2022 Session Three, week two

Hello everyone - I hope you all had a good week.  So nice to welcome Julie to TLQ, and to welcome some regulars.  If anyone else wants to join in please feel free to do so!  Any typos are definitely to be blamed on my cat, Fluffball (nom de blog), who is having a needy day and is encroaching onto the keyboard very slowly.  It would be cute if I didn't have two sets of slides to make and a ton of emails to deal with today!

Last week Dame Eleanor prompted us to think about spirals, and I wanted to share a couple of spiral images to start off our new week,

A spiral galaxy (photo from NASA)

The kerbstone from Newgrange, Ireland (c. 5000 years old)

The spirals then made me think of Lim Heng Swee, an artist I recently came across, whose work I really enjoy.

This week, let's explore the idea of the journey through the semester a bit more.  In talking about spirals, the idea of spiral movement kept coming up - going through the same piece of writing repeatedly to develop it from plan to draft to full piece, spirals as helices or as cycles around the same thing, but seeing it differently and adding to it each time, or spirals as meditative paths.  The western/northern hemisphere academic cycle, with new year in August/September, a welcome break at Christmas, the long slog of winter into spring, the frenzy of exams and finishings, and then the promise of rest in the heat of summer which never quite comes to fruition, but maybe next year, has been the backdrop of my life since I started school, and sometimes that's a blessing, bringing continual new starts, and sometimes a bane, inexorable and implacable.  How do cycles affect you?  Does your week have a regular cycle, or your day, or each project or class?  Do you find them restrictive, or long for more regularity?  Let's talk about how we can use cycles to enhance our lives rather than getting stuck within them, and how to make space for the exceptional, the unexpected, the original moments that come along.

Last week's goals:

Daisy

Open big joint effort paper and see if I can start the revisions on my own
Order lab supplies and pay lab bills
Pick one section of grant application and write it

Dame Eleanor Hull

- Add 1000 words to essay
- Finish reading C&C book
- Finish grading undergrad paper set
- Grade grad paper set
- Prep for Dead Language Group
- Work on tidying bookshelves in my study

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell

Create 20,000-foot plan for the session;
Hone some ideas for a couple of articles.
Continue physical therapy and go to doctor’s appointment.
If time allows, free write on a few other possible topics.

Heu mihi

1) Look at Darmstadt MSS
2) On Friday, summarize my notes in a way that will make it easy to remember the important points of what I saw
3) Have fun with friend (and my family) in Freiburg on Saturday

Humming42

1 catch up on grading (already!)
2 write 1000 words for Food chapter
3 create module structure for online class
4 catch up on emails and organizing online files

JaneB

1) survive chaotic Welcome Week
2) get ViLE pages set up for next week
3) touch one of the papers
4) do minimum house chores that got lost last weekend.

Julie

Prep for various meetings relating to new admin role in the department (a small role, but requires getting to grips with new processes)
Write a draft of an application for a pot of university funding to send to my mentor by Friday.
Read a PhD student's chapter
Work through a set of 18th century accounts I'm using for an article I want to submit by the end of the month.

2022 Third Session, Week One

First, the basics, including dates: 

• We'll start goal-setting for the session and the week with this post. 
• Please also introduce yourself.
• If you want to set an intention for the session, you are welcome to do so.
  
• We'll set goals each week until 10 December.
• We'll have the session wrap-up on 17 December, a week before Christmas Eve (though I would enjoy hearing about your holiday goals at that point!).
• We'll try for a midterm collection of goals with any necessary re-setting around the end of October (the 29th will be week 7).

And now for the shameless borrowing from previous sessions/hosts/writers:

The format will be the same as ever. Goals can be in any aspect of life although the key focus is often writing tasks that are personally and professionally important but that never quite tip over into important AND urgent. Urgent things sometimes find their way in here too, which is completely okay, and process goals are also most welcome. Each week we'll try to have a discussion topic or prompt to write about if you feel so inclined. We’ll remind everyone of their big session goals about midway through the session.

Anyone new or old is welcome to join. It would be great if you invited a friend or acquaintance or colleague to join in. We would be thrilled to welcome new guests and expand our circle. So if you've been following along silently and wondering about joining in, please do!

And finally, don't worry if you miss a few check-ins. Life happens. This is a supportive, generous space with no intimidation factor so enjoy it! 

This week's prompt: 

• Spirals. Through time, space, household clean-up; in art or spiritual practice; or any other context that is meaningful to you. 

I look forward to being in the TLQ space with you once again.

Interim post, and figuring out when to start

September is here! In the U.S. and Canada, we've passed Labor Day. Down Under, Father's Day has been celebrated. I gather that in the UK, you're awaiting an announcement of a bank holiday to honor the late queen. So I'm not sure if we're quite ready to start up TLQ again, but it does seem like we've been "off" long enough for me to start missing the group.

Here, then, is an interim check-in post for anyone who wants to stop by and chat about how things are going and what you're doing. If you have an opinion about when we should officially start and end the third (and last) session of 2022, let us know that, as well. I'm thinking of starting us out next weekend, that is, 17-18 September, unless someone argues otherwise. JaneB and I (DEH) will be sharing the hosting this session, again, unless something has changed (and if so, please comment here). 

I hope you are all well and floating like mist in this season of mists and autumn fruitfulness.