Welcome to the Fall/Spring 2018 Session.
Inspired by EAM and JaneB's summer cruise metaphor, I thought we could use a metaphor for this session, too, but I had trouble thinking of a new one that would work well for us. So I thought we might return to one that we played with for a few weeks last spring: the garden plot.
To that end, as you begin this session, you might think of it as a garden that you are planting or tending. Or perhaps you even have a whole farm. Things to consider: How ambitious will you be? What will you plant? Are you planting trees that won't bear fruit for several years? Are you planting some fast-growing flowers to cheer you along the way? Are you going to allow some things to go fallow for a while? Are you going to gather and save some seeds for the future (that have been gleaned from a previous harvest)? Are you going to have orderly raised beds with clear labels, or are you going to let things grow a bit wild, hoping and praying for some healthy volunteers?
Also important: What pests do you anticipate, and how will you prevent them from decimating or destroying your yield? I recently saw an episode of Fixer Upper in which Jo Gaines planted a huge garden and built a lovely--I mean, really lovely--garden house on her property. Around the entire perimeter of the garden, she built (or made Chip build) a chicken run so that the chickens could be a "force field" against the grasshoppers that wanted to eat her plants. Do you need a force field of chickens or some extra special Bugge Spraye?
As usual, feel free employ the metaphor if it works for you. If not, you can always do your check in with whatever commentary or analysis that you choose.
For this week, to get us started, please provide the following:
- An introduction
- Some thoughts on the topic (optional)
- Session Goals
- Goals for the Coming Week
I am excited to see what fruit this session will bear!
Thanks for getting us started, GEW!
ReplyDeleteI'm a medievalist, teaching English at Large Regional University (LRU) in the midwest, soon to be a full professor (department voted yes and higher-level committees are unlikely to overturn that decision). I'm married to Sir John, with three cats, no kids, and a big old house that we finally got on the market this summer but which no one has even come to look at. So I'm back to the motto I came up with in this group a year (or two?) ago, "Live with uncertainty and work the process."
As to gardens, I feel rather as if I'm in one of those swapping-lives reality shows, and I'm the super-urban person dumped into a rural setting with a huge kitchen garden to look after, plus a patch of woods and other stuff that I haven't managed to explore yet. Maybe that's just beginning-of-the-semester overwhelm and I will manage better than I expect. The overwhelm is partly because I've been sick all week (bad cold) and am not getting much done b/c tired/sick.
Session goals:
Live my life, i.e. try not to put things off b/c we want to move.
Finish the last set of revisions, answer queries about the translation in a timely manner, return to book project.
Keep on top of teaching/grading/planning: both my classes are things I don't teach so often, and will need a fair amount of attention (fun stuff, though).
This week's goals:
Focus on health; rest enough, go to 3 yoga classes*, walk or cardio every day, eat safe foods.**
Do a whole bunch of TRQ things so I can stop thinking about them.
Schedule 1-2 hours a day for research and stick to that time.
*As part of living life and not putting it off, I signed up with my local park district for unlimited "fitness" classes in a month for a flat fee. There are three yoga classes per week at a location a couple of blocks from me, and I'm going to try to hit them all, to revitalize my own practice.
**IBS/low-FODMAP diet, with some extra weirdness. When I don't mess up, I feel great; when I do, there is nothing that helps but time.
Your session goal to "live your life" seems like such a good one. It would be so easy to put a lot of things on hold, so it seems wise to articulate that goal/intention clearly. And although that goal is a bit broad, in general your session goals seem focused and realistic.
DeleteI thought of you this summer when I was visiting my cousin who has very similar GI issues. I hope the eating goes well and that your cold starts to abate.
Good luck in your wilderness this week!
Hi Everyone! I'm back.
ReplyDeleteAn introduction: I'm Bardiac, an early moderning who's on sabbatical this academic year. I blog over at http://bardiac.blogspot.com.
Some thoughts on the topic (optional): I love the gardening metaphor. I think a really strong aspect of the metaphor, for me, is that it's not enough to plant stuff, though it's a start. You also have to plan ahead, and water, and keep on top of weeding.
I have a couple things I'm planting this session: a revision, and my main sabbatical project, and submitting my promotion materials. The big weed problems are procrastination and more procrastination. Watering, that's exercise, which I should do every single day.
