Last week we had a lovely discussion of appetizers, one that made me miss Before Covid when we still had campus receptions! And though I have certainly had evenings when I came home from one of those receptions and decided I didn't need to eat anything else, we probably need a main course. What will it be? A large salad? vegetarian spanakopita? Pasta of some sort? a beautiful cold poached salmon? maybe roast chicken? If you were planning dinner, what would it be (but leave dessert for next week).
To move from dreaming about delicious dinners to our work lives, what's the main course for you? What nourishes you intellectually and professionally? How do you stay connected to it with all the stuff that fills our lives from teaching and admin and life?
Goals from last week:
Daisy
1) Continue writing original text for new local paper
2) Finish modelling work for new local paper
3) Do grad course prep and organize readings for students
4) Get a few early nights to make up for lack of sleep while traveling
Dame Eleanor
*language study and scholarly reading, x3-4 each.
*500 new words in the Households chapter
*mark exercises from both Johnson and Miss Baddesley
*tidy up the garden
*some other Useful Life Thing
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
2 pages a day on the French drama guide.
Prepare for class session 1 hour x 3.
Read two articles.
Pick one languishing project and do a reverse outline for the hors d’oeuvres.
Heu mihi
1. Usual exercise, sitting, self-care
2. Sabbatical prep: Email French university, finish photographing house, list house on short-term rental website
3. Re-revise larger grant application, incorporating second reader's suggestions
4. 3 more WH essays; writing session with co-editor
5. Read short book for research; read a bit of much longer book; write something down
6. Grade 1st batch of papers (25)
Humming42
1 submit now late book review
2 write remaining assignments for 7 week class
3 submit abstract to spring conference
4 write and submit other book review
JaneB (carried over from previous week)
1) self-care: do 3 songs worth of exercise each day, clean out the flipping "basket swap", clear off the reading chair in my work area
2) teaching: get week 1 materials prepared, fix all the "list items" for my VLE sites (6 sites), start on week 2
3) admin: get caught up on stupid CPD videos and things (1 to go if I can find it). Send email to sort out local chatty group.
4) research: read over what we said we'd do for the grant that got funded, and make some initial notes. decide whether to submit possible PhD idea for internal competition. finish details & submit Ferret! Please let Ferret get submitted...
Karen
(noting that school holidays mean I'm down two working days)
Teaching - find kindness when chasing up missing students/assessments.
Research - put together the big end of year timeline so I know when will be peak periods for postgard feedback.
Self & Home - op shop drop, 2 x pomodoro home office clean up, enjoy school holiday time.
Susan
1. One session on Famous Author: session 2 will be bonus depending on how the duct cleaning goes.
2. Get assessment information & section sorted out for self-study
3. Read two journals
4. Get first essay prompt posted for undergraduates
5. Get another speaker for grad class
6. Make next 2 calls related to house
7. Have fun on Saturday
8. Keep up with exercise & healthy eating
The cat-dragon recommends crispy administrator. I would like to encourage it to visit the Conservative Party Conference going on this week in the UK, but that might be a bit political. And lacking nuance. I would like to make a really elegant nut loaf - actually, I offer our family Christmas dinner, a chestnut pate with walnuts and roasted mushrooms layered and wrapped in a rich pastry crust (sort of like a beef wellington for vegetarians), or a filo pastry crown made in a bundt pan and filled with autumnal roasted vegetables (squash and parsnip), stewed leeks, feta cheese...
ReplyDeleteWork main course - mentoring. I love mentoring. Being useful, working with a small number of people...
I did set goals for this week, but as the last comment on week 4 because I came in on Sunday evening my time and the "hors d'oeuvres" were only present as a tempting smell as we gathered and admired each others' dresses.
I don't really understand how this trimester is even worse (more stressful, more tiring, I'm so much more behind) than last year. Masks are barely present, I'm finding commuting mentally exhausting, and everything in my environment is a mess and needs more care than I can give it. I sat in the middle of chaos and phone-scrolled and Just Could Not for most of this weekend, so I am starting next week even more behind than I was. I did play D&D at least. And managed to embarrass my nibling so much that they had to go lie on the floor to recover, then the family dog went and lay on them and they had to play from the floor for about 15 minutes which got us nicely past the embarrassment. Lord I am so. fed. up. with everything else in life in the UK right now.
GOALS FOR LAST WEEK:
1) self-care: do 3 songs worth of exercise each day, clean out the flipping "basket swap", clear off the reading chair in my work area quite good until Friday, then... it went. nope! nope!
