If you can work with this metaphor---things you have mixed feelings about, on this summer journey, or travel experiences that leave you unsettled, feel free! Otherwise, I need to go gate-check a bag. See you later! (Apologies for any wonky formatting; I'll come back and fix it later if I can.) Update: I have tried. It's still rather wonky. I have a new laptop and am working in Word and Explorer rather than WordPerfect and Firefox, and I think there are some underlying formatting issues that I haven't managed to address.
Dame Eleanor Hull
1.
Self/health: yoga for neck 5-7 days; same for cardio; cautiously
try going back to weights; massage.
2.
Research: keep office hours 9-12 three days; 6 hours on
revisions; 2 hours on language; update promotion application.
3.
Teaching: 2 hours planning or reading for fall classes.
4.
Life Stuff: do 3-5 things.
5.
Travel: pack and prep for trip; do necessary hunting and
gathering to eat safely on the road.
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Take
notes on four of the interlibrary loan books.
Have test done.
Dependent on test results, plot out the next 2-6 weeks.
Edit and rearrange introduction
Finish proofreading the edition--2 hours a day.
Good Enough WomanDependent on test results, plot out the next 2-6 weeks.
Edit and rearrange introduction
Finish proofreading the edition--2 hours a day.
1)
Draft a revision incorporating all reader feedback (except, perhaps, the
bibliography stuff)
2) Do at least 20 minutes of yoga per day. I've GOT to get the kinks out of my back and work on my tennis elbow or whatever I have going on. It's some kind of RSI affecting my hand, forearm, elbow, and shoulder. In fact, my whole right side is kind of a mess. Surely yoga will help. I hope so b/c working on the computer is difficult.
3) Do all three syllabi.
4) Submit reading packet to reprographics.
5) Walk the dog twice.
6) Take some time to enjoy the back yard.
7) Spend some quality time with my son while my daughter is gone.
2) Do at least 20 minutes of yoga per day. I've GOT to get the kinks out of my back and work on my tennis elbow or whatever I have going on. It's some kind of RSI affecting my hand, forearm, elbow, and shoulder. In fact, my whole right side is kind of a mess. Surely yoga will help. I hope so b/c working on the computer is difficult.
3) Do all three syllabi.
4) Submit reading packet to reprographics.
5) Walk the dog twice.
6) Take some time to enjoy the back yard.
7) Spend some quality time with my son while my daughter is gone.
Heu Mihi
1.
Sit x 6
2. Exercise x 5
3. Finish a book and read most of another
4. 30 pages of Proust
5. 3 hours on Wonder
6. Prep first week of undergrad class
Humming423. Finish a book and read most of another
4. 30 pages of Proust
5. 3 hours on Wonder
6. Prep first week of undergrad class
1
Write 1000 words for Tiny Project
2 Write and submit two abstracts
3 Reply to Tiny Project person
4 Get caught up on grading
JaneB2 Write and submit two abstracts
3 Reply to Tiny Project person
4 Get caught up on grading
1) self-care: focusing this week on drinking enough water, on
taking time to eat the food I choose, on moving a little extra each day (at
least back stretches), "sitting".
2) arranging a time to visit my sister despite hot weather
3) going through the rest of my notes from meetings two weeks ago and taking small actions, planning/recording large ones, related to my various papers and grant applications in progress.
4) spending an hour or two on one of the papers
5) spend an hour on teaching prep things, just getting things in order
Ocean Girl2) arranging a time to visit my sister despite hot weather
3) going through the rest of my notes from meetings two weeks ago and taking small actions, planning/recording large ones, related to my various papers and grant applications in progress.
4) spending an hour or two on one of the papers
5) spend an hour on teaching prep things, just getting things in order
1. Complete Ch 6 edits
2. Start outlining theoretical bits of CH 2
1.