Session Goals: revising a small paper, my sabbatical project (getting a solid draft of a paper in place), working on and submitting my promotion materials.
Goals for the Coming Week: Progress on the revision, MAYBE going to see the Northern Lights (or at least try), and regular exercise.
Thanks for hosting!
Weeding, and pruning, and gathering up the trimmings to dispose of, and dealing with the critters that want to chew on your plants . . . the metaphor just keeps on giving. Welcome back!
DeleteI love the weeding and watering pieces of your metaphor. For me, weeding might be grading? Or housework? TRQ stuff that threatens to crowd out the TLQ.
DeleteYour session goals seem realistic and clear! Sabbatical is so glorious. It's great that you still have so much of it on your horizon. I wonder how sabbatical fits in with the gardening metaphor. Maybe a truckload of fertilizer? Or a year of perfect climate for growing?
I hope work on the revision goes well, and if you go see the Northern Lights, I hope you'll tell us about it!
Hello! I’m Linda, AKA humming42. I’m an associate professor teaching in the humanities at a mid-sized state school in a small US town.
ReplyDeleteRegarding gardening. Maybe I have a little collection of herbs that I have never tried to grow before although I know I have enjoyed them in other situations. The herbs are in lovely little pots in the closet, stretching their little limbs in the light of very costly lamp. I sing to them when I remember to, but since I cannot carry a tune, I’m not sure if it’s helpful.
Session goals
1 Finish and submit Sweet
2 Write 25000 words on Tiny Project
3 Submit way, way overdue film review
4 Make plans with Overlooked co-author
5 Write Snow short essays (left over from late winter)
6 Submit abstract for Pop
7 Submit abstract for Roads
8 Write lit review and methods section for Hashtag
This week is more hectic than usual, with some kind of meeting every weekday. With that in mind, I am trying to keep my goals minimal.
This week
1 Write 1000 words on Sweet
2 Write 3 modules for online course
3 Set up reading group
4 Finish and submit current book review
5 Edit submitted book review
I love your closet herb garden image!
DeleteI'm so interested to see what happens to those herbs.
DeleteYou have ambitious writing goals this session. We are here to cheer you on and spray Bugge Spraye on the pests that try to thwart you!
I hope those meetings aren't like snails that eat up your other progress. Good luck!
HI everyone! I am a postdoc in NYC and my research focuses on health in a marginalized population. I’m hoping this session to plant some really quickly growing plants as I have very few papers under review right now, and I need to push some out quickly. I am having a very hard time balancing my work and other people’s work (like reviewing the work of those who I mentor). I need to get better at that. Basically, my way of doing things is to focus on one thing at a time, but I have so many projects, that’s not really feasible. My big way of coping for the past few months has been daily meditation - this really helps me feel calmer and more focused.
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
1. Review students’ methods and results for China paper - NOT DONE
2. Connect with student about Australia paper’s methods - SORT OF DONE
3. Review polydrug use thesis - NOT DONE
4. Connect with collaborators about drug use paper - NOT DONE
5. Get and learn STATA (ugh) - DONE
6. Flow chart for alcohol paper - NOT DONE, BUT STARTED
7. Connect with collaborator about YRBS methods paper - NOT DONE
8. Lancet re-review (held over) - NOT DONE
9. Get Aim 1 paper ready for mentor to read - DONE!
Funny, I did not even half of the things on my list, but I still felt it was a fairly successful week. But it was also a week in which I got a really bad cold plus had a sinus infection, and was out of commission for part of the week (I think I pushed myself to a state of exhaustion the prior week, so it caught up with me). Also, my microsoft office products stopped working on friday and that issue still has not been resolved. So, it was a week of major headaches (literally and figuratively), but I got two big things done (learning stata and getting the aim 1 paper done). Everything I didn’t do was stuff for other people.
Session goals
1. PTSD
2. Aim 1
3. Asthma X2
4. YRBS
5. Diss
6. Methods paper
7. Journal review
Basically all of my session goals are held over from last session, but I think this session they will get done because they are all SUPER close (except for the methods paper). This session I also have to start applying for faculty jobs - ugh.
