Greetings all! I have a bad case of the Sunday Scaries, complete with anxiety dreams, and the new teaching year is three weeks away for us (two weeks until Welcome Week (we don't call it Fresher's Week because that implies binge drinking and hedonism and might be off putting to some) which means three weeks to starting classes and four weeks until the first serious outbreaks of Fresher's Flu at a guess). But the leaves on the bird-cherry tree outside my window are just starting to change colour and we had a lovely Autumn-feeling rain storm yesterday (back to summery humidity today but it was a pleasant reminder), so I am trying to Get Organised in ways that will help with the anxiety.
So, new session - I suggest we start with goal-setting on the 14th of September and end 14th December with a mid-session review 2nd November, does that work for everyone? And I think we can have a nice simple theme appropriate for the "back to school" season of stationary and writing tools.
Shoutypants is requesting food with menaces (several hours before food time)
Last week I said I needed to:
ReplyDelete**feed back on a LOT of text for Junior PhD Student (who is due to submit at the start of welcome week) yes, but he had the audacity to deliver a pile more on Friday!
**make some triage lists for teaching preparation and actually do some teaching blocks yes, and half a block - got distracted by a crisis meeting for Junior Research Masters student, there is a huge wildfire blocking access to and actively threatening one of her field sites, and she's already on tight deadlines for fieldwork (thank goodness she wasn't actually on site, she was due up the day after the fire started and there have been explosions of buried WWII ordnance on the site due to the heat! it was used as a firing range briefly in a not entirely well documented way - we now have a clear set of plans with either/or decision points to be considered after the fire is out and people are allowed back, which will be multiple weeks at best and months at worst
&&write for at least one hour on two different research projects (we have a paper deadline also in Welcome Week...).worked on one paper which has a meeting on Monday coming, ticked off all my tasks. Lots of Unexpected Things came in and just... ate my time. And I didn't feel great Monday and Tuesday
This week I have to feed back on the last bits for Junior PhD student, work on two papers (one revise and resubmit which was due today but we all forgot, one due 15th Sept), go to another Away Day (sigh), attend multiple meetings and do trainings, and MUST get a large chunk of teaching prep done. MUST. The remade list really emphasised that one!
Goodness, I can see why you'd be distracted by the crisis meeting for Junior Research Master's Student! That is genuinely distracting and scary, and I'm glad to hear she wasn't actually on site yet.
DeleteThanks for putting up another interim post! The proposed dates work for me: by mid-September I should have settled into the "real" schedule, with proper syllabuses posted for both classes, and be able to think sensibly about the rest of the term. I like having distinct sessions with a break in between, but I was just thinking how much I rely on TLQ to force me to focus on weekly goals rather than lurching forward with the most urgent things.
well look what a poor thin little shoutypants he is of course you should feed him now have pity you dreadful person why you even has cat if you not give all the foods
ReplyDelete(Morgana seems to have learned to type, with decent spelling even--or maybe this is generative AI for cats?)
DeleteCAT-GPT know all important fuuds words! (he did get some Dreamies...)
DeleteWhy have you been starving Shoutypants? His watch is accurate, yours is not.
ReplyDeleteAnd your schedule looks fine.
I have just sent off Famous Author and with luck it will go into production. That leaves both teaching and ALL THE ADMIN for this week. Posting here so I can check stuff off.
IH annual progress reports
IH assessment
IH Vote on revised P&P
IH Admissions stuff
Communications people
Also, I'm chairing a committee for my university system that is usually not much work, but this fall will be a huge pile of work because of trying (undoubtedly unsuccessfully) to Trump-proof our discipline system. It's going to be a lot.
CONGRATULATIONS on sending off Famous Author!
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