Hello everyone!
Here we are in week 6, I think this is usually the point in the
session (and whatever the parallel academic session is) where we feel like we’re
running out of steam… The novelty has worn off, the end is nowhere near, and
the daily worries are getting to be a bit overwhelming. Well , lots of things got
done this week, everyone should be pretty happy about those I think! I loved
all the pleasurable activities listed last week so I’m going to pick up on one
of those…
Many of us mentioned “reading for fun”… I know all of us do it,
and we value it deeply, but if you are anything like many academics, sometimes
that gets hidden in conversation because, well, nobody has “time” to “read for
fun”…. Well, that’s a garbage attitude! We should take time, and we should
celebrate it!
So I want to know… What do you read for fun? This question is purely
for fun reading, not the stuff that is work-adjacent. Not the stuff we love because
is transformative and terribly serious (hi Ms. Neale Hurs*ton I love you). Not the
stuff that is deeply moving and makes you cry for three days every time (yeah I’m
looking at you Coet*zee!). Not the total brain candy that should really come in
a brown paper wrapper. No, I’m looking for the book or the series you would give
to a friend who’s having a rough month and say “you should read it, this book
was so much fun”…. (Extra credit for something that might be a bit obscure so
your friend would not have found it by themselves and you get points for
introducing them to a lovely new author!) Share authors if you wish, genres if
you don’t want to get too specific (I know, books are very personal and
sometimes I think I would rather have someone rifle through my underwear drawer
rather than my e-reader!). And who know, we might meet some awesome new-to-us authors!
Great topic, Daisy! A shameless bibliophile, I am always looking for recommendations for new books. Among recent favorite books that I have read just for the absolute pleasure of reading: Goodbye Vitamin, Sourdough, and The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even. I also love Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine series. An all time favorite book is Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus. I’m on the library’s waiting list for her most recent book, The Starless Sea.
ReplyDeleteIt was Wednesday before I got around to thinking I should post, but then it was so late that I thought I would wait since I had not met my goals. With another week passing, I still haven’t met my goals but have done bits of work on other things. I’m actually writing some creative non-fiction and really enjoying it. Some of that will become parts of Tiny Project too.
Last two weeks:
1 write and submit two book reviews: one, one more still
2 submit one more essay peer review: no
3 write and submit conference abstract: no, will do this week
4 write 1000 words for Tiny Project: wrote some
This week:
1 write and submit one book review
2 submit two essay peer reviews
3 write and submit two conference abstracts
4 write 500 words for Tiny Project
Wishing you all a peaceful week ahead.
I love all the book recommendations! I knew I was going to come out with lots of fun ideas for authors to try. I have digital copies of both the Morgensterns on hold at my library, finally managed to beat my daughter to the hold button. Her holds register on my account and ever since I put the app on her tablet it has been a competition for putting holds on first and borrowing things really fast when I can because she'd got a huge list and keeps finding more stuff. Fortunately hers tend to become available quickly and then I can place holds again! There seems to be less competition for tween lit than for adult stuff... Ms Peregrine is great, I'm excited for when kid gets to read that down the road, it is right up her ally.
DeleteIt is great that you are writing something you enjoy, even better if it becomes part of a longer project!
After reading other posts, I worried that I didn't give enough description of my beloved books and had shortchanged them. I'm glad to know these books resonate with you too!
DeleteAnything by Martha Wells or Ursula le Guin or Diana Wynne Jones. Currently re-reading the Murderbot series and wondering if it's worth the upheaval of digging through book piles to find all the volumes of Wizard Hunters... I need my escapism right now! Pre-COVID stories feel weird and a bit too emotive on not great days and given how every day brings new twists and turns in the news and I rarely know which one is going to combine with the mental weather to make a bad day, it's not worth it. I need a couple more authors for the substantial-and-pleasurable fantasy/scifi broadly construed category, since two of those three are now not producing (Lois McMaster Bujold is a bit patchy for my taste - used to love Vorkosigan saga, feel its gone on too long now - and CJ Cherryh is a great character, great first three-quarters of every book, insufficient ending (I think they unfold too fast and there's not enough post-denouement settling out of the pieces?).