Try to edit chapter a little bit each day.2. Start outlining theoretical bits of CH 2
3. Write one section of theoretical bits of Ch 2 (might be a stretch)
4. Submit conference abstract
5. 1 hour lawyer/will/estate stuff
6. Make dr appt for arm injury
7. Exercise x 4
8. Fun things x 2
4. Submit conference abstract
5. 1 hour lawyer/will/estate stuff
6. Make dr appt for arm injury
7. Exercise x 4
8. Fun things x 2
Plant Girl
2. 10 hours of FL work.
3. Pack
Susan
1. Two sets of expense forms for last week's travel.
2. Write application for admin job
3. Do one more edit on Violence, leaving mainly footnotes for when I return
4. Read articles for prize (only 3, manageable)
5. Finish book for review, draft review
6. Begin process of contacting potential collaborators
7. Pack for vacation
8. Keep exercising
9. Get good sleep
3. Do one more edit on Violence, leaving mainly footnotes for when I return
4. Read articles for prize (only 3, manageable)
5. Finish book for review, draft review
6. Begin process of contacting potential collaborators
7. Pack for vacation
8. Keep exercising
9. Get good sleep
Waffles
2. Presentation #2.
3. Stupid reviews for stupid review paper (will be so glad when this is done!)
4. If I am successful in getting 1-3 done, I’d like to take the success of last week and try to make serious progress on my F32 paper.
What Now?
1. Again with the summer school. Teaching 4.5
hours each day is just exhausting; there's no way
around that.2. Try to exercise at least ONE time during the week! (See how I'm lowering my expectations? Just suck less!)
3. Pull out the essay draft and actually look at it. But I don't have to do this until Saturday; I think it's not reasonable to expect myself to do intellectual work after a day so full of teaching.
4. Finish the online course, wrap it up, and dive into the other online course that I've completely neglected.
Hi all!
ReplyDeleteMy first thought on reading the prompt was that it feels as if I live in that airport, not able to or wanting to go back to a past situation and travelling hopefully towards a better one - with all the horribleness and frustration and occasional grace and patient endurance that go with modern air travel. I need to work a bit more on really visualising where that future place is and how to get there, even if it means leaving the airport building and setting up a nice rustic camp in some scrub behind the hangers...
Last week was hard, but I seem to be emerging a bit from the low/grey patch I've been in. A bit! There's just not enough time to actually WORK at the moment, too many meetings. I spent a lot of time trying to solve problems with the work for ProblemPaper2, and have ended up coming up with a totally new approach to the work which I am at once pleased about and frustrated with the necessity of doing it (ProblemChild was supposed to be finished in 2014 and done by PDF as a post-doc, with advice from me, and things from it just keep DRAGGING ON - plus WierdBugMan, who wrote the code we use but then retired, is being awkward and although he said it was all handed over and he didn't want or expect anything else to do with the work, it turns out now that it wasn't quite all handed over and he doesn't really want to hand over the last part, which is making me sad and worried and frustrated). And just politics and people stuff. One thing I normally like about summer is how much less people stuff there usually is... not this year!
Deletegoals from last week:
1) self-care: focusing this week on drinking enough water, on taking time to eat the food I choose, on moving a little extra each day (at least back stretches), "sitting". YES, NO (I had a bad week of forgetting to prepare food and buying stuff on campus and then buying stuff on the way home which wasn't ideal, or eating crisps and dip and pretending it was a meal. It was hot and I was stressed), A LITTLE (it's been TOO HOT and HUMID), NO)
2) arranging a time to visit my sister despite hot weather Yes, done
3) going through the rest of my notes from meetings two weeks ago and taking small actions, planning/recording large ones, related to my various papers and grant applications in progress.not done but a little more progress, and I had a meeting about the big enormous Gallimaufrey grant which was useful.
