Remember that narrative adventure you launched a couple of months ago? How quickly this session moved forward. Now it’s time to move toward closure...what might you consider for the final scene, the final line of your story? Coincidentally, I came across this article from the Washington Post today, which offers one critic’s list of best last lines from novels.
Last week’s goals are posted below. Wishing you peace in the coming week.
Contingent Cassandra
-Continue walking regularly; also stretch and lift weights at least 1x each
--Take a full day off (tomorrow) (this can and will be done)
--Do tax extension request
--Work on garden at least one day
--Clear out back of car to enable transporting of garden materials for more work
--Take at least a half-day off later in week (this might turn out to overlap with gardening or taking a longer walk)
--Fit in one bit of reflective writing if possible
--Set stage for continued work on curricular project (this may just mean catching up with grading and class planning, since the grading load for the next 3-4 weeks actually won't be too bad if I can clear the backlog, though there are other things to do, such as an annual report and some committee work)
--order seeds and bulbs for the spring (3 sources)
Dame Eleanor Hull
Health: the usual; try a digestive enzyme that is not a lactobacillus of any kind.
Research: Complete the translation work (intro, style checking).
Teaching: Grade two sets of papers.
Life Stuff: get the house tidied up to re-list, get tax stuff to the accountant.
Good Enough Woman
1) One hour on conference paper.
2) 30 minutes freewriting and brainstorming for novel. I don't think I'll get much written during this term, but maybe I can plan and be ready to write over summer.
3) Pay bills.
4) Start taxes.
5) Avoid having a heart attack while daughter is on field trip (with the 8th-grade band) to Disneyland.
heu mihi
1. Finish MS revisions?
2. Read & comment on mentee's essay
3. Get back to running (x3); yoga x2; sit x5
4. Clean the house
5. Teaching misc: rec letter, grading, sample essay, watch silly movie, read
humming42
1 Submit film review
2 Get 75% caught up on grading
3 Recruit judges for March conference
4 Recruit participants for April conference
KJHaxton
1. Analyse data for sustainable paper, collect literature and be prepared to write at Friday's writing retreat (if I go, generally too tired on Fridays so may not be wise)
2. Write class for Tuesday, review class materials for Thursday
3. Write class for week after.
JaneB
1) self-care: do something not-work every evening other than stare at phone, go to bed early, drink 1.5-2 l of water a day and focus on hitting >5 fruit and veg portions a day, cut down refined sugar.
2) making stuff and being creative: play with patterns
3) domestic chaos reduction: Catch up with washing up. send mother's birthday present and remember to call on the day. Session with Decluttering Woman next Saturday.
4) Teaching: prepare for next week, set first half of exam Qs for new module, set up resit exam for first year module, go to meeting about redesign of two first year modules (ugh)
5) research: Continue ProblemChild2 analysis. Try and set up time to talk about FlatProject draft. Reply to difficult email about Gallimaufray. Make list of projects in progress so I DON'T forget things...
oceangirl101
1. Write 1000 words of CH3
2. Encyclo figures to drafter
3. Rank post-doc apps
4. Start grading class papers
5. Fun x 2
6. Exercise x 3
7. Send tax stuff off
Susan
1. Spend 4 hours reading for Collaboration. If I can do more, great, but that's a start.
2. Grade papers
3. Finish conference stuff
4. Buy wine, beer & soft drinks for conference
5. Keep reading at night
6. Get back onto good sleep pattern
waffles
PTSD paper
1. Get references
2. Add in how victimization was measured
3. Outline discussion
4. Email team about interactions
5. Find syndemics articles
6. Find reference about PTSD being super bad
Asthma paper 1. Fill in with more details about measures
2. Figure out what stats need to be done to tell a good story
3. Possibly re-run stats and revise results
Heh. The penultimate scenes in movies are always the ones where things look impossible right before the ultimate resolution and happy ever after, right? My brain is too tired and foggy to think of last lines - I've been thanked several times lately for my frankness and honesty and that's a sure sign that my internal filters are on the blink and I'm saying exactly what I think with limited censoring. Oh well, it's probably a better way to be, but it would mean my final narrative line would be suggesting something anatomically impossible, or 'bite me'. The forces of darkness are still annoying me, I need a version of the bugge spray for them.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Analyse data for sustainable paper, collect literature and be prepared to write at Friday's writing retreat (if I go, generally too tired on Fridays so may not be wise)
2. Write class for Tuesday, review class materials for Thursday
3. Write class for week after.
1. done a bit, made some figures, read a lot of papers, but didn't go to Friday's writing retreat as brain was mush. I did do some other stuff including picking up the certificate that a lot of work a few weeks ago earned us. It's a school level recognition thing and as the person who cares about the things that people like to have but don't want to put effort into, I do these things so I thought I'd go get my certificate.
