Our last week! I wish it was MY last week - our long drawn out process means that my last big assignment comes in 15th May, then students with extensions (not granted by me - new centralised processes) can submit work until 31st May, then exam boards and programme boards are in the middle of June, then we have to set resits for those who failed (they get a second shot in August) and create "additional support materials" for them. THEN it's SORT OF summer... with resit marking arriving early August. And people wonder why it's so hard to achieve summer research goals...
So where Dame Eleanor has one big Last Battle, I have a boring, drawn-out mopping up mission with a lot of little skirmishes, and having to continually have one eye out (and space in the diary) to deal with eruptions of mini leathery avians...
BUT regardless of those complexities, here at TLQ we have one more intersessional week, then launch into summer planning! In preparation, let's think about how you are going to mark the change in academic seasons - A weekend off, a fancy new tea, a glass of raspberry lemonade by a lake, the ceremonial purchase of summer reading?
Goals from last week:
Dame Eleanor Hull
Grade two sets of papers and an exam.
Compute final grades.
Finish K'zoo paper and other presentation.
E-mail administrator re conference etc., requesting not to get "gentle reminder" e-mail of when grades are due.
Pack for trip, eat safely and keep up with exercise and stretching while away.
Good Enough Woman
1) Get my act together for my son's b-day, which is Thursday!! I have no
presents in hand yet. :( He is difficult to buy for. I will make him a
shepherd's pie though.
2) Pick up the grading pace. Try to get 25 research papers done by Saturday.
3) Don't work on Mother's Day (unless it's just to prep Lady Susan).
4) Meditation app 5x
5) Walk 3x
6) Make dentist appointment (and maybe OB/GYN appt if I can get one soonish)
heu mihi
1. Grade
2. Clean the house, make yoghurt and granola, do the things that need doing at home before I leave town
3. Create a REALISTIC(ish) summer work plan
4. Read diss chapter
5. Start reading book for review
Humming42 (carried over)
1 Finish and submit R&R
2 Another batch of grading
3 One paperwork batch for summer
JaneB (carried over due to getting confused by a Bank Holiday)
1) self-care - continue to drink a great deal of water. Be kind to self. Make Drs appt
2) go through the last two weeks of emails, catch up, carry over chore lists etc.
3)
get on top of paperwork for the Two Big Modules (TLQ this week - TRQ
next week - and don't require too much thought so may be very suitable!)
4) ten rows of square
5)
mark one late big project. next big pile comes in on Thursday this
week, so mostly I get to actively NOT mark and appreciate the absence of
it!
6) if I feel like it, start looking at the shape of the summer and do some planning/booking of things.
Susan
1. Grade the papers that came in today
2. Spend one day on Violence revisions
3. Grade the final projects I get on Saturday
4. Walk twice
5. Do something fun
I can't tell if I'm feeling tired because of seasonal allergies, ongoing recovery from the kidney stone, or generic end of semester itis (plus work-is-a-pain-syndrome, see rant above about how this time of year just doesn't END). The weather is pretty good at the moment which doesn't help - I sometimes think I have inverted SAD, I always feel fed up and out of sync with the world when summer is coming...
ReplyDeletePREVIOUS GOALS:
1) self-care - continue to drink a great deal of water. Be kind to self. Make Drs appt drank a lot of water. was moderately kind to self, and is as a result getting very behind with work stuff. Did not go to see Dr
2) go through the last two weeks of emails, catch up, carry over chore lists etc.done. Ouch chore lists
3) get on top of paperwork for the Two Big Modules (TLQ this week - TRQ next week - and don't require too much thought so may be very suitable!) was on top of it. Needs checking at least twice a week and thanks to sluggish colleagues and an insane number of students with extensions or other non-standard submissions, this will continue to be a burden until the end of May at the earliest. And the systems are all playing up when accessed from home :-(
4) ten rows of square nope. Haven't felt like knitting. Not sure why
5) mark one late big project. next big pile comes in on Thursday this week, so mostly I get to actively NOT mark and appreciate the absence of it! big project done. 10 out of 67 of the next big pile done. The NEXT big pile comes in this coming Thursday... sigh...
6) if I feel like it, start looking at the shape of the summer and do some planning/booking of things. I've got as far as drawing out a summer calendar in my notebook...
THE COMING WEEK: has quite a lot of student care in it, sigh, and obligations. I am not in the mood for obligations! Last week I DID finally get the paper ProblemChild1 redrafted with the new data and sent out to co-authors, and Crispier is now accepted. I'm also scheduled to spend Friday of the coming week talking research and drafting a grant proposal with FocusedWoman as part of FlatProject, so I have some diaried research time. Not going to put any in as TLQ in that case!
JaneB1) self-care - continue to drink a great deal of water. Be kind to self. Eat less bread...
2) consolidate lists and start making a summer list
3) keep up with paperwork on the Two Big Modules and don't let other people's dilatoriness take up any of my emotional bandwidth
4) ten rows of square
5) finish marking current essay pile (I have about 60, I can do 3-4 an hour, so that's 15-20 hours... sigh...)
6) put things into my summer calendar and finish the doodle I'm doing around the edge..
Inverted SAD is definitely a thing, and I have thought that about you based on your reported reactions! I hope you'll get some more rain to ease this week. I thought of you on Saturday, when I came out of a building to a wonderful smell of petrichor (such a lovely word).
