It is lupin season! Fair warning, the next few weeks of photos will probably have a lot of those… I really love them. Imagine my surprise when I mentioned to a someone that I’m trying to turn my yard into a lupin field, and she was totally surprised, and said she cannot stand lupins and thinks they look terrible… We happily agreed to disagree on that! But seriously, how can anyone dislike lupins?
Which made me think about some of the things we sometimes dislike for no apparent reason, particularly things that other people think are perfectly normal, or even great. Also, I have very little brain power for thinking deep thoughts, so for this week, tell us about a strange or petty aversion that you have to something everyone else seems to be ok with.
Goals below, and a heads up that we might be close to a mid-session check-in (I know, I do not believe it either...).
DEH
-finish
conference paper
-go to conference and have a good time
-get a massage
-start frantic last-minute editing chores
-finish booking August trip
-exercise as much as possible given conference
JaneB
SELF-CARE:
* 3x20 intentional movement, 1 x making, 1 x small thing with people, reading
every day (with dinner, in waiting times)
** pretty list of making methods and projects
HOME AND ENVIRONMENT:
* 75% of chores
** make nice looking lists (steps for the living room, the smaller tasks, the
finances, the clothes projects)
* make list for decluttering person, make the most of session with her this
week (if it happens!).
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
* more assessment-related bureaucracy and list of small end of year necessities
* one block of time on Icky Admin Task
* feeding back on final drafts for research masters student who hopes to submit
this coming Friday (doing that is what displaced last week's teaching block)
RESEARCH:
* submit small group paper if people reply
* read through rejected paper and advise student on any changes before sending
it elsewhere
* write draft text for second set of results from modelling problem, and run a
couple more sets of modelling
Julie
1.
Big article: one day.
2. Read through comments on review piece and decide responses.
3. Chase mentor for a meeting.
4. Book a room for a teaching prep meeting.
5. House/life admin: Father's Day, niece's birthday, book summer activity.
6. Self-care/fun: Dublin!
heu
mihi
1. Write 5000 words! Can I do it?
2. Italian, read a daily story from the Legenda Aurea (just catching up on my
medieval best-sellers here), exercise
3. Journal catch-up! Read proofs for two articles; process new submission
4. Enjoy birthday stuff and let myself be lazy/relax/have fun whenever I want
this week!
Susan
1.
Close on the condo (scheduled for Wednesday)
2. Figure out carpet
3. Talk to movers
4. Keep up with admin stuff from current employer
5. Do at least 5 chapters
6. Do fun things
7. Try to be helpful
Daisy
Make
project plan for intern and two other students
Figure out rest of summer for work and family plans
Do something fun for birthday
Open one of the research project docs and pick a task to complete
Conference accounting and catch-up with everything
A lupin field sounds great! I like that here in the UK they often grow wild as well as in people's gardens.
ReplyDeleteWeird aversions: bananas. I can eat them if I have to, but I don't like them. In my head, fruit should be juicy. (I know technically avocados are fruit and not juicy, and I like those, but there's something about the texture of a banana which is too dry.) Same goes for banana bread, banana muffins, banoffee pie etc. Means there are desserts that are off the list that other people love.
Last week:
1. Big article: one day. - JUST ABOUT
2. Read through comments on review piece and decide responses. - STARTED
3. Chase mentor for a meeting.- YES
4. Book a room for a teaching prep meeting.- NO
5. House/life admin: Father's Day, niece's birthday, book summer activity. - STARTED x 2, YES
6. Self-care/fun: Dublin! - YES!
Dublin was great, despite having to dodge showers all three days. We did a lot of museums, but also shops, pubs, live music, cocktails and nice food, so a mini-break that suited us both.
Next week:
1. Big Article: 3 days
2. Collect inter library loans, return a book, borrow others.
3. Read two articles for teaching prep meeting.
4. House/life admin: do proper clean of cooker and oven, plan for being away next weekend & family visit, find out about visas for summer trip, niece's birthday and Father's Day.
5. Self-care/fun: run x 3, try for a walk the other days, read, journal, enjoy weekend away with friends and family visit Sunday evening.
