Movement of one sort or another has become a theme of this iteration of TLQ: getting exercise, doing one's rehab exercises, pacing oneself (replacing plodding like tortoise, apparently). I've been struggling with thrashing, in the sense that I picked up from my computer scientist husband: "activity that makes little or no progress, usually because memory or other resources have become exhausted or too limited to perform needed operations." One way of dealing with thrashing is to do something, anything: not the best thing, or the highest priority, just something. It can be the easiest or the most appealing task, or it can be ten minutes on one thing and then doing another.
Another way is to pursue the metaphor, "memory or other resources have become exhausted or too limited," and try to identify the resources that need to be replenished. Active restoration is a useful notion I've acquired from this group (is that Earnest English again?); the paradox is that active restoration can feel passive. I've spent a lot of time reading science fiction this week, C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner series. The hero is a translator-diplomat, fragile compared to the "aliens" he lives with (humans are the aliens, in this world), and he has to be very careful about what he eats because many of the foods his hosts eat will poison him. Regular participants here will see why I identify strongly with him! I've realized that I also enjoy the fantasy of the hero's having staff who handle all the packing and unpacking and setting up of a tranquil, welcoming home wherever he travels. I think I need to do some identifying with that staff, now: though I wish I could just focus on Work, with all the Life Stuff taken care of by someone else, some days I will need to be my own secretary/ housekeeper /servant. If all the fun reading helps me put that into practice, the passive reading will lead to more productive activity.
Even if it doesn't, it was fun.
How are you doing with exercise, pacing, moving?
Contingent Cassandra
0. Rest and renewal; sleep.
1. movement: try to work some in, despite weather
2. cooking (clean out/reorganize fridge; make/freeze some oatmeal, soups, etc.)
3. work on finances (esp. taxes)
4. list prep/grading to-dos through end of semester
5. do conference proposal and plan other grant-project work (which probably needs a new name, because it's not at all clear there will be any more money involved -- pedagogy project? curriculum project?)
6. figure out what to do about pedagogy/curriculum project-related class
Daisy
1. Every paper every day continued
2. Three runs
3. Report for contract work (not due yet, but don't want it to become a TRQ crisis)
4. Keep up with new time-tracking software, I'm really enjoying this one (toggl if anyone is interested)
Dame Eleanor Hull
1. House: Clutter-busting binge, and talk to our real estate agent; get him to tell us what else must be done and what doesn’t matter because buyers would likely re-do anyway.
2. Research: one hour a day, just to stay in touch with projects.
3. Teaching: grade 9 essays that students revised. Put up post-break assignments.
4. Health: Continue regular gym workouts 3x/week, stretch every day, eat safely and try one new food.*
5. Fun/social: take time for fun reading and other relaxation; if regular Wednesday night thing resumes, bake for it.**
6. Other: renew passport.
Earnest English
With us in spirit and useful mantras!
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
1. Take a slow transition back to work on Wednesday.
2. Keep up with PT and exercises.
3. Preserve at least one hour a day for transcription and scholarly thought.
4. Staff evaluations, which are quickly approaching TRQ.
Good Enough Woman
1. Do taxes. boo, hiss
2. Take care of things daughter needs in order to be Selene, Goddess of the Moon at her school's Open House this week. Do other volunteer-related things for the open house in a timely manner. Drop off the silent auction thing on Monday afternoon or Wednesday morning.
3. Cut 500 words from article.
4. Read one thing.
5. Request the family's permission to work late two nights this week so that I can stay caught up (sort of) with grading.
6. Make x-ray appt or get x-ray.
7. Make well-child appt.
8. Exercise 3x.
Heu mihi
1. Read most of the book for next week's seminar
2. Read chapter 4 and flag problem parts
3. Make an effort to notice and, if possible, stop cycles of anxiety and mental busy-ness.
Humming42
1. Read 6x
2. Write 7x
3. Finish book review
4. Finish other pressing review
5. Submit R&R
6. Find ways to savor time off every day
JaneB
1) 1 hour on Ferret
2) 1 hour on typing up notes from the workshop thing
3) drink more fluids and focus on eating fruit and vegetable rich meals (I've been away, it messes with diet, ALWAYS, and I do find it hard to reset...).