This week’s goals
1. Get asthma paper close to submission-ready
2. PTSD findings writeup and next steps
3. Lancet re-review
4. Gender & Violence re-review
5. Connect with stats person about other asthma paper
6. Connect with collaborators about drug use paper and methods paper
Congratulations for focusing on your own work and getting things done even while you were sick! I hope you are feeling better and have been able to take time to rest and recover.
DeleteI echo DEH on the kudos for prioritizing your own work last week. It's amazing you got anything finished, what with the cold and software issues, but I'm glad you put your work first.
DeleteI hope your health is on the upswing.
Hello! I'm a recently tenured professor of medieval literature at a Northeastern (U.S.) R1 that I call Idyllic State. I moved here from a midwestern Tiny SLAC (Field College) and am still marveling at the many and varied differences between these two diametrically opposed work/living situations.
ReplyDeleteI have a husband (The Minister/TM, who is indeed a minister, with implications for my weekends), a six-year-old son (Bonaventure), and a very old cat, whose real name is Solange. And I love knitting, as well as the making of various things (beer, books, paper).
Writing-wise, I am thinking very short-term at the moment. So short-term, in fact, that I'm resisting sending hypothetical abstracts off to conferences, because I don't want to be committed to writing things that I might not feel like writing down the line. (I do have one hypothetical conference paper under review, but I'll be okay if it doesn't get accepted.) To fit the metaphor, then.... I guess I'm planting a few annuals. I also have a tree or two that I might need to tend (in the form of the book manuscript).
Honestly, a lot is up in the air right now--book revisions, conference paper--which makes the term hard to plan.
That up-in-the-airness is one annoyance. The second annoyance is that I've committed to too much stuff--AGAIN--and am now reaping the busy fruit of all those yesses. On the bright side, for the first time since switching jobs three years ago I have no new preps, so my coursework should be less onerous than usual.
Goals for the term:
1. Finish Wonder and submit it
2. Sit regularly
3. Research and plan Longer Impatience
4. Book revisions?? (Will know more in October)
5. Research and plan Conference Paper??
6. Nanowrimo…maybe
Goals for the week:
1. Send Wonder to writing group
2. Sit x 6
3. Stay 1 week ahead of seminar reading
4. Bibliography search for Longer Impatience
There are 10,000,000 other things to do this week, including hosting a party for my colleagues on Friday, but that's all more TRQ than -LQ, so I'll leave them off this time.
Ohhh and I forgot other session goals!
Delete7. Write for half an hour every work day
8. Daily language study (during the work week)
Actually, I want to redo my session goals. Is that okay? I don't like all the question marks up there.
Delete1. Submit Wonder.
2. Deal with other writing projects as they arise.
3. Write 30 minutes daily (M-F).
4. Language review daily (M-F).
5. Sit more.
6. Dillydally less.
Editing out those question marks gives you more definitive goals. :)
DeleteYour new goals also give you a plan that has the flexibility to deal with the unexpected.
DeleteI'll be eager to see how the daily practices go. I remember you saying that sometimes committing to doing things daily really helps you. The idea of that regularity seems calming and reassuring.
DeleteYou don't strike me as a dilly-dallyer, but I'll be interested to hear how you combat the weed/pest that is dilly-dallying. I'm a champion dilly-dallyer.
Oh, the dilly-dallying has been intense during this semester-start. It takes the form of internet meandering, Netflixing during (and then a little after) lunch, checking enrollments for no reason in the middle of writing an email, etc. etc. etc. It definitely prolongs the workday and is not even enjoyable (except maybe for the Netflix-during-lunch part, which I do not commit to eliminating).
DeleteI am a tenured instructor (we don't have ranks or other titles) at a community college in California where I've been for teaching for 20 years (!). I have a spouse and two teenage kids. I just finished my PhD two years again (completed PT while I worked FT), and I'm turning 50 during this session (!).
ReplyDeleteDeciding on session goals is difficult because I'm still struggling with whether to continue to pursue research. I have a heavy teaching load, I don't receive travel funds, and I don't have access to important databases. If I think of my productive life as a garden, I'm wondering if that plant just won't grow well in my hardiness zone.
My other problem is that I tend to need an extrinsic purpose for my work AND play, so I end up thinking, if I can't publish or go to conferences, why pursue much research? Or, why write fiction if I don't try to publish? Why improve my guitar playing if I'm not going to perform? I think this is a character flaw. And in my metaphorical garden, it probably means that I am reluctant to plant flowers or other things that provide beauty but no fruit.
