Week Eight: In Medias Res

I can't believe it, but we are mid-way through our session. This freaks me out more than a little bit, but it's good for me to recognize this reality so that I can be intentional about the remaining weeks. I'm sorry I was a bit MIA in the comments this past week (getting new carpet took over my life), but I am appreciative of JaneB's attentiveness despite her busy week and development of a cold.

I did, however, read the posts, and I want to give a few "shout outs":

• DEH, It's great that you prioritized research last week!
• KJHaxton, I hope radiotherapy is going as smoothly as possible.
• humming42, congrats on the research proposal!
• Matilda, nice job taking control of your own work space even if it isn't everyone else's favorite arrangement (your action on this point inspirational for me).
• JaneB, congrats on the great reception of your research, and I hope your cold is waning rather than waxing.
• Notorious, I hope you had a great week of aunting.

Now, on to this week's business. Since we are at the mid-point, it seems worthwhile to follow our usual custom of revisiting session goals to see if we need to reconsider, revise, or reframe them. To that end, I've listed the session goals below, followed by the most recent weekly goals. I hope I didn't omit anyone! When you check in, you can address session goals first, and then you can evaluate your progress from last week and set goals for the next week.  I look forward to reading your posts/comments!


SESSION GOALS:

Contingent Cassandra
--Make consistent progress toward making at least one kind of movement (walking, swimming, weight-lifting, gardening) part of most days. 

Dame Eleanor Hull
*First six weeks: primary goal is packing up my house and doing necessary maintenance to sell it. I'm trying to put in 1-2 hours a day on research and teaching tasks.
*Five weeks in UK: in addition to teaching responsibilities, which involve field trips as well as classroom work and grading, visit two places of personal significance, and ramp up the research considerably, since I will be living a few minutes' walk from a major research library that calms and inspires me.
*Final three weeks: take a week off from all work, then prep for the fall semester, mop up whatever tasks need mopping. With any luck, unpack in new place.
*Product goals: sell house, move; review all sections of translation that I have yet to review; get two R&Rs out the door (probably a good UK task); read, take notes, and move my book project forward; finalize syllabus for UK teaching; plan for fall classes.

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Session mantra: Move, contemplate, create
Plan and draft sabbatical request.
Walk at least half an hour every day.

GoodEnoughWoman (GEW)
1) Do all things necessary to get kids set up in their own rooms (rooms that will be good sanctuaries for them for the rest of their time at home). This will involve MUCH moving and purging (and building of a backyard "office/library/studio/witch hut"). 
2) Eat the rainbow and help my family do the same.
3) Move more and build family practices for kids to do the same. 
4) Read daily (and somewhat widely) within sci-fi and also academia (esp. c18 Brit lit and any scholars with good writing styles). Finish reading Dune.
5) Write at least five days per week, whether free-writing, formal academic writing, notes about texts I plan to teach, poetry, fiction, or journaling--all with the goal of exploring my interests/subjects areas while also improving my writing style (which was criticized [rather mildly, but still] by one my article reviewers). I think parentheses were probably part of my problem.
6) Since we aren't traveling as much, take advantage of local attractions and activities.
7) Spend more time on family to improve relationships, future memories, and bonds. (The relationships are good, but they definitely played second-fiddle to the PhD for the past year.)

heu mihi
The first three are non-negotiable: 
1) Revise Norway talk (by 6/18)
2) Draft tenure statement (by 6/1); revise it (by 7/1)
3) Write ACLA paper (by 6/18)

The other big goal is...finish Book 2! I don't need to have this done by the end of the summer, strictly speaking, but for various reasons I want to. This involves the following sub-goals:
4) Revise chapter 3
5) Revise chapter 5
6) Revise chapter 2
7) Full read-through and revision
8) Write a conclusion

humming42
1 As ever, write 5x/week
2 And also, read 5x/week
3 End of month Pop revision
4 Revise and resubmit book review
5 Meet deadlines for Talk project
6 Draft outline for workshop
7 Outline and lit review for Snow project
8 Pick and complete a project to submit for conference

JaneB
For the first six weeks, my goals are something like
1) domestic chaos reduction and self-care (semester recovery)
2) conquering all assessment paperwork efficiently and putting modules "to bed" as tidily as possible (i.e. with changes for next year either made or clearly identified, etc.)
3) having a good set of lists of preparation for late September, and having the main logistics for the early October fieldtrip in place
4) complete analysis for ProblemChild project, and have drafted our parts of the first two papers (for a meeting on 29th June when we hopefully get all the authors together and submit the darn things)
5) make good progress on PickyPaper
6) finish and submit that GrantINeverShouldHaveStarted!
7) go through and act on all the notes from the conference and workshop I just attended, the two I went to in March, and the things I've left aside in my email since January (or at least add them to a single list).

Karen
1. Put in promotion application
2. Have a documented map of full new degree structure informed by one feedback cycle
3. Make progress on KL project (application); Grass (conference paper, data gathering); and Farm (creative work)
4. Create more functional spaces at home with a focus on lounge room, bedroom, and built structures in the garden.
5. Nurture self with improved sleep, regular exercise.

