Well, we made it! The final week of 16, and the end of our summer session… Our next session will be hosted by Heu Mihi and Dame Eleanor Hull, thank you for that! We will probably start around the 2nd or 3rd week of September, I will let the new hosts pick a date. We’ll put up and intersession check-in post just for fun too.
I want to congratulate everyone on all the things we did this summer, all the things we took care of, all the people we connected with… There were lots of really big things to do, like moving, medical things, care-giving responsibilities, course preparation, research, and actual fun summer things. We had mammoths, hippogriffs, Research Fairies, a BollOx, a special appearance by the ever-awesome Stress Canary, and magical potions, elixirs, and fences… We also had a really great party in a beautiful garden!
First last week’s goals for our last check-in:
Daisy
1) Create order in house chaos, tidy up and throw out summer pandemic
detritus
2) Revive Albatross paper
3) Plan out two courses and try to keep existential panic to a minimum
4) Planning meetings with colleagues teaching in my program
5) Stop worrying about when co-author submits the damn papers
6) Fun things: kid birthday
Dame Eleanor Hull
Work regular office hours, with some on each of research, teaching,
languages. Finish undergrad syllabus, write grad syllabus, write more
assignments, put things into online course shells.
Regular exercise, stretching, safe eating, fun things.
~2 life admin tasks; clear areas of my study that would be visible on web cam.
Keep track of what I'm doing so I don't wonder where the day went.
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Concentrate on the lit review for Illuminated: 2 articles a day x 5.
Continue to cull, combine, and organize electronic files. 2 hours x 5.
Get everything in shape for the beginning of the semester.
Continue working on the lace curtains: 1 hour x 6.
heu mihi
1. Finish prepping for MA defense (which is today)
2. Brew beer (delicious Belgian abbey-style ale)
3. Prep for day 1 of seminar
4. Edit transcripts/cc for two lecture days
5. Process rest of tomatoes (approx. 40 lbs)
6. Get back o n exercise schedule
humming42
1 finish Square and submit
2 finish Fall syllabi
3 clean up leftover student admin issues from Spring and Summer
4 complete second round review for resubmitted article
JaneB
a) self-care. The usual. Try to get some better habits. TRY
b) at least make some good lists of what teaching prep needs doing, and try to
prioritise. (All The Things)
c) Get all my lists transferred to my new work journal
d) prepare for the next big meeting of community project, and get interns
started. UGH.
Susan
1. Set up videos for week 2 of undergrad class
2. Do welcome video for grad class
3. Have meeting about article prize #2
4. 1 hour on famous author
oceangirl101 (carried over)
1. Continue to prep stuff for new grad student orientation
2. Outline Ch 8 and start writing
3. Data bits finalized for Ch 7, rewrite text as needed
4. Data bits together for co-authored paper
5. Consider if I want to write regional text-like book for well known press
6. Paperwork for aunt in memory care to get her into state system
7. Consider buying porch furniture so outdoor space is more comfy and available
for social distancing with a friend at a time during cooler months
SESSION GOALS:
For check-in and end-of-session reflection, pick whatever question from the following long list… Or make up your own, we’re not picky J
What are you most proud of for your summer? What will you remember most about it? What inspired or motivated you? What was the worst part? Did you learn anything new about yourself or your work, good or bad? How did your fences hold up against the various creatures we wanted to keep under control? Are your fencing skills (double entendre intentional!) up to the challenging term that awaits?
Daisy
1) Focus on paper writing – I have three in progress where I’m the main author,
and two with students
2) Maintain healthy habits and keep moving
3) Focus on my child and make sure she has a fun, exciting summer even with
restrictions and uncertainty
4) Do one fun/frivolous/new thing every week
1.
Health/self: exercise & stretch daily, eat safely, get sufficient sleep
& down time.
2. Moving/life stuff: Pack, move, unpack, other house-related tasks, as
efficiently as possible.
3. Service: Evaluate promotion packet.
4. Teaching: prep fall courses thoroughly.
5. Research: brief but regular dead language review; read & take notes on
4-6 books; make plan for finishing my own book.