2. DONE and 3. partially DONE, just need to polish on Monday.
I also managed to sneak in a draft of a new faculty level strategy document ahead of meetings this coming week so I suspect that was largely unfiltered 'what I think we should do' stuff so hopefully I remembered to flag it as a draughty draft in need of refinement. AND I wrote the first (but very decent) draft of a small funding application and got it on the internal 'we must review all funding applications' radar.
This week:
1. Nail the last of the teaching prep for weeks 10 and 11 and find a way to make the sessions interesting and interactive
2. Mark the work that's lurking (but that I have not had the brain function this weekend to tackle
3. write the sustainability paper (and if not write, outline extensively and format the flippin' references)
4. finish the funding application and send it off for internal review/risk assessing whatevs. Submit if possible.
5. stop feeling so freaked out by the forces of darkness because nothing they do is (a) interesting to me, (b) surprising for me (c) out of character for them. They are what they are and I am what I am and that's just how it is.
Like your point 5! I've been doing OK at that this week... mostly with the muffling help of a cold, it's amazing how much a drippy nose and fuzzy sinuses can take your mind of the iniquities of all manner of externalities...
DeleteFor me, the forces of darkness are negative self talk...I'm on spring break this week and trying to negotiate with those panicky monsters in my head. Adding to this because I think it's important to recognize the different forces of darkness we contend with, and how important the work is of lifting each other up.
DeleteWell, I'm still in the middle of volume 2 of my trilogy. This isn't an end of anything, semester-wise, since Easter is late this year, so I think in the model it's more like the beat that comes part way through a part 2, when the problems have become clear and the people and dynamics of the party for this part of the journey established. They may still all be in the woods, but they've got their hands on a map or a guide or stumbled to the shores of the great river, so they have an idea of where they are going next, of the direction to the McGuffin or party member or secret about the antagonist's or protagonist's origin which will set up the third volume's bigger highs and deeper lows and eventual direct conflict and resolution. I like the idea of breaking through the vegetation onto the shore of the great river (where there may or may not be a boat, or days of beating along the shore line to reach the river town, or whatever - more challenges to overcome, but at least they now know roughly where they are. Coincidentally, one of this week's tasks will be to make a list of all the teaching prep and marking between me and "summer", such as it is...
ReplyDeletelast week:
1) self-care: do something not-work every evening other than stare at phone, go to bed early, drink 1.5-2 l of water a day and focus on hitting >5 fruit and veg portions a day, cut down refined sugar. mostly, some days, some days, yes, most days. I took a sick day Tuesday because I was just DONE, and that helped a lot, plus I could stick to roughly 8 hours days since the coming week is lighter on teaching. Thursday I started a cold... :-(
2) making stuff and being creative: play with patterns not really, but I started a new square anyway - 24 rows done
3) domestic chaos reduction: Catch up with washing up. send mother's birthday present and remember to call on the day. Session with Decluttering Woman next Saturday. NO, this is clearly this season's thing that will not happen. Yes (sent late, but called on the day), cancelled due to me having a cold :-(
4) Teaching: prepare for next week, set first half of exam Qs for new module, set up resit exam for first year module, go to meeting about redesign of two first year modules (ugh) Yes, yes, yes, yes - the serious tedium of setting questions in the VLE was actually a very good job for the hours between student meetings/classes on the two cold-laden days. yay!
5) research: Continue ProblemChild2 analysis. Try and set up time to talk about FlatProject draft. Reply to difficult email about Gallimaufray. Make list of projects in progress so I DON'T forget things... yes, in principle, no, no but I decorated the front of a new exercise book type notebook to do it in and wrote "index" at the front...