ReplyDeleteAnyway. I said back when we started that because things were so chaotic and uncertain, I'd set my actual session goals this weekend, so here they are:
SESSION GOALS:
1) Self care: lose the few lb I put on in the first panic of the Pestilential Pivot and get my diet back into a better balance, improve the amount of movement I'm doing (let's say 5x a week I want to do a 25-30 minute online workout - each one has 5 'tracks' and at the moment I'm doing 2-5 tracks spread through most working days, so I think it's realistic to be doing it all in one go in two and a half months!), and have done a few clear things to improve my home environment ready for the new semester (when I expect to be working from home quite a lot, regardless of the official decision...)
2) collaborative research/science: run a free course on the theory and software WeirdBugMan wrote years ago, since I'm getting more interest from ECRs (because if fieldwork and lab work are disrupted, modelling or synthesising published data suddenly seems like something worth investigating...), continue to work with SocietyThing to build community and progress at least three of the projects where I'm mostly supporting ECRs or helping out colleagues (I count 14 currently on my radar... some have been in abeyance for a long time, some are very early stage, some are at the sending manuscripts around stage. So progressing three seems like a realistic amount of work).
3) teaching planning and preparation. This has to be a bigger chunk of the summer than usual! Here I'd like to have a clear PLAN for who is teaching what and for how we are rearranging the contents of the big first year class (which usually starts with six weeks of outdoors and indoors very practical group work which just cannot be relied on), have a session by session plan for all my own teaching up until Christmas (team teaching, so I don't teach all the sessions in any of my modules), and keep CommunityThing going effectively (as so often, someone has to keep things moving, and apparently that's me in this group). CommunityTHing has a workshop in late August so that should be a solid achievement in this summer.
4) MY research. This has to take a back seat, but I'd like to do some thinking and documentation of stuff before the new PhD student starts this autumn, I'll be working with FormerPDF on a paper for a festschrift for someone who's been a great support and inspiration to us both, and I have a smallish but useful idea I want to start writing about to see if it wants to be a grant or a small paper or a whatever.
goals from last week:
Delete1) self care - going to bed before midnight would be a sensible focus but I Don'T Want To. My mammoth is in my head and my emotions stomping around this week!!! a bit mixty-maxty - managed to be sensible on the days when I had meetings but otherwise just Did Not Want To and generally failed to. Sigh!
2) making more lists - at least doing some free-writing around what OUGHT to be on the lists. did freewriting, also did some of the lists, and am working on them now - see: summer goals actually set above
3) doing the next necessary thing on the followup of community project yes. Which once AGAIN fell more on me that it ideally should. Now sitting on my hands waiting for OTHER people to do things!!!
3a) having a meeting about the other workshop thing I want to do this summer (I DO want to. Just the mammoth is stomping on the want today) done! Went well! Date planned!
4) ticking off another 5 things from the list of small but necessary jobs (mostly around 15-45 minute jobs that keep getting copied from week to week...) (and doing the first batch of late-with-allowances summer marking).marking all done bar a bit of "negotiation", six things ticked off
5) finish one small section of FlatProject1 (there is a writing day Thursday. I CAN DO THIS).AND I DID IT! And then one of the ECRs discovered that the project had somehow "lost" the key output file from another run, so I am now redoing it on my old laptop, which will be slow, but, hey. no idea who is at fault, know whose job it was but am not going to cast nasturtiums as they say, we're just moving on.
6) have a two day weekend! I kind of accidentally started my weekend on Friday (a meeting was cancelled so I took an early lunch which turned into a nap and a bit of reading and then some cooking, with a bit of evening email...). Doing a bit better today, day 3. I miss my three day weekends but I can't work solid 8 hour days never mind the 9-11 hour days I needed "before" to be able to realistically take a 3 day weekend in the now, so five days of 6-7 hours is covering my contracted hours and, well... ::shrug::
goals for this coming week:
I actually have a lot less scheduled Stuff this coming week which might or might not be good - I'm TIRED of all this so it's super easy to bunk off... oh, and there's a conference in the US which has gone both condensed and virtual in response to ::waves hand:: ALL THAT, which is early evening here. I've just done some batch cooking so I have pasta bake, a vegetarian sausage stew thing and some jacket potatoes, or baked apple and berry cinnamon oatmeal as quick to heat up meals to go along with the conferencing, so hoping that following that along will pep up my mood a bit!
