Your guide this week is DEH. So far, we’ve had two “Week One” entries for this session, and I’m inclined to let that stand as a testament to how we’re feeling lately, starting and re-starting and never quite knowing where we are. But let’s not allow this to become the Fibonacci series session. We’ll call this Week Two, and then just add one per week.
“Guide” implies some sort of tour: what am I showing you? We’ve had journeys before at TLQ, maybe more than one. Let’s try a museum, church, or other significant structure this time. What kind of building are you exploring in this final session of 2020? What pieces of art or architecture do you want to spend time with? Will they challenge your thinking, or comfort you with their timelessness? Are they more about broad brushstrokes of color, or tiny delicate details, or ingenious use of form and space?
For this week, I’m going to guide you around a Chinese scroll painting, depicting steep and rocky mountains covered in pine trees, a lake at their feet reflecting clouds and snowy peaks. A small pavilion perches on a cliff above the lake in the lower left corner; in it, a scholar sips tea prepared by a kneeling servant, scrolls and brushes put aside as the scholar gazes at the gnarled pines and the tiny stream splashing over rocks, past the pavilion into the lake. What do you notice in the painting? Can it inspire you to time outside, a peaceful cup of tea, a new notebook, a silk robe to wear while working, a recording of a mountain stream for your white noise?
Respond to the prompt if it pleases
you, let it go if it doesn’t speak. Let us know how you did last week, and what
your plans are for the coming week. You, yourself, are enough. It will be okay,
and even if it isn’t, that’s okay too: just sit with what is, and let it be
itself, however gnarly. (Along these lines, formatting glitches are due to programs thinking they'll "help" me when I don't want help.)
Daisy
Session goals:
1) Finish and get rid of the
Albatross Paper
2) Learn and do some computer-based analysis with fancy tool for new paper and
local grant
3) Get DEI program approved and instituted in my professional society
4) Deliver excellent graduate course for new project students.
Last week:
1) Open Albatross and figure out what to do with it first, then do that thing
2) Record more lecture material
3) Stick to “action plan” for the whole week
Dame Eleanor Hull
Session goals:
Look after my health first.
Do a decent job teaching, and be kind to students.
Revise essay; try to make progress on book, and do at least a bit of language
work every week.
Get boxes out of storage unit.
Last week:
*Health: daily cardio and
stretching, weights x 3, try to eat carefully and sleep enough.
*Teaching: Assign points to last week's discussions x2 classes, grade second
assignment x1 classes.
*Research: make plan for addressing revisions; some time on both dead and live
languages; maybe some other reading.
*Service: prep for next week's meeting.
*Fun stuff: watch the Tour de France with Sir John, read more mid-century
women's fiction.
*House/life: pruning; sign & mail tax return; put together more bookcases.
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Session goals:
Research:
Incorporate research from hoped-for archival trip into the critical edition.
Finish one article, preferably Illuminated, although Flowers is a close second.
Finish the annotated bibliography on critical editions and digital humanities.
Life:
Achieve 10,000 steps a day.
Achieve 60% better meals.
Improve positivity about life.
Last week:
Write something positive in my planner
1x7.
Really finish the last article for the lit review.
Email the other three professors who work in my sub-specialty.
Start organizing the digital humanities references.
Walk 2x7; eat real meals 2x7; meditate 1x7; write 2 hours x 5.
Heu mihi
Session goals:
1. Research: draft an article by
summer 2021; prepare a grant proposal by mid-summer 2021
1a. (Re)read NunG books 3-5
1b. Research relevant theology on death in the 13th c.
1c. Situate readings of nuns within theological context
2. Draft my part of intro to collection
3. Language: Make some progress. Aim for 3x week, any length of time.
4. Life: Exercise, yoga twice a week (any length of time), sit some amount
every week
5. Watch Pride and Prejudice by myself in the newly fixed-up basement.
6. Try to do at least one of each week's Big Tasks on Monday or Tuesday, to
keep them all from piling up on the weekend.