4) spending an hour or two on one of the papers I spent a couple of hours on a paper with LikesMaths which isn't one of the ones on the list but which I will be an author on, and which has the potential to be pretty exciting/high quality - and opens up a new avenue for contributing to the project that Gallimaufrey is part of in a unique and hopefully shiny-paper-generating way. Also ProblemPaper2 work although that wasn't writing-writing, it was more model wrangling
5) spend an hour on teaching prep things, just getting things in order yes, and I have begun to block out my semester (team teaching means my timetable is rarely the same week to week), and am pleased to say that it looks like for once my grading is nice and evenly spread, rather than clumped...
the coming week:
DeleteA rather senior self-invited visitor from LikesMAths previous University is here for three weeks (sigh - it's nice to have visitors, but they need looking after! And I don't have time!). Monday will basically be taken up getting them settled in and setting some boundaries/agreeing some goals, Tuesday is multiple meetings with grad students, Wednesday I might be able to work from home, Thursday is meetings then a train trip (illogical stupid train system, it's cheaper to go to HotCentralCity the night before and stay over than to go in the morning of my meeting, and as I'm essentially self-funding attendance cheaper won. if it stays this hot though I might be glad I did as the hotel is a cheap chain but it has AIR CON so I might be in much need of a good night's sleep by then), Friday meetings and a late trip back (train prices again...). So not actually much work time... aargh! So, goals:
1) self-care: focusing this week on drinking enough water, on taking time to eat the food I choose, on moving a little extra each day (at least back stretches), "sitting".
2) analyse at least 3 samples in preparation for FavouriteIslandsMeeting
3) go through the rest of my notes from meetings two weeks ago and take small actions, plan/record large ones, related to my various papers and grant applications in progress.
4) make travel plans for FavouriteIslandsMeeting
5) Prepare for societything meeting
6) keep ProblemPaper2 re-re-re-work moving
7) spend an hour on teaching prep
hours here and there add up, right??
Hours here and there definitely add up! It's always encouraging to find that some Previous Self wrote a few ideas down or made more notes than our Current Self realized.
DeleteI hope eventually you get out of that airport.
Here's to emerging from the grey patch!
DeleteFor this week:
ReplyDelete1. Finish revising the essay!
2. Clean the house by Wed. (company coming)
3. Exercise x 3
4. A school thing, a financial thing, a medical thing, a volunteering thing, and a temple thing -- not sure how the week got this busy!
That's a lot, especially if you have company arriving tomorrow! Good luck with it all!
DeleteMy mentor is back in the country, which brings less focus to my life. I thus didn’t get as much done last week as I had wanted. But the stupid reviews are almost done, which is fantastic. It would be nice to get them done before my conference, but I’m not sure that is likely so I’m not going to list it as a goal.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Presentation #1. MOSTLY DONE (are presentations ever really truly done?)
2. Presentation #2. MOSTLY DONE
3. Stupid reviews for stupid review paper (will be so glad when this is done!) MOSTLY DONE
4. If I am successful in getting 1-3 done, I’d like to take the success of last week and try to make serious progress on my F32 paper. NOT STARTED
This week:
1. Finish presentations
2. Practice presentations
3. Clean house to prep for catsitter
4. Pack!
5. Have fun in SF!
My California colleagues, my mentor, and I are doing a writing retreat next week. I will have to figure out what I want to focus on. I have a paper that is close to done, but it isn’t MY paper, even though I am first author. So, I’m not inclined to make that my focus. I should do the paper I wanted to get done last week - my F32 paper. It’s 90% drafted, and has been for months. I am not sure why I am dragging my heels on it.
Maybe the paper needs a little more thinking. Or maybe there's something about it you wish you could have done differently, and finishing it means giving up on that (the best being the enemy of the good), and that's a hard thing to let go of for some reason. Perhaps the writing retreat will help you see it in a new light and just do what you need to do to finish it. Good luck!
DeleteOh I had such a long comment that just disappeared!!!!