2) teaching: get week 1 materials prepared, fix all the "list items" for my VLE sites (6 sites), start on week 2 yes... just... finished about 2 hours ago. nope but not my fault I was waiting on other people. I have at least thought about next week
3) admin: get caught up on stupid CPD videos and things (1 to go if I can find it). Send email to sort out local chatty group. no and no
4) research: read over what we said we'd do for the grant that got funded, and make some initial notes. decide whether to submit possible PhD idea for internal competition. finish details & submit Ferret! Please let Ferret get submitted... no, no - ran out of time and motivation after all the others I put in got rejected (again) - local screening is aggressively in favour of one clique, or at least it really feels that way, and YES. All submitted.
GOALS FOR THE COMING WEEK:
1) self-care: do 3 songs worth of exercise each day, do some meal prep on my work from home day(s), clean out the flipping "basket swap", clear off the reading chair in my work area
2) teaching: get week 2 materials prepared and week 3 mostly prepared, fix all the "list items" for my VLE sites (6 sites)
3) admin: get caught up on stupid CPD videos and things (1 to go if I can find it). Send email to sort out local chatty group.
4) research: read over what we said we'd do for the grant that got funded, and make some initial notes. see if we can get Small But Necessary application done (might be too late...).
if only we could replicate and share the cat-dragon. i feel like my working life would be much more nourished with some strategic crispification! I'm sorry to hear that this trimester is being so horrible and exhausting - I hope that this weeks' small goals give you some sense of progress and control.
DeleteI'm so sorry, but love the veggie beef wellington, and even the filo pastry crown with roast veggies (which are my favorite.)
DeleteBut I share your sense that it's almost more exhausting this year, though we have a mask mandate which is actually observed.
Oh my goodness, I don't even know.
ReplyDeleteI can't think food right now (I'm trying to rush this out before I leave work for the day). Professionally? What nourishes me? Ideally, it's those lovely moments when writing is flowing, and I'm having insights, and it all makes sense...but I can't even imagine that at the moment. Instead, I'm delighting in being the most organized chair that Big Committee I'm Chairing has ever had. Making lists. And fretting about things left off of lists. This is not, truth be told, very nourishing.
However, I just checked something off of today's list so hard that I broke my pen! It had been on my list for days and days. And I DID IT.
I felt completely overwhelmed on Saturday, but looking back, I did okay last week.
Last week:
1. Usual exercise, sitting, self-care - Yes; only 1 yoga class, again, which is annoying but also entirely my fault
2. Sabbatical prep: Email French university, finish photographing house, list house on short-term rental website - YES, this was all stressful and messy but it's done, and the French university looks like they'll give me a hosting agreement
3. Re-revise larger grant application, incorporating second reader's suggestions - Yes. I think it's almost done (which is good, because it's due next week).
4. 3 more WH essays; writing session with co-editor - Only 1 WH essay, but it was a bear. I'm not going to worry about the next two until next week. My co-editor has finally been able to make her changes and write her last part(s), so now I need to spend this week working on the intro.
5. Read short book for research; read a bit of much longer book; write something down - Short book yes; longer book no; writing HA HA.
6. Grade 1st batch of papers (25) - Yes
So it's easy to see where my time went last week: to the more immediately pressing tasks for which I was accountable to other people, not to my own research/writing. Oh well. Those other things have to happen, too.
This week:
1) Read bits of that damn longer book and try to make an effort to get caught up with my "research plan," such as it is.
2) Self-care etc.
3) Revise WH intro.
4) Plan revisions to contingently accepted essay.
5) Grade Essay 2
Sometimes I think committee work is like junk food, superficially attractive, gives you a nice moment in the short term of feeling you are good, and contributing and super-organised, and then that feeling fades off and there's little, if any nourishment left. Or maybe that's just my committee experience...
DeleteMay this week's press of urgent tasks be a little lighter.
Yes, I think you're right! At least it's the personnel committee, which means that it does have some lasting effect--but ultimately the work is STILL busy work (processing 70+ annual faculty reports, approving everything that the unit-level PCs have already approved), so I do need to keep that in perspective.
DeleteOf course, it also has the most unforgiving deadlines, so some measure of organization is required!
It's like being forced to eat junk food, maybe?
DeleteI am really impressed that you're managing to do so much advance planning for what sounds like an awesome sabbatical! I've never managed to go away for sabbatical, and the amount of packing-up that we'd have to do to rent out our house is deeply daunting.