7. Relax into what happens. Change or abandon goals as needed.
Last week:
1) Back into exercise - yoga x2,
running x5
2) Language x3, any amount; sit at least once, for at least 5 minutes
3) Read 5 chapters of NunG per day (total of 35)
4) Write 1 letter of recommendation
5) Next batch of powerpoints and lectures
6) 3 Gen Ed reviews
Humming42
Session goals:
1 write a tiny project piece every
week
2 spend time with a creative piece every week
3 write weekly blog posts
4 finish writing that online class
5 keep up with teaching things
Last week:
1 spend time organizing tiny writing
so far
2 write a tiny project piece
3 work on creative piece
4 write weekly blog post--probably about Dots
5 finish and submit current book review
6 read five essays for award judging
7 make edits to almost-finished online course
JaneB
Session goals: still to come
Last week:
1) comment on a manuscript for a
student
2) get through the many meetings of the week with a Positive Attitude
3) self care stuff - get my bullet journal habit back into shape and tick off
most of my "habits" every day (water, fruit & veg, the usual
stuff).
4) Community Project stuff. An hour's worth.
Oceangirl101
Session goals:
1. Complete book and submit to
press!!!! This will entail final writing/ edits on Ch 8, a bit of data
crunching for Ch 7, a final read througth and polish of the entire thing, plus
copy edits and figures and the bib. I think its doable.
2. Maintain a realistic notion of what is doable this semester in terms of
teaching. Be gentle with myself.
3. Exercise 5x a week
4. Eat healthy
5. Advise several students on new projects, get bits and pieces of data/writing
needed to collaborators for CNH paper, Canoe paper, and Adze paper
6. Paperwork for aunt to go into state system (I am her POA)
7. Buy porch furniture to make outdoor space comfy
8. Do smell retraining therapy each day in the hopes of getting smell and taste
back
Last week:
1. Work on Ch 1 and Ch 8 at least 3
days
2. Erosion data to colleagues
3. DGS stuff
4. Exercise x 3 at a minimum
5. Try to make healthy food choices
6. One night of non-TV watching
7. start reading student diss
Susan
Session goals:
1. Survive the teaching, and maybe figure out
how to own it?
2. Finish chapter 2 of Famous Author, by working at least 15 minutes every week
day.
3. Keep making progress on getting rid of stuff/ fixing house.
4. Keep walking or getting exercise.
5. Read for pleasure -- a litte?
6. Do something enjoyable weekly with friends.
Last week:
1. Finish invites for undergrad
class
2. Finish schedule for grad class, and record power point.
3. Read Ms. for review
4. 2 x 1 hour for Famous Author
5. Keep editing proposal document
6. Read 1 journal
7. Keep getting exercise
8. Keep going to bed relatively early
9. Do something nice at the weekend (maybe going to the foothills to pick up
wine).
I wrote this on my deck, on a sunny breezy morning that is warm in the sun, cool in the shade, while drinking green tea, so I'm in my version of that scholar's pavilion. It's lovely . . . and I'm also feeling guilty about not getting more done in the past week. TBH, the Tour de France is ruining my work life, though I have loved watching it---it was a terrific, exciting race this year, and I am so glad it finally happened. Today is the final stage, so I hope to get back to a normal schedule this week. I am so used to punctuating July with the Tour that I just have not been able to believe the summer was over until I got those three weeks concentrating on the race! NOW I will face the semester!
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
*Health: daily cardio and stretching, weights x 3, try to eat carefully and sleep enough. Cardio YES, stretching x5, weights once, mostly good on food, short on sleep.
*Teaching: Assign points to last week's discussions x2 classes, grade second assignment x1 classes. YES, about 1/3 through.
*Research: make plan for addressing revisions; some time on both dead and live languages; maybe some other reading. NO, YES, NO.
*Service: prep for next week's meeting. About halfway there.
