I inadvertently summoned the old cheer (2-4-6-8! Who do we appreciate?) in the title, and I've decided to keep it--with a slight grammatical correction, of course. Oddly, I was chanting this for my son just the other day as we walked to the bus stop; I can't remember why, only that it was somehow relevant, and that he had never heard of it.
For this week, in continuing with our Focus on the Good theme, I'm asking you to tell us a bit about someone for whom you're grateful. This could be someone geographically and personally close to you (e.g. a spouse, good friend, neighbor), or someone more removed (an old friend you might go a year without speaking to but whose friendship is still meaningful, a family member who has passed on, or even someone from the depths of history whose life, example, or works have had a strong impact on you).
This topic is particularly relevant to me right now because my husband is about to spend a month as a scholar in residence in a city about 7 hours away (by train); my son and I will visit him in a couple of weeks, but otherwise, we're on our own! A part of me will enjoy the very quiet days at home with no one else around, but I'm also realizing how strange it will be to have no adult companionship--like at all, since I'm not going in to work or anything--and how great it is to have a partner in housework. (Plus, I do kinda like the guy.) But I'll say more about that in my comment.
Now, on to the roll call:
Daisy:
All lab exams and marking
Finish data processing and make pretty figures for co-authored paper
Figure out finances and adjust field work plans
Read/comment/edit thesis chapters
Do revisions on accepted paper
Sit down with new data and figure out what to do with it
Dame Eleanor Hull:
- set up more boards/assignments, at least one for each class
- grade one set of assignments from each class
- prep at least one lecture for grads*
- remember to show up for all this week's student conferences
- get back to writing: think about how to expand article to chapter
- sleep, walk, yoga in suitable amounts
- do some gardening if energy permits
heu mihi:
1. Enter edits to ch. 3
2. Yard clean-up
3. Edits to intro to essay collection
4. Integrate notes on French book into ch. 3
5. 10 hours on ch. 2 (planning and research)
6. Standard routines
7. Meal plan for next week (husband is leaving town for a month on April 10, so I need to start getting organized)
JaneB:
* do the everyday baseline chores when they need doing, not when I've run out of stuff
* do some D&D prep, play D&D
* read another book, do a little crochet
* do the bare minimum to prepare for teaching after Easter, make progress on the commercial project, mark a lot
* take an actual break over Easter, guilt free
Julie is in Italy!
Karen (held over):
*KL article - pull apart and outline structure for the two articles*
*Teaching prep - have everything up to week 3 fully polished apart from the bits being done by the digital learning team
*End of year exhibition - send out info to sound/session people
*3 x yoga
*Plant winter seeds
Susan: It was good to "see" you last week, and I hope that the coming weeks are better.
I'll just give a quick tribute to my husband, because sometimes he annoys me (anyone I live with annoys me; it's the way it is; I love solitude) (and the things that annoy me are, like, leaving books out, or whistling, both of which I do). He is a terrific father who loves to do things with our son, and a wonderful cook and meal-planner who usually takes over almost the entire task of feeding us all. I will miss that in the coming weeks!
ReplyDeleteOK, last week:
1. Enter edits to ch. 3 - Yes
2. Yard clean-up - Yes
3. Edits to intro to essay collection - Yes (this was quick; the copy-editors were very good)
4. Integrate notes on French book into ch. 3 - Yes (also a quick task)
5. 10 hours on ch. 2 (planning and research) - Yes, although a lot of this was really disorganized and distracted. I made progress, but I'm not thrilled with the work I've done here. If anyone has really excellent, useful instructions for how to start a new chapter, especially when you're not entirely sure where it's going and haven't really researched it yet, please let me know!
6. Standard routines - Yes, mostly
7. Meal plan for next week (husband is leaving town for a month on April 10, so I need to start getting organized) - Yes--keeping it simple with easy favorites!
This week:
1. Submit a proposal in our curriculum system to split a 500-level class into a 400 and a 600
2. 10 hours of work on ch. 2, at least
3. Bottle beer
4. Regular routines
...That's it? Hm. I do have an article to review and a short talk to write for a student event, but I'm planning to do those the following week, when we go to visit my husband (rather than work on chapter 2, I'm afraid). So...I guess that's it. I'll also be managing the home front, though, so that's probably enough!