KJHaxton
1. marking x 5 (let's clear the decks so I can spend time spiralising various parts of the research salad)
2. adminfrustration/teaching prep x 3 (prep Friday's lecture for colleague to give, prep exam stuff. Tackle admin associated with the task where I broke the VLE, had to remake the assignment manually by exporting and uploading the student work and which will mean manually collating grades and feedback. For this week I just need to respond to student queries about the peer assessment.).
3. tidying and clearing up: just keep things tidy, get all the research project paper filed into the nice folders I bought. Prepare for next week.
Susan
1. Keep reading for Way Outside
2. Finish admin task
3. Finish grading
4. Walk once
5. Do something nice each day of the weekend.
Waffles
1. Aging paper - near final draft (this has been a crazy project - we have basically 2 weeks to pull together a manuscript in an area none of us are expert in)
2. Gender paper (do *some* work on this)
3. LHF grant (pull together new idea and share with mentor)
4. K99 next iteration
5. Read for E's paper and work on intro
How I did:
ReplyDelete1. House: Clutter-busting binge, and talk to our real estate agent; get him to tell us what else must be done and what doesn’t matter because buyers would likely re-do anyway. IN PROGRESS. Nasty stuff from basement flood now totally cleared. Two boxes packed from closets; three bags of stuff taken to charity shop. SO much still to do.
2. Research: one hour a day, just to stay in touch with projects. Done 2x.
3. Teaching: grade 9 essays that students revised. Put up post-break assignments. Grading, NO (must happen today); assignments, YES for one class.
4. Health: Continue regular gym workouts 3x/week, stretch every day, eat safely and try one new food.* YES to all, except the last two are contradictory! The new food was not safe. :-(
5. Fun/social: take time for fun reading and other relaxation; if regular Wednesday night thing resumes, bake for it. YES.
6. Other: renew passport. I printed the form; still have to fill it in and send it off.
This week’s goals:
1. House: gather tax documents and sort/file/toss/shred/pack (as appropriate) papers in the guest room.
2. Research: 4 x 2 hours on the MMP R&R.
3. Teaching: stay caught up.
4. Health: continue regular gym workouts 3x/week, stretch every day, eat safely, go to bed early,
5. Fun/social: active restoration daily.
I’m going to experiment with doing all my work on campus, the days I’m there (that will mean long days), and being my own staff on days I’m home. I’m not sure this will work; I can foresee potential problems both with energy levels and with work creep. But it seems worth a one-week attempt, and might help keep me focused. I feel like I’m making little progress with any of my session goals, because I have too much going on.
I like the idea of active restoration each day.
DeleteSounds like you did significant unpleasant work on the house! Well done. And the sci-fi book reading sounds like great medicine.
DeleteHmph, great topic! I'm very much struggling to find a balance between TRQ and TLQ and the need to exercise and self-care. And my current inability to write in decent English isn't helping much. Didn't help that nothing this week turned out as I thought it would and I think plans for pacing only work so well when circumstances are constantly shifting. The best metaphor for last week was the snakes and ladders (Chutes and Ladders) game. Everytime I felt I'd made good progress up a ladder, I slipped thoroughly down a snake/chute and landed back where I started or lower. This week I shall be more cautious with my plodding like a tortoise and refrain from March Hare like sprints up any tempting ladders.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
1. marking x 5 (let's clear the decks so I can spend time spiralising various parts of the research salad)
- epic fail! After Tuesday's chemo, my brain entered a thrashing phase (thank you for the description DEH, I was struggling to put the feeling into words) and marking the work of distance learning students writing their first essays in English was simply beyond me.
2. adminfrustration/teaching prep x 3 (prep Friday's lecture for colleague to give, prep exam stuff. Tackle admin associated with the task where I broke the VLE, had to remake the assignment manually by exporting and uploading the student work and which will mean manually collating grades and feedback. For this week I just need to respond to student queries about the peer assessment.).