I will
probably add specifics later in the week, but here is a first shot.
Health:
Make mental and physical health strides by creating and maintaining
habits--walking, meditating, eating better, contacting people.
Be kind to myself and others.
Maintain the contacts I have, and expand to some of the people I’ve neglected.
Scholarship:
Return scholarship to my schedule, rather than stuffing it around the edges.
Continue to organize and declutter paper and pixel files, keeping only what
furthers my work or sparks joy.
Create an order of approach among the special issue, Illuminated, Perseverance,
and North.
heu mihi
1. Reintroduce some of the good habits that I've neglected: any combination of
sitting, journal-writing, waking up early, reducing alcohol/sweets, yoga
2. Required writing: -Fairy tale paper; -Nunnery paper; -Promotion statement
3. Read at a steady rate for New Project (NP), and take *sensible, ideally
helpful* notes
4. Draft a grant proposal
5. Clean the workroom and figure out a better way to organize it
6. Make progress on the yard--I'm thinking that I need to pick a bucket of
bishop's weed (which I've taken to calling My Episcopal Foe) a week
humming42
1 Write and present at PH online conference
2 Write and submit four book reviews
3 Submit three conference abstracts
4 Write and submit Square
5 Revise and submit two online courses
6 Finish Perform
7 Write 20000 words for Tiny Project
JaneB
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.
1. Finish
book ms, writing 3000 words a week.
2. Redesign course for remote or semi-remote teaching
3. Maintain physical health by keeping up with walking
4. Maintain mental health 1: get regular sleep
5. Maintain mental health 2: read for fun
6. Maintain mental health 3: keep in touch with friends in whatever way
possible.
oceangirl101
1. Finish Ch 7 and 8 of book and be done with it!
2. Advise two graduate students and undergrad in summer research
3. Maintain healthy habits- exercise 3x a week, cook and eat as well as I can
4. Work in the garden and make my own DIY compositng bin
5. Maybe try to learn Tahitian??? I have DVDs somewhere but no way to listen to
them now. There might be online sources or someone I could Zoom with.
To everyone, thank you for showing up here! Many of us mentioned in this session and the last one how much we value this little space because it is constant and encouraging and has not been wrecked by the pandemic and is always a guarantee of a friendly virtual smile and some fun. We all need quiet spaces like this one, and it is what it is because of all the lovely people in it.
So, raise a glass of real-life bubbly stuff or magical potion of choice to all of us! Best of luck for the term ahead, and come check in again when our next session starts!
Hi Everyone.
ReplyDeleteSorry I was MIA the last two weeks. The start of the semester and the start of being an active Director of Graduate Studies sort of took over. I am most proud of *almost* finishing my book and actively working on it 5 days a week each week over the summer. Spending so much time in my house has also made me contemplate lots of ways to make it more comfortable which I have started to act on too. I am typically one of those people who gets work done on the house, unpacks, moves into a house, and then never changes anything, so I am trying to change that. I am also struck on how much I continue to fear getting the virus again. Its made me very much of a hermit, especially since our numbers are going up locally, and I don't like it. The solution seems to be to never go out, but as we all know, that has its downfalls to. In the short term I have decided to purchase a home exercise machine and to refocus energy on my garden and making my outdoor porch more comfy for the fall.
Last two weeks:
1. Continue to prep stuff for new grad student orientation Yes, took lots of time, way more than I would have liked, but I am new at this and the students are anxious and need lots of attention
2. Outline Ch 8 and start writing Yes! 15 pages done, its about 50% done
3. Data bits finalized for Ch 7, rewrite text as needed NO
4. Data bits together for co-authored paper NO
5. Consider if I want to write regional text-like book for well known press, decided to say a provisional yes, proposal is due December
6. Paperwork for aunt in memory care to get her into state system YES
7. Consider buying porch furniture so outdoor space is more comfy and available for social distancing with a friend at a time during cooler months Yes, but not bought yet
And best of luck for the term ahead. My first week went OK, but I have my worries......
