The next room of the museum I'm guiding you through has porcelains. It's a room intended for teaching purposes, with pieces from different countries and periods, large and small, painted, glazed, abstract, representational, useful and purely decorative all combined. There's an 'activities corner' where visitors can make mosaics using shards of broken porcelain, and a lump of clay to squeeze and, maybe, make something, if you feel like it.
If any element of that room speaks to you, tell us what it is, along with your report on progress and list of goals for the coming week; if not, let it go, and just give us the report and list.
Here's where we were last week:
Daisy
1) Work on
local paper every day this week
2) Make reading list for graduate seminar
3) Record the next three weeks of lectures
4) My intentional thing for the week: flu shot… and ice cream!
Dame Eleanor Hull
*Health: daily
cardio and stretching, weights x 3, try to eat carefully and sleep enough.
*Teaching: Grade 2 sets of discussion board posts, 3 sets of papers.
*Research: make plan for addressing revisions; some time on both dead and live
languages; some other reading.
*Service: work on exam-related document for dept., prep for Monday meeting.
*Admin: do two online trainings and get them over with.
*Fun stuff: read, listen to last in concert series.
*House/life: deposit check, sort and file papers.
*Track time, at least roughly.
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
Finish
transcribing notes from archive trip.
Compile visual aids for presentation.
Order unofficial transcripts.
Schedule flu and pneumonia vaccines.
Get passport picture.
Read and annotate three articles in the digital humanities bibliography.
Read fun book.
Walk 2x7; meditate 1x7; write 2 hours x 5; something positive 1x7.
heu mihi
1) Teaching:
Record 2 lectures, edit 4 transcripts, prep next batch of PowerPoints, create
and post all remaining paper prompts so that I can stop worrying about
forgetting these.
2) Recommendation letter for current student (I have never in my life had to
write so many LORs!!), submit letter for two recent grads
3) Research: Read 3 ch/day of NunG vol 4
4) Exercise regimen, language x3, sit x3
5) Do my best to check off all the service tasks, especially recording a cheery
message about our major for the Majors Fair
6) Do something fun?
Humming42
1 work on
creative piece
2 write weekly blog post
3 finish reading essays for award judging
4 submit conference proposal
5 grade every day
6 work on November conference paper
7 revise and resubmit book review
JaneB (held over)
1) set goals
for TLQ
2) use BuJo
3) do some Preptober things
4) be kind. be kind. be kind. (but don't be a doormat).
5) organise supplies I have and try to make rational decision about what to
buy.
6) referee an article
7) prepare as much of week 4 as possible
8) draft my text for grant application, comment on two manuscripts one very
urgently, and other things I doubtless forgot.
oceangirl101
1. Work on own
stuff 2hrs
2. Exercise 3x a week and try to go for short walks/breaks outside
3. Finalize movement into state system for aunt
4. DGS stuff- will be a big week for this and the question of grad admissions
for next year
5. Read student diss to prepare for her defense (second student defending!!!)
6. Try to get eating and house (quite disorderly now) under some semblance of
control
Susan
1. Famous
author: 2 hours
2. MS review for journal
3. Start reading material for promotion review
4. One week ahead on each course
5. Do financial record thing
6. Fill out ballot (this is California. It's long.)
7. Walk x 3, yoga or other x 2
8. Get back into book I'm reading
9. Get to bed by 10
I like drinking tea out of thin porcelain cups rather than big chunky mugs. After all my nice china and other bits and pieces were packed away, I got cranky when they had to stay in storage so much longer than expected, and went to a second-hand store (the one that supports the Cats' Home) and bought a small blue-and-white cup with flowers, pictures, scrollwork, and writing. In the morning I make tea, pour it into a thermos, and then serve myself tiny blue-and-white cups of tea. Ideally I'd sip while writing. Instead, all too often it's grading or answering e-mail.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
*Health: daily cardio and stretching, weights x 3, try to eat carefully and sleep enough. YES. It's sad that basic looking-after-oneself seems like such a triumph.
*Teaching: Grade 2 sets of discussion board posts, 3 sets of papers. YES, TWO.
*Research: make plan for addressing revisions; some time on both dead and live languages; some other reading. NO, YES, YES. I can fit in reading, but am just not getting past others' thoughts to my own. Well, hey:
https://tenured-radical.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-would-paul-fussell-do-first-thanks.html
*Service: work on exam-related document for dept., prep for Monday meeting. NO, YES (plus another task that popped up).
*Admin: do two online trainings and get them over with. NO.
*Fun stuff: read, listen to last in concert series. YES.
*House/life: deposit check, sort and file papers. YES, NO.
*Track time, at least roughly. SOME days.
New goals:
*Health: daily cardio and stretching, weights x 3, try to eat carefully and sleep enough.