*Fun stuff: watch the Tour de France with Sir John, read more mid-century women's fiction. YES, YES. Also wrote a paper letter to my friend Lady Maud.
*House/life: pruning; sign & mail tax return; put together more bookcases. NO, NO, NO.
Hmm---I like taking walks, watching the Tour, and reading fun things, so they always get time. Work, well, it will always be there. I need a better work ethic.
New goals:
*Health: daily cardio and stretching, weights x 3, try to eat carefully and sleep enough.
*Teaching: Catch up with grading and planning.
*Research: make plan for addressing revisions; some time on both dead and live languages; maybe some other reading.
*Service: prep for next week's meeting.
*Fun stuff: read more mid-century women's fiction, see friends in person/distanced, coloring.
*House/life: pruning; sign & mail tax return; put together more bookcases.
*Track time, at least roughly.
We watched Le Tour for several years and it was a pleasure to have that daily indulgence in the summer. My husband is a motogp fan this year, and it's been interesting to get up at 6:30 to watch races live from Europe. I'm so glad you got to enjoy a good Tour this year.
DeleteAs of Tuesday afternoon, I'm doing pretty well. I'm very tired (night class last night, followed by 8:00 a.m. second section of that class to accommodate a student in another country), but thanks to finally making a schedule for myself, I'm getting some work done: first research reading, then some grading, then transcribing an online presentation. It's one of those "mediocre" days where I'm not doing great but just doing *something* is a great thing. Forward progress is better than a day of wheel-spinning.
DeleteI can't think of a building, although I like the prompt. I think my inability comes from my feeling I'm stumbling through the dark, unsure of my footing.
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
Write something positive in my planner 1x7. Nope. I'm not feeling very positive, but perhaps I would feel more positive if I forced myself to write something every day.
Really finish the last article for the lit review. Nope. I did read most of it and take notes, but didn't get all the way through.
Email the other three professors who work in my sub-specialty. Yes. In sharp contrast to my advisor, these three professors wrote me back within the hour, were more than willing to meet with me, and set up appointments right then and there for the same or the next week.
Start organizing the digital humanities references. Yes.
Walk 2x7; eat real meals 2x7; meditate 1x7; write 2 hours x 5. Only 12 times; yes, yes, and yes.
I struggled this past week, slogging through work and chores in a bit of a daze. I was awake for at least two and more often four hours a night. I finally picked up the prescription my gastroenterologist gave me last week. She spoke truth when she said it tastes awful, -- even doctored with added taste, it is grainy and horrible -- but so far, it has solved 75% of my food reactions.
One of the profs met with me, crushing me immediately by saying that although the website lists a few mutual areas of interest, she has moved on. Sigh. But she was very nice, and told me I could contact her about anything, even if she didn't do research in my areas of interest any more.
I am meeting with the other two profs this week.
So, I messed around with bibliographic software for the annotated bibliography, but just couldn't concentrate enough to finish any of the articles. I did finish one peer review, so I wasn't utterly useless last week.
Blaming the chaos instead of blaming ourselves is just so hard, even though I know the struggle is not my own shortcoming. I hope you find a clear path.
DeletePoor sleep makes it really hard to get anything done, so I think you did well in the circumstances. And even if your meds taste awful, what a great thing to resolve so many of your reactions!
DeleteNext week's goals:
ReplyDeleteFINISH the lit review.
Write up my notes from the first research interview.
Meet with the other two profs and write up their interviews.
Read one article in the digital humanities bibliography.
Walk 2x7; meditate 1x7; write 2 hours x 5; put something positive in the planner 1x7.
I seem to be losing my optimism, but perhaps I should be okay with how I am, as Dame Eleanor said. I'm going to work on that. Stay safe and well, everyone, and float like mist.
I think we're extra sensitive to the world around us, and right now? It's hard. I'm glad some people got back to you quickly, and hope your advisor does.
DeleteAre you using Zotero?
