the grid

the grid

Monday 28 January 2019

Week 4 with apologies!

I thought I would have plenty of free time while traveling this weekend for a family event, and I ended up with barely a spare moment. Hence my failure to post here, so without further ado, here are last week's goals. How did things go? How are you feeling going forward? May your days be bright!


Contingent Cassandra
--Movement on at least 3 days in at least 2 modes, including at least one weight-lifting session
--Complete second individual contribution to curricular project
--Deal with technical issue; get curricular-project peer reviews assigned to others; work on my own editorial reviews
--Deal with 3 curricular project loose ends: review form, copyright/licensing page, and description page
--Continue curriculum project planning and organizing (schedule at least conference-presentation planning and grant-report writing) 
--Continue morning writing on days I'm working at home (individual curricular project submission; topic brainstorming)
--take or at least schedule a day off in the near future (this week or next) 
--make progress on financial stocktaking and organizing
--Decide what professional book I should read next (and maybe start reading it) 
--Keep working on getting to bed earlier

Dame Eleanor Hull
Health: the usual sleep, stretch, exercise, eat safely. 
Research: work on conference paper 1; keep up with language work; ILL one or more books.
Teaching: assign and check two sets of in-class writing; add to teaching-plan documents for both classes. 
Admin: numbers on teaching doc; search-committee thing; semesterly form. 
Life Stuff: more dull tasks. 

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Survive the airports.
Survive the committee meetings. 
Give the presentations. 
Knit half an hour a day. 
Write 500 words a day. 
Edit 4 pages a day.
Draw one character’s face.

Good Enough Woman
1) Take son on outing to lunch and aquarium store.
2) Study questions for one SF story.
3) Draft curriculum policy (getting to be TRQ)
4) Draft department efficiency report.
5) Write 200 words related to novel (notes, character sketch, etc.)
6) Grading and prep.

heu mihi
1. 2500 words of fiction.
2. Book revisions: Better articulate concept M using scholar AP; draft section on later chapters of MP.
3. Exercise x5, sit x5, language x4, write/research x5.
4. Weekly accounting.
5. Read Malory book 8.
6. Read and prep for writing group.

humming42
1 read two books
2 read February essay materials
3 collect data for February essay

JaneB
1) Teaching: finish small assignment marking, check marking for big module (TRQ but it's here so it can be ticked off). Make a detailed list of teaching prep needed and check the (frequently changing) online timetable. Set the first half of the exam questions for the new module with the short answer exam (which needs lots of questions). Start to enter resit exam questions for first year module (not due until July, but if I don't do it now it will be a lot more work then...)
2) self-care: do something not-work every evening other than stare at the phone, go to bed early on work nights, drink 1.5-2 l of water a day and focus on hitting >5 fruit and veg portions a day. 
3) research: Work on ScaryPilotPaper, send zero draft to rest of team. Set up fourth new run for ProblemChild2. Reply to emails about Gallimaufray. 
4) making stuff and being creative: start test swatch for next block.
5) domestic chaos reduction 
Remove layer of christmas detritus from living room. Catch up with washing up.

KJHaxton
1. Finish workload funding application
2. do paperwork for sustainable committee meeting
3. mark coursework
4. draft social workload presentation
5. start working through edits to Albatross book chapter
6. Finish and submit Enhancement ethics
7. if time, work on screencast on diagnostic

oceangirl101
1. Teaching prep - redo both ppoints, work on BB site
2. Edits on co-authored book
3. List of things to complete in lab
4. Start to look at R and R
5. Start to look at figures for article submission
6. Fun thing x 2
7. Gym x 3, and additional walk or ?

Susan
1. Teaching: finish getting my course site organized.
2. Research: read book for book review #2 
3. Walk/ exercise regularly
4. Get into healthy sleep cycle for semester

waffles
1. Talk with CTSA and revise recruitment strategy of K.
2. Read over and revise human subjects training section
3. Give K to mentor for final review.
4. Revise marriage paper and send back to collaborator
5. Do my parts of B's paper and send back to him.
6. Try to finish JAMA peds paper up to discussion. Make outline for discussion.
7. For my crafting goal: Finish the uterus. :)

28 comments:

  1. I still feel like almost everything is taking lots of effort, like swimming upstream against a hard current. But I am slowly getting things done even if my concentration powers/level of energy do not seem to be returning in any quick manner. Baby steps. It helps that I am not giving myself huge goals. I am forcing myself to work on a hard R and R and then complete an Encyclopedia entry, as a means of getting back to the practice of writing and eventually the book. This week I just have to figure out where I am with the book's figures but no book writing yet. It will probably be Feb 15 when that happens.