DeleteSadly a high pressure system has set in. Temperatures in the low 20s (70s), blue skies, minimally clad loud young people (and older people, but I work on a campus) everywhere, noisy people outside all the pubs and coffee shops even on main roads. Everyone going on about how it's going to be a "lovely" summer. Do not like :-(
DeleteAt least grading (or procrastinating from grading) is a good reason to stay in and cover for the grumps!
Wooooo-HOO! The semester is over! I have survived the big battle! In the end it was more a war of attrition than a big whiz-bangy fog-of-battle thing, but at any rate I am done.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
Grade two sets of papers and an exam. YES.
Compute final grades. YES (and posted them).
Finish K'zoo paper and other presentation. YES. They both went well.
E-mail administrator re conference etc., requesting not to get "gentle reminder" e-mail of when grades are due. NO, because she let us know the circumstances in which such reminders would come and I evaded said circumstances.
Pack for trip, eat safely and keep up with exercise and stretching while away. YES, YES, about half on the exercise goals (two 8:30 a.m. sessions plus very bad sleep leads to skimping on morning routines!).
I am taking this week entirely off from work! What I aim to do:
*tidy, weed, plant in the garden; perhaps see about removing a shrub if it doesn't perk up.
*watch all of the Tour of California.
*read fun books.
*enjoy three social engagements.
*book one routine vet appointment.
*prep for open house and then restore normal conditions.
*stretch and exercise daily.
*cook slightly more ambitiously than usual.
*make work plan for the rest of the summer.
And sleep. I am going to try to fix a sleep schedule that works for me and my household, probably on the early side but not so very early as during the semester, and make up the sleep debt I've been running.
DeleteYay, congratulations! Your week off sounds excellent. Enjoy!
DeleteI'm marking the transition by Clearing The Decks--or, rather, Desk. I want as much of the miscellany as possible dealt with over the next seven days so that I can get myself into something like a focused mode.
ReplyDeleteI finished grading today (with the exception of a few extensions), but the weather is cold and rainy, so I'm not feeling summery yet. Probably for the best, given the extent of the Miscellany.
Last week:
1. Grade - Yes
2. Clean the house, make yoghurt and granola, do the things that need doing at home before I leave town - Yes
3. Create a REALISTIC(ish) summer work plan - Not yet
4. Read diss chapter - Yes
5. Start reading book for review - No
This week:
1. Make realistic(ish) summer work plan
2. Read proofs of Weep
3. Homework for teaching workshop (due 5/22)
4. Submit Kzoo proposal for 2020
5. Start review book
6. Submit reimbursements of various kinds
7. Inbox 0! Or, at least, Inbox < 10!
Good luck wrapping up the miscellany...
DeleteMy desk is an archeological excavation right now, so sympathy.
DeleteI've had some difficult things come up that are still not resolved, so I am regretfully going to bow out of the intersession with hope of being more focused and less bothered in the upcoming session. Happy end of semester all!
ReplyDeleteSo, I posted my grades at 6 AM this morning. My semester is mostly over (a few more meetings, but they too are dwindling). Commencement is Sunday.
ReplyDeleteHow I did last week:
1. Grade the papers that came in today DONE
2. Spend one day on Violence revisions NO
3. Grade the final projects I get on Saturday DONE
4. Walk twice NO
5. Do something fun YES (dinner with a friend)
Well, stuff happens. Stuff in this case has been a medical emergency with my mother, which has led to 3 trips to the specialist eye dr since last Friday. That dr is an hour away, and each trip has been at least 4 hours, with the needed follow up.
And I'm tired. My goals for this week will be small, because I've still got committee meetings to interrupt my life.
1. Make real progress on Violence, so that next week I can really finish it.
2. Do 3 hours of work clearing the disaster area that is my desk.
3. Begin planning one of my fall courses to get book orders in
4. Walk two times
5. Get regular sleep
6. Do something fun.
We are in the last week of instruction, and finals are next week. I will mark the transition out of the semester by starting chemotherapy next week. o: This Friday, I'll have a port surgically inserted, and then the first chemo session will be on Tuesday. Chemo will go most of the summer, and then I'll have radiation after that. I'm nervous, but feeling okay as far as these things go. I'm grieving the fact that, after this weekend, I'm facing years of poor sleep (because I'll have to take hormone inhibitors after chemo and radiation). So I feel like I'm facing a major turning point in my life--from good sleeper to bad sleeper. This probably seems like a weird thing to be thinking about.
ReplyDeleteLast week's goals:
1) Get my act together for my son's b-day, which is Thursday!! I have no presents in hand yet. :( He is difficult to buy for. I will make him a shepherd's pie though. DONE. I think I did okay.
2) Pick up the grading pace. Try to get 25 research papers done by Saturday. OMG NO.
3) Don't work on Mother's Day (unless it's just to prep Lady Susan). HAD TO GRADE.
4) Meditation app 5x. NO. Ironically, at the end of the week, I was too stressed.
5) Walk 3x. DONE!
6) Make dentist appointment (and maybe OB/GYN appt if I can get one soonish). NOT DONE. Found out chemo is starting too soon for these appointments.
This week:
1) Get grading back to the forefront. I have subs for my exams, but I still need to grade them.
2) Walk 3x (if surgery recovery permits)
3) Enjoy the present moment. Meditate 3x.
4) Do the chemo prep, of course.
I've found that walking is great at reducing my stress!
Thinking of you, GEW--this has got to be a really stressful time. Best wishes and I hope that you're able to keep walking!
DeleteHey, everyone, am I up to host the next session? And when does it start? This weekend or next?
ReplyDeleteI believe so, and next week!
Delete