Yes, I am using Zotero, Susan. The mobile app for my phone isn't great, but I'm usually on the laptop, so it works well.
DeleteSometimes optimism is too much to ask. Endurance will do, if that's where you're at.
DeleteI needed a reset last week, to get myself back into doing the things that I need to do, and I got it; I think that the cooler weather + my son going back to school starting last Wednesday (online and so from his bedroom, but still, he has something to do!!) really helped.
ReplyDeleteThis morning, I think that I need yet another full reset, though; I'm angsty about politics, bored by work, etc. Need to jump in quickly before the chance of any sort of early-day energy is wasted. We're in the 5th week of the semester, already. It's easy to be bored & despairing at this point!
Something that helped last week was listing every little thing that I needed to do. It kept me moving forward because so many of the tasks were teeny tiny and easy to accomplish, but also precisely the kinds of things that I would neglect or forget about otherwise.
The scroll that DEH described--well, my first thought is of what an inadequate scholar I am, because I can't fathom just sitting and working! Which, of course, I do quite often, so.... Ugh, I need to chance my mental space right away. I shall hold on to that picture and imagine the peace, the tranquility, the focus, until I have some of it, too.
Last week:
1) Back into exercise - yoga x2, running x5 - Yes
2) Language x3, any amount; sit at least once, for at least 5 minutes - Language x2, Yes (once for 15 minutes)
3) Read 5 chapters of NunG per day (total of 35) - Yes
4) Write 1 letter of recommendation - Yes
5) Next batch of powerpoints and lectures - PowerPoints yes, lectures no
6) 3 Gen Ed reviews - Yes
This week:
1) Teaching: Next batch of lectures (record them) and PowerPoints; grade 1 set of papers
2) Personal virtue*: Run x 5, yoga any amount x 2, language x 3, sit x 2
3) Service tasks: Two five-year course reviews, majors meeting
4) Graduate students: Write letter(s) of recommendation, read one exam document
5) Research: Finish NunG vol. 3
6) Fun: Order some new papers for bookbinding?
7) Parenting: 3 days of French lessons, do something fun with kid at some point this week
*A semi-facetious use of "virtue." Not as facetious as it ought to be, though, I'm afraid.
Also, update on the situation with my chair: We are moving forward! He was double-confirming all of my external letter writers, and told me that there "didn't seem to be any reason to contact [me] until he had that all firmed up." Well, obviously he was wrong, as I was losing my bananas in the meantime, but at least we're on track once more.
DeletePhew! and Yay!
DeleteI second Susan on the relief and celebration!
DeleteWhy should you have to be facetious about virtue? The Stoics are clear about what happiness really is, behaving virtuously, and things like exercise and meditation are indeed strengths. Own it! Or maybe we need some term related to virago, not just vir.
DeleteI'm glad your chair was doing something, but he needs more acquaintance with the concept of transparency.
Yay for re-sets, as well! Cold weather, end of a bike race, whatever works.
For a building to explore… Where I’d like to be is in a building full of ideas and knowledge like the British Museum, with people I can talk to… Where I am is more like some haunted post-apocalyptic rat-hole with holes in the floor and roof and walls and a thriving population of mean raccoons…
ReplyDeleteThat beautiful scroll painting makes me want to do one thing and one thing only… Get out for field work!!! I work in mountains, so I am literally salivating over the image of rocky mountains and the cliff and the stream with the rocks because that is exactly where I’d be working all summer in “normal” years! So I will keep the picture as inspiration to remember that the mountains will still be there next season when I get out again. They are not going anywhere and I WILL see them again!