I have wanted to do NaNoWriMo and have never felt like I could pull it off. I've thought about adding it as a session goal, but it might be unrealistic for me.
Also, I've never kept up with my exercise goals (except when I was on sabbatical). Should I just throw in the towel until my kids graduate from high school? That is the question.
This is all to say that I need to think just a little bit more about my session goals, so I will post them next week, and then come back here and add them as a reply to this comment.
This week:
1) Figure out session goals
2) Begin drafting a reading list for the SF course
3) Read four SF short stories and finish current novel
5) Go to both dentist appointments
6) Move my body around outside at least once
7) Sign up for local writing conference
This week goal #4:
DeleteLearn to count to 7.
:-)
DeleteThat whole "bloom where you are planted" thing never made sense to me. In fact, it just makes me mad. Some plants don't ever bloom in conditions that are not good for them. Others can produce some sort of stunted flower that can't fruit and seed. We're not all dandelions pushing up through the concrete. If you're not in the right hardiness zone, or soil conditions, or whatever, *for you*, trying to bloom where you're planted might be not only counter-productive but actually damaging.
Ah, so, that maybe hit a nerve here. Anyway, I think it is important to be able to think realistically about your conditions and what you can do within them. Maybe that could be a session goal.
Thank you for explaining why I find that metaphor annoying! On the one hand, I am doing fine for my work-place, but I feel like a potential tree who is being bonsai'd - the small form is valuable and healthy, but cramped and constrained. And then I think that that is rather arrogant of me!
DeleteBut it's a very interesting way to use the gardening metaphor both to consider one's own life and to develop models of what success looks like - palms don't grow in the Yukon without glasshouses, and that is fine, but it would be pretty daft to keep buying palm seedlings when you know you can't raise them...
Hi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteI am an Associate Professor at a SLAC. I live in a wonderful house on my own. I love the gardening metaphor. I have several work/life things that need tending to this semester. I see it as a garden where some things are quite demanding but where others still need some attention to, and where other things can be put out to pasture. My mother is in the final 6-12 months of her life, we just found this out last week. My plan for this semester is to visit her every 4 weeks. I will take Spring semester off as family leave to be with her full time. There are lots of not so nice issues bubbling up in my family with my nephews and my sister, so my goal is to use work/teaching as a focal point when I am at my home to keep me sane. I have cancelled my international travel this semester to make more time to travel to see my Mom (the putting out to pasture part).
Goals for this session:
1. Complete one chapter of the book (writing and copy editing)
2. Submit one article (about 75% written)
3. Do teaching prep/grading as needed, and with more leeway time than normal the weeks I will be traveling to my Mom's
4. Do admin to get family leave for the Spring
5. Exercise 3 x a week
6. Call friends as needed (1 x a week or more) to get support with the ugly family stuff
7. Visit Mom once every 4 weeks, call daily to check in with her or her caregivers
Goals for the week:
1. Prep for Hurricane (cheating, did this yesterday)
2. Finish typing in lost pages of Ch 6 (had a computer crash and lost digital copy but have hard copy)
3. Outline what needs to be done to complete Ch 6
4. Get all course readings on BB etc.
5. Exercise 3 x
Sorry to hear your family news, but it sounds like you are using the new information to make a good plan, and being able to let projects rest as priorities change and to take family leave sounds like a real benefit. Work - yes, even grading! - for me is a very grounding thing - the difficult bits are all about the politics and the people nonsense, but actually having a stack of reports to grade can feel as rewardingly achievable and necessary as digging over a flower bed. I hope your garden flourishes even in difficult times!
DeleteWow, that sounds hard. I hope we can help you keep work as "safe space" where you can take a break from the family issues.
DeleteHello everyone!
ReplyDeleteGlad to be back for a Fall session!
I am a recently promoted associate professor in physical science at a small undergraduate institution in a fairly isolated place. I have a kid in elementary school and partner who works 4 time zones away so there is a lot of back-and-forth travel and I’m a single parent the vast majority of the time. For the first time ever I have a teaching release this year so I’m planning to wring every possible bit of research and writing time out of the next 8 months.