Welcome back! Glad the first week of term was not terrible, good luck for continuing!
DeleteI start on Wednesday and I'm between "I'm as ready as I'll ever be" and "I'm terrified".
DeleteYou've done a lot! And you have good solutions/plans for the fall.
DeleteLast week was pleasant, there were lots of fun things and a great visit from co-authors which resulted in having to get picked up at the (socially distant outdoor) bar after having one too many. We had a paper to celebrate so even had a good reason!
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
1) Create order in house chaos, tidy up and throw out summer pandemic detritus STARTED
2) Revive Albatross paper STARTED
3) Plan out two courses and try to keep existential panic to a minimum NOPE ON ALL FRONTS
4) Planning meetings with colleagues teaching in my program YES
5) Stop worrying about when co-author submits the damn papers YES, AND THEN HE SUBMITTED ONE! DOING THIS AGAIN…
6) Fun things: kid birthday WAS FUN
Session goals:
Overall…
What are you most proud of for your summer? Paper contributions and happy child
What will you remember most about it? Sunrise kayaking and other fun excursions
What inspired or motivated you? Mostly fear… Fear of not making the most out of the nice weather and the freedom and the time to write! It was very successful, I feel like I did most of what I could.
What was the worst part? The university’s teaching programme – total waste of time and I learned nothing. And the fact that our university still has not hired the three instructors I need for our labs… Right now those will be taught by magic fairies… I’m still dreading the term, but that’s me and every other academic in the world so nothing special!
Did you learn anything new about yourself or your work, good or bad? Not really new, but I really hate group work if I do not pick my people, even more so online, and the moment some facilitator wants us to “come up with a group name” I lose all interest… And also, I would make an excellent hermit!
How did your fences hold up against the various creatures we wanted to keep under control? Pretty well, teaching worries did encroach on things, but not as much as I expected. Which of course means I’m completely under-prepared for the term, but sod it, I’m relaxed and calm for now!
Are your fencing skills (double entendre intentional!) up to the challenging term that awaits? Probably not completely, but I do feel that I’ve had great practice this summer and the last term…
Session goals racap:
Delete1) Focus on paper writing – I have three in progress where I’m the main author, and two with students
I think I did well on this. The two huge co-authored papers are done (one submitted, one still being incubated by first author), I contributed towards 3 other co-authored ones (one accepted, one submitted, one in final edits), one student paper is in final editing phase (other one in student-induced limbo). Unfortunately the progress on my three first-author papers has been less than I hoped, but looking at the previous list, that is a trade-off I’m ok with. I did make a lot of progress on them, so there is stuff to work with over the next few months.
2) Maintain healthy habits and keep moving
Did really well until overdoing the running caused injury, working my way back up slowly. Eating pretty good, alcohol consumption still higher than normal, but in a nice “beer on the deck for summer” kind of a way. I did get other fun kinds of exercise so something to build on during the term.
3) Focus on my child and make sure she has a fun, exciting summer even with restrictions and uncertainty.
This one I did very well on. We managed a few short camping trips, one long one to nearby areas, lots of kayaking, and a reasonable amount of friend time either outdoors or with friends in her social bubble. She did get way too much tablet time, but generally with either library books or text-based games so I’m going to call that acceptable. She was bored a reasonable amount of time, just like one is supposed to be in summers, and out of that came many creative games and lots of lego building and giant fort construction. So definitely one for the win column!
4) Do one fun/frivolous/new thing every week
Pretty good on this one, I don’t remember a huge number of these since they often were quite mundane, but in a world where grocery shopping became an interesting day out, I’ll take small victories! The retreat trip with friends was a highlight, as was all the kayaking. I will continue doing that in the early Fall until it gets too cold, it is very relaxing and lots of fun.
I loved your one fun new thing every week! I wasn't that imaginative!
DeleteFrom the point of view of an onlooker, you had a fantastic summer! The camping trips and retreat sounded great.
