female patrons.
Outline two female translators.

heu mihi

(no goals posted; presumably now in France)

JaneB

1) work my contracted hours (nominally 22.5 in August . . . will either be working M-W or . . . M-Th but as four short days)

2) do some things on the lists -

3) replenishment: back to basics - keep it up. Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily.

3a) substantial house projects: make the main downstairs room and the hall not too embarrassing before my sister 's visits

4) pressure reduction: apply for the administrative role, work on the honours module

5) fun/creative: do something social beyond the basics/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D, write another job board game or do other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times.

Karen

-teach the five classes I'm down for this week
-keep just-in-time VILE content ticking over
-mark and release first assessments
-get to one yoga class

2022 second session, week 11

Lammas-tide always feels like the hinge of the year to me, more so than New Years, which partly reflects how deeply the northern hemisphere academic system has shaped my working life, but also my lived experience in the UK, where the hot, humid, waiting-for-ripening summer days feel like a slowing down in the pace of the world around me, different in temperament to the depths of winter but not in kind.  Now August is underway, North American schools mostly go back this month, here in the UK the university system is gearing up for the unknowns and stresses of exam results* and clearing** which mark the start of the new academic cycle as they determine how many students*** we will actually have in the first year classes, even if those classes don't start until September or October.  

However, we still have a couple of weeks left in this session, and therefore a bit of time to pack up from our nice sit on a rock taking a pause in our academic journeys.   We already thought about souvenirs to bring along, and about some coping strategies for the inevitable last minute changes the year will bring.  This week, let's talk about some practical steps in the areas we do control - how can we set ourselves up for ongoing progress with the projects we worked on in this session, whether those were our own health and needs (e.g. collect some quick recipes in an easy to see place for meal planning, experiment with some new breakfast options for busy days, restock the pantry with term-time staples (e.g. grab and go lunches - a pack of oatcakes, cheese portion, piece of fruit (or portion of dried fruit), and handful of almonds is SO much better for me than a sandwich from the student shop... so I'm adding the components to my shopping list), plan out our schedules to put new habits in the prime position etc.), our social lives (pre-book a once a month get together, put a reminder picture as our desktop photo...) or our research ("parking" current projects by making lists of short, necessary steps which take 30-60 minutes each so that on busy days we can just grab and go in our research time, for example)?

*from the end of high school A level exams; students currently have conditional offers for university places, subject to those results, so UNIVERSITIES only have estimates of student numbers too

** the process whereby once the results are out, students who either didn't apply before or who didn't get the results they wanted can apply for one of the remaining places, or those with unexpectedly good results can try to "trade up".  It's becoming an increasingly short window, and it's PAINFUL for everyone involved.  

***and therefore how much trouble we are in about our finances... again...

Last week's goals:

Daisy

• Something fun with kid
• Finish all grant stuff
• Do something else with old paper
• Proofread new paper galleys
• Set up new office computer
• Do something with new local paper
• Draft out one section of collaborative out-of-field paper

 Dame Eleanor Hull

• - daily exercise, safe food, bed by midnight
• - Two hours x 3 on research
• - Set up VILE sites for both classes
• - Life Stuff as possible, see friends, enjoy self

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (carried over)

• Enjoy the week off.
• Send off the mid-internship evaluation to the requisite folks.
• Swim in my younger daughter’s pool (such luxury!)
• Read and write as the impulse hits.

heu mihi (carried over)

• prepare for trip

JaneB

• 1) do not work
• 2) do some things on the lists
• 3) replenishment: back to basics - reset. Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily.
• 3a) substantial house projects: even the simple stuff like throwing a load of stuff into boxes so its less sprawling all over surfaces, cobweb removal and some hoovering would count.
• 4) pressure reduction: nothing. WEEK OFF.
• 5) fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D, write another job board game or do other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times.

Karen (carried over)

• - Finish syllabi, get materials/tech requests in, make progress on first module VILE content
• - Write on my own research each day (read for my own research each day)
• - (if permitted by gatekeepers), get draft grant complete
• - conference paper proposal in
• - 2 x yoga (livestream classes from home)