That sounds like a great trip! Going to Ireland WITHOUT rain would feel wrong somehow but I'm glad it was just showers.
DeleteGlad the trip was good!
DeleteI totally agree - banoffee pie without the bananas is a great improvement on the original!
Enjoy the visits coming up, maybe serve new and improved toffee pie...
Not sure about strange aversions - they aren't strange to me! And I have sensory challenges/ am a "sensitive little flower" so there are a lot of things I have issues with which are something other than just an aversion (e.g. I am funny about raw apples, but raw apples which are a little too acidic for me give me mild intolerance symptoms, so that's a logical thing to be; I hate toe seams in socks and always wear socks inside out, but that's an autism thing not an aversion). i don't like many aspects of summer, but that's complicated. I can't stand the smell of geraniums and I don't really care much for how they look, and both things are pretty popular, I think?
ReplyDeleteLAST WEEK: was a slog for various reasons, and I didn't get much done over the non-work days, but hopefully that was needed rest. I'm more fed up/irritated with everything than bone tired at the moment, which is hopefully a sign of recovery from the academic year! (And possibly stupid hormones).
SELF-CARE:
* 3x20 intentional movement, 1 x making, 1 x small thing with people, reading every day (with dinner, in waiting times) once, thrice (including a Father's Day card), once (D&D and a character died and it was very dramatic and exciting and sad! I love playing make believe with my friends...), yes
** pretty list of making methods and projects a neat list, at least
HOME AND ENVIRONMENT:
* 75% of chores yes
** make nice looking lists (steps for the living room, the smaller tasks, the finances, the clothes projects) neat, at least
* make list for decluttering person, make the most of session with her this week (if it happens!).made list, did not happen because she had a car problem and there were delays at the garage and... hopefully next week!
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
* more assessment-related bureaucracy and list of small end of year necessities progress was made
* one block of time on Icky Admin Task yes
* feeding back on final drafts for research masters student who hopes to submit this coming Friday (doing that is what displaced last week's teaching block) yes, and she has submitted! A very satisfying piece of work
RESEARCH:
* submit small group paper if people reply one person replied, two to go...
* read through rejected paper and advise student on any changes before sending it elsewhere yes, they are checking some alternative ways of doing the maths
* write draft text for second set of results from modelling problem, and run a couple more sets of modelling no, yes (over the weekend on work laptop so hopefully they behaved & I can recover the results tomorrow)
I also bought, got and put together a new scratching device for Mr Shoutypants (which he is bored by so far - he got more entertainment out of my clumsiness and cursing as I put it together under his supercilious supervision!) and some silvervine (which so far he loves when it's just out of the packet but as soon as it's a day old, no thank you). And did some mending (sewing) which has been waiting two years for attention...
DeleteCOMING WEEK:
A LOT of meetings and diaried items this week, so it's going to require attention to get anything TLQ done this work week. And hopefully the decluttering happens this Friday.
SELF-CARE:
* 3x20 intentional movement, 1 x making, 1 x small thing with people, reading every day (with dinner, in waiting times)
* doing and planning some food prep
HOME AND ENVIRONMENT:
* 75% of chores
* make the most of the decluttering session (if it happens!) and if not do one thing off the small items list
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
* another exam board this week and associated paperwork
* one hour on Icky Admin Task
* checking in with other research masters student
* one block on teaching for next year (I have multiple small tasks like correcting problems I noticed with slide order, updating case studies, changing discussion questions that didn't work as I'd hoped etc. - I jot these down after sessions during the year when I often don't have the bandwidth/time to do them properly, then batch them as part of preparing for the next year. These are well suited to fitting in around meetings to add up to a block
RESEARCH:
* submit small group paper if people reply
* help student if needed with changes on rejected paper
* write draft text for second set of results from modelling problem, and run a couple more sets of modelling
* start working on revisions for the group paper (I submitted a revised version in April - It's come back quite quickly with a much more positive and useful set of comments, thankfully).
Yay on research student submitting! I love the idea of Mr Shoutypants being supercilious about your hard work. Sounds like the equivalent of the toddler on Christmas Day who only plays with the box of the toy that took hours to assemble.