This was another week of “cannot focus for longer than 3 minutes” so the best that I can say for it is that I’m no more behind on things at the end of the week than I was at the beginning. So I’m taking that as a win because it could have been much worse! I’m happy with my plan for actions every week, it worked well; my alcohol consumption has been cut in half and I don’t have nearly as many cricks and knots from not moving enough. I ate everything that I could see though, so clearly a work in progress…
Last week’s goals:
1) Open Albatross and figure out what to do with it first, then do that thing OPENED AND WROTE A PARAGRAPH
2) Record more lecture material DONE, a bit ahead of schedule
3) Stick to “action plan” for the whole week PRETTY GOOD except for the fun part… Didn’t quite manage that. But in “potential fun” I did spend a bunch of money on new e-books that I won’t have time to read right away but make me happy to have!
This week’s goals:
1) Start new early morning work time schedule
2) Make 3 figures for Albatross
3) Write long overdue society thing for committee
4) Make talk for upcoming conference
5) Record more lecture material
6) Stick to “action plan” for the whole week
I LOL'd at your building description! I think we need to band together to write a collective TLQ fantasy novel, by Terry Lynn Quentin (or something like that).
Delete"Don't make it worse" is one of my personal mottoes, so it sounds like you managed that! Well done. I also have a "pile" of e-books that I haven't read yet, but it is indeed nice to have them available.
I have a lot of nightmares and anxiety dreams about buildings, so for now I'm going to focus on my desire for an eremitage in the mountains with a handy servant - or perhaps just a convenient neighbour scholar who bakes regularly and we have a pact to check in on each other daily and not interrupt if the other is mentally away with the words.
ReplyDeleteI'm very tired. I'm grumpy. I'm dealing with a lot of disgruntled students and with the problems of not taking it personally when colleagues seem to take great pleasure in telling me what things their students don't like and what they think "we're" doing wrong but never helped out when we were trying to plan all this stuff so grrr. GRRRRR.
Sadly Niece had too much homework to play D&D this weekend, but at least that leaves me with no prep this week. Oh, and Fluffball has developed a strong desire to drink my iced coffee (current afternoon treat - ice, nut or oat milk, some instant decaff coffee granules and some honey or "natural sweetener" (maple syrup or fruit concentrates) for the non-sweet milks (oat milk is somehow sweet enough itself), zapped with the "soup stick" blender) which is very frustrating (throwing out coffee or drinking hairy coffee are neither of them good outcomes).
goals from last week:
1) comment on a manuscript for a student done! done! done!
2) get through the many meetings of the week with a Positive Attitude variable. I had a couple of "bandwidth issues" and turned off my camera and made Very Rude Gestures at the speaker, but they couldn't see me and it made my tone of voice much less impatient...
3) self care stuff - get my bullet journal habit back into shape and tick off most of my "habits" every day (water, fruit & veg, the usual stuff).still wobbly. I don't have the wherewithall to get back to those sorts of habits for some reason.
4) Community Project stuff. An hour's worth. did about three hours overall. Which reminds me... need to check in with the interns again.
My standards are already really low for my recorded stuff - I didn't re-record one with chair squeaks in it, and only fixed the worst of the captioning errors ("scrotal" in place of "spheroidal" and "mete" in place of "peat") - but it still took over three hours to record, check and upload three pieces of recording, totalling 20 minutes of verbiage.
goals for next week:
This week is the second week of "induction/welcome" so we are now juggling events for first, second and third years, along with teaching prep. or rather SOME of us are and others are... doing a lot less. Normal for induction but particularly galling this year (see complaint above).
1) set goals for TLQ
2) work on restoring BuJo habit
3) set up new noticeboard for Preptober
4) be kind. be kind. be kind. (but don't be a doormat, that's not kind either to JaneB or to the other person when the doormat reaches the limit and snaps at their ankles or just stalks off and they get all surprised).
5) try to stop obsessing about buying more supplies that I don't have storage space for - Br3xit notwithstanding.
6) referee an article
7) prepare as much of week 3 as possible (we're supposed to be working 3 weeks or more ahead... and subject to spot checks... ::eye roll::)
THREE WEEKS AHEAD? Are they insane?
