Hi everyone!
It is our midpoint check-in week! Weekly goals first, and then session ones… Time to revisit and revise, subtract or add things, and check in with your intention for the summer session.
Garden/plant observation for the week… According to my self-imposed rules the picture I use each week has to be from the week before each post, which has been a fun challenge. This week I wanted white and pink multiflora roses because they are everywhere, and are stunning and smell beautiful especially along part of my bike route. But then we had a few days of rain, and I did not bike, and by the time I went on my photo trip they had gone past their peak and were starting to brown. I did get a few in a secluded spot, and for consolation, the wild roses have come out beautifully in shades of pink, so we have both.
That’s the prompt – do you have fleeting things you love but have to be enjoyed exactly at the right moment or they disappear? For a related challenge – find something fleeting and drop everything to enjoy it in that moment and tell us next week😊
This week's goals:
DEH
-at
least two hours on M-work
-finish revisions to W-essay
-plod grimly on with editing which will be around my neck till end of time
-book flights
-return some stuff
-swim x2, weights x2, bike x2 (means getting up early)
-attend fireworks on the 3rd; consider parade on the 4th
JaneB
SELF-CARE:
* 4x20 intentional movement, 3 x making (including birthday card for nibling),
2 x small things with people, reading every day (a lot if I want to!)
* resting during the day in hot weather with my feet up
* write a "tasting menu" of both small chores and small fun things,
and aim to do a couple every day - more is nice but the goal for this week is
REST in all its flavours, and a couple of those things a day is enough for
that.
HOME AND ENVIRONMENT:
* 100% of chores
* set up my diary for the new academic year
* small items as above
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
* one email check. ONE.
RESEARCH:
* referee one journal article
Julie
1.
Be as productive as possible in libraries and archives.
2. Enjoy workshop and catching up with people.
3. Enjoy time away in pretty places as much as heat allows!
heu
mihi
1. Write a more realistic 4000 words
2. Read grad student's third exam document
3. Read and add to Festschfrift intro
4. Do some house projects (as yet undetermined)
5. Clear out some of the give-away pile in the basement
6. Sit some number of times
Susan
1.
Unpack more books
2. Do some of the dining room boxes to create space there
3. Pack for summer/ early fall in research country
4. Set up TV
5. Help my successor in my admin role if necessary, but try not to be too
involved
6. Send another draft bylaw revision from the easy committee that will not die
to the people who need to look at it.
7. Get on plane!
Daisy
Finish
student chapters
Plan/book field work accommodations
Get data processing done
Finish several lingering administrative projects
SESSION GOALS – to review, report, revise ad libitum
DEH
Intention: divide and conquer!
Complete 2 conference papers and 1 Festschrift essay,
Revise 2 syllabuses for fall classes
Stay in shape
Go on 3 trips with my husband
Take care of necessary house and personal maintenance
Deal with special-issue editing tasks
Urgently finish way overdue essay
Daisy
Intention: breathe
One
new first-author paper ready to submit
One student paper ready to submit
Get reasonable start on new project
Help student finish up thesis work
Regular exercise, and some kayaking
Trip with kid
JaneB
Intention: life and work kintsugi
SELF-CARE:
regular intentional movement, making, doing small things with other people and
reading for pleasure. I want to do all these things an appropriate number of
times a week. I also want to explore a wider range of kinds of making over the
summer, and I have an aim of having a more habitual practice in all these areas
by the time we start back with students.
HOME AND ENVIRONMENT: regular chore habits, plus working on the living room
(shelf-box-sofa project), working on clothing storage/management, and working
on my finances.
TEACHING
AND ADMIN: it is summer, but...
* I need to rewrite my final year honours module to fit into a different
trimester (and fit around the honours project drama - modern students canNOT
seem to work on anything else around the few weeks before the project is due,
and I'm leaning into that because there's no point fighting it any more)
* I have a lot of minor tweaks to do to my other teaching (spread across four
modules)
* I WANT to work through the practicals from another colleagues modules - they
teach GIS mapping, and I want to be up to date on how they are teaching it so
that I can better support my students (and know what I can expect from them so
push them to deliver on it in assignments - most assignments should have a map
included, and this is one of the tools we can ask them to use).
* I'm on a "task and finish" group (i.e. co-producing a report for
Faculty) which might or might not involve a lot of work
* There will be extra work around trying to show we are taking the current
recruitment crisis seriously (so much drama and stress and other people not so
much dropping balls as yeeting them into orbit or dropping them into random
abysses), but I don't know what will be my part. I'll roll that in with getting
settled in to my new admin role
* I also want to get one of my MSc by Research students completely done (and
working on publishing her work) and the other much closer to submission than
they are now
RESEARCH:
As ever, balls in the air!
* contribute to governmental advice reports
* keep up contributions to Big Project (which is doing my head in because, too
many people and too little clarity and organisation)
* progress at least three writing projects from a list substantially
Julie
Intention: be more focused
1.
Research/writing
i) Finish 30,000 word chapter asap and get irritating editor off my back. (I
have kept to deadlines, he keeps deciding I need to add stuff.)
ii) Have a full draft of Big Article for people to read and comment on. This is
top priority.
iii) Make some progress on a grant application, but this is lowest priority.
2. Teaching & teaching-related
i) Preparation for new team-taught module next year.
ii) Sign off final corrections on a PhD.
iii) Meetings with students about final-year dissertations for next year.
3. Life admin/house
i) Finalise summer travel
ii) Get a standing desk & proper adjustable chair.
iii) New chair for reading corner in spare room.
iv) Persuade kids to declutter their rooms?
v) Clear more garage space?
4. Self-care/fun
i) Exercise: run at least 3 x week when at home, find weights and/or pilates
class
ii) Travel and meet ups with friends.
iii) Read, preferably in garden.
iv) Journal, also preferably in garden.
v) More creative stuff
Heu mihi
1.
Writing for fun: Get to a point with a (creative?) project where it will be
easy-ish to sustain going into the school year. In an ideal world, this would
mean about 40k of a messy draft, but I'm not fixing a number on it.
2. New research: Read some primary sources to find another topic for a case
study. (I have an idea for a very different kind of book that I might enjoy
working on.)
3. Existing research: Complete and submit festschrift, which includes writing
the introduction.
4. Home: Annual deep cleaning stuff (garage, windows), clean out computer
files, get patch of ceiling fixed, scrub or otherwise deal with the stupid
popcorn finish on the bathroom ceiling
5. Crafts: Finish knitting shawl, start sweater, anniversary book, new journal?
6. Italian: Make my way through a substantial part of this rather more
difficult (and very long) novel that I've started
7. Habits: Add some actual sitting, maintain exercise
8. TLQ: Check in on Mondays at least 75% of the time!
Susan
Intention: welcome new adventures
Otherwise, given that I really don't know what retirement will be, I'm keeping
these VERY general.
Teaching and admin:
1. Finish my time as graduate chair without leaving too many unfinished tasks
Research:
2. I am expecting to spend much of the summer dealing with copyedits of Big
collaboration (a collection of 30 essays on my historical period I am
coediting). We have been told that we'll start getting copyedits in early June.
3. Keep up with research on Rest of My Life project, especially preparing for
the keynote I'm giving at a major conference in November