analysis not a great week in some ways, and I didn't have enough patience and kindness with some students who are jumping up and down on my nerves with their neediness, forgetfulness and general total unreadiness to graduate - although honestly, if they're in the last two weeks of their project, still collecting data (due entirely to their own dilly-dallying) and want me to sign an extension form because they're stressed about the amount of work they have to do, or have submitted a multi-thousand word draft and had written and verbal feedback plus attended all the classes we put on plus supposedly read literally hundreds of academic papers and passed many modules, but say they have no idea what to put in a discussion session (we had a tutorial on that last week. Six people attended, and you were one of them. You said at the end that you had no questions. But you took no friggin' notes, did you?) or how to make a graph, please will I show them RIGHT NOW, then it's just HARD to be patient and kind and assume the best of them. But it's another week passed.
the coming week
DeleteI'll work from home Monday, then be at work with a light class load but a lot of prep to do (and no doubt more challenging interruptions from stressed project students) the rest of the week. Assuming my cold stays a mild cold, and doesn't turn into a chest or throat thing, I'll be going to Parentville at the end of the week, back next Sunday (I teach first thing Monday... sigh...).
goals:
1) self-care: do something not-work every evening other than stare at phone, go to bed early, drink 1.5-2 l of water a day and focus on hitting >5 fruit and veg portions a day, cut down refined sugar.
2) making stuff and being creative: complete this colour square
3) domestic chaos reduction: Catch up with washing up. Clean bathroom and empty bins mid-week before going away at the weekend.
4) Teaching: prepare for next two weeks
5) research: Begin ProblemChild2 rough redraft. Set up time to talk about FlatProject draft. Reply to difficult email about Gallimaufray. Make list of projects in progress so I DON'T forget things...
I love the analogy of pushing away the brush to see the clear field, or the river, or whatever vista it is that we're headed to next. There really never is a place where we are done, is there? And I wonder if that's unique to academia to this degree.
DeleteI hope that cold stays small and ultimately goes away without causing you any more discomforts.
Re: the next sessions
ReplyDeleteFrom responses last week, I propose:
a Spring intersession following directly after this, ending mid-May
a summer session end of May to the end of August
We have four volunteers for co-hosting, me, DEH, heu mihi and Susan. Any preferences? I'd prefer to do the intersessional, as I will have some travel/escapism disruption this summer...
I'd prefer to do the summer, since the last bit of the semester looks pretty hectic.
DeleteI can do either, with the previous caveat about my co-hoster being flexible in case I suddenly have the perfect storm of moving-related stuff to do (at this point I would welcome said storm if we could just get this thing done).
DeleteI did already talk about the end of the play of my current life - a sword fight between me and imposter syndrome. The fight ends with my death (or am I really dead?). A friend of mine who is a playwright was on the Stephen Colbert show this week - I wonder if I can convince her to write this play? :)
ReplyDeleteLast week:
PTSD paper
1. Get references - DONE
2. Add in how victimization was measured - DONE
3. Outline discussion - DONE
4. Email team about interactions - DONE
5. Find syndemics articles - DONE
6. Find reference about PTSD being super bad - DONE
Asthma paper
1. Fill in with more details about measures - DONE
2. Figure out what stats need to be done to tell a good story - DONE
3. Possibly re-run stats and revise results - DONE
My plan for this week is to take a similar approach to another paper I am working on. For my intersectionality paper, I will figure out all the small steps and work through them systematically. I'd like to have a decently revised draft by the end of this week. My roommate gets back this coming weekend - boo! I have really enjoyed having her gone.
Plan for this week:
1. Intersectionality paper
a. Make detailed plan
b. Work through plan
2. Reviews - get these done!
3. Review new draft of student's paper
4. Try to do some work on state of the literature paper
This morning I got an email from a colleague telling me I'm a co-author on a paper - which is awesome, but she needs me to draft the intro(!). It makes me overwhelmed right when I am feeling like I am getting on top of my backlog. It'll all be okay though.
Look at all that DONE on your list. Fantastic. I hope the week we're in brings you more satisfaction of completion. Congrats on the surprise co-authorship, and best wishes for a speedy intro draft!
DeleteThe final scene would have to be me/my character shouldering her pack again and heading out, but you'll need to know where she is now, in the penultimate scene: sitting in a cell, with the contents of her pack and those of several caches spread out in the area outside, while various enemy MPs sort through the whole mass after she was made to unpack it all (the excuse is that there might be explosives, although we all know there aren't any).