DeleteIt turned out to be a much better summer than I feared... Once I got over the sadness of not doing field work I could focus much better on the things I could control. It helped that I could console myself that nobody else was doing field work either so it was not like I was missing anything great!
DeleteI will definitely try to continue the fun thing per week habit - that's a really good reminder of all the good stuff we can do that doesn't take a lot of effort or money or energy but have very pleasant after-effects!
Sounds like a decent summer after all! Yes, missing field work is just sad...
DeleteThanks to everyone for excellent company this session, and to Susan for being a lovely co-host!
ReplyDeleteSo, my little break was lovely, only marred at the end by smoke from the fires. (I left the window open one night and so much soot...
ReplyDeleteAnyway,
1. Set up videos for week 2 of undergrad class - Started conversation
2. Do welcome video for grad class YUP
3. Have meeting about article prize #2 YUP, Done and citation done
4. 1 hour on famous author YES
All in all, I think I'm ready for the semester, but anxious...
As for the session: I'm happiest that I have stayed sane and am ready to teach. And that I was kind to myself on the writing. What I'll remember is the sense of quiet, sitting still.
How I did:
1. Finish book ms, writing 3000 words a week. HAH!
2. Redesign course for remote or semi-remote teaching YES
3. Maintain physical health by keeping up with walking YES
4. Maintain mental health 1: get regular sleep SO-SO
5. Maintain mental health 2: read for fun YES
6. Maintain mental health 3: keep in touch with friends in whatever way possible. YES
I dramatically underestimated the time anxiety would take; and of course I did not anticipate Black Lives Matter and all the rest of the political turmoil of the summer. I'm glad I did as well as I did with mental health, but in spite of that I'm still anxious and stressed...
I think that's the way it is.
I can't bear to read about the fires. They really are the coup de grace to this summer. But the ocean sounds like a lovely way to have a break between "summer" and "school."
DeleteWell, breathing has been interesting. I've invested in an air purifier. Sigh.
DeleteSo glad the break was good! And you had a good week too! For the coming term you can definitely hold on to the good habits of reading and sleeping and keeping in touch with people, doing it over a difficult summer will count as good practice!
DeleteTopic: I’m most proud of (and surprised by) how much research I got done this summer. Despite the roasting pan that was the attic in July, and the August thunderstorms that made me unplug and run, I did a lot. By not being on campus, I integrated research into my day job more than I would have imagined; I thought I’d be bothered by the laundry, and dishes, and the boxes in the attic. To my astonishment, I shut it all out--even putting aside the day job for a couple of hours, which is monumental, because it is one of those “there is no end, and there is always more to do” sort of pursuits. Toward the end of the summer, by stealing Dame Eleanor’s time tracking idea, I was able to use my time (and mind) better. For me, there is something valid in the idea of doing hard things at the peak time for one’s brainpower. I started to figure that out this summer.
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
Concentrate on the lit review for Illuminated: 2 articles a day x 5. No. Only about 4 articles the entire week. There was too much scuttling around like the White Rabbit.
Continue to cull, combine, and organize electronic files. 2 hours x 5. Yes.There is a lot more to go, but I continue to dredge away at it.
Get everything in shape for the beginning of the semester.Hahahaha. In what universe did I think that would happen?
Continue working on the lace curtains: 1 hour x 6. Yes. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes during interminable faculty meetings.
Session goals:
Health:
Make mental and physical health strides by creating and maintaining habits--walking, meditating, eating better, contacting people. Eh, sort of, but far more to work on.
Be kind to myself and others. Pretty well--I’d give myself a B.
Maintain the contacts I have, and expand to some of the people I’ve neglected. Better at maintaining than expanding.
Scholarship:
Return scholarship to my schedule, rather than stuffing it around the edges. I think this was a yes.
Continue to organize and declutter paper and pixel files, keeping only what furthers my work or sparks joy. Another yes.
Create an order of approach among the special issue, Illuminated, Perseverance, and North.Despite throwing a few more things in the mix, a qualified yes.
