Since it's an intersession, I'm going to have fun with my goals and keep allegorizing the real-life tasks in terms of my fantasy-world expedition. Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide has provided further inspiration (see Leathery-Winged Avians). Anyone who likes can join me in the silliness, but OTOH I totally understand if getting creative takes more energy than you have to spare at this point in the academic year. Alternatively, get creative in a different way in your comments!
Furthermore, it's not too late to join. Whether you're a long-term participant, an intermittent contributor, or new to the group, you're welcome to leave a comment setting goals for the next week. If you didn't comment last week, tell us a bit about yourself and your goals up to mid-May.
Goals from last week:
Dame Eleanor Hull
Kill leathery-winged avian that has been stalking me and the talking cats
Dispose of the body
Blow up a bridge
Lay explosives to blow up another bridge
Map retreat route
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Turn in paperwork for tax rebate.
Make phone calls for doctors’ appointments.
Spend a half-hour on the faculty review document.
Draft reference letter.
Evaluate two-three inches of files.
heu mihi
1. Get back into morning running--x3.
2. Daily things x5: Language, write, sit. Make progress on Amy.
3. Obnoxious service thing that just landed in my lap.
4. Finish current stage of blue sweater (up to pocket length).
Humming42
1 Finish revise & resubmit
2 Finish reading review book and post review
3 Write 100 words/day for Perform
JaneB
1) as ever, focusing on water, fruit & veg and sleep
2) green thing, rough of list
3) another 20 rows on first square?
4) actually do the basic weekend chores on Saturday morning rather than half-assing them Sunday night.
How I did:
ReplyDeleteKill leathery-winged avian that has been stalking me and the talking cats. DONE.
Dispose of the body. DELEGATED TO CATS.
Blow up a bridge. DONE. Five more to go, I think.
Lay explosives to blow up another bridge. NOT YET, maybe later today.
Map retreat route. PROGRESS MADE.
New goals:
Lay explosives as above.
Blow up another bridge.
Continue mapping my retreat route and alternate routes.
Take out a nest of leathery-winged avians.
Not a great week - I ended up declaring myself sick on Friday and going back to bed with a novel (I had to cancel some meetings, but was only co-teaching, so it felt possible). I am having some eye problems - I have to wear contact lenses, there's no glasses option that can correct the particular condition I have in the form I have it well enough for me to drive or read small print, so I am extra-protective about my eyes and their tendency to get eczema (on the eyelids, including sometimes under the eye lid), respond badly to a dusty or windy day, react allergically to pollen etc. sometimes lead me to declare that I feel like I might be getting an eye infection and have a lens-free day - the lenses soak in cleaning solution, I get BORED (thank heavens for my Kindle, I can still read on the two largest settings without my lenses) - even housework is kind of impractical as I can't see detail like where the edge of the table is, and tend to misplace objects somewhat smashily/bruisily. And as soon as my lenses go back in see all the places I missed. Sigh! Anyway. Have continued to not do great over the weekend and I have terrifying amounts of grading to do. Mountains to trek over, in the parlace of the fantasy novel. Whilst the many biting insects of Undergraduates With Questions swarm me and my email. I get it, they're all stressed, and that makes them querelous. And I am here, and responsive, unlike many of my colleagues who have travelled to Very Important Conferences. But I am SO out of patience, and out of energy to enact the patience and kindness and calm they need publically. Sigh.
ReplyDeletelast week's goals:
1) as ever, focusing on water, fruit & veg and sleep. Did OK on water, mixed on sleep, OK on food and veg - but too much bread and chocolate alongside it. My taste buds rediscovered the Cadbury's Caramel bar, which is too sweet for me most of the time but when I'm stressed/PMSing it's addictively delicious. And the aliens that take over my brain when the shopping is happening or I pass the snack machine keep buying bars
2) green thing, rough of list green thing entirely done and sent off to collaborator, list... not roughed. Scary. I think part of me thinks if I don't look at it it won't see me...