This session my theme is going to be harvesting and canning – I have tons of produce, but if I don’t get it off the plants and into jars it will all rot in the fields… It is time to turn the raw material from several projects into actual papers, so that is my plan. I have three papers for which I’m in charge that are critical to finish because they are foundational for a lot of subsequent work.
Session goals:
1) Finish student paper with graduated student
2) Write Northern project paper
3) Write Pretty Area paper
4) Write at least part of Fiddly Methods paper, for sending to fiddly methods people to finish
5) Do all the data parts of ongoing joint project papers
This week and last week have been all weeds, all the time. Registration and beginning of term advising has overgrown every bit of time there was. This will get me started on writing again!
This week’s goals:
1) Submit finished paper (Yay!)
2) Plan out structure of new Northern paper
3) Pick one part of Northern paper and work on it
4) Nag co-author to send me draft of joint paper so I can add my parts to it
I just had to add this to the discussion of garden metaphors – a scientist and writer with an actual garden. I love the process he describes, sounds like a great way to approach our virtual gardens too? https://scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/my-latest-paper-is-a-garden/#more-3382
Canning! This metaphor is endlessly productive. It's good to have you with us again.
DeleteHi all,
ReplyDeleteSigning in a bit late! I'm JaneB, I'm mid-career at a squeezed-middle university in the UK in a STEM subject, and I'm looking at a very difficult year ahead:
** My Organisational Entity missed recruitment targets so are facing budget cuts (even though we are way under-staffed as we had two years of 175% recruitment without adding new staff so are stretched to the limit to teach the students we have - a first year intake of the same size would have been intolerable - but no, time for More Austerity),
** The whole university is undergoing (another) reorganisation which means my line manager will change, admin structures will change, and my current boss (and biggest workplace bugbear) may come back into the normal faculty (which is a pain for me because he's senior to me and his and my research specialities overlap about 90%, meaning he'll get to teach the few courses of our area that still exist after the brutal curriculum rewrite of the last few years (which he oversaw)
** the third and final year of the new curriculum is being taught for the first time
** thanks to "austerity" the modules we brought in over the last two years are all being de-resourced and hacked around (which means rewriting only we don't CALL it that because that would mean more workload points)
** and at some point in the next 24 months, maybe as early as May 2019 (May is exam season here, not vacation) we all have to move out of our building into temporary accomodation in multiple different on-campus locations to allow for a 2 year refurbishment (aka destruction of everything that makes our building pleasant to work in, judging by the work done elsewhere and so far in our building)
** Research Excellence Framework preparations are ramping up
** I'm expected to set up the paperwork for a new degree programme linked to my administrative role, and support students going on exchange visits to other countries despite the problems caused by Brexit for... well, everything. Currency. Visas. Exchange rates. Established agreements all made under EU law. But I'm meant to make it all work (along with other people, of course. But I have to sell it to students and I'm not feeling sanguine about that!).
** oh, and I'm "under performance management" which is "a supportive, non-punitive programme to address lack of research income" (I am told I exceed expectations in all other areas of the job. People who are really bad at teaching are NOT under this. This is particularly tricky as my current boss - nicknamed Incoming - is the person I have to be managed by (and has a worse research track record than I do, despite being senior, so it's doubly hard to take the lectures).
** I have a variety of creaks and chronic issues both physical and mental, and am currently contending with a persistent depressive episode, which may be partially situational (see above!) but is also just stoopid chemistry stuff.
I blog at what-was-I-doing.blogspot.com and whine a lot there too!