1) self care - going to bed before midnight would be a sensible focus but we'll see...
1b) finishing up my summer plans (I get superstitious about this because that's usually the point at which I get ill or something else comes along and destroys them, but the act of planning is useful, right??).
2) setting up work for the theory workshop
2a) working on a draft text from LikesMaths
3) making a big outline and setting up a meeting for the giant first year thing (sigh. Thinking about this causes the Mood Mammoth to get grumpy for university-politics reasons)
3a) resist urge to nag about CollaborativeTHing except for one small area where I actually care, and postpone that until Monday evening in case someone else acts
3b) spend a chunk of time on Hated Paperwork, since I HAVE chunks this week... face it and it might turn into something easily squished, right?
4) reply to an email from FormerPDF which will take an hour or so as I have to hunt down details from years ago...
5) tick off another 5 things from the list of small but necessary jobs
6) have a two day weekend!
Curious to hear how the remote conference goes! I hope it gives you some intellectual buzz at least!
DeleteLove all the series ideas here! I'm definitely trying the murderbot one next. I think you might like the Vivian Shaw series I mentioned...
DeleteI hope the conference is good, I'm involved in running few of those in the next few months to a year and am very curious to learn more about what works and what does not...
Good luck with the hated paperwork, I like scheduling that stuff in a big clump so it doesn't annoy me for multiple days.
I loooove the Vivian Shaw books, like you I am frustrated she has so few books but am hopeful for more to come...
DeleteThe conference is going fine so far. I've been to several already and this is in the middle in terms of how well it's working, but it's also the largest so...
I just started one by Andy Redsmith (Breaking the Lore) and another by Ben Aaronovitch (Midnight Riot), both are police mystery with supernatural beings kind of books. Not far enough in to judge, but definitely promising... One had a description that said "this is what would happen if Harry Potter grew up and joined the Fuzz" so I kind of had to try!
DeleteAfter society-thing, my colleagues and I who ran it wrote a "what we learned about running workshops on video conferencing" document which is one of the outputs and will be "published" on ResearchGate at least very soon - happy to send you a copy if you're interested?
DeleteOooh I would love that thank you! Link or whatever would be great when it is out, or will send message!
DeleteTopic: I have been reading for fun the last few months, so I actually can confess some of my favorites. I like historical mysteries, so Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs novels are one recommendation, as are C.S. Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr novels. Also, beginning last summer, the national level Romance Writers of America began to implode, revealing a nasty seam of racism. My local chapter began to have workshops that we called “Better Writing through Empathy,” where members of the chapter have addressed how to write about characters with disabilities, characters of color, “seasoned” characters, and similar topics. We have also encouraged each other to expand our reading to include authors of color. Alyssa Cole has a series of historical novels set during the Civil War called the Loyal League. The first in the series is An Extraordinary Union; she also writes escapist contemporary romance in the Reluctant Royals series. Alisha Rai has written a series called Modern Love--romance novels that address the social conflict of older mores and the modern world--as well as erotic and paranormal; finally, Sherry Thomas writes the Lady Sherlock series, which is a fantastic take on women in upperclass late 19th century British society. She has also has written two books set in imperial Peking about a Eurasian child, the Hidden Blade and My Beautiful Enemy.
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
Proofread 1 hour x 5. Yes, I did closer to 10 hours
Edit 1 hour x 5. Yes!
Revise introduction outline. Yes!
Contact co-editor. No, just not feeling up to contacting anyone
Contact Office of Research for extension of grant-funded travel. No, see above.
Outline one presentation into journal article form. No. I need to update the literature review first
Analysis: It was a mixed week, although it is clear that I worked in order down the list. I also got sidetracked in that we finally decided to close the storage space we started renting when our kids came home from university four years ago. We had finally cleared room in the garage, which is now full of student furniture and boxes of books--the books are mostly ours, not theirs, I blush to admit. So that made it easy to be too tired to contact people--or justify it that way, in any case.
