the grid

the grid

Sunday 7 August 2022

2022 second session, week 11

Lammas-tide always feels like the hinge of the year to me, more so than New Years, which partly reflects how deeply the northern hemisphere academic system has shaped my working life, but also my lived experience in the UK, where the hot, humid, waiting-for-ripening summer days feel like a slowing down in the pace of the world around me, different in temperament to the depths of winter but not in kind.  Now August is underway, North American schools mostly go back this month, here in the UK the university system is gearing up for the unknowns and stresses of exam results* and clearing** which mark the start of the new academic cycle as they determine how many students*** we will actually have in the first year classes, even if those classes don't start until September or October.  

However, we still have a couple of weeks left in this session, and therefore a bit of time to pack up from our nice sit on a rock taking a pause in our academic journeys.   We already thought about souvenirs to bring along, and about some coping strategies for the inevitable last minute changes the year will bring.  This week, let's talk about some practical steps in the areas we do control - how can we set ourselves up for ongoing progress with the projects we worked on in this session, whether those were our own health and needs (e.g. collect some quick recipes in an easy to see place for meal planning, experiment with some new breakfast options for busy days, restock the pantry with term-time staples (e.g. grab and go lunches - a pack of oatcakes, cheese portion, piece of fruit (or portion of dried fruit), and handful of almonds is SO much better for me than a sandwich from the student shop... so I'm adding the components to my shopping list), plan out our schedules to put new habits in the prime position etc.), our social lives (pre-book a once a month get together, put a reminder picture as our desktop photo...) or our research ("parking" current projects by making lists of short, necessary steps which take 30-60 minutes each so that on busy days we can just grab and go in our research time, for example)?

*from the end of high school A level exams; students currently have conditional offers for university places, subject to those results, so UNIVERSITIES only have estimates of student numbers too

** the process whereby once the results are out, students who either didn't apply before or who didn't get the results they wanted can apply for one of the remaining places, or those with unexpectedly good results can try to "trade up".  It's becoming an increasingly short window, and it's PAINFUL for everyone involved.  

***and therefore how much trouble we are in about our finances... again...

Last week's goals:

Daisy

  • Something fun with kid
  • Finish all grant stuff
  • Do something else with old paper
  • Proofread new paper galleys
  • Set up new office computer
  • Do something with new local paper
  • Draft out one section of collaborative out-of-field paper

 Dame Eleanor Hull

  • - daily exercise, safe food, bed by midnight
  • - Two hours x 3 on research
  • - Set up VILE sites for both classes
  • - Life Stuff as possible, see friends, enjoy self
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (carried over)

  • Enjoy the week off.
  • Send off the mid-internship evaluation to the requisite folks.
  • Swim in my younger daughter’s pool (such luxury!)
  • Read and write as the impulse hits.

heu mihi (carried over)

  • prepare for trip

JaneB

  • 1) do not work
  • 2) do some things on the lists
  • 3) replenishment: back to basics - reset. Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily.
  • 3a) substantial house projects: even the simple stuff like throwing a load of stuff into boxes so its less sprawling all over surfaces, cobweb removal and some hoovering would count.
  • 4) pressure reduction: nothing. WEEK OFF.
  • 5) fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D, write another job board game or do other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times.

Karen (carried over)

  • - Finish syllabi, get materials/tech requests in, make progress on first module VILE content
  • - Write on my own research each day (read for my own research each day)
  • - (if permitted by gatekeepers), get draft grant complete
  • - conference paper proposal in
  • - 2 x yoga (livestream classes from home)

 



15 comments:

  1. August for me is still solidly summer, our terms here start the first week of September for schools and universities, and most years I’m still out in the field until closer to the end of the month, so my big landmark for a new phase of the year is always September 1st… I did not know about Lammas so that was fun to learn, thanks!

    The idea of preplanning some of the things that make life easier is a great one! I’ve been going into my new office for a few weeks now after two solid years of working at home (pandemic and sabbatical overlapping in various forms) and it has been nice to practice making lunches and organizing days without constant fridge access and so many distractions. I really do prefer working in the office, it is good for me to have the separation. But I also remember that I’m terrible at remembering to make lunches, ad not great at preplanning them so that will need some work. I have had good luck with keeping a task list for small batches of things to do in small amounts of time, I will have to start that up again for the term. “Work on paper” is far too nebulous, so “format table 2” or tasks like that are much more likely to get done. I sometimes write down a whole lot of those and put them in a jar for lottery-style picks when I’m tired and don’t know what to tackle first, works a treat! Same with food, if the apple is pre-cut I will eat it, otherwise I will forget or procrastinate and then get hangry and buy chips…
    Love the plan for pre-booking of social things on a regular schedule – that is something I’m definitely going to do!

    Not a bad week but ran out of steam near the end and had a completely quiet weekend where very little got done except read. It was great. The next two weeks will be busy, then I’m taking a week off to take kid to beaches for our annual trip (shortened this year but better short than nothing). And then it is field school and then the term is officially underway! Eeek…!

    Last week’s goals:
    Something fun with kid ICE CREAM and local pond
    Finish all grant stuff DONE
    Do something else with old paper DID ONE THING
    Proofread new paper galleys DONE
    Set up new office computer SORT OF, NEED NEW CABLES
    Do something with new local paper NOPE
    Draft out one section of collaborative out-of-field paper COPIOUS NOTES SO GOING TO SAY YES

    This week’s goals:
    Something fun with kid
    Do a few more things with old paper
    Book vacation places and organize trip
    Finish setting up new office computer
    Renovation appointments
    Read/edit giant report
    Turn paper notes into something less random

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    1. Ice cream and local pond sounds like my childhood summers (just add a book...)!