ReplyDeleteThis is a game we play, on both sides. My superiors order me to cooperate, within reason (not so much as to raise suspicions); theirs make them raid the obvious caches; I leave only bits and pieces of my own in the obvious places---food, spare clothing, soap and a towel so I can clean up once in awhile---the serious stuff needed to supply next season's campaign is stashed elsewhere. All the same, it's annoying and humiliating, and today, to make matters worse, as I was taken into custody I stubbed my toe badly and it has been throbbing all the time I unpacked and sat around. It's all my own fault for being clumsy. The MPs aren't roughing me up. Could be worse. But I don't want to be here, I have things to do, and it feels like a waste of time though I know it's all part of the process. I've been through it before, and so have my captors. There's one who's secretly on my side, and if he were here we'd exchange hand signals or something, but he isn't. Sometimes when we do this, I'm offered food or a hot drink; today it's the staff locker room, where I take a long hot shower. When I get out, I'm free to go, once I re-pack all my things. They never fit back in the bags the way they did before, and I know I won't be able to find some of the stuff I need, until probably at some future time when I'm desperate for a long piece of twine I turn everything out and find the soap and comb I haven't seen in weeks.
I know they're just going to run this same scenario in a week or so, but in the meantime I have to play the game of going and re-stocking the known caches, while continuing to try to map a little farther afield, communicate with the recalcitrant locals, and get decent intel back to my side.
This is the fictionalized version of preparing for the brokers' tour of our house. The stubbed toe is real. Last year when we did this, I didn't so much mind strangers in my space because I felt like the house wasn't ours any longer, it would soon be someone else's, and we'd be able to pack everything and get out. Now I am not so optimistic about a quick end to the process. It has to be lived through, but I still have to try to live my life and get my work done while keeping everything tidy enough to let other people see. I hate this.
DeleteI totally get hating it, but this version is, at least, brilliant.
DeleteI know you've been there recently! Thinking this out made me feel much better while I was limping around the house stashing stuff. I can imagine a whole novel that's really an allegorized version of the process of showing/selling/moving while performing adequately at my day job. It took me awhile to get into the story idea but now it's really working for me.
DeleteSo, in the real world, how I did:
ReplyDeleteHealth: the usual; try a digestive enzyme that is not a lactobacillus of any kind. Excellent on exercise; no to the enzyme.
Research: Complete the translation work (intro, style checking). Completed the intro; did not check style.
Teaching: Grade two sets of papers. 1 1/3.
Life Stuff: get the house tidied up to re-list, get tax stuff to the accountant. Yes, and no.
New goals:
Health: the usual.
Research: style check half of the translation; make minor corrections to the intro and submit it; do a little work on the next conference paper.
Teaching: Finish grading one set of papers. Write one more assignment.
Life Stuff: get tax stuff to the accountant. Haircut.
Hmm. . .I don't seem to have settled on a narrative at the beginning, which is sort of how this session has gone: quickly, and without much sense of order or structure. So I guess I'll just keep trudging, without a lot of sense of where I am or where I'm going. That seems to be where I am at the moment, and it's actually not all that bad; just a bit discouraging at times.
ReplyDeleteThere wasn't a lot of break in Spring Break, which is more discouraging/grumpy-making somehow than an ordinary busy week, but coming to the end did at least encourage me to cut my losses and do the shortcut version of one major grading task, which was the right approach by then in any case. I also managed to take the planned day off. So that's something.
Last week's goals:
-Continue walking regularly; also stretch and lift weights at least 1x each [some walking; didn't stretch or weight lift]
--Take a full day off (tomorrow) (this can and will be done)[done]
--Do tax extension request [no]
--Work on garden at least one day [no]
--Clear out back of car to enable transporting of garden materials for more work [no]
--Take at least a half-day off later in week (this might turn out to overlap with gardening or taking a longer walk)[no]
--Fit in one bit of reflective writing if possible [no]
--Set stage for continued work on curricular project (this may just mean catching up with grading and class planning, since the grading load for the next 3-4 weeks actually won't be too bad if I can clear the backlog, though there are other things to do, such as an annual report and some committee work) [somewhat]
--order seeds and bulbs for the spring (3 sources) [no]
In short, it was a rather discouraging week.
Goals for the coming week:
--Continue walking regularly
--Do tax extension request
--Work on garden at least one day
--Clear out back of car
--Plan and deliver conference presentation on curricular project
--order seeds and bulbs for the spring (3 sources)
This is a new week, you can turn this around! Despite the grading...
DeleteIt's already Wednesday, and I don't think that I ever fully inhabited the motif of the journey (although I like it very much and have enjoyed reading everyone else's!), so I'll jump in.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Finish MS revisions? -YES. Submitted yesterday (Tuesday).