Analysis:
Last week continued the trend of people running around with no idea of what they were doing or why. In the space of a week, we were told we could open the archive, then that we couldn’t, and then yesterday that we could. So we made plans, changed plans, and now are back to the original plans. Sigh.
I finally got suggestions on what to take this semester. I also heard from the archive I want to visit that they cancelled my September appointment, since they are still unsure when they will reopen, which made me sad.
However, despite the craziness of the past two weeks, it has been a stellar summer for me in a lot of ways. I need to hang onto that when I fall into black moods. I also need to remember that things will settle in the next couple of weeks, and the new normal will eventually feel, well, normal.
Thank you, Daisy and Susan, for hosting this summer session. And thank you to Dame Eleanor and heu mihi for taking on the next session. Be well, be safe, and float like mist, everyone.
I will be knitting through ALL of my meetings this semester. No shame for your lace-curtain-making. I find that knitting can actually help me pay attention, by removing the temptation to check my email....
DeleteIt's hardly stealing! I freely give you any time-tracking or other useful ideas! So glad to hear that you're floating forward like persistent mist!
DeleteIt's funny, I was pretty successful on the self-care part of my plan, but less on scholarship. You are the opposite.
DeleteAnd I'm dutifully watching my nearest research library in my field but they still are not open, even though the gardens are...
Heu mihi, I say the same thing about knitting. It's helpful, really!
DeleteThank you, Dame Eleanor. I will continue to use your tips shamelessly.
Susan, I got an email from my archive today saying they were opening on 9/5, and I got excited, but it's only the museum, not the reading room!
Making more space for research and being able to concentrate on it is definitely a huge win for you this session! That sets up things very nicely for the term!
DeleteAnd knitting is always an appropriate activity, extra points for doing lace...
Handcrafts are wonderful fiddle-objects and soothers, a definite bonus to online meetings is how easy it is to crochet...
DeleteWell, that was a weird summer--at once very long and very, very short. I sort of feel like it didn't happen. And yet some days stretched on for six months.
ReplyDeleteSo here's something kind of ridiculous that I'm proud of this summer (and I don't think that I've mentioned this here before, but forgive me if I have): I used some of the money that I earned doing my tiresome first-year advising (which I only barely remember doing now; glad that THAT won't be my most memorable thing!) to buy myself...a Roomba. A robotic vacuum.
I'm the chief vacuumer around here, being also the person who is by far the most bothered by dirt, and we heat with wood, which means that what I dread most about the winter is the filth that covers the living room carpet. Learning to spend money in a calm and responsible manner, rather than refusing to spend it for ages and then finally giving in and freaking out about the waste, has been a Process for me, so the fact that I made the decision to purchase this, and purchased it, and am happy about it, is really good news, I think.
Plus it’s awesome.
In terms of work, I completely set aside my research for the last 6 weeks or so in favor of getting a handle on teaching. I’m glad that I did, not least because I now feel antsy and WANT to get back into my own work. The downside is that I’m out of the habit, and of course my son seems to be peaking in terms of boredom-related-neediness JUST as my classes start this week, so I’m going to go easy on myself with research and writing goals for the coming term.
Last week:
1. Finish prepping for MA defense (which is today) - Done
2. Brew beer (delicious Belgian abbey-style ale) - Done, fermenting
3. Prep for day 1 of seminar - Done, class was yesterday, it was fine
4. Edit transcripts/cc for two lecture days - Done
5. Process rest of tomatoes (approx. 40 lbs) - Done
6. Get back on exercise schedule - Done
That list looked long, but it was entirely manageable.
Session goals:
1. Reintroduce some of the good habits that I've neglected: any combination of sitting, journal-writing, waking up early, reducing alcohol/sweets, yoga
SORT OF. I’ve been spotty on most of these. I have accepted that I lack the focus needed for online yoga; however, I tried an outdoor class through my studio last week, and that was really nice. May keep on there. I do generally get up early; don’t sit like ever; write in my journal once in a while; occasionally reduce alcohol/sweets, but occasionally increase them, too.