KJHaxton
1. Recover from surgery (it was last week) and finish up the current rounds of treatment. Negotiate return to work.
2. Submit an abstract for, create a poster for (assuming abstract accepted) and attend conference at end of summer
3. Finish some knitting projects
4. Start and finish a printing project

Matilda
1) Finish the revision of the first drafts of Chapter 2~5.
2) Make a concrete plan of the structure of the book.
3) Establish good eating and exercising habits.

Notorious, PhD
• draft two book chapters (crappy draft okay) 
• Revise co-authored article MS (this one's a maybe; chapters are the priority)
• Go through all papers/files in home & office & e-mail inbox and throw away or properly file everything.
• Reboot my physical fitness

Susan
1. Desk clearing/deck clearing: I ran away for a bit over a week in the UK right after the end of our term (a talk and a paper), came back and almost immediately had to drive my mother 250 miles for an event at my niece/nephew's school. (Why this is a late check in). My desk/study is a TOTAL disaster. I need to clear off the stuff from this past year's teaching to make space for next year, and to be able to work.
2. Course preparation: I'm teaching a new graduate seminar, and an altered version of a course I've taught before. I want to get ahead on them so it's not all last minute.

3. Finish Old Conference paper and submit it for publication. (the proceedings were supposed to become a volume, but didn't, and I've been encouraged to submit this to a journal.) Probably needs a week or so of work, but nothing too extreme.

4. Make revisions to "Way Outside", a paper that took over the last session, when I get comments from the editors. (This paper is in another discipline (English) and another century (20th) from that I usually work in, which is why it has it's name.) My hunch is that it's close to done, but like Old Conference, it needs a week or so to polish it, deal with formatting questions, etc.

5. New Project 1: I have a plan for a short book that is largely synthetic. I want to start writing/outlining

6. New Project 2: I am thinking through my next BIG project (I'm assuming 8-10 years), and I'd like to spend some time reading/thinking about how I might approach a big broad subject.

7. Read. I have been trying to get back into reading novels/books.

8. Walk regularly. When I'm not teaching, I need to pay real attention to keep myself moving.

9. Relax. I just published a book, and I am trying not to make myself crazy with deadlines. 

Waffles
1. Submit trans paper
2. Resubmit aging paper
3. Resubmit relat paper
4. Submit gender paper
5. Submit discrepancy paper
6. Submit PTSD paper
7. Submit scoping review
8. Get a handle on longitudinal paper
9. Figure out story for IPV paper
10. Figure out story for suicide paper
11. Move?



LAST WEEK'S GOALS

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Walk forty minutes a day.
Keep track of hydration.
Finish sabbatical application.
Follow the new schedule for the book which began July 1.
Plan for end-of-the week trip to the big city for several doctor’s appointments.

Contingent Cassandra
1. Take a full day off July 4
2. Garden 2x; swim or lift weights 2x
3. Move toward earlier sleep/wake times
4. Begin making plans for vacation weeks

DEH
Self: organize a couple of short sight-seeing trips. Stretch every day.
Teaching: Organize a couple of tours for students.
Research: Review 1000 lines of translation. Make progress on MMP-3 revisions.
House: type packing list and e-mail it to husband.

GEW
1) Write 15 minutes, 2x.
2) Read a few chapters of a book on writing.
3) Walk dog 3x. Yoga or Swim 1x.
4) Move like water, float like mist during the house challenges and chaos.
5) Re-read Solitude conference paper to consider whether or not I'd want to re-visit it for an article.

humming42
1 write 5x
2 set writing and research schedule
3 set up project notekeeping
4 follow up with co-author
5 determine status of Abandoned Project
6 think about grant application

JaneB
1) restructure ProbChildp1p1 following meeting
2) clear desk at office at least
3) be nice to the cold and get enough sleep
4) write up notes from grant meeting and circulate to team
5) set resit work (this will be TRQ the week after next, so would like to get it done this week in a controlled manner) and do timetabling paperwork (due next week, same).

Karen
1. Yoga - 3 home practices (even if little) and 1 class
2. Garden - plan 2017/8 vegetable crops
3. Office - 2 x 25 minutes of clearing the encroaching chaos of floor clutter
4. Read - one article
5. Write - 1 hour on messy first draft of grass text

KJHaxton
1. Keep on knitting - 12 mm needles and multi-strands is so satisfying.
2. Submit conference abstract, small grant application, reply to important emails
3. work on the first tasks in the writing plan
4. draft ethics application and submit for signatures

Matilda
1) Write chapter 2: reading the most fundamental sources first.
2) 5-minute-exercises several times a say.
3) Find ‘my own 15 minutes’ as many as possible. 
4) Think positively, work practically. 

Notorious, PhD
• Writing: 1000 words on Sometimes an Adequate Notion chapter [start point: 700]
• 2 days yoga; 3 meditation
• finish reading 1 major source collection
• Toss or file the stuff from my home desk and bookshelf
(in addition to being a great auntie!)

Waffles
1. Get R&R close to done
2. Reduce scoping review (make a good pass at it)
3. Tables for SU paper
4. Put together lit for expectancies paper