- I did this, and did more of it than I needed to to make up for the thrashing about in the marking pool.
3. tidying and clearing up: just keep things tidy, get all the research project paper filed into the nice folders I bought. Prepare for next week.
- I also did this but I'm not sure what I meant by preparing for next week. Perhaps I intended to leave things so that I didn't spend an hour on Monday tidying my desk. Didn't work.
This coming week:
1. Just do the bloody marking already
2. Adminfrustration (last push to get it out the way)
3. 2 x sessions working on some kind of research, preferably the nearly submittable paper but if I get distracted by data analysis I'm good with that.
Adminfrustration is a good term!
DeleteI'm contemplating switching it for adminfrusthrashing next week.
DeleteLast week:
ReplyDelete1. Aging paper - near final draft - DONE - we are very close to being ready to submit this thing,
2. Gender paper (do *some* work on this) - Yeah, no - the aging paper and an R03 sucked up all my attention
3. LHF grant (pull together new idea and share with mentor) - NOT DONE
4. K99 next iteration - DONE
5. Read for E's paper and work on intro - NOT DONE — Ditto, didn’t do this due to aging paper and R03
This week:
It’s spring break, and I am sort of taking it off. My stress level has been sky high, so I am hoping that slowing down my pace and doing some more fun things will help reset things a bit.
1. Go to art museum free day
2. See a movie in the theater
3. K99 next iteration (we have something due for class every week, so…)
4. Finish and submit aging paper (due friday)
5. Do some analyses of qual data with dedoose (for conference call this week)
6. clean the darned house!
I’m curious - for those of you who publish with co-authors - if you have any interesting ways you collaborate on manuscripts? I don’t love this method of me working on a paper, sending it out and getting a ton of track changes, and then making everyone’s edits. It feels less like a collaboration and more like me being a secretary and making other people's edits. Are there other ways of doing this that are more truly collaborative?
First, change your mental image! You aren't the secretary, at the mercy of all these other people, you're the conductor - it's your job to decide whose voice rises over others in different places, and to combine the different views into a melodious and meaningful whole. Yes, you need all their input (and sign-off and approval), just as without musicians the conductor is a person waving a stick in the air, but you hold all the threads and stand on the podium - this paper won't happen without you filtering and balancing their voices.
DeletePapers go through various stages, and at some point one person has to make it have one voice by bringing it all together. That's inevitable. But if this is the ONLY way you work on the paper, yeah, there are other options.
Ideally, for me, a paper starts with a conversation in a room with either some flip chart paper or a screen or a whiteboard. In that conversation, the co-authors agree essentially on two things - a sentence or two that explains the purpose of the paper (this paper shows how purple carrots help people see in discos, using the data from Joe's PhD combined with that side experiment Fred did in Annie's lab, and interpreting it using Suzanne's model. The authors might include Raoul, who is Fred's PI, and Fred might be a post-doc, or whatever) and secondly a rough breakdown of what contents the paper will have (there'll be an intro, we'll need a paragraph on seeing in discos, a paragraph on carrots as vision aids, a paragraph on previous work on non-orange carrots. We'll need methods and results for both the data and the modelling, and an initial paragraph of discussion for each piece). Generally everyone takes responsibility for a chunk or two, and goes away and writes it.
The chunks then get pasted together into a rough draft by the lead author (Fred), who does a first cut of polishing - writes some linking materials, makes sure the discussion is in order, has a go at the first and last paragraphs (the one explaining why we should care and the final bits of the discussion explaining how the work comes together and advances the conversation). He probably also does a first cut of the references.
If there's TIME, we then do a round-robin - so people have the paper one at a time, using track changes but viewing it with no markup and editing away as they like. Once it comes back to Fred, he does a second pass for polish and consistency, and then goes to the 'everyone look at once and check for details' round you're now in. Typically, the less involved people (like Raoul and Annie) may skip the round robin stage and only comment at this later stage.