    Last week:
    1. Teaching prep - redo both ppoints, work on BB site YES
    2. Edits on co-authored book YES
    3. List of things to complete in lab YES
    4. Start to look at R and R NO
    5. Start to look at figures for article submission NO
    6. Fun thing x 2 YES
    7. Gym x 3, and additional walk or ? YES

    This week:
    1. Submit job description for post doc
    2. Read and comment on grad student's proposal
    3. Start and maybe finish hard R and R
    4. Figures for Encyclo - make a list
    5. Begin to look at figures for book and email figure person to see where we stand
    6. Gym x 3 plus one more movement activity
    7. Fun x 2

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From one of my dives into someone else's archives, three good words/reminders: pace, perspective, peace. http://backyardindustry.org/placeholder/

      Better to take baby steps in the right direction than to run like hell in the wrong one.

      Delete
    2. Yes, small steps. And congratulate or reward yourself on each one that you manage--it's a good time to be very very nice to yourself.

      Delete
    3. Our cultures have no idea how to deal with grief or how to accommodate it, so it seems that those of us who find ourselves grieving often have no idea what others expect from us. You should do what is best for you, as ever.

      Delete
    4. The kind and supportive words are so appreciated. I am amazed at how bad we can be at this. The number of people in my department who did not even acknowledge my mother's death when I came back appalled me but did not necessarily surprise me. My department is not a social or at times, very supportive place, although my close colleagues have been enormously supportive. It makes a big difference. I give young people a pass because they may have never experienced deep loss, but folks my age or older, its a different sort of thing.

      Delete
    5. Possibly they are thinking of what they would want and not what you would want. At least, that's a charitable way of looking at it, if it helps any.

      IRL I am extremely reserved. I was on sabbatical when my mother died, said nothing about it then, and when it came out later, one of my colleagues said "Why didn't you TELL us?" My response was along the lines of "Why would I?" I didn't want to talk about it at all, or deal with condolences. If you were my colleague, I might say something like "Good to have you back" and then try to take my cues from your response. But maybe your department isn't managing even that much, and if that's the case, I'm sorry.

      Delete
  2. I'm feeling kind of...blah. Doldrumish. For no discernible reason, except that this week (Week 2) is a crazy-meeting week, and I'm pretty sick of those. This morning I realized that I have 8 service assignments this year, plus I'm doing a teaching-development workshop (year-long), and a twice-a-semester workshop/seminar on Buddhism and Contemporary Literature. The latter is *awesome* and I love it, but that's 10 things (on top of teaching, research, and advising), and frankly--what the hell have I done to myself?

    Luckily 4 of those things (2 committees & the workshop/seminars) will end this year, and 1 or 2 more will end the year after. So I just need to not say yes to anything for awhile.

    Last week:
    1. 2500 words of fiction. --A little over 1700.
    2. Book revisions: Better articulate concept M using scholar AP; draft section on later chapters of MP. -Not sure why AP was suggested as a good resource for M, but will keep looking into it. Section drafted.
    3. Exercise x5 -YES, sit x5 -YES, language x4 -X3, write/research x5 -YES.
    4. Weekly accounting. --Yes, but don't have it in front of me. Worked about 30 hours (how is this so low when it feels like I work so much?), about 60% teaching, 15% service, 25% research, or thereabouts.
    5. Read Malory book 8. --Didn't finish.
    6. Read and prep for writing group. --Yes. Need to email notes to writer, though.

    I'm also wondering whether my hypervigilant work-accounting is contributing to my bad mood. I'm going to give it one more week.

    This week:
    1. Weekly accounting
    2. Write 2500 words of fiction, at 500/day (maybe having daily goals will keep me on track. I'm really sick of this project, but I don't want to abandon it so close to the end!)
    3. Exercise x5, sit x5, write x5, language x5.
    4. Book revisions: Enter edits into chapter 5; keep working on M via AP; contact editor for next steps.
    5. Finish Malory book 8 and read 50 pages of book 9.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is good cause to think that hypervigilant work-accounting could be a source of feeling low, especially in light of your observation that 30 hours is a number so low that feels like so much. I decided to stop tracking my every half hour because I didn't schedule any fun or relaxation into my days, and I felt guilty if I wasn't doing something REALLY IMPORTANT all the time. I made myself a little crazy.