*Teaching: Grade 2 sets of discussion board posts, 2 sets of papers.
*Research: make plan for addressing revisions; some time on both dead and live languages; some other reading.
*Service: work on exam-related document for dept., prep for Monday meeting.
*Admin: do two online trainings and get them over with.
*Fun stuff: read, bake something, make Halloween cards for great-niblings, set up new Moleskine.
*House/life: sort and file papers.
*Track time, at least roughly.
The advantage of doing one's own calendar set-up is that one can personalize it; the disadvantage is the time it takes to do the setting up. It could be a fun, creative thing to do, but ATM it feels more like another task.
I sympathize utterly with not getting to one's own thoughts. Thanks for the link, as well!
DeleteGiven how easy it is not to take care of oneself, it is a triumph--sad but true. I congratulate you for how much you got done. It wasn't everything, but it was a lot, plus things that walked in the door mid-week.
And I'm sorry that setting up the planner feels like a task. I hope it can return to being a creative outlet soon.
This prompt makes me really want to go to a large museum, in an off-season with few tourists, and wander comfortably at my leisure, under no pressure to see everything, but just browsing towards what draws my eye. Like maybe some Etruscan statuary or something.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1) Teaching: Record 2 lectures, edit 4 transcripts, prep next batch of PowerPoints, create and post all remaining paper prompts so that I can stop worrying about forgetting these.
-Yes, mostly--I still have 1 more paper prompt to do, but it can wait until I have some idea what the paper will be about. I also got *ahead* on recording, so I only have a total of 3 more lectures to record this semester.... I have allowed myself to be consumed by this course in order to make it END SOONER.
2) Recommendation letter for current student (I have never in my life had to write so many LORs!!), submit letter for two recent grads
-Done! And I have no more letters to send this week, hooray!
3) Research: Read 3 ch/day of NunG vol 4
-Yes!
4) Exercise regimen, language x3, sit x3
-Exercise mostly (there was a lot of rain), language x2, sitting YES
5) Do my best to check off all the service tasks, especially recording a cheery message about our major for the Majors Fair
-Done! And I actually got compliments from colleagues, which is a rarity.
6) Do something fun?
-Yesterday we walked to the local waterfall (0.5 miles away) and read/played/hung out for a while. That was fun.
So I guess it was a "good" week, in the sense of checking things off my lists. I've become a fanatical to-do-list-maker this semester. It really does help--I try to write down *everything* I can think of. It's effective (for me), but it's also exhausting to focus so much on personal efficiency. I'm looking forward to break (in a month, ish).
This week:
1) Exercise regimen, language x3, sit x3
2) Teaching: Record 3 lectures, transcripts for 2 lectures (4 transcripts total), last 2 PowerPoints.
3) Research: Notes on Vol. 4 of NunG; read the article that's been open in my browser for 10 days
4) Service: Gen Ed review, catch up on editorial work
5) Look at outside source for teaching upcoming new book
That's a lot of Done and Yes! Congratulations. It's great that your colleagues complimented you: you deserve appreciation for your awesomeness.
DeleteOh my… I read the word “porcelain” and “teaching” and felt an actual wave of fear! My first thought was “oh no, I’m going to drop all these beautiful things and make a mess” and then I thought “ok I will just stand really still and not move and only do safe things”… I think that speaks volumes for my state of mind in general and about teaching specifically! Then I got to the activity corner and started to relax… Thank you for adding that part! This morning’s online class was the first this entire term that I felt was actually somewhat fun and didn’t suck the whole way through so maybe that is symbolic of the lovely activity corner and maybe even turning a corner? I hope so!
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
1) Work on local paper every day this week ROUGH START, ONLY 3/6
2) Make reading list for graduate seminar ALMOST DONE
3) Record the next three weeks of lectures DONE
4) My intentional thing for the week: flu shot… and ice cream! YES!
I had a reasonably good week, got lots of things recorded and had an unexpected bonus day of sample collecting with colleagues from another institution. Rainy and cold and muddy, and a lot of fun! But I need better boundaries about setting aside research time deliberately and consistently…
This week’s goals:
1) Work on local paper every day this week and actually make progress
2) Continue dealing with Society thing
3) Lecture recordings again (missed a few)
4) Prepare remaining assignments for all classes and post
5) My intentional thing for the week: coffee office hours with a few students who desperately need contact (these walking meetings, one person only, outside, in the wind, with parkas, so definitely safe!)
I thought maybe someone would volunteer to do some breaking for the mosaic-making! Smashing some china could be therapeutic.
DeleteYou worked on your paper every other day! Excellent! And also recorded three weeks of lectures! Yay!
