Hello everyone. Hope it's been a good week, or at least, survivable. The teaching term has now finished here, and the way this year has worked out for me, I have no marking now until next term. And I submitted the grant! So I'm in a bit of limbo, with two weeks left in the session and before holidays, which I don't want to waste, but am not quite sure what to do with TLQ wise. So the prompt for this week is thinking about how to get from one project to another. What 'bridges' do you build? I feel I need an equivalent for transitions of JaneB's 'parking on a downwards slope' to help decide what to pick up next.
In the meantime, a photo of a bridge that is famous at my undergraduate university, mainly because there were all sorts of myths around it e.g. that it had originally been built without any nails, but a team of engineers had taken it apart and then couldn't figure out how to put it back again. The history page linked to above doesn't include that some of my wedding photos were taken on the bridge (we had no connection to the college whatsoever, but our own college was booked out for weddings two years in advance and this was the prettiest alternative venue). Feel free to share favourite bridges, if you have any!
Last week's goals
JaneB
1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15
minutes x 3 days, a social thing
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores, tidy up the upstairs landing (one
day this WILL happen)
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
* prepare little bit of teaching for next week & do ViLE stuff
* mark first year essays
* mark late draft of final year project
4) RESEARCH
* write letter for potential academic visitor
* look at the Consultancy Paper that is back on my plate, sigh. I am so fed up
with this paper... (but I have quite a lot of hours in the office this week
when I don't have teaching prep to do and that's a good setting to do a task I
don't want to do, using the "I already don't want to be here..."
logic).
Dame Eleanor
- read dissertation for said commitment
- review the next batch of grad applications
- half an hour of research a day
- review comments on Alms from a friendly reader
- yoga x5, cardio x5
- fill a form and book a hotel for a May thing
- show up for all the necessary meetings etc
Susan
1. Read next article for journal
2. Keep digging for archives
3. One weights, 2 workouts of some kind while traveling
4. Keep reading for fun
Heu mihi
1. Read rest of dissertation
2. Enter edits into MS doc; finish??
3. Return to essay due April 15
4. Be okay with not exercising, other than lengthy walks to and from conference
venue (see above re. virus + conference)
Daisy (carried over from last week)
ENDLESS student thesis stuff
Learn new music
Midterms, study guides, marking
Plan analytical work
Contingent Cassandra
--Finish signup directions and guidelines for transcribers,
communicate with people who have volunteered to test the directions/site
--Take a full day off: read a book and/or take a long walk
--plan for archives trip: list documents to find; check if an appt is needed;
if so, make one
--As time allows, continue work on site: add additional documents ; experiment
with adding person, place, and/or event items
--Write department chair, program director, and scheduling coordinator re:
possible adjustments to fall schedule
--Continue movement, especially strength training of arms/shoulders (perhaps
begin using some of the recommended post-op stretches as warmups?)
--Continue work in the garden (weeding, seed-sowing, mulching, bed-building)
----Begin taxes
--As time allows, continue household work, especially packing/mailing returns,
taking things to storage, and/or generally rediscovering/rearranging things.
Julie
1. Submit grant application (deadline Friday).
2. Review session for first-years.
3. Sign off two grant applications for other people.
4. Tedious bit of admin (ethics audit)
5. Final meetings of term.
6. Informal queries about PhD examiners for student.
How I did:
ReplyDelete1. Submit grant application (deadline Friday). - YES (finally, now need not to think about it for a while)/
2. Review session for first-years. - YES
3. Sign off two grant applications for other people. - YES
4. Tedious bit of admin (ethics audit) - YES
5. Final meetings of term. - ALL BUT ONE
6. Informal queries about PhD examiners for student. - CONTACTED ONE PERSON
A lot of 'yes' but all stuff that had to happen.
This week:
1. Build a bridge!
2. Read through corrections to a thesis I examined last year.
3. Informal queries about PhD examiners for student.
4. Self-care: exercise, sleep, read, journal.
5. Life admin: renew health cards for Easter travel, research summer travel plans, do small to medium house jobs.
Also: one of my closest friends is up tomorrow with her daughter, who is checking out the university, so having lunch and a catch-up, plus coffee on Tuesday with another friend who I haven't seen in years who is up for a conference.
That sounds like a really good week to come on the friend front and the preparing for good things front!