As for the outline of the journal article, I heard a really good webinar on fighting procrastination. The secret is to think of the next step--just the next step--and to break it down to something almost laughably easy, like spend ten minutes going through one corner of the desk, or taking a recycling bag and filling it for ten minutes. Outlining the article was not the next step, because I need to find out what has been written on the topic since 2014, when I gave the presentation. So the undone tasks will return, with revision to the list of goals.
Next week’s goals:
Proofread 1 hour x 5.
Edit 1 hour x 5.
Continue to clean up fallout from revising introduction outline, and remind yourself that it reads much better and is totally worth the work.
Contact co-editor.
Contact Office of Research for extension of grant-funded travel.
Spend two hours reading new articles on one presentation topic.
Float like mist, everyone.
Oooh, Alyssa Cole has been on my to read list for a long time. Off to shop.
DeleteI like the small steps idea, too... addresses my issues.
So many cool suggestions in that list! I've put a bunch of the historical mysteries on hold at my library already... and found something in a similar vein, the Inspector Rutledge series, post-WW1 mysteries with a nice complicated protagonist...
DeleteWay to go for the proofreading and editing and outlining. All those are so important and so underappreciated!
I don't get on with Maisie Dobbs, but I enjoy Carola Dunn's books (Daisy Dalrymple), and of course the delightful Margery Allingham (are they historicals if they were written in the past??). New names for my list there too!
DeleteFor total calming fun, I read two of Alexander McCall Smith's innumerable series: 44 Scotland Street & Isabelle Dalhousie. All of the books are pretty much exactly the same, which might be part of why they're so soothing.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm reading Hilary Mantel's latest (I loved Hilary Mantel well before Wolf Hall, I'll have you know)--The Mirror & the Light.
I also have an ongoing thing where I'm reading Proust in French. I'm up to La Prisonnière. It lives on my bedside table, and I usually take it with me when I travel.
Last week--felt like not much got done. I had a lot of advising on Mon & Tues. Wed was my birthday (and most productive workday, actually). Son's birthday was Sunday. I had dreadful allergies and felt crummy on Sat. I also bottled a batch of beer AND brewed a new batch last week. So okay--I guess I did a lot, but not much of it was on my to-do list!
Last week:
1. Notes on Theoryish book - done
2. Call missing advisee - no, clearly not going to
3. Big Honking Book to p. 450 - yes
4. Read two Nunnery articles - 1.5
5. Bibliography/prelim lit review for Fairy Tales - yes, plus started drafting
6. Write for 1 hour, total, on the prompt: What ideas, questions, themes am I trying to bring together here? - 40 minutes
7. Bucket o' Bishop - no
8. Good Thing daily -mostly, maybe daily
9. If I'm awesome, read some of the dissertation--No, I'm not awesome
I'm suspending the Bucket o' Bishop requirement. As you may be able to see on my blog if I follow my current plan of resurrecting it in order to show off garden pictures, it's virtually impossible at this stage in the garden's growth to actually FIND the Bishop, since our yard is full of towering plants at the moment. I think spring is the best time to hit that stuff, anyway.
This week:
1. Write 2 single-spaced pages of Fairy Tales talk (a general-audience talk, so I don't feel too much research pressure here)
2. 2 Nunnery articles
3. Read one diss chapter (getting urgent!)
4. Write 30 minutes a day
5. Good Thing daily
I'm advising for 4 hours tomorrow, but after that the week is pretty open....
Oooh I love Alexander McCall Smith's Ladies' Detective Agency series, especially the early ones... He gets a lot of nuances of language and customs and general outlook very right in those, and his landscape descriptions make me homesick in a good way, I'm from a very similar place.
DeleteIf you can't find the Bishop is simply not there, and can be peacefully ignored, right? And you are still awesome without the dissertation-reading, there were a lot of done things on that list!