I dearly hope there are some porcelain miniatures, since that’s what I’ll be seeking out. Then I can marvel over the tiny things, imagining the extraordinary attention involved in sculpting and painting these lifelike objects. Tiny Project which I have been working on/not working on may not be such an obscure title after all.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1 work on creative piece: yes
2 write weekly blog post: no
3 finish reading essays for award judging: yes
4 submit conference proposal: yes
5 grade every day: nope
6 work on November conference paper: not much
7 revise and resubmit book review: no, but not a big commitment
This week:
1 work on creative piece
2 write weekly blog post
3 grade every day
4 work on November conference paper
5 revise and resubmit book review
I tend to list here what I want to do rather than what I need to do, since I have no choice but to complete and cross out the need-to-dos. For example, seven of my colleagues have submitted files for promotion. We received them today via email links and have until Friday to review them. Because I have time for that this week. At least I don’t have to trek down to a conference room and thumb through giant notebooks anymore. This is the first time we’re doing tenure and promotion digitally so it will be interesting. There’s a lot of other service and teaching stuff this week too, as well as a class I picked up as an overload--fully online and something I teach every semester, so it’s mostly just checking in, commenting, and grading.
If you want miniatures, there are miniatures!
DeleteHooray for digital promotion files! It is much easier to deal with them than with big fat notebooks.
Porcelain: my first thought is that as someone who took pottery classes for years, it's beautiful and fragile, and it's really hard to throw -- the clay is very soft, and I'm in awe of anyone who makes anything big with it. So I got stuck on the contrast between the struggle to create and the beauty of what's created. Which is somehow probably useful? (And I completely missed the activity space...)
ReplyDeleteFrom last week:
1. Famous author: 2 hours 1 1/2- 2? made some progress
2. MS review for journal DONE
3. Start reading material for promotion review DOWNLOADED - does that count?
4. One week ahead on each course - I think so?
5. Do financial record thing NO
6. Fill out ballot (this is California. It's long.) YES, and turned it in at the county building INSIDE
7. Walk x 3, yoga or other x 2 Walk 3, something else 1?
8. Get back into book I'm reading NO
9. Get to bed by 10 5 days
I think that's actually pretty good. I had student conferences last week, so many many many hours on zoom. And drama - my students lives are hard. (Though one told me I was too hard on myself, that my class was good!) So that I accomplished as much as I did is a victory. And I'm just praying my way through the next two weeks. My basic relaxation is the Great British Baking Show, where the worst thing that happens is your cake/biscuits/bread collapses. I don't seem up to anything more.
Goals for the week ahead:
1. 2 hours on Famous Author
2. Admin: read big proposal
3. Admin: start reading ms. for promotion review
4. Teaching: chart student progress, contact stragglers
5. Add one week ahead in each class, define final infographic project
6. Financial record thing that will be a PITA
7. Keep walking: I feel better
8: Some reading
9. Get to bed early
Downloaded counts! It's doing something toward the task, at any rate. You're making progress, and also got to bed by 10 5 times, which is probably helping you feel decent and able to cope. So, yay and congratulations!
DeletePorcelain unearthed a memory from when I was four years old. I was with my mother in a very nice department store downtown where she was visiting her aunt. As we walked through the crowded china department, I brushed up against a display, and knocked off a teacup, which then broke. My mother bought it, repaired it, and put it on a display shelf in our house; it was a very pretty piece, with violets on it. Even though she was initially upset at the unwarranted cost, she liked having something that nice.
ReplyDeleteThe lesson I took from that is how important it is to have something that is perhaps not completely practical but that gives one a moment of beauty or art. I also felt that it showed even delicate things could be mended, if one put in the work to do so. I do not have that cup, but I will put some of my mother’s pottery pieces on a display shelf in my shed.
Last week’s goals:
Finish transcribing notes from archive trip. Yes. Exciting stuff!
Compile visual aids for presentation. 90%. I’m going to do one last pass after it sits and rests for a few days.
Order unofficial transcripts. Yes, and forwarded to the program chair.
Schedule flu and pneumonia vaccines. Done and received.
Get passport picture. No. I hate having my picture taken.
Read and annotate three articles in the digital humanities bibliography.Only one. That seems to be my weekly limit, although it will become TRQ soon enough.
Read fun book. Yes.
Walk 2x7; meditate 1x7; write 2 hours x 5; put something positive in the planner 1x7. 2x6, yes, yes, and yes.
This past week was good for tying up nagging tasks that I kept writing in my to-do list week after week. It wasn’t great for the “need to concentrate, synthesize, and internalize” sorts of tasks. I also have been developing headaches and eye strain, which is no surprise. My pre-pandemic day involved staring at a computer screen all day, but meetings, classes, and researchers provided a break from the screen, but it is all screen all the time now. So, I have an eye exam and will get new contacts and glasses. I hope that the new eyewear will allow me to get some reading done. I have to finish reading fifteen articles by the end of November, so I need to get moving!