DeleteLive the idea of nice-looking lists - they are so much more satisfying to work from! Mine start out ok and then degenerate...
DeleteGood luck with revisions, glad the comments are helpful this time!
Well-done on tending to the old piece of mending! Sometimes getting those hanging-on tasks done feels so good that you go on to do loads of newer ones . . . and even if not, you got that thing done! Congratulations to your student. Shoutypants will probably wait awhile, then discover the new device, and ask why you didn't tell him about it before.
DeleteThe return from travels was kind of bumpy, being away for almost three weeks was a lot… I took one day off this week to putter around, and the other two were catch-up days with a million meetings. All of them were unpleasant. I am existentially grumpy right now… But, managed to get my “bike to work a few times a week” project started, so that is an improvement, and I have the next month at home so that will be conducive to doing things I want to do.
ReplyDeleteI encountered my petty dislike on my first night back home… New towels… I cannot stand new towels… They are unreasonably soft and fluffy, so they do not absorb water properly until they’ve been washed about a hundred times. They leave everything feeling damp. Did I mention they are too soft? Yep, too soft. I like my towels slightly scratchy, more so if dried on washing line outside! Everyone else loves the fluff and I just don’t get it…
Last week’s goals (No idea why I bothered setting any, honestly!!)
Make project plan for intern and two other students NOPE
Figure out rest of summer for work and family plans MOSTLY
Do something fun for birthday SORT OF, MOSTLY ANTICLIMACTIC BUT PLEASANT
Open one of the research project docs and pick a task to complete YES! ONE THING…
Conference accounting and catch-up with everything NOPE
This week’s goals (aka do-over)
Make project plan for intern and two other students
Do data processing for student project
Open one of the research project docs and do more than one thing
Conference accounting and catch-up with everything
Exercise
I'm with you on the towels! Also they leave bits of fluff all over you, which of course stick b/c of the not-drying thing. And yay for doing one thing!
DeleteRight?? Fluff everywhere... I cannot wait for the silly things to go through 100 washes and be normal...
DeleteI don't exactly think of this as weird, though I think some people might, and it's in keeping with the plant theme: I love geraniums and lantana, and admire them in hanging and ornamental baskets at nurseries, and yet cannot bring myself to buy them because where I am from, geraniums grow into hedges and lantana into trees, and it makes me too sad to watch frost kill them at the end of a Zone 5 (or whatever it is here now) growing season.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
-finish conference paper: YES (at the conference, but it was done)
-go to conference and have a good time: YES
-get a massage: YES
-start frantic last-minute editing chores: barely, but YES
-finish booking August trip: NO, must get on that
-exercise as much as possible given conference: YES, did quite well, only skipped two days thanks to good hotel gym room.
ALSO: finally located cucumber seedlings, took fluorescent tubes and LED lights to be recycled (at 2 separate locations, sigh), attended local garden-visits-for-charity thing (usually it conflicts with the conference I was just at; it was okay, but since my eye was trained on the gardens of Oxbridge colleges and English Stately Homes, I'm not the best audience for American suburbia though I do realize how much work it is to keep even a modest suburban garden looking even presentable let alone show-worthy). PLUS in the course of writing my paper looking at one thing, I managed to show something even more interesting, so now I think I have another paper to add to my summer goals when we do the midterm check-in. This is both exciting and daunting.
New goals:
-take shoes to UPS for return
-swim x2, gym x2, outdoor bike ride x1
-plant cucumbers
-book August trip
-work on new paper
-lots of editing stuff
I am now out of Phase One of summer and want to Do All The Things before the pure vacation trip in July, but am trying to keep a lid on that urge, in the interest of getting things done instead of thrashing!
The year round geraniums (and spider plants, and impatiens) still totally surprise this transplant from colder zones to a warm one. Congrats on getting a new interesting thing to write about!
DeleteYay for finding a newbinteresting thing to write about! Love it when that happens!