DeleteThings that nourish me at work: colleagues who get it (the ones you can be honest with, rather than having to put up a defensive or strategic facade); that lovely moment where a piece of student work is thoughtful and intellectually exciting and beautifully expressed and either you didn't expect it or you've worked with them for ages to get them to that point and they finally make it; hitting a flow state. And outside work, yoga and the garden, my mainstays of sanity.
ReplyDeleteFor dinner, I think I'll order something large and generous and made to share. At our local market there's sometimes a stall that does paella in huge wheels of pans, yellow and glistening. I'll imagine us all together, temporarily setting aside the formal manners of gentlefolk to hold bowls in our hands and talk and laugh together in the sunshine.
Last week:
(noting that school holidays mean I'm down two working days)
Teaching - find kindness when chasing up missing students/assessments. yes, kindness and persistence
Research - put together the big end of year timeline so I know when will be peak periods for postgard feedback. working on it
Self & Home - op shop drop, 2 x pomodoro home office clean up, enjoy school holiday time. yes
This week:
(only two working days, one already gone, so bare minimum at work)
Teaching - remain positive, even if with gritted teeth.
Research - fulfill supervisory duties
self & Home - op shop drop, home office 2 x pomodoros, if weather permits plant out summer vege, 3 x yoga, enjoy school holidays
What is op shop drop? I'm intrigued!
Delete"Op shop" is a Down Under term for thrift store (opportunity, I think).
DeleteTimelines help so much with work flow. I'm trying to do better at that (rather than just figuring I'll fit in grading "somewhere").
DeleteAll I want for dinner this week is beer and chips… That’s it, that’s all my mind can handle right now! When the craziness subsides I’d like to put in a request for a fancy roasted game dish with seasonal vegetables and a nice red wine!
ReplyDeleteI got nothing done last week (lots of done things, but none were on my list except maybe the sleeping part). And now I’m having a crazy week, conference organizing is getting intense and the personality clashes are starting right on schedule… I’m national president for our association, so by default the financially responsible party, and have several roles on the actual organizing committee, mostly the committee of “something needs to be done so I’m doing it”… So I’m calling Monday and today Service days and starting over with research tomorrow. Service days are satisfying but in the way a food truck hamburger is satisfying – does the job, very satisfying in the short term, probably comes with great company and people, but you wouldn’t want it for a steady diet.
Research is more like the elaborate meals that you cook from scratch, with fancy roasting or fiddly recipe steps and hard-to-find ingredients, which feel like soooo much work you don’t always want to do it, but every time you do you wonder why you don’t do it more often because the meal is great in the end... Convoluted sentence but I think you all will understand!
Last week’s goals:
1) Continue writing original text for new local paper NOPE
2) Finish modelling work for new local paper NOPE
3) Do grad course prep and organize readings for students NOPE
4) Get a few early nights to make up for lack of sleep while traveling YES
Last week’s goals:
1) URGENT NOW Continue writing original text for new local paper
2) URGENT NOW Finish modelling work for new local paper
3) URGENT NOW Do grad course prep and organize readings for students
4) Service days and organizing meetings (6 this week…ouch)
5) Coffee with friend
I've definitely been on the "it needs to be done so I'll do it" committee, which is exhausting because unpredictable. I love your comparison between service and research!
DeleteMy dinner would be salmon (cold or hot) with asparagus. I can hardly think of a more perfect meal. Of course, I just came home from an exhausting day on campus, and had zoom drinks with a colleague (between the smoke so you don't want to be outdoors, and COVID in our area, that's what we do) and lots of chips, so there's that!
ReplyDeleteWhat nourishes me at work: when things work -- whether it's the writing going smoothly and feeling like my ideas are moving, or a class where students come alive, or even a committee that works well together, it makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself. And I've long since learned that I think best in conversation, so committees (and conferences) help me think.
How I did:
1. One session on Famous Author: session 2 will be bonus depending on how the duct cleaning goes. Yes, and half maybe of the second?
2. Get assessment information & section sorted out for self-study YES: someone offered to help me!!! We had a conversation! It's good!