DeleteHmm, personally, when I find myself with that sense of a gap, I like to lean into it (because I know it won't last long!) - so I deliberately plan to take a little time to do two things, do some academic reading led by curiosity and do some free writing. For the former, which is something I almost never get to do any more (indeed, not since I was a post-doc have I had the time to read academic stuff for fun and curiosity) so I start a journal article search with a search phrase related to whatever part of my field sounds interesting, then read abstracts and follow up links and skim things just because they're interesting for an hour or two at a time, then take the last few minutes to write a couple of reaction paragraphs, just getting my thoughts down. Sometimes that leads to me finding new ideas for a future paper, a person I want to email to say "your paper was so interesting" (my PhD supervisor, a very socially awkward person, used to say to us that sincere "thank you for writing this cool thing" email was never going to be unwelcome and was a much-neglected way to network - plus I feel like it's just a nice thing to put out into the world), some interesting nuggets to refresh my teaching or toss into a seminar, or some new references to pass on to grad students or collaborators. Sometimes I get no concrete things, but just spending time with other voices thinking about interesting stuff is Good For Us, right? The second thing is allowing myself some work time for professional free-writing - so free-writing starting from a prompt like "what can I do this summer that will make me feel it was used well come September" or "if an anonymous benefactor gave me five million pounds, what research would I do?" or just "who am I, today, as an academic and researcher?" Often the freewriting turns into list making of all the other things that I need to do, want to do, things that were on the backburner whilst I focused on the recently-finished project, and then after a few days of that sort of list making and writing around those ideas I get clarity on what makes a sensible next step.
If I don't actually make space to do something like this, the time just fills up with urgent but not important stuff, so if I have a "slogan" for these gaps, it's to deliberately make space for MY ideas or wants to make themselves known, rather than letting myself be pulled along by the currents around me.
And I need to hear and take that advice myself because right now the currents are strongly pulling me towards teaching myself a tedious but necessary computer skill this summer so that I can contribute to undergraduate teaching in that area, since we lost a LOT of capacity in that area in the People Change Plan - and that could easily take up most of the summer, alongside teaching revisions that need to happen, because I do like learning stuff, but I have a research collaborator who is excellent at this skill already, and teaching more topics undergrads need but don't like isn't going to serve my interests at all (I already am Undergrad Statistics Person). So I need to deliberately make space for MY priorities (the way many very successful but not very collegial persons do!).
Love the stories of the bridge!
ReplyDeleteI need bridges to get me to next January – I have major changes that I want to make to the two courses I teach in the Winter term, and this year I’m finally comfortable enough with them to do that. So before this term is over I need to sit down with both courses and write out the changes I need, and make a schedule for doing them over April. It will be a lot of work but will be worth it next year.
Last week’s goals
ENDLESS student thesis stuff DONE!!!!!!!
Learn new music ONGOING
Midterms, study guides, marking DONE
Plan analytical work NOPE
It’s been a week and a half… But the thesis is handed in and will no doubt pass, so that was a huge thing. Had lots of midterms and the new batch of marking showed up minutes after I posted the previous results, so ongoing I guess.
Also done, admin catch-up from thesis chaos, all accounting from February and March, planned and set-up of review labs, and a depressing amount of people-managing…
This week’s goals
Admin catch-up
Read student chapter (different one!)
Last concert for season
Document planned course changes
Grant application
Yay for thesis stuff done, boo for more thesis stuff...
DeleteI think that I bridge time between projects with a lot of dithering. I really can't think of anything systematic or useful that I do on that front!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the conference more than I'd expected; the session that I chaired was really interesting, and I saw a couple of people with whom I enjoyed catching up. Most of my professional friends don't go to this particular conference--it seems to attract more historians and art historians than lit people--but it was enjoyable. Plus I had beers with one grad student and some good conversation with two others (whom I drove home), which was nice. I stayed with a friend whose two ridiculous cats (one huge, one tiny) both slept with me, and that was nice--although said friend's house was a disaster (small urban row house with two parents, two kids, two dogs, two cats), so I was very happy to get home to my own space!
Last week:
1. Read rest of dissertation - YES
2. Enter edits into MS doc; finish?? - So close! I need to reread chapter 1 and track down the original language text of one source from chapter 2 to double-check the quotes (I have *no idea* what edition I used initially, because it's completely unfindable), and that's just about it.
3. Return to essay due April 15 - YES; it's not finished, but it's in reasonable shape, and all I need is a *draft* by 4/15, after all. --I'm tired of calling this "essay due in April," so henceforth it will be called "Alignment."
4. Be okay with not exercising, other than lengthy walks to and from conference venue (see above re. virus + conference). - YES
This week:
1. Reread ch. 1; deal with ch. 2 OL text if the library gets it to me this week
2. Send lots of email reminders and Zoom links for various things
3. Clear up a couple of notes-to-self in Alignment
4. Return to exercise, again
It's a pretty busy week, with a lot of Things (dissertation defense, memorial for recently-deceased graduate student, various meetings), and my husband will be gone Tuesday-Wednesday (going to help his siblings finish clearing out his parents' house), so that'll do for TLQ this week, I think.
Awww for ridiculous cats, and glad to hear the conference had positives. Good luck with the busy week!
DeleteI think I was at one of the two other conferences happening in nearby metropolis (for you) this past weekend!