2. Read & comment on mentee's essay -Yes
3. Get back to running (x3); yoga x2; sit x5 -Running and yoga, yes. Sitting, no, not even once.
4. Clean the house -Yes.
5. Teaching misc: rec letter, grading, sample essay, watch silly movie, read -Yes!
Well, it was a productive spring break, as far as it goes. But I spent way too much time at my desk. Still, the MS is done (until copyedits come in), and I am determined to take at least a little break before I get into the next projects (Kalamazoo essay & article due 6/15).
I also managed to get sick over the weekend, which I'm taking as a hint to chill out and take it easy for a few days. Not sick enough to cancel classes, but I'm not going to work early this morning, anyway.
Next week is going to be super busy with meetings & the like, so I'd also like to get myself in good shape to handle it with something like grace.
This week:
1. Prepare for next week's meetings--GE review, CC reviews if they get arranged on time, homework for workshop(s), diss chapter
2. Read for next week (get ahead!)
3. Take Friday and Saturday off; visit family
4. Go for a walk when the weather is nice, if I'm not feeling up for exercise
If I get through all that, I'll call it a week. Back to the grind on the 25th.
"Something like grace" sounds like a book title to me. Congrats on getting the MS done! I hope you feel better soon.
DeleteI am going to just jump in too:
ReplyDelete1. Write 1000 words of CH3 c. 600
2. Encyclo figures to drafter No
3. Rank post-doc apps Yes
4. Start grading class papers Yes
5. Fun x 2 Maybe 1?
6. Exercise x 3 Yes
7. Send tax stuff off No
I have been crazy busy with grading and prospective grad student visit and hiring a postdoc, but I did start writing on Ch 3 of the book! Probably the most important goal I met of this entire TLQ. Never thought I would be so glad to write 500 words.
This week:
1. write 300 words of Ch 3
2. Complete R and R with new data
3. Start conference paper
4. Interview and hire postdoc
5. Grade papers
6. Exercise e 3
7. Fun x 1
Yay book writing!
DeleteShowing up very, very late! My last line is inspired by my ongoing love of Douglas Adams, as it seems like a line from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Surely we can come up with something.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1 Submit film review: yes
2 Get 75% caught up on grading: nope
3 Recruit judges for March conference: yes, but too little too late
4 Recruit participants for April conference: yes, but too little too late
This week is mostly over, so I won’t list the two abstracts I wrote and submitted, but definitely checking those off elsewhere. For the few remaining days:
1 Get 100% caught up on grading so I can submit midterm grades Monday
2 Write up edit suggestions for journal submission
3 Start drafting fellowship application
Oh, no, not again . . .
Delete;-)
:)
DeleteI think my journey has been on a treadmill or stationary bike.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1) One hour on conference paper. NOPE.
2) 30 minutes freewriting and brainstorming for novel. I don't think I'll get much written during this term, but maybe I can plan and be ready to write over summer. NOPE.
3) Pay bills. NOPE.
4) Start taxes. NOPE.
5) Avoid having a heart attack while daughter is on field trip (with the 8th-grade band) to Disneyland. YES.
Mostly, I have just been grading ALL OF THE THINGS, prepping, attending a million meetings, and doing sewing hacks on middle-school drama costumes.
I have also had a few doctor's appointments. I found a lump in my breast a few weeks ago, and last week, I had an abnormal mammo and ultrasound. Needle biopsy is next Friday. Still hoping for a good outcome and trying not to think about it too much. If the news isn't good, I just hope the prognosis is good. But this has added an undercurrent of stress to a really packed schedule. And next week, I spend three days in hiring meetings, so I can't be in my classes, and the following week is spring break, so I'll go two weeks without seeing my students, and that kind of freaks me out.
Anyhoo, I don't think I'll get much TLQ done this week. On Friday, I'm taking my daughter to a nearby town to see Wicked, and then I just need to great ALL THE REST OF THE THINGS.
This week:
1) Pay bills.
2) Start taxes
3) One hour on conference paper.
4) Get organized for next week--keep up with grading, prep announcements and lessons for any subs.
5) Be present on the short trip with my daughter.
Sending you lots of positive vibes for the doctor's stuff, and for a wonderful trip with daughter!
DeleteFingers crossed that this is one of those "all okay but we had to check" things, and toes crossed for "very easy treatment" just in case it's not okay! Good luck with all the other Things.
Delete