My generic chapter advice: Brilliant Introduction that makes connection to previous chapter, presents new themes and texts to explore, clearly indicates number of sections; Section One, historicize text and issues; Section Two, analyze the first text or chunk thereof; Section Three, next text or chunk thereof; repeat as necessary; Brilliant Conclusion that ties together all the insights of the chapter and provides transition to the next one. Fill in as your research, time, and energy allow.
DeleteThat's all I have. Plus spreadsheets of text snippets, color-coded by category/chapter.
And I feel I should note that the chapter I worked on all last year first split in two, and then the part I focused on went from two sections to four . . . I still haven't got back to the piece I set aside, because then I had a deadline for the conference paper that turned into an article which now I'm expanding to be the final chapter.
DeleteHope the planning and preparation makes the month on your own go smoothly! Definitely a good time to keep things simple and easy. Your husband sounds wonderful!
DeleteFor me that chant always has "What bus . . .?" in it, because that's how my first school bus driver taught us to remember what bus to look for after school. "Twenty-seven, twenty-seven, twenty-seven let's GO!" Now I appreciate most my husband, who gets me in ways I don't think anyone else ever has, who is wise, kind, funny, smart, helpful, and, well, let's not get too gushy here. It's not just me: the cats love him too!
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
- set up more boards/assignments, at least one for each class. YES
- grade one set of assignments from each class. NO BUT I got confused: the undergrads are turning in their paper tonight, not last week!
- prep at least one lecture for grads* YES
- remember to show up for all this week's student conferences. YES
- get back to writing: think about how to expand article to chapter. YES, BARELY: a couple of sessions of note-taking
- sleep, walk, yoga in suitable amounts. MOSTLY but I want more sleep.
- do some gardening if energy permits. YES.
ALSO: read some essays for an award my department gives to students, not an excessive number by any means but it is awfully like grading! Plus had mammogram, did another med test, and called insurance about a problem. Grahhrrrg. And lost an earring, which meant I immediately got on Etsy to order a similar pair as replacement (so I can look forward to a package!).
New goals:
- grade undergrad papers
- further grad prep
- keep working on expanding article to chapter
- sleep, walk, yoga in suitable amounts
- do more gardening if time and energy permit
- go to one more medical appointment
- actually write goals in my Moleskine this week!
Those are lots of done things, especially counting all the life stuff! I feel like a lot of those sorts of things should give double credit because they always take more time and brain power than we think...
DeleteGlad the gardening happened!
Sir John always does sound absolutely lovely!
Love the prompt, and the grammatical correction! Writing people are the best…
ReplyDeleteMy two colleagues at my new place are the absolute best and most inspiring ones I could have. I literally have a career because of them and the work we do together and all the help they have given me. It is really the best that collaboration can be, and they are absolutely friends as well.
Top spot for appreciation goes to my two best friends, from totally different periods in my life. One I have not seen in person since 2019, the other I have not seen in person since her daughter’s 1st birthday, that kid is going to college now… But they are both ride or die friends who instinctively know when to encourage, or to tell me I’m an idiot, or to cry with me, and they make everything more fun. Good news isn’t real until they hear it, bad news is always better with them. They are also my go-to for all parenting advice and any or all “am I the crazy one?” questions… If I ever won the lottery I would do a massive adventure trip with all of us! In fact, I’m going to send both of them a note to that effect right now!
Not a bad week for getting through the last bit of term. I am behind on some things, caught up on others so all in balance. I did take two days off for Easter and read a large number of books, they were great! This week is clean-up from the term and prep for exams, and definitely a bunch of new data processing which is making me very happy.