DeleteI have a hard time buying rosemary sprigs in a shop, where I grew up it was everywhere wild as giant bushes... I also feel bad for geraniums that do not survive Fall... On the other hand, lantana was classified as a noxious weed that had to be dug up and burned wherever it was reported. So odd seeing it as a garden plant here. Same with water hyacinth...
I love lupins! And I have a petty aversion ready to hand, because it came upon Saturday at TM and Bonaventure's kung fu performance (they're both doing kung fu now). It's when people go "Ow ow ow ow owwww!" in that howling kind of way instead of just cheering. The woman next to me did it and I had JUDGEMENTS. (Which are utterly meaningless, because obviously this particular quirk reflects in no way on someone's actual character, but I find it really annoying.)
ReplyDeleteLast week:
It was kind of a weird and very busy week, but I did most things by the skin of my teeth.
1. Write 5000 words! Can I do it? - YES, barely.
2. Italian, read a daily story from the Legenda Aurea (just catching up on my medieval best-sellers here), exercise - YES, I THINK SO, Missed a couple of days
3. Journal catch-up! Read proofs for two articles; process new submission - YES, NO
4. Enjoy birthday stuff and let myself be lazy/relax/have fun whenever I want this week! - YES, mostly, also very busy and didn't feel well for a day or so (but am fine now)
This week:
1. Write 6500 words (I have an end-of-month goal I'm trying to reach)
2. Process one journal submission; process one revision; maybe start the next submission
3. Annoying life stuff: Deal with car thing, deal with excise task thing, settle upcoming travel to see parents; email catch-up
4. Grad students: Prep for (and preside over) a prospectus defense; read grad student's exam document
Sounds like a lot going on! Good luck with the annoying life stuff, especially. I hope the grad student stuff goes well, and that you're enjoying the writing.
DeleteYay for the 5000 words! A busy week, glad birthday things were fun.
DeleteAnother lupin fan, especially because they self-seed in such lovely ways. I wish their season were not short. As for petty aversions, I don't know. I don't think the fact that I don't like coconut is petty, it's just taste. (there are relatively few foods that I don't like, so...)
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
1. Close on the condo (scheduled for Wednesday) rescheduled for today (Monday) and DONE.
2. Figure out carpet YES
3. Talk to movers YES
4. Keep up with admin stuff from current employer YES
5. Do at least 5 chapters ALL TEN
6. Do fun things YES
7. Try to be helpful YES
Oh, the drama. I could live with less of it, though finally late today everything is falling into place. The seller's agents were slow getting the repairs going, so closing was delayed, but they have scheduled the reinstallation of the furnace for Friday. Which is after the new carpet has arrived, but whatever. The painters started later, but will finish in time for carpet installation, but there was a short time when I thought that would be a problem. Movers deliver furniture on Saturday. I am SO ready to sleep in my own bed with my kitchen stuff and everything else.
Otherwise, it turned out the copyedited chapters were more or less fine, with some minor queries about references. But almost everyone has replied quickly, so I'm just about done. Just waiting for two people to clarify footnotes. And people have been nice, not cranky.
As for fun, my nephew is on a very good Little League (baseball) team, and they are now in the first stage of tournaments that leads to the Little League World series. (They are good enough that apparently one observer ranked them 7th in the country for the 12 year olds.) So I went to two Little League games this weekend, both of which were won by my nephew's team, and which were just *fun*. Good atmosphere, and there is nothing more endearing than seeing the little kids (6 and 7 year olds) wearing these uniforms that look just like the pros. It cracks me up every time.
My sister is visiting so we are both camping at my brother's. Since my brother and sister-in-law are both working, we're doing nice stuff together. So it's a light week.
Goals for this week:
1. Enjoy my sister's visit, even though she is not staying at my condo (that was the plan)
2. Start unpacking
3. Do the minimum of administrative work to make sure the wheels all keep turning.
Yay, you own a condo! Congratulations! I hope you enjoy your time with your sister, and that she can come back when you're settled into your new place.
DeleteCongratulations on condo closing!! Hang in there, the end of upheaval is in sight, and soon you will be enjoying a new space set up the way you want it!
DeleteVery impressed that you are doing academic work at all during this crazy period...