      Put those time tracking issues together with your feeling of being overcommitted and I can imagine that it must be hard even to breathe. Just my observations.

      Delete
    2. My thought reading this is that you've got a lot of different things going, and it's hard to keep up with all of them. I have trouble with changing gears. Maybe you do better than I do, but you need to build transition time. There are some things that don't need a huge amount of time, but they need focus.

      Delete
    3. Yes on transition time: If I have two free hours, I think, Oh good, I can do 30 minutes of language, 30 minutes of writing, and have an hour for class prep. Then it turns out that I work for like 82 of those 120 minutes, and I can't figure out what's happened, and it stresses me out. I'm trying 1 more week of the tracking, because I do really love adding up numbers, but then I'm going to reassess.

      Delete
  3. I'm in the home stretch for my K, so that is almost 100% my focus. Last week I got really down bc two faculty tag teamed a meeting with another postdoc in which they were trying to woo him to accept a faculty position offer here. They did it with the office door open - and all of us postdocs sit in an open area just outside that office. I think I was the only one around - and I heard it all. This postdoc is incredibly cocky and as one of few men in the field, has everyone fawning over him. I then heard him humblebrag all day about how much everyone wants him to stay. Later another faculty offered him a leadership position in a research center - right in the middle of the open postdoc area. It really sucked. Open office areas in academia are really torturous. Also, private conversations really need to happen behind closed doors - and all of those convos should have been in private.

    Goals from last week:
    1. Talk with CTSA and revise recruitment strategy of K. DONE
    2. Read over and revise human subjects training section DONE
    3. Give K to mentor for final review. DONE
    4. Revise marriage paper and send back to collaborator DONE
    5. Do my parts of B's paper and send back to him. DONE
    6. Try to finish JAMA peds paper up to discussion. Make outline for discussion. NOT DONE - we need to have a team meeting to talk about the aims of the paper
    7. For my crafting goal: Finish the uterus. NOT DONE


    Goals for this week:

    I aim to send my K to our grants office on Friday - so that is my main goal. I made almost all of my mentor's suggested edits on my K, so I have a few main objectives
    1. Talk to mentor about a couple things that I need her help thinking through (e.g., how to talk about sample size for aims 1 and 2)
    2. Revise K based on those discussions (hoping we can talk through them today)
    3. Read over entire K very carefully (maybe have my mac read it to me). My mentor tends to be a bit sloppy when she edits (due to track changes) and leaves a lot of errors in her wake, so I need to check carefully for those. (of note, I really wish she would lower her amount of editing as it feels like just writing style changes rather than helping to make things better).
    4. Separate sections into separate documents
    5. Send it to my grants person!
    6. Work on JAMA peds paper a bit to see if I can make results clearer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Humblebrag Postdoc Boy sounds like a nightmare. I'm sorry that faculty are so incredibly oblivious to their inappropriate public conversations.

      Huge progress on things this week--I hope it will be a great relief to have your K move forward.

      Delete
    2. Good grief, that's just egregious. Yuck. I'm sorry.

      Delete
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    ReplyDelete
  5. So, my sister's visit had me so frazzled that I completely forgot a number of things I had to do on the admin side of life.
    How did I do?
    Susan
    1. Teaching: finish getting my course site organized - mostly, though I keep finding gaps
    2. Research: read book for book review #2 NO
    3. Walk/ exercise regularly Yes, pretty much
    4. Get into healthy sleep cycle for semester Done fairly well on this

    What snagged me was graduate admissions, developing the program for a conference I'm organizing, and oh, I have to do taxes for the UK. Also, I had a fundraiser for an organization whose board I serve on, and. . . So, yeah, not as much as I'd hoped.

    Goals for this week:
    1. Finish last course updates (TRQ)
    2. Finish graduate fellowship recommendations (TRQ)
    3. Finish conference program (TRQ)
    4. Do taxes (TRQ)
    These should all be done by Friday, so the weekend is free
    5. Start reading book for review
    6. Keep up with exercise
    7. Keep sleep schedule

    This feels woefully uninspired.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Some weeks are uninspired, and there's little to be done about it. Getting all of this done will feel really good, though!

      Delete
    2. Yes, when it's all TRQ it's hard to feel inspired! My word for the year is "finish," and I feel like it's sad because it's totally uninspired but the reality is that things need to get done. Just make sure there's a little room for something sparkling and bright.