I'm sure there are other models - I KNOW there are - but I like that one. former-PDF and I do a lot of backwards and forwards paper writing as we're often the two leads on a paper even when there are other authors, and it works well for us because she's good at detail and less strong on big-picture, and I'm easily bored with detail so miss things but love to get into data underpinnings and general structuring, so her rounds are more focused on fixing and adding and checking references and sentences with poor comprehendability, and mine are more concerned with the data wrangling and overall shape of the argument. With more than two "lead authors" life gets more tricky
My translation team hasn't got around to writing together yet, just translating. We circulate documents that get heavily marked up with comments and tracked changes. It can be discouraging to get a marked-up chunk back with so many queries. But then we had a session with all three of us in the same room, discussing precise shades of meaning, and I realized the queries were just questions, not pointed remarks. Once I started "hearing" written comments in the voices my collaborators really used, it made a huge difference.
DeleteI don't know if that's any help, but FWIW, that's my experience with collaboration.
JaneB and Dame Eleanor, thank you both for your thoughts on collaboration. I have only ever collaborated on one paper but a friend from grad school has invited me to work with her. I have some trepidation, so you've given me some ways to think about how to make it work, realizing that working as a duet is somewhat different from an ensemble.
DeleteThese ideas and input are so helpful!!! I think I have trouble extricating myself from my pre-PhD phase as a staff person whose job was just to enact changes made by others who, because they were MDs, assumed they knew more than me about everything and wanted me to just do what they said. Things are different now - and it's hard to adjust and know what I can and can't do.
DeletePart of the challenge is that in most of these manuscripts, most or all of us are in far flung places. My mentor is currently on the other side of the world, and collaborators on this most recent paper are multiple states away. We likely should have had some phone convos, but the timeline just didn't allow for that. But, I have a conference call with another set of far-flung collaborators on another paper - and I think that paper will feel far more collaborative.
Really useful comments. I think I currently have the opposite problem - my research has taken me in the direction of being the sole author on manuscripts (or occasionally with students who deserve the credit of authorship but wont be involved with writing, perhaps where I'm pulling in bits of their dissertation). That seems to remove the extrinsic motivation that a group of authors brings. It's odd contemplating being a soloist after so long as an ensemble or duet.
DeleteTopic: Movement, exercise, pacing
ReplyDeleteHaving to admit whether one is doing one’s exercises three times a week forces me to continue the exercises on my own time. It will be difficult for me to do so when I have no accountability. I do not move enough yet, and need to find ways to move more. I have cut down on several foods that add empty calories, but without movement, the effects are minimal.
I find pacing of memory- or thought-heavy projects harder to do, because the mindless stuff fills any cracks without much effort. The real work needs to be done when I am fresh and able to concentrate.
I am in a constant state of “exhausted memory or other resources” these past few weeks. I do not sleep well, whether by being in pain or having to wake up to take painkillers to stave off worse pain. I complained to my physical therapist that I recovered faster from a shoulder replacement than this fall, and she pointed out I did not have arthritic old bones and ligaments to deal with in the new shoulder. I sometimes feel that I am trying to live my life with parts from the junkyard, but that is my depression talking. I know it’s deperession that makes me look at my job and think how utterly banal it is, but I’m tired enough to find that hard to shake.
I’m luckier than many in this group in that I have a lot of mindless tasks to do, and can set up autopilot to do them. I came back to hundreds of unread emails, many of which I was far too late to give a response that mattered in the slightest. My problem comes that, as tired as I am, I could fall into the rabbit hole of mindless tasks and never surface. I do want to do more in my life than clean out my email, but I’m not as sure as I used to be what that would be.The current political climate, pulling funding from NEA and NEH, also bothers me immensely, for selfish reasons as well as my interest in having a well-rounded society. I spent years in graduate school justifying medieval studies at big schools with good programs; being at a STEM school is really rough.
Last week's goals:
Take a slow transition back to work on Wednesday. Done
Keep up with PT and exercises.Done
Preserve at least one hour a day for transcription and scholarly thought.Done
Staff evaluations, which are quickly approaching TRQ.Drafts done
Lots of DONE there!