3. Read two journals NO
4. Get first essay prompt posted for undergraduates YES
5. Get another speaker for grad class NO
6. Make next 2 calls related to house YES
7. Have fun on Saturday YES - and I got most of my Christmas shopping done!
8. Keep up with exercise & healthy eating YES
All things considered, it was a pretty good week. I spent more time with my mother's new TV than expected, but it's working, and at least I don't have to return it. Everything else is chugging along, and the fact that a colleague offered to help with some of the work makes me feel a little less overwhelmed. The bad thing is that the wind has meant we're getting lots of smoke from the fires, and AQIs between 150 and 200 (unsafe for everyone outdoors). So just mostly hunkering down indoors. Today I was on campus all day (teaching, then two meetings) and I'd forgotten what that was like! I wore shoes all day!
Goals for the next week:
1. 2 sessions on famous author
2. Finish sorting through the assessment stuff I have
3. Read manuscript I'm blurbing
4. Do something fun at some point
5. Get second set of plane tickets
6. Follow up with garden guy who hasn't answered calls
7. Watch fun movie
8. Keep up with exercise & healthy eating (which includes chips!)
Having to stay inside because of the air quality is so sad. Why else do people live where you do, but for the outdoor opportunities? But on the plus side, it's great that someone offered to help with the self-study, and that you got your Christmas shopping mostly done, as well as keeping up with exercise.
DeleteRoast chicken sounds delightful, thank you, and I'll take potatoes and sauteed spinach alongside it.
ReplyDeleteWork main course, probably research, but it's as Daisy says, it needs so many fiddly steps of roasting spices and sauteing some minor ingredient, not to mention sourcing the unusual additions, that it can feel like an imposition, or at least that one has to wait such a terribly long time to get to the final creation. In the past week I have in fact been doing a lot of ILL-ing, and I want very much to sit down and read the books and articles that have come in. These days, I also find teaching F2F to be more nourishing than it used to be, in part because my undergrads are so enthusiastic (like me, they're delighted to be back F2F), so the classroom really is creating energy rather than draining it.
How I did:
*language study and scholarly reading, x3-4 each. YES.
*500 new words in the Households chapter. NO, but about that in notes.
*mark exercises from both Johnson and Miss Baddesley. NO and YES, respectively.
*tidy up the garden. SOME.
*some other Useful Life Thing. YES, but unfortunately not one of the things from my list. We found we had mice in the "attic," so I called someone to come and figure out how they are getting in. We are such softies that we keep setting live traps, hoping to release the mice back outside, but so far have caught only one. They keep tripping the traps without going in them.
So, here it is Wednesday, and I have not set goals for the week, or set up calendar pages, and I'm feeling a little freaked out about All The Things that are lining up in my inbox or on the LMS. I'll be back when I finish making a list.
I did a checkin at the start of class yesterday morning, asking my students to say a word about how they were feeling, and they all spoke at once but I could definitely hear "tired"! Me too! It's that time of the semester.
DeleteMy word would be "harried," but I keep muttering, "These are solvable problems," which helps. Even with mice, this house is better than the last one.
DeleteNew goals:
Health: get ready for bed at 10, yoga x6, weights x3, stay off twisted ankle.
Research: take notes on very significant article, read one book, keep up with dead-language group.
Teaching: grade undergrad papers, write two assignments, respond to 2 grad students' submissions.
Admin: prep for two meetings, put off two online trainings.
Life Stuff: pay bills, send birthday card, excursion with friends.
I’d like a light salad for dinner--I am trying to move my heavier meals earlier in the day, hoping to help my sleep and gastric health. Translating that into my writing, I need to concentrate on the heavier research lifts early in the day, rather than my current practice, which appears to be gearing up by doing the lighter things, and never getting to the meatier stuff. There are more than enough less important things that come up in a day; I certainly don’t need to sabotage myself in addition!
ReplyDeleteBeing able to wfh has proven helpful from a standpoint of “when you get a chance, could you… “ interruptions--I can usually manage the interruptions of family members in a much more straightforward manner.
Last week’s goals:
2 pages per day on the French drama guide. Finished, and have moved on to detailing the entries, verifying names, dates, provenance, and so on.
Prepare for class session 1 hour x 3. Yes. I have planned out all 3 hours of the session.
Read two articles. No. I managed to scratch (and infect) my right cornea, so I don’t have the eye strength to read at length.
Pick one languishing project and do a reverse outline for the hors d’oeuvres. Yes. It was an easy one, but even so, it feels good to have a better idea of the direction it needs to go.
Next week’s goals:
5-10 entries a day on the French drama guide.
Write the handout for the class session.
Pick out the books for show and tell, and print out the handouts.
Hang in there with the craziness of the semester which seems to be encroaching on all of us, and float like mist, everyone.