ReplyDeleteHere goes:
Prompt: I'm ambivalent about being productive in the summer. I long for summers that are wide open, spacious, and a little boring--but I am now a grown-up with a job and, the fact is, I love projects. I came up with summer projects and daily schedules at least as early as age 12. So it's really inevitable that I focus on getting things done, even when it's warm and sleepy out.
Last week:
1. Sit x 6 - x4. It's really hard to (remember to) do this when Bonaventure is home all day. I'm hoping that the school year will bring more regularity--and at least I'm trying, for real.
2. Exercise x 5 - x4—humidity and a sore ankle talked me out of the third run.
3. Finish a book (DONE) and read most of another - Finished the second one this morning.
4. 30 pages of Proust - By the skin of my teeth.
5. 3 hours on Wonder - Yes.
6. Prep first week of undergrad class - Yes (easy—I’ve taught it before).
We leave for the beach on Saturday (YAAAY!), so I'll spend a lot of time getting ready--which means, for me, finishing a sweater, stacking firewood, brewing beer, and putting together as much as I can of this year's anniversary book. (I make a little hand-bound photo album as my annual gift to my husband.) --See, I have this thing where I need to finish all of my Projects In Progress before I go on a trip. It's nonsense and it makes me crazy.
So, this week:
1. Sit x6
2. Read a dissertation
3. Read a book
4. Read 30 pages of Proust
5. 3 hours on Wonder
6. Brew beer
7. Arrange and print most pages of anniversary book
8. Prep 2nd and 3rd weeks of undergrad class
9. Have a sense of humor and be willing to let some of this nonsense go, please
I hate it when comments disappear! I try to remember to compose in a word-processor, or at least copy-paste to one before trying to publish a comment. Too many have vanished into Neverland.
DeleteYou have a lot of reading this week! How British ("reading" a subject at university, rather than "majoring" in it). And how lovely, to feel that reading IS the main project for the week. Enjoy, and I hope you have a great time at the beach!
How I did:
ReplyDelete1. Self/health: yoga for neck 5-7 days; same for cardio; cautiously try going back to weights; massage. YES, YES, NO, NO.
2. Research: keep office hours 9-12 three days; 6 hours on revisions; 2 hours on language; update promotion application. YES, YES, NO, YES.
3. Teaching: 2 hours planning or reading for fall classes. NO
4. Life Stuff: do 3-5 things. YES.
5. Travel: pack and prep for trip; do necessary hunting and gathering to eat safely on the road. YES; SO FAR.
Hmmm . . . looks like I'm really in denial about how soon classes will start and how much I'm going to need to do to plan and prep.
New goals:
ReplyDeleteSelf/health: eat safely, regular yoga and cardio, walk by water at least 3 times, do one longer hike.
Family: house visit, dad visits, sort stuff, ship stuff.
Work: try for six hours, either writing or teaching prep, as feels manageable.
Move like water, float like mist, or be the rock, as appropriate.
Well, last week ended up being surprisingly productive in different ways, which is good considering that I was still in recovery mode. I didn't end up fulfilling all of my goals, but I did other things that were important, too.
ReplyDeleteGoals from last week:
1.Try to edit chapter a little bit each day. Did not happen; just got back to it today. I think I need someone else to read it over. I know it's a rough draft but I need another eye to point out the rough spots.
2.10 hours of FL work. I think I reached this?
3. Pack. Definitely did this, sadly, more to come.
Goals for this week:
1. Finish packing (I'm almost there...)
2. Run many, many errands.
3. Run 3x if schedule permits.
4. Move on Friday/Saturday. (UGH)
surprisingly productive weeks are always such a nice treat!