DeleteAre you familiar with Jenny Lawson, the delightful and hilarious author? I picked up a mantra from her book Furiously Happy: "Depression lies." She explains it far better than I ever could, but it's been a helpful idea.
DeleteI don't know her work, but will look her up. "Depression lies" sounds absolutely right. Thanks for referring me to her.
DeleteI read Jenny Lawson's first book on an airplane to keep me distracted from my fear of flying. It was hilarious and worked perfectly.
DeleteI am glad you are doing your exercises, but I'm sorry that the "depression lies" are getting to you. I certainly don't feel like I can offer any powerful advice other than to read and move. And knit? I'm not sure if you can knit with your injuries. But based on what I know of you from this group, it seems like these are good things for you to do. ((((EAM))))
And I did know of her, but only as the Bloggess. I did not know of her books, so thank you again!
DeleteThanks, GEW, for the hugs and suggestions. I can knit again, finally, and it does help immensely to be creative. I'm walking again as well, moving very carefully, but it helps.
DeleteI just need to stop the depression lies when they start playing in my head. I'm working on chanting affirmations.
I have sometimes found it useful to visualise the lies as slimy horrid creatures and to imagine myself with a very big stick, bashing and 'whanging' them over the horizon. I have a mental image of myself with a really big cloak (Gandalf-esque I suspect but purple) whacking the slimies. I find it helps.
DeletePS I have a very rich and at times quirky imagination.
DeleteI love that image, KJ. I will definitely try that. I love your imagination, too. Quirky is always good!
DeleteAnalysis:
ReplyDeleteI got a call Monday from the head of the search committee that they are not pursuing my application for my boss’ old job. At least they told me, instead of my finding out when the on-campus interviews are announced. Wednesday was the first day back at work, and also the day following Winter Storm Stella, which dumped 25” of snow on us. I was required to work, but I only worked a half day in protest. Even so, I was exhausted from picking my way through incompletely cleared parking lots (it is spring break, so there’s little interest in clearing lots or sidewalks). Thursday was better, but some dim bulb decided we needed to have a fire drill Friday morning. Several people nearly fell and one colleague did fall leaving the building to traverse ice and snow built up around the building.
I did keep up with the transcription at work, since I don’t think everyone knows I am back. I also drafted the staff evaluations that were due while I was out. I have to have my boss approve them before I can give them to my staff. After all, I’ve only been supervising people since 1990. Excuse the whining
Finally, the electrical connection to our furnace fried Friday evening, with a lot of smell (no smoke and no flames, thankfully). Since we do have a fireplace, I conceded defeat in the argument to pay weekend rates for an electrician. I am huddled under a blanket in front of the fireplace, where I slept last night. I hope to have a functioning furnace by this time tomorrow.
Next week’s goals:
Deal with electrician.
Meeting with boss--survival is key.
PT and home exercises.
Continue to preserve time for transcription and scholarly thought.
Incorporate research notes from last year’s trip.
Plan next steps for top three to four projects to determine viability.
Spend one hour per day unfruitful time clearing email or filing paper files.
Move like water, friends! I’m the tortoise (sea turtle?) pacing at rearguard.
I'm sorry about the job application not going forward, and about the furnace. At least there's something you can do about the furnace!
DeleteIt's good advice to concentrate on what can be controlled, like the furnace. Thank you!
DeleteThat's terrible that they had you all fire-drilling in such awful conditions. I'm very relieved to hear that you did not fall.
DeleteSeveral of us complained, GEW, and the facilities guy got an earful from me personally.
DeleteSorry to hear about the dim bulb's fire drill but loving the expression dim bulb. Hope the furnace is repaired soon.
DeleteSo last week was pretty unproductive, which is unfortunate because it was Spring Break (which is supposed to be Spring Work Hard Week). In terms of movement, pacing, etc., it was Stasis. I didn't even exercise much; lots of snow and a cancelled yoga class got in the way. However, I made myself a long to-do list last night, and am starting the forward march again this morning.