DeleteI mean, maybe it depends on what you mean by "ahead." But if they want everything set up that far in advance . . . it's not as if we've been doing this for years and have tons of material just ready to upload! Tons of my material is in my head and sure, I can disgorge it without notes if I'm lecturing but getting it organized for someone to read or otherwise work through is a WHOLE nother thing, before we even get to the recording and other technological issues. GAH.
My first thought was that I'm in a maze -- not a labyrinth, a maze, and I don't know the key, so I keep hitting walls. I guess that says everything, right?
ReplyDeleteHow I did last week:
1. Finish invites for undergrad class YES
2. Finish schedule for grad class, and record power point. YES
3. Read Ms. for review NO
4. 2 x 1 hour for Famous Author No
5. Keep editing proposal document A BIT
6. Read 1 journal NO
7. Keep getting exercise YES
8. Keep going to bed relatively early 4 days?
9. Do something nice at the weekend (maybe going to the foothills to pick up wine). YES
Well, I ended up spending a lot more time on course prep than I expected, figuring out how to address things that are coming up. Also building new modules, which takes a huge amount of time but is semi-mindless. And now I've done a quick survey of my students, and I think I'm going to have to revise things again. I did go up into the foothills on Saturday; the smoke is worse there, but it was downright decent here, so it was not as bad as it would have been. (For those who know these things, the AQI in the foothills was down to about 150, but it had been at 700...) Time for the work I need to do -- the review and Famous Author -- just got swallowed up. I'm miles behind on email, too, which is just overwhelming the overwhelm. (You can probably tell that I had 3 1/2 hours of zoom meetings today, and am FRIED.)
Also, the world is terrible. It's hard to be positive. And I'm worried about my students -- many of whom are from immigrant families, and until the election is over, it's going to be scary. (It will be scary after too, but...) I guess, like Elizabeth, I need to write down positive stuff every day. Back to the gratitude journal idea.
So, goals for next week.
1. Finish admin stuff for committee
2. Create one more module in each course
3. 2 x 1 hour on Famous Author
4. Read ms, write review (due Sept 30, so getting dire)
5. Keep getting exercise
6. Get regular sleep
7. Do something nice
8. Be kind to everyone, including myself
I'm trying to float like mist, but I'm so clutzy it's hard.
Oh, the worries for students! Yes. That. I fear my most marginal ones are already off-track, dealing with family or whatever, not in a position to be in school. I hope things settle enough that they make it back. LRU is a school of second chances, with lots of returners, so I'm just crossing my fingers and doing my best for the people who are in class now.
DeleteI hope you can manage the regular sleep. It makes everything so much better.
My choice of building reveals a bit about my aesthetic and my research interests. I welcome you to a midcentury American motel, with a glowing neon sign. You can hear the high pitched whine of the neon and the chugging of the air conditioner units in the rooms. Don’t be fooled by what seems to be a bleak setting. This is actually a secret writing retreat.
ReplyDeleteHeaven knows I could use a secret hideout just to get away from the chaos and madness of the world. Even though I am aware of my habitual doomscrolling, I know too much time has been wasted making myself miserable on social media before I realize it. I hope there will be some peace for all of us some time soon. It was a rather treacherous week, so know that you are not alone if this one was a struggle for you too.
Last week:
1 spent time organizing tiny writing so far: yes
2 write a tiny project piece: no
3 work on creative piece: yes
4 write weekly blog post--probably about Dots: no
5 finish and submit current book review: yes
6 read five essays for award judging: no
7 make edits to almost-finished online course: no
Better than I thought.
This week:
1 write a tiny project piece
2 work on creative piece
3 write weekly blog post
4 read 10 essays for award judging
5 work on internal grant application
6 try to be patient and not over-zoomed by excessive meetings this week
Sending peace and fluffy pillows your way.
Ha! I like your secret writing retreat. You never know what's in one of those mid-century American motels. It might be Paris, Texas, or it might be a Tardis-like entrance to Somewhere Else a la Ray Bradbury!
Delete