2. Required writing: -Fairy tale paper; -Nunnery paper; -Promotion statement
DONE (Nunnery paper is super drafty, but the conference was pushed off to next year, so who cares). Now if only my chair would get on top of my promotion paperwork.
3. Read at a steady rate for New Project (NP), and take *sensible, ideally helpful* notes
UNTIL MID-JULY, did ok.
4. Draft a grant proposal
NO, but changes to my sabbatical timing mean that I don’t need one until next summer.
5. Clean the workroom and figure out a better way to organize it
DONE!
6. Make progress on the yard--I'm thinking that I need to pick a bucket of bishop's weed (which I've taken to calling My Episcopal Foe) a week
PROGRESS MADE. Gave up on the bishop’s weed mid-way, but the height of the other plants made that necessary. Most of the work on the garden was in the first half of the summer—I tend to lose interest by July—but it does look better than it did last year!
Thank you, Daisy and Susan, for getting us through and keeping us together!
DeleteI am all in favor of making one's life easier by out-sourcing chores like vacuuming. And having a robot do it is so Life In The Future! Next you'll have a robot butler. :-)
DeleteYour first sentence made me laugh out loud. It is SO SO true.
DeleteAnd yay on the roomba! It will be even better come winter!
The Roomba story is great. Brava to you for making that happen for quality of life improvement. When we pick up next session, I'll be looking forward to an update on the now-fermenting ale!
DeleteThat was a great last week! So many things done!
DeleteMaybe the awesome new Roomba can double as a meditation aid - I find watching one of those do its thing terribly relaxing...
Oh, my. It is definitely August. Late August, even. And I still feel like I haven't had summer properly, because I didn't travel and I didn't watch the Tour de France. The Tour is coming up, and (fingers crossed) I'll be watching it while teaching, which is so weird that I just can't get my head around it. As I said in a blog post some months back, it's fine, but it's just not right.
ReplyDeleteHow I did last week:
Work regular office hours, with some on each of research, teaching, languages. Finish undergrad syllabus, write grad syllabus, write more assignments, put things into online course shells. Good enough. It was 10-hour days on the weekend to get things ready enough to teach on Monday, and I still have a lot of TBA things to sort out, but it all went okay and my students seem lovely (we're still in the stage where I think they're smart and they think I'm nice; then the first paper happens to us all). I persisted with taking notes on my big fat book, despite the crunch on teaching.
Regular exercise, stretching, safe eating, fun things. Kept up with exercise very well; fairly well with eating, though I think stress is getting to me now.
~2 life admin tasks; clear areas of my study that would be visible on web cam. As of today, yes to the first, and the second happened last week.
Keep track of what I'm doing so I don't wonder where the day went. More or less.
1. Health/self: exercise & stretch daily, eat safely, get sufficient sleep & down time. MOSTLY
ReplyDelete2. Moving/life stuff: Pack, move, unpack, other house-related tasks, as efficiently as possible. YES! After three years trying, I HAVE MOVED. There’s still unpacking to do. But MOVING happened! WOOOOT!!!!!
3. Service: Evaluate promotion packet. YES. Also a journal article. And some graduate applications.
4. Teaching: prep fall courses thoroughly. HA HA just enough to get started.
5. Research: brief but regular dead language review; read & take notes on 4-6 books; make plan for finishing my own book. NO, TWO, NO. Bonus: got an accept-with-revisions on an article. And read Heu Mihi’s latest article with great pleasure.
What are you most proud of for your summer? What will you remember most about it? What inspired or motivated you? What was the worst part? Did you learn anything new about yourself or your work, good or bad? How did your fences hold up against the various creatures we wanted to keep under control? Are your fencing skills (double entendre intentional!) up to the challenging term that awaits?
As you will guess from the capitals and exclamation marks, I am happiest / most relieved about / most likely to remember having sold our old house and moved to a new one. I enjoy the new neighborhood, big yard, and house much more than I expected to—I just wanted to be out of the old house, but I’m very happy in the new place. Tonight I went and got a library card and checked out books at the public library, which feels like a significant milestone.