All that said, at least I have a continuing job (for the moment - horror stories and vague threats abound as part of the Austerity Drive), reasonably healthy if aging parents, a just-teenaged niece who still enjoys spending time with her aunt, and a manageable teaching load for the first semester (just don't ask about second semester...). Goals for the semester:
Delete1) write one grant application
2) Progress equivalent to one paper on publications. This can come from a combination of sources: as of now, ProblemChild1 has an R&R, ProblemChild2 needs all the analysis doing again then a rewrite, LikesMathsPaper1 needs reformatting for submission to a second journal following a rejection, Crispier is being rewritten for a new submission following a rejection (after revisions too which was annoying but I expected it - the rest of the team didn't), Gallimaufrey Review is about half written but I'm waiting on others, GreenProjectPaper2 needs a few more analyses and a paragraph writing then waiting on others, I hope FlatProject will have a Paper 1 fully drafted by Christmas (currently EnthusiasticMSc is doing some modelling on it under my supervision), LikesMathsPaper2 should also be drafted by Christmas, and Ferret, Foxy, Picky and Touchy continue to languish and nag for attention (there are probably others I can't think of right now. Given how many things are around, it seems odd I usually only get 3-4 things out a year, but... collaborations tend to drag ON AND ON). It's hard to set achievable goals on single things due to the other people aspects, so "one paper's worth" of work seems reasonable, by which I mean one full set of analyses, 8000 new words written, two rounds of content-editing/commenting on about 40 manuscript pages, one round of copy-editing, say 4 new figures made, one full submission and one round of revisions-from-editorial-comments.
3) self-care - to re-establish adequate habits around sleep, water and food, exercise, housework, sitting
4) self-care - financial. Sort out all the paperwork and re-establish a filing system of sorts and a more thoughtful budget.
5) self-care - Doing Things Other Than Work. NaNoWriMo, a substantial amount of handicraft progress, and continuing to explore bullet journalling or other ways of Making Marks On Paper Which Are Pleasing To Me.
6) teaching prep - have made reasonable progress on setting up new teaching and major revision of statistics handouts for the second trimester (say have a document which identifies the class topic/key outcomes and a couple of readings/activities identified for every new classroom session plus have at least half the statistics material done).
7) be kind to myself! Not bribe myself to shut up and put up with chocolate...
And goals for this week (cheatingish because it's over half gone already, also I'm nominally on leave...):
Delete1) make comments on latest versions of Crispier and ProblemChild1
2) make lists for Monday (and possibly go into the office and tidy my desk etc. over the weekend if I have a good day - when I booked this leave next week was the pre-semester prep week, but then the academic year was shifted. When I planned, it went prep week, first year induction week, returners week (induction stuff for second and third years, first year classes start), week when teaching for other years starts. However, the university has changed so that it's now: first year induction week, returners week PLUS all classes start - compressing 4 weeks to 2. AARGH
3) arrange to be interviewed by two possible felines at the shelter, and check out new cattery
4) finish current blanket square (knitting)
5) Go over the week for next week in my diary, and email various people to make appointments of various kinds
6) meal plan and to some extent meal prep for the week
7) Spend an hour in a coffee shop with paper and a pen thinking about this year's NaNoWriMo - do I start over with the first novel in my current sequence (which having written two and three now has continuity holes and other issues - mushing up the three of them into a coherent plot line and starting over would probably be a good move (I like to write by the write-destroy-rewrite-destroy-rewrite-edit method rather than the write once then edit edit edit method). Also fancy Autumnal lattes may be available now.
Oh, and the metaphor!
DeleteThis is my garden, so I get the blame for how it looks, which is kind of out of control. Lots of enthusiastically growing vines and self-seeding random stuff, mud, the paths are all overgrown, and I keep tripping over stuff. Sometimes nasty stuff like a half-rotted oil can, sometimes inconvenient stuff like a large rock, sometimes really cool stuff like a carved gargoyle from an old abbey or something. Currently in the sort of situation where I grab the secateurs and cut a few strands or pull a few weeds on my way somewhere else, just to keep the way to the gate open. There might be a shed in there somewhere, but I don't really remember. The windows of the house are overshadowed by growth, which taps on the windows on stormy days, but I don't really mind that much, because the shade is welcome in summer and all that green is a gift of rest to the eyes and the plants are all happily growing away to their own plans. Sometimes I take a book out and sit under a green canopy letting the pages be spattered with dancing sun spots and just enjoy being there.
I'm so glad you came back to do the metaphor! And I love how your metaphor paragraph ends. That part seems so important. Also, as before, I want to say how much I love your writing. I hope I'll get to read one of those novels.
DeleteAnd, JaneB, all of the re-org plus austerity sounds like a little bit of a shit show if you don't mind me saying. I'm not one to swear much, but holy cow that all sounds very difficult to deal with. You have my great sympathy, and we'll do our best to support you by commiserating with you and cheering you on. It seems like it would be difficult to focus on grants when you also need to get papers out for REF. Only so much JaneB to go around.