      Delete
  6. How I did:
    Health: the usual sleep, stretch, exercise, eat safely. TRIED. Exercise/stretching, YES. It took awhile to work out that the gut reaction was to a new brand of calcium supplement, with more maltodextrin (a polysaccharide, the P in FODMAP). Now that I know that, I hope the sleep will improve again.
    Research: work on conference paper 1; keep up with language work; ILL one or more books. VERY LITTLE, YES, NO. Some translation work I hadn't bargained for, I think.
    Teaching: assign and check two sets of in-class writing; add to teaching-plan documents for both classes. NO.
    Admin: numbers on teaching doc; search-committee thing; semesterly form. YES, YES, NO.
    Life Stuff: more dull tasks. TWO.

    This week:
    Health: the usual sleep, stretch, exercise, eat safely.
    Research: work on conference paper 1; keep up with language work; ILL one or more books; more translation style checking.
    Teaching: Make up writing assignment 1 for gen ed class; assign and check online work for two snow days.
    Admin: semesterly form; new form.
    Life Stuff: more dull tasks (pick any three). Cook something new.

    I've been looking at images of Bullet Journals, trying to get new ideas for organizing my little Moleskine notebook. Lately I've been less assiduous about using it, more inclined to write narratives of what I need to do (or have done) in my typed journal. This may just be because I'm spending more time in the house. When I don't have access to my journal, I need the notebook more. But I wondered if changing it up would make me more interested in using it. Some of the images are amazing---very pretty, and very NOT anything I'd have the patience to set up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe if you just got some fund pens to do color coding and maybe some fun flags that could re-inspire you?

      Delete
    2. That is just the sort of thing I admire and lack the patience for. Picking up and putting down different pens won’t happen. Changing layout might.

      Delete
  7. So. Since I let Windows update my desk computer, when I try to visit this site, the computer crashes. It’s fine from my iPad. There’s a message about DPC Watchdog Violation. Does this mean anything to any of you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ick. No idea what that means...I work mostly in Chrome these days. But I'm interested to hear if someone has more insight.

      Delete
    2. Actually, it might have been a coincidence that it happened when I tried to get here. I think the problem might have arisen from plugging in and then unplugging a couple of devices yesterday for a Skype call. I hope.

      Delete
  8. Last week
    1. Finish workload funding application - gave up, too stressful
    2. do paperwork for sustainable committee meeting - done, but now more work
    3. mark coursework - done
    4. draft social workload presentation - done and delivered today
    5. start working through edits to Albatross book chapter - started
    6. Finish and submit Enhancement ethics - nearly
    7. if time, work on screencast on diagnostic - nope

    This week
    1. Complete sustainability application draft
    2. Finish and submit Enhancement ethics
    3. Start planning major outreach event
    4. Make progress on Albatross edits
    5. Mark coursework (new semester marking)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope your presentation went well. Your list from last week reminds of a tree with so many branches, and how we have to edge out onto each one in order to complete what is required, then moving back to center to engage the next.

      Delete
  9. Last week:
    1 read two books: NO
    2 read February essay materials: YES
    3 collect data for February essay: YES

    Lots of things are TRQ now and I look forward to a deep breath on he other side.

    This week:
    1 Submit February essay
    2 Submit one book review
    3 Submit article review

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good luck on those submissions and getting to the other side!

      Delete
  10. 1) Take son on outing to lunch and aquarium store. DONE.
    2) Study questions for one SF story. NOT DONE.
    3) Draft curriculum policy (getting to be TRQ). DONE.
    4) Draft department efficiency report. DONE.
    5) Write 200 words related to novel (notes, character sketch, etc.) NOT DONE.
    6) Grading and prep. DONE, I GUESS? I mean, it's never done, is it?

    Sheesh, Mondays-Thursdays are always crazy.

    I won't get much other than TRQ done during the remainder of this week. Daughter has mock trial at the courthouse all day Saturday, and Husband's b-day party / Super Bowl party is Sunday. I'll be doing mostly TRQ and family stuff.

    1) Walk or yoga or 7-minute workout x3
    2) 200 words related to novel
    3) Help to make sure Husband feels celebrated; surrender to party planning and prepping on Sunday.

    Oh, and I finished my 21-day elimination diet! It made me feel five years younger: my eczema got better and my joints felt stronger and less achy. But I did get a weird rash that seems like what some call at "keto rash" (even though I wasn't doing keto). It was a great experience for data collection and habit formation.

    But it sure was nice to have some port and chocolate last night. Yum. The jury is still out on whether or not port and chocolate are trigger foods. I'm hoping not! They are what I missed the most.

    ReplyDelete