Learning: Prepping to teach online was hard. The LRU keep-teaching people really pushed on learning objectives, which is the sort of thing I’ve always been very hand-wavy about, with my real attitude being “well, we’ll read some stuff and talk about it and write about it and see what, as a group, we discover, and we’ll hope to have fun along the way.” But when I took the online course about teaching online, I found that I really appreciated clear directions about what I was supposed to be learning, so I have tried very hard to figure out what exactly I want students to be learning, or at least, what questions I want them to think about. I really hope this will make me a better teacher in the long run.
Fences: I could have used much stronger fences; I think I am my own biggest mammoth, actually, trampling over boundaries. I hope to do better this fall. One good thing about the current situation is that I have a lot more control over my schedule than I usually do, and I will no longer have to get up at 5:30 to get to campus even if I do have some sort of early meeting. So I’ll try to do the whole “put your own work first” thing that so often is impossible given all the other constraints that have to be satisfied w/r/t classes, committees, etc.
Thank you, Daisy and Susan, for a great session! I appreciated your good cheer and thoughtful prompts and comments.
Your excitement about moving makes me realize that I didn't even mention my house projects, which were HUGE, and carried emotional weight too.
DeleteAnd an article I was reading last week had me thinking of the library I went to to check a ms. for you... so gorgeous.
I'm so glad your university's online teaching program was good! Clear directions and simplicity will be our saviours for the term I think!
DeleteHouse projects are huge, and should definitely be celebrated! It makes a huge difference to have a decent space and any work towards that is definitely a win!
Thank you Daisy and Susan for this lovely summer session. And additional thanks for the session wrap questions. As so many of us do, I still suffer from the tendency to remember the sting of my failures rather than the spark of my success. This summer, I feel like I began to integrate writing into my everyday life more effectively than I have since I was a first year, earnest assistant professor. But the worst part was failing to finish Square and meet that deadline. With hope, I am learning how to make do with the commitments I make to others.
ReplyDeleteSession goals
1 Write and present at PH online conference: yes
2 Write and submit four book reviews: yes
3 Submit three conference abstracts: yes
4 Write and submit Square: not yet
5 Revise and submit two online courses: one done
6 Finish Perform: no
7 Write 20000 words for Tiny Project: maybe 750 words
Last week:
1 finish Square and submit: not yet
2 finish Fall syllabi: yes
3 clean up leftover student admin issues from Spring and Summer: some
4 complete second round review for resubmitted article: not yet
We are so hard on ourselves. And I forget my successes.
DeleteIntegrating writing into everyday life is a huge win, especially in current circumstances! That is worthy of celebration, as are all the successes you've had for the session, both big and small! Tiny Project definitely goes in the win column I think!
DeleteThank you Daisy and Susan! I've not been great about being here, but here I am. Starting over is a superpower too, right?? I'm NOT ready to teach, at ALL, but every time I sit down to work on it something urgent comes up. Mostly emails from students. It's AUGUST and they still haven't gone away...
ReplyDeleteSigh!
last week's goals:
a) self-care. The usual. Try to get some better habits. TRY mixed. Sleeping at better times. eating too much bread... which is a problem, but also soothing, and I need soothing
b) at least make some good lists of what teaching prep needs doing, and try to prioritise. (All The Things) made good lists. List making is nice, if a bit stressful
c) Get all my lists transferred to my new work journal yes!
d) prepare for the next big meeting of community project, and get interns started. UGH.prepared for it, and it happened Monday and Tuesday, and it went well, but I have far too much follow up to do and I am Just. Done. with one person on the group. Because he just gets on all of my nerves and jumps (and never reads messages. And probably because he has many of the same quirks as me but they aren't the quirks I like so I get more irritated. And I am so irritable and stressed :-( But my interns are keen (but they need looking after, attention etc.)
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 NOPE to losing weight but yes to eating a bit better, improve the amount of movement I'm doing slightly better, but more would be good, and have done a few clear things to improve my home environment ready for the new semester umm, no. Still a tip. But my tip. When I'm stressed I kind of make a nest of the chaos if that makes sense?