DeleteLove the opening metaphor. Essentially the whole process of writing my second book is very like my first book- I find writing books challenging, unsettling, and unease-producing. I spent the last week working through unease of wrangling an unruly and unpolished Ch 6 into sort of shape, with the unsettling realization that there was much more editing to do as large bits must move into Ch 7. Why can I do this successfully all the time with articles but when it comes to major organization of book chapters I get so confounded and lost? Books are just so much bigger and scarier, when for me at least, articles are relatively easy. I get lost in the mire with how much there is to get into the book. Anyhow, I am coming to realize that this is my way- I much prefer the getting to writing part of a book, or the getting to research part, but the actual nut and bolts of the hard thinking, while at some times is joy producing and exhilarating, most often to me feels like a grind. Not sure how to make that change.
ReplyDelete1. Complete Ch 6 edits- first round DONE but with the realization that I cannot cut large chunks until I start writing Ch 7 (where large chunks will be moved to).
2. Start outlining theoretical bits of CH 2 DONE
3. Write one section of theoretical bits of Ch 2 (might be a stretch) NO
4. Submit conference abstract DONE
5. 1 hour lawyer/will/estate stuff DONE
6. Make dr appt for arm injury NO
7. Exercise x 4 DONE
8. Fun things x 2 DONE
This week:
1. Start writing theoretical bits of Ch 2 (2-3,000 words for the week if possible)
2. Read for Ch 2 and 7 and continue to outline Ch 7
2. Make PT appt for arm injury
3. 1 hr lawyer/estate stuff
4. colonoscopy (Fri, ugh)
5. Exercise x 5
6. Fun thing x 2
Topic: Two things are unsettling me on this summer journey. One is the health situation, which I cannot change, and about which I am endeavoring to be Stoic. The other is that I am having to face my early training not to stand up for myself in crucial arenas. I fail miserably at guarding my personal time and space, as those of you who have been here a few years may remember from my struggle to establish my own office in the new house. I do not stand up well against figures of authority, either. For example, my colleagues, and worse, my boss and her boss (the Dean) will not leave me alone. I have ignored emails from them, so they have started bugging my husband, who unfortunately works in the same building and reports to the same Dean as I do, to bring things to my attention. He tells them to leave things on my desk, but it is uncomfortable for him. I have asked everyone if my strongly worded “away, and not answering email” automatic reply message was working, but it made them only pause briefly. I hate being a pushover, and I would like to think that it is because I don’t feel well, but to be honest, it is more because I was trained to be the peacemaker in my birth family, often (perhaps always) to the point of giving up everything to do so. Even worse, I keep it all contained at great cost to my digestion and mental health. Something to work on, clearly.
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
Take notes on four of the interlibrary loan books. Done
Have test done. Done
Dependent on test results, plot out the next 2-6 weeks. Not done
Edit and rearrange introduction. Done
Finish proofreading the edition--2 hours a day. Not quite done
Analysis: I didn’t finish the proofreading, because I discovered that the entry in Early English Books Online has skipped several pages of the text, and repeated others. Sigh. I wrote the editor of the microfilm when I was a graduate student about messed up leaves--the person filming seemed to sneeze while taking the shots--so I suppose it is only just that I be the one to alert them to problems in the online version. It does prove I’m the only person working on this text, though!
Although my doctor has the results of the test, she wants to meet with me about next steps. I have to work around her surgery schedule and my trip to see our daughters and their families, so I can’t see her until the follwoing week. So, I can’t plan quite yet. Double sigh.
However, to end on a good note, I had an epiphany about how to rearrange the introduction that makes so, so much more sense, and I have been able to take notes on the interlibrary loan books. Also, my library is very good about purchasing books that faculty need, so several interlibrary loan requests have been purchased for me.
Next week’s goals:
Finish the proofreading from the microfilm of the text.
Finish taking notes from the two remaining interlibrary loan books.
Pack for trip to the great Midwest.
Slight goals, but with the need to take care of myself, both health and food sensitivity-wise, probably enough.
Have an excellent end of the week, everyone. Float like mist!
Thanks for the update, Elizabeth! The health stuff sounds so tiresome. Good job holding off your dean etc, and I hope you can stay strong.
Delete