DeleteLast week was a really stressful one. Northern Uni has behaved really badly towards one of the people who were marked for exit in the People Change plan, in ways that have knock-ons for me directly (we're on a shared project) and longer term (my friend and supporter will have no future connection with the university and will be leaving the country, and people I meet through work very rarely seem to actually stay friends with me once they move on, it's just not a gift I have - plus day to day interactions with this person have become increasingly important in helping me feel connected at work as everything fell apart around us and our other colleague-friends left). And there is other drama - a graduate student who found out something awful about their partner and had to very rapidly move out/start some legal stuff, balls dropped by other colleagues, student panics. It was also a three long days on campus week which was hard on me physically, and my joints and digestive system are unhappy as a result, and I'm sleeping badly and having anxiety dreams.
ReplyDeleteAt least this week is somewhat less full on! I'm not done with teaching, but that was my last busy teaching week of the trimester.
LAST WEEK:
1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15 minutes x 3 days, a social thing not really - a bit of knitting, yes, finished one and now reading non-fiction (a book on early medieval history which thankfully is much more to my taste than the last few, it's not trying to write dramatic fictionalised elements, it's not all about the author or the historians, it's a proper well footnoted narrative with analysis and original sources cited in clear translation - so it's also nicely brain-distracting!), just made it to three times and 15 minutes for movement, and nothing social
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores, tidy up the upstairs landing (one day this WILL happen) more than 50% and YES - the nervous energy from the week led to me sorting through 3 months of post, doing a couple of overdue financial chores, putting things away in the household supplies cabinet, and even making ShoutyPants a vets appointment for a check up and vaccine refreshers - ShoutyPants has lived here for a whole year now!)
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
* prepare little bit of teaching for next week & do ViLE stuff done
* mark first year essays done. Disappointing
* mark late draft of final year project done. disappointing
4) RESEARCH
* write letter for potential academic visitor done
* look at the Consultancy Paper that is back on my plate, sigh. I am so fed up with this paper... (but I have quite a lot of hours in the office this week when I don't have teaching prep to do and that's a good setting to do a task I don't want to do, using the "I already don't want to be here..." logic). I'd forgotten that I had another of those writing sessions with the third year class - between various bits of workshopping ideas and helping with analysis for students, I made a very solid start on the necessary edits and made a list of Next Steps, so that was pretty successful in terms of overcoming the ICK with this paper. It's still not good...
THIS WEEK:
Delete1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15 minutes x 3 days, a social thing
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores
* sort out the BOTTOM of the stairs area
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
* prepare for submission of undergrad research projects (I get to administrate all of it this year - yay. not.)
* feedback on postgrad chapter (it's never-ending)
* start timetabling planning if possible (make list of what I need to think about, at least)
4) RESEARCH
* do at least two items on the Consultancy Paper list
* referee an article
* read for stupid research assessment thing duty which I do not want to do. Pout.
Ooh! And make sure I get a card made and gift posted for Mothering Sunday, which is this week.
DeleteThat's my old university too, I walked past that bridge at least twice a day for three years as an undergrad, and my best uni friend had wedding photos taken on that bridge as well (it is part of her husband's old college)! Spring in that city is delightful, and well earned after a winter when the wind comes straight from the north pole and is "lazy" by the time it arrives (i.e. can't be bothered to go around so it goes straight through you)!
Just so sorry about Northern U and your colleague. That's always hard.
DeleteBridges: hmmm. I think when I have a small gap, I am somewhat like JaneB -- I try to read stuff that may or may not be connected to whatever I do next. Somehow that gives me a sense of direction, even if my reaction is, "I won't do THAT". Otherwise, I really like stone bridges, of all kinds. They feel strong.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
1. Read next article for journal YES
2. Keep digging for archives YES, a little
3. One weights, 2 workouts of some kind while traveling HAHA, NO!
4. Keep reading for fun YES
Well, the conference was fun, I saw lots of people (there were two related conferences happening at the same time, so a huge crowd of people who work in multiple fields around my period and earlier.) Like heu mihi, it's one mostly populated by people in other areas, but I enjoyed going to sessions loosely connected to my interests, and that was actually helpful. And I had a great visit with several friends unconnected to the conference, so feel refreshed by that!
Goals for this week are going to be minimal. It's 10 PM on Monday night (or 1 AM where I started the day) and I leave for another conference (with a brief stop at my house to pick up books to give away) before the crack of dawn on Thursday.
1. Read and trim paper for this weekend
2. Read essay for seminar tomorrow
3. Do several admin type things so they are DONE.
4. Pull together material for potential award.
5. Sleep
6. Keep reading for fun.
I am wondering why I thought the two conferences in a row was a good idea, but I will enjoy both for different reasons. And at least this wekeend's is not a cross country trip...