2) collaborative research/science: run a free course on the theory and software WeirdBugMan wrote years ago yes, and it was very very rewarding, continue to work with SocietyThing to build community less so - Community Thing kind of took over and progress at least three of the projects where I'm mostly supporting ECRs or helping out colleagues I made small progress with FlatProject (I found more problems and solved them for other people who aren't doing stuff much), fed back on a full draft for LikesMaths, and did many many edits for an ECR paper. helped two other ECRs with alternatives-to-fieldwork projects. Small bits but not zero
3) teaching planning and preparation. oh boy this is a mess, was a mess, continues to be a mess have a clear PLAN for who is teaching what and for how we are rearranging the contents of the big first year class we have a plan. Not convinced it will work, but it exists, have a session by session plan for all my own teaching up until Christmas I have a list. Colour coded, even!, and keep CommunityThing going effectively I will say yes even though right now I am annoyed with it all, and the workshop was Monday Tuesday this week and it was OK (I ended up doing a lot of talking because other people were variously on leave, "busy" and actually doing stuff)
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 this happened as part of the course we ran, actually, so that was an unexpected plus - and they attended the course so have a jump-start on their project (glad to say they told me they were now even more convinced they wanted to work with me and on my project after the course, and I was... at my most typical, perhaps? Not my best, but happy as well as scatty, 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 that got postponed. Thank GOODNESS, 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 it's still not sure, and it mostly got thought about in the context of the course again, but not zero.
DeleteWhat are you most proud of for your summer? I have done things that seem to have helped other people and that felt like they mattered - SocietyThing, our workshop (me, formerPDF and a good friend of mine from another country), and CommunityThing. I've not actually been too badly beaten down by the constant anxiety, and I'm keeping working. I started playing D&D with niece, and am managing to prioritise that.
DeleteWhat will you remember most about it? I don't know. It's a blur of work and stressing and failing and picking up again (and eating). What I CHOOSE to remember is the two particularly fun tracks on the workout set I'm doing which involve being rather childlike, and the plusses of online meetings - laughing with friends in two different countries and still getting to sleep in my own bed, attending conferences very cheaply, and making some new friends especially through CommunityThing.
What inspired or motivated you? The desire to be useful. If this IS my last year in academe (we actually so far might be on course to survive numerically, but I don't feel 'safe'), I want it to be marked by being kind and generous, and reaching out and supporting others. And this summer has been a good start.
What was the worst part? The anxiety and stress and all the rest of it. And the struggle of self-care, especially around food and eating too much of it and trying to resist the urge to hoard against the thought that it might be really dumb not to, given Brexit's looming horrors. This MORNING I bought water purifying tablets after an hour of not being able to focus and that appeased it a little, but...
Did you learn anything new about yourself or your work, good or bad? I'm still doubtful that MY work matters, most of the time, and I'm so tired. And I am rubbish at self care, partly because my body has always been a problem to be overcome and a thing I am told I am doing wrong. It aches and doesn't cooperate and ugh, and if I ask for help I'll be told off and it will hurt and I will fail. But I keep trying! That's a plus.
How did your fences hold up against the various creatures we wanted to keep under control?
Ugh. Possibly too well. The teaching stuff is so so so so behind... (for things which are my fault and things which are not my fault, but it's still ugh ugh ugh!)
Thank you for being here, and putting up with my rambling when I show up, and sharing your own! We are a wonderful community... and I need this so much this year...
I'm impressed at all you've done, especially the community stuff. If there's a good side to the pandemic it's that there are a lot of community initiatives.
DeleteStarting over is a superpower!
DeleteShowing up and helping others is a superpower!
Contributing positively towards our larger academic and social communities while dealing with all the craziness in the world is most definitely a superpower!
Being kind and generous is ALWAYS a superpower!
So yeah, your powers are clearly being used for good even with everything going on!
Every little bit like that matters...
Hang in there and keep up the D&D and all the good things you are doing because you matter!