Last week’s goals
All lab exams and marking DONE
Finish data processing and make pretty figures for co-authored paper NOPE
Figure out finances and adjust field work plans ONGOING
Read/comment/edit thesis chapters DONE and ONGOING
Do revisions on accepted paper NOPE
Sit down with new paper data and figure out what to do with it STARTED
This week’s goals
Do revisions on accepted paper
Finish data processing and make pretty figures for co-authored paper
New data processing
Do budget for summer work
Set exams
It's wonderful to have good colleagues, and your friends sound great.
DeleteInteresting prompt. Most of the people I really appreciate are historical or fictional, my feelings about actual humans tend to be more complex... But I had a wonderful, wonderful teacher when I was about 11 who actually believed in me and liked me for me, not just for when I was acting normal (i.e. not me). She took me and the only person in my class who was sort of a friend to the O,Osiris exhibit in a local city when my parents couldn't manage it (and I was having a Special Interest phase on Ancient Egypt - O, Osiris was a touring museum exhibit that came to our part of the UK briefly), and she encouraged me to write poetry which was in my voice, not the rhyming pastiche preferred by previous teachers. We lost touch after a couple of decades, and I found out that she died last Spring. A wonderful woman - she trained as a psychiatrist, then decided that most of the trauma she was seeing came from schooling so she'd be more useful as a schoolteacher and retrained. But she'd only teach in the 9-12 year range - what she called the sweet spot between the wet knicker zone and hormone hell. She was the teacher with all the weird or naughty kids in her class, 36 of us in a room designed for 28, and we were all loved and supported, from the boy learning to spell with alphabet sweets (which she bought herself of course) to me getting to see Egyptian mummies. Every 30-40 minutes, no matter what the school schedule said, she had us get up and dance or stretch or run around the yard or do something outside. One frosty morning we were studying symmetry & she sent us out with pieces of black paper to find spiders webs in the hedges around the playing field. She did woodcarving and wrote poetry and played multiple musical instruments and touched so many lives. And she felt like the first person outside my family to actually see ME and like what she saw, not find me wanting in some way.
ReplyDeleteAnd there's my former flat mate who lives at the other end of the country, who most people think is quiet and boring but who is sarcastic and funny and anti-social and the most loyal, kind and supportive friend known to humanity if she decides you are acceptable, and for some reason I am one of that select group. Also we often text each other back and forwards pretending that she is Fluffball's lawyer receiving telepathic instructions about what he needs, and I am representing the tortie cat who rules her household.
And now I'm really sad for some reason. Not that I wasn't before - the long weekend started quite well then yesterday I was just very sad and fed up and fatigued, despite chocolate, and it hasn't worn off yet.
last week's goals:
* do the everyday baseline chores when they need doing, not when I've run out of stuff some, not all
* do some D&D prep, play D&D yes!
* read another book, do a little crochet not yet... one more day of "leave" tomorrow
* do the bare minimum to prepare for teaching after Easter, make progress on the commercial project, mark a lot not yet due to Issues Beyond My Control, YES (now waiting on someone else), marked some
* take an actual break over Easter, guilt free well, I didn't really. I have been doing one final year project a day over the break because, well, there's a marking and assessment boycott called to start next week & I want to be as close to up to date as possible in case it does start...
THIS WEEK:
* do the everyday baseline chores when they need doing, not when I've run out of stuff (we keep trying)
* do some D&D prep, play D&D (because it's fun)
* read another book, do a little crochet
* do the bare minimum to prepare for teaching after Easter, make progress on the commercial project if the other person gets back to me, mark a lot more
Boring but necessary!
That teacher sounds like a very great gift to all her students! And I love the cat lawyer texting, that sounds like so much fun!
Deleteaaaand once again at least some of the sad & grump turns out to be hormonal. This "revert to teenage irregularity, moodiness and discomfort - with added bonuses of brain fog and restless legs at 3am!" lark of perimenopause seems like a serious design flaw to me (as does the lack of easy access oiling and maintenance points for some of the major joints).
Delete:( It'll stop eventually. But I do agree, the return to teen years is a real PITA.
DeleteWhat an amazing teacher! I so wish every child could have an adult like that in their lives when they need someone...
DeleteHang in there with the marking and teaching prep, one thing at a time!
Love the cat texting idea, so fun!