ReplyDeleteLast week's goals:
1. Read most of the book for next week's seminar - DONE
2. Read chapter 4 and flag problem parts - GOT TO P. 11 of 44
3. Make an effort to notice and, if possible, stop cycles of anxiety and mental busy-ness. IMPROVING
This week:
1. Integrate affect stuff into intro
2. Read Berks abstract and make a to-do list/bibliography/outline?
3. Work on ch. 4: do the easy parts, then reread once to flag problems and work spots
4. Get on top of admin stuff (clear to-do list)
You did some teaching, some research, and some self-care, so call it a win!
DeleteI'm with DEH here, that's a win. Standing still/Stasis isn't falling behind and some weeks that takes more effort than it appears.
DeleteThe idea of thrashing encompasses so many things I’ve not had a word to describe. I injured my knee three weeks ago--it wasn’t serious but needed compression and time to heal, so I’ve been rather slow. I would like to have more physical movement in my life and to be in my body more than just in my head all the time. I’m not sure what that will look like, but I think it will be good for me all around.
ReplyDeleteLast week was spring break so lethargy was not a bad thing. I got a lot of reading, writing, and grading done. Now I’m so looking forward to summer so I can delve deeper into the projects that are just tiny ideas right now.
Last week
1 Read 6x: yes
2 Write 7x: yes
3 Finish book review: almost
4 Finish other pressing review: yes
5 Submit R&R: not even
6 Find ways to savor time off every day: maybe
This week
1 Read 5x
2 Write 5x
3 submit book review
4 follow up on conference-related things
You wrote every day, finished one thing and are close to done with another. That's great!
DeleteI love last week's goal 6 and the 'maybe'. Great progress on the other goals though.
DeleteI hope you find a source of physical movement...I've been enjoying walking more during the day time (and in all weathers). I'm contemplating some other form of exercise but can't quite decide what I'd enjoy. On one hand anything that involves music is appealing, on the other hand something more quietly meditative and stretchy might be. But I think it sounds fun to try a few things and work out what I like.
I was thinking about a friend who started running and is very passionate about it...in ways I simply don't understand. But while I'm not interested in pushing my body to its limits, I am interested in being in my body. I just need to commit to that, and I like the idea of trying out some different things.
DeleteI found a great yoga video on Amazon that I like: Jason Crandall's "Morning, Noon, and Night." It has three 20 minutes sessions, and Jason is so soothing (without being too "out there"). It's a great way for me to get moving. I especially like the morning and night sessions.
Deletehttps://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Journals-Morning-Noon-Night/dp/B009FA02Z4/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1490242262&sr=8-2-fkmr2&keywords=jason+crandall+morning
Sorry my link isn't hot.
DeleteI found it on amazon...thanks.
DeleteSo did I!
Delete1. Every paper every day continued DON'T QUITE HAVE THE HANG OF THIS YET, decided this week to try a variant...
ReplyDelete2. Three runs DONE but only because of snow days
3. Report for contract work (not due yet, but don't want it to become a TRQ crisis) NOPE, now it is a crisis...
4. Keep up with new time-tracking software, I'm really enjoying this one (toggl if anyone is interested) LOVE THIS! It has really given me a very concrete vision to work with and I want to keep going for a while.
This week's goals:
1: Work on ONE paper each day, at least three for the week.
2: Runs
3: Contract report
4: One figure for each paper
Movement is not going so well, but definitely getting better than in the dead of winter. The extra light makes a big difference to energy levels I think. Hoping this continues to get easier as the days get longer.
I find everything is much easier with more light!
DeleteYour every paper every day/ one paper each day sounds like a good variant to try. Looking forward to reading how it works for you.
DeleteMore light does help.
A bit late here . . .
ReplyDeleteTopic: I love the concept of thrashing. I have often used the word spinning to try to get at this same idea (because I'll find myself standing is a room almost literally turning in circles trying to figure what to do next, but I think thrashing is in some ways more accurate, and it's certainly more vivid.
Last week's goals:
1. Do taxes. boo, hiss. NOT DONE. Will do it this week.
2. Take care of things daughter needs in order to be Selene, Goddess of the Moon at her school's Open House this week. Do other volunteer-related things for the open house in a timely manner. Drop off the silent auction thing on Monday afternoon or Wednesday morning. DONE.