3) another 20 rows on first square? nine rows. Watched Thor instead this weekend, needed Mental Fluff not counting stitches
4) actually do the basic weekend chores on Saturday morning rather than half-assing them Sunday night. how about quarter-assing some and ignoring others? Not QUITE the plan.
Generally ugh. My emotional weather is set to "sullen", and stuff keeps coming up - I had to read three academic books, two of them in social science so totally out of my field, one historical one also marginal to my field but of personal interest, this weekend for an internal research assessment meeting next week which messed everything else up including the last of the teaching prep.
Anyway! Goals for next week:
1) self-care - focus on water, fruit & veg and doing something in the evening however crap I feel
2) draft the discussion for Problem Child 2 and send off to former PDF
3) ten rows of square
4) 1 small chore per evening, since my Decluttering Helper is coming on Saturday and I need to get back to where we left things...
or in fantasy terms:
1) ignore the mountains, focus on relacing my boots ready for getting on the road
2) pass the Annoying Squeaky Thing to someone else to hold for a little
3) add a few stitches to my group's pictoral banner, for when we need to communicate our purpose to peoples who don't speak our language
4) reorganise all the stuff in my pack so it's properly wrapped up and findable. Look forward to the time when I get my travel chest back and have a pack mule to carry it, and don't have to keep looking for important stuff through the narrow end of a floppy bag. Sometimes getting stuff out of a rucksack feels like helping an uncooperative sea-cucumber give birth...
I didn't post last week, but have added some session goals there. For those who don't know me, I'm a senior cranky professor on the west coast of the US, living with two cats, and near an elderly and frail mother. I have a whole bunch of academic projects, and lots of admin roles.
ReplyDeleteOver the past few weeks, in response to insane levels of stress (I dreamed I was drowning the other night, which says everything) I've generated two meta-goals. First, begin to narrow the focus of my work by only taking on tasks that really fit my own research plans. Second, not taking on unpaid admin work, especially work that serves to make well-compensated men look good. (I'm definitely in the cranky old lady category.) Both of these are "have less stress in my life" goals.
Anyway, I'm finishing grading a set of papers (it will be a late night) that I should have finished on the spring break that ended a week ago. My goals for the week ahead are:
1. Keep adding to collaboration essay (Tuesday and Thursday)
2. Friday and Saturday, do more reading and thinking to revise talk I gave last year, since I give it in NYC next week.
3. Read a book.
4. Walk two times
When I have those nanowrimo and acwrimo enthusiasm, I tend to forget that I can’t write much if I haven’t done a lot of research yet. I thought I had done more research for Perform but I’ve really just made save-for-later piles. So I am switching my tactics for the weekly goal and forsaking the daily because it’s not quite possible right now in light of other existing commitments.
ReplyDeleteLast week
1 Finish revise & resubmit: no
2 Finish reading review book and post review: yes
3 Write 100 words/day for Perform: 4/7
This week
1 Write total 500 words for Perform
2 Read 200 pages of next review book
3 Complete one batch of grading
4 Wrap up conference detritus
Hm--I do not have a guiding motif, but I always enjoy reading other people's, and perhaps I'll eventually come up with something quasi-original!
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1. Get back into morning running--x3. YES, good for me!
2. Daily things x5: Language, write, sit. Make progress on Amy. --x3, x4, x4. Yes.
3. Obnoxious service thing that just landed in my lap. --Pushed off to this week.
4. Finish current stage of blue sweater (up to pocket length). --No, but that was a lot, and I did make some progress. Plus I started a new sweater that I really want to finish before Kalamazoo. That's a very ambitious goal, but it's a knitting goal, so I actually want to work on it!
This week:
1. Weekly things x5: Exercise, write, language, sit
2. Service thing that fell into my lap
3. Plan for workshop
4. Request editorial meetings at Kalamazoo
5. Get to the point on the sweater where I divide for the arms