One if my favourite fun authors is Terry Fallis. Canadian humour (very Canadian!), I fell in love with his first book in which the central character is an English prof who had to teach “English for Engineers”… I teach a lot of those, he really got the sense of frustration and despair! Many books since, light but beautifully drawn characters, including many fabulous ones in the “older women” category (the lead in Up and Down is particularly awesome! If you try only one pick this one!). Recent discovery is Vivian Shaw – premise is human doctor with practice specializing in supernatural beings, I was sad there are only three so far. She does a wonderful job with creating her world, and turns the traditional (often crappy) vampire trope on its head nicely and she’s funny. Also some great LGBTQ characters, lacking in many fantasy genres. For mysteries my all-time favourite is Louise Penney, I love her characters and sense of place. Her characters feel like real people, and every story is different, there is no sense of recycled plots or the procedural type feeling. Her supporting characters might be the best thing about the series, they are the kind you want to go to dinner with. Another current favourite is Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series – older female academic protagonist, good stories, minimal gore, and women are not just helpless plot devices… I could go on… Might add some more later in the week!
ReplyDeleteI had a pretty good week, didn’t run out of steam quite as much as previous ones. I took the weekend off screens (except for e-reader) and that was definitely a good thing too! Injury rehab continues but I still really hate boring stretching! Don’t mind so much doing it when I am running but now that I can’t it is tough going to keep it up. I can’t really bribe myself into it either, already drinking way more than normal, and can’t really go out so my regular incentives are not available… Toddler brain just needs to suck it up and deal!
This week’s goals:
1) Continue to make figures for neglected paper HALF OF ONE
2) Local paper outline and figure list NOTHING
3) Read and respond to student work DONE
4) Review and edit co-authored bit paper, different one from last week DONE
5) Daily stretching and injury rehab MOSTLY DONE
6) Write new policy documents for association I’m now in charge of DONE AND ONGOING
7) This week’s fun thing for child: sushi take-out DONE
8) This week’s fun thing for me: beer in someone’s garden if we get a sunny day DONE
This week’s goals:
1) Two figures for neglected paper
2) Work on now rescheduled fancy talk related to neglected paper
3) Data processing for favourite co-authors
4) Daily stretching and injury rehab
5) This week’s fun thing for both: brave the insane mozzies and try a camping night? Maybe…
My pleasure reading is on two tracks: one is nature/local observation books to make up for the fact that I can't travel, the other is comfort re-reading - mostly romances. Currently reading Katie Fforde, (contemporary UK) - sort of like a nice fruity cocktail, no substance but goes down easily. I share these with my mother, and she said she likes them, "And the men are always so helpful, which is not realistic". And then I started The Other Bennett girl, which made me think of Mary Bennett as who I would have been - smart and clueless and earnest. I always knew I wasn't Lizzy!
ReplyDeleteGoals from last week:
2500 words on chapter -- maybe 1000?
Actually do book orders -- NO
at least 6 more journals --- yes
Keep walking -- yes
Go to bed at a reasonable time - mostly
Cook something new - Yes
So I kind of cratered this week -- everything came together to make me crash. It's really hitting me how much this is reshaping my life in ways that are really hard. I've made living here work because I travel to see friends; now I can't travel. This past week one conference went virtual, the symphony is struggling with how we have a season, and our diocese set rules for re-opening which mean that we can't have church until there's a vaccine. This last happened the same day that all my research and writing ran into books I couldn't get hold of because we can't get books right now and there is no ebook available. And so I did not do well. And then I woke up at 2 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. Friday was a BAD day.
The good news is that I think I've outlined the needed paragraphs in each section of this chapter, but I'm just flummoxed by the availability of books I need. I also did a LOT of journals, and have almost cleared the top shelf. In doing that, I figured out a key solution to some of my challenges with my new desk, which is super exciting. The desk gets delivered June 30, and I think I can be ready.
In looking ahead, I'm going to shift focus to reduce frustration.
1. Write four paragraphs of chapter, one a day for the rest of the week.
2. Make final decision on book orders
3. Read essays for article prize #1
4. Read essay for junior colleague to help her figure out how to reshape it for publication
5. Finish long overdue book review
6. 6 more journals
7. Keep walking
8. Make some healthy stuff with food from farmers market
9. Get regular sleep
It is hard when all the frustrating things converge like that. Hope this week is going better so far. Some weeks one definitely needs to take a day in the middle and regroup! You still got a lot of things checked off the list of goals, and extra points for keeping the walking and cooking going!
DeleteLight rereading is great for the current world I think, I love the idea of nature books as a travel substitute, on that recommendation I got myself a "local plants" guide to read for all those "wonder what this thing is?" questions I have during field work and then forget about... Thanks for the idea!