3. Cut 500 words from article. DONE. I cut about 2,000.
4. Read one thing. NOT DONE.
5. Request the family's permission to work late two nights this week so that I can stay caught up (sort of) with grading. DONE.
6. Make x-ray appt or get x-ray. DONE (Well, actually, I just called five minutes ago, and I found out that they only take walk-ins, so I plan to go tomorrow afternoon.)
7. Make well-child appt. DONE
8. Exercise 3x. DONE
I don't feel as if I was quite as productive as I was last week, but it was still a pretty good week. I have been doing a decent job of staying on topic of my grading.
This week:
1) exercise 3x
2) do taxes
3) get x-ray
4) spend 2-3 hours editing article on Friday
5) read two things (one for research, one for new course development*)
6) stay on top of grading so that it doesn't become TRQ
7) take daughter and her friend on their much anticipated outing
*Last Friday, my department gave a colleague and me the green light to develop an Introduction to Science Fiction class. I'm very excited about this.
That looks like a lot of DONE! And I am right there with you on the procrastivity due to dreading taxes. I was supposed to do them today; packed a lot of stuff in the guest room instead, because I *needed* space in there to spread out tax papers . . .
DeleteAn introduction to science fiction class sounds absolutely fantastic! I hope the planning is joyful (well the bits that can be anyway). I've been doing a 'chemistry of science fiction' lecture in one course for a couple of years, looking at whether the science could actually come into being and it was a lot of fun to put together.
DeleteThat's about the only lit class I can imagine actually WANTING to take... (Eng Lit was taught very badly at school, my only exposure to the subject as an academic discipline).
DeleteDEH, yes the taxes dread is real. But I'm planning to do them tomorrow night!!! I sometimes get endorphins when I get going with TurboTax because it starts praising me and cheering me on.
DeleteKJHaxton, your lecture sounds so interesting. I wish I could sit in! I think the course will be especially fun to put together since I'm doing it will a friend/colleague. He and I were friends in grad school, and now we work together. We bring different strengths to the table, and we hope to team-teach it (at least at first).
JaneB, then you are a perfect representation of the kind of student we hope to reach!
Thrashing is a great concept, and describes where I am -- bone tired, and here it is 11 PM and I'm writing this. Spring break starts on Friday afternoon, and it can't come a moment too soon. I think I have enough nice things in there to make up for the meetings that have crept in. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteSo I haven't done well at movement, or pacing, or. . .
1. Keep reading for Way Outside - a little, and revised the abstract for the editors (I was brought in as a replacement in a collection of essays, and they wanted an abstract just to confirm they had me on board.)
2. Finish admin task - at least the first go.
3. Finish grading - yes, but of course there is more
4. Walk once NO
5. Do something nice each day of the weekend. SATURDAY yes, Sunday no
Analysis: too many meetings, too many demands, and as I noted, tired. And we had minor drama that really annoyed me at a dept meeting. So there was stuff that took emotional energy. What's done me in, really, is that for the last three weeks, I think, I haven't had a day working at home. And that's when I can concentrate, write, etc. I did get some bills paid, though, so I caught up a little with life.
This week (and it's Tuesday night, so...) I have a meeting all day tomorrow, and then a friend is coming to give a talk on Thursday, so that does Thursday in.
1. Spend Friday in office doing organizing, administrivia, and maybe even finally hang the pictures I haven't hung all year.
2. Do something nice on Saturday
3. Finish grading (ideally before Saturday?)
4. Read for way outside
5 . Get back to one of the three half finished novels on my nightstand.
Yay for some progress in the face of all the other demands.
DeleteI always resent lost productivity due to emotion-inspiring drama the most. And I hope you get back to working at home - it's horrid when you cant escape for a bit to regroup and feel productive.
I think hanging the pictures in your office would be something great to check off of your list. When I work on my office (bring in a plant, etc.), it always picks me up.
DeleteAnd until the weekend, just keep swimming! I'm eager to see your spring break TLQ list . . .