On the good news front, I have been able to get two more days at the Morgan. I was supposed to have five days total, but I am not going to complain about four.
Next week's goals:
Enjoy the second half of the archive trip.
Transcribe notes from this half of the archive trip.
Get passport picture.
Read and annotate one article in the digital humanities bibliography.
Read fun book.
Walk 2x7; meditate 1x7; write 2 hours x 5; something positive 1x7.
Have a good rest of the week. Float like mist, everyone.
Your memory is a great example of "making lemonade" out of what could have been a purely unhappy experience. Thank you for that.
DeleteGetting nagging tasks out of the way is a great relief, so that is excellent, and it's good news that you'll be able to get back to the Morgan.
Fancy china also reminds me of my Mom. She had many sets- one from her Mother, one from her step-Mother, two of her own, and then less fine sets. She was good about using them frequently at holidays and any fancy occassion she could. She "made" me take in three! sets when I did my last move, and I got rid of one set, but I am so happy I have the other two. One is the set of wedgewood everyday plates we ate on when I was little (gave away), one is a fancier set of wedgewood plates that I now eat on daily and the last is a fancy fancy set that I use for special occassions. They remind me of her and I love having them now that she is gone.
ReplyDeleteIt is very much helping that I can see the light at the end of the semester tunnel. Being a bit less stressed is a huge relief, as the last 3-4 weeks were worse than what I could sustain for a long period of time.
Last week:
1. Work on own stuff 2hrs Yes
2. Exercise 3x a week and try to go for short walks/breaks outside Yes
3. Finalize movement into state system for aunt Yes, big win on this one!!!!!!!
4. DGS stuff- will be a big week for this and the question of grad admissions for next year Lots of prep
5. Read student diss to prepare for her defense (second student defending!!!) Sort of
6. Try to get eating and house (quite disorderly now) under some semblance of control Hmm, not so much
This week:
1. Work on book edits 2 hrs
2. Work on co-author paper edits 2 hrs
3. Prep for student defense
4. Exercise x 3
5. Vote
6. Stretch/meditate/bath x 2 to try to regulate sleep
I also inherited a lot of china! I gave one set to a woman I know who had the same pattern but not so much of it, and it felt good to know if was being appreciated.
DeleteWhat great news about getting your aunt into the system! That's huge, and will help a lot with your stress levels. Exercising/getting outside also helps, so well done there! I hope this week goes well.
Hi all
ReplyDeleteI came back to see how everyone is going, after being overwhelmed by stress and circumstance and failing completely to engage here a few months ago despite my best intentions. My energy has been so low! It is hard to describe what it is like to 'see' you all here - to read these beautiful prompts, to see the struggles and strategies and determination to live our best lives - so just a very heartfelt thank you to all, for being here.
Hello! Drop in any time. I try to keep in mind that people may be reading along for inspiration even if they're not up to participating. We don't bite . . . at least, JaneB and I both have some allegorical monster-critters that can be bitey, but they generally chew on us/our goals, not visitors! :-)
DeleteHi all,
ReplyDeleteA room full of porcelain worries me too with its delicacy, unless it's very well cased, but I'll wedge the clay with pleasure!
wandering past whilst very confused (changing rules in the uni and outwith it), busy (grant deadline. yes it was insane to even try but now I am committed to other people), stressed (teaching. students. needy students. The third year who says that my course is too easy and not worth the fees. The one who is having severe mental health issues. The one who doesn't seem to think the pandemic can affect them and is going home every weekend to a High Risk, No Travel area).
Fluffball remains a danger to all porcelain (I'm pretty much just drinking out of plastic 'glasses' or metal thermal cups at the moment after he discovered that coffee sometimes has animal milk in it and has been trying to get his fluffy face deeply into every container on my desk, usually then panicking and knocking them off), but he's helped me connect with some of my new first years and is popular with some of the other students too by turning up during the required live sessions. So... I'm hanging on. Just. By my fingernails. With self-care erratic. Reading Week is the second week of November and I SHOULD make it there...
I'm glad the activities corner is working out well! Sorry to hear how stressful your life is with needy students and changing rules---really I'd like to feed your admin people to one of my leathery-winged avians. I've always said cats are a menace to anything that might resemble gracious living, so Fluffball is proving that point. It is fun getting to see other people's cats on video meetings!
DeleteI think it is very funny that the two of us who work in a physical science that involves breaking things and digging up stuff and is generally considered to be kind of a rough outdoorsy field of study are the two who are scared of breaking the porcelain!
DeleteI do love playing with clay!!