      I struggle with healthy eating in the evening - I can manage lunch, but something about living alone and being stressed makes it TOO easy to either microwave something over-processed or stop at the shop for a giant bag of crisps and a pint of ice-cream at the end of the day. I've just ordered myself some really nice glass with silicon lid food containers in the hopes that they will encourage me to cook and to keep and eat leftovers - sad tomato stained plastic boxes with mismatched lids are just not doing it...

      Sounds like more great progress this week! Quiet weekends are very necessary sometimes even in the busiest summer...

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    2. Oh she had a book for the pond adventure! Rarely travels without one...
      I am a huge fan of making big batches of stew or rice dishes on weekends and dividing it into serving-sized freezer containers and just leaving them until I need something fast. I take them for lunches, but they are great for quick, healthy dinner options too. I also like finding surprises when I forget about what I made...

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    3. Beach sounds wonderful! I find if I have leftovers in containers where I can see what it is, and have them in one person serving sizes, they are much more likely to be used.

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  2. I like the idea of being prepared but I'm not always very good at keeping it up - but I keep trying, and sometimes things stick. I acquired some more cookware, and I've also stocked up on small snack containers so I can do some lunch preparing. I've added project list pages in my notebook which are washi-tape-edged so they're very easy to find and I'm making some of those very focused lists Daisy suggested above as I spend time with each project.

    To help keep up the craft stuff, I bought a "teach yourself watercolours" book which is printed on good quality water colour paper - the bulk of the book is double spreads where the left hand page has an example painting and some tips on a specific technique, and the right has a light under-drawing of the same image for you to try and recreate the painting, and the one I chose is all realistic woodland images (ranging from a single autumn leaf via a range of plants, fungi and animals to complete scenes) - it looks like a low pressure way of keeping up some arting practice without needing to actually feel creative, and with defined end points.

    We're having another hot spell (by local standards) this week, and it's back to work - I have a lot of things I want to do before the end of summer! And I'm stressing about house stuff because my sister and nibling are visiting for the afternoon this week as they're in the area on a family holiday, and the nibling is very keen to see Fluffball... but being completely off work for about ten days has helped my brain calm down a bit, so I'm in a slightly better headspace this week which is nice.

    I also got back to find out that one of the teaching admin posts will be posted for appointment before the students return (the new structure has effectively two teaching tsars instead of one, since the units are larger) - it's not the one I most want (it's the student facing one not the strategy one) but I will apply for it and see what happens - the rest of the jobs are staying with the current holders for an undefined interim period.

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    Replies
    1. LAST WEEK'S GOALS:
      1) do not work did about 2.5 hours total, mostly urgent emails - a grad student is preparing for field work and needed some input, resits are due tomorrow so some students needed help, the Teaching Tsar is on leave this week and next (which is also timetable-checking time, resits and the start of clearing, so there was a bit of handover. All necessary stuff and did not get in the way.

      2) do some things on the lists a few small things - I hung some little storage unit things in the bathroom which makes me feel very accomplished every time I go in there! baby steps...

      3) replenishment: back to basics - reset. Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily. yes, yes, doing a little better again, improved as the week went on, yes

      3a) substantial house projects: even the simple stuff like throwing a load of stuff into boxes so its less sprawling all over surfaces, cobweb removal and some hoovering would count. had a couple of productive days - my back hurts a lot, it's definitely mad with me, but having STARTED is a big hurdle, and with visitors at the end of the week I hope I will keep up momentum for a few days at least

      4) pressure reduction: nothing. WEEK OFF. week was properly off. Want MORE but it was good...

      5) fun/creative: write a letter to a friend/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D, write another job board game or do other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times. no, yes, yes, yes (quite a lot, I'm now rather short on job board games), a bit

      THIS WEEK'S GOALS:
      1) work my contracted hours (nominally 22.5 in August, as I'm technically back off phased return but I have more leave days over than I can carry over and I'm still not at my best, so I booked every Thursday off and will either be working M-W or if full days are a bit much (or it's too hot) M-Th but as four short days - we all know it won't entirely work out like that, but that's the PLAN!)

      2) do some things on the lists - I made a smaller list for THIS week which is one index card's worth, and we'll see if that is less daunting (now I've started...)

      3) replenishment: back to basics - keep it up. Eating plenty of fruit and veg, drinking enough water, a small exercise habit (10 minutes a day of deliberate exercise), a small chore habit (5 minutes of picking up or one of the recurring chores like a load of laundry each day), journal daily.

      3a) substantial house projects: make the main downstairs room and the hall not too embarrassing before my sister s'visits - shut the door on the kitchen, as it's forecast to be hotter and my back hurts! (naturally all I've wanted to do this week is upstairs, non-visitor-zone projects which I've been putting off for over a year - I did do a few of those too which is nice, my comfy spot for sitting and watching movies on my desk computer is free from clutter again (the final "can no longer use the space" clutter event was my birthday last November...)!)

      4) pressure reduction: apply for the administrative role, work on the honours module (I had some ideas during my week off for what feels like the first time in months...).

      5) fun/creative: do something social beyond the basics/read for half an hour at least 3 days/do at least two crochet stripes on the "desert colours" blanket project/play D&D, write another job board game or do other prep/play with watercolours a couple of times.

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    2. Yay for a bit of time completely off! I'm glad it was restorative and calming. Hope you can keep some of that feeling going for when things ramp up again. Good for applying to the admin role, I hope it goes your way!!

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    3. Also wishing you good luck on the admin role. The watercolour book sounds like a great way to lower barriers to entry on creative activities as well as getting the satisfaction of trying out new skills. I like having an easy knitting project sitting on the table in front of the fire for the same reason - if I'm going to sit there anyway, make it easy to do something that sensible me wants to do even if end-of-day me is unmotivated.

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  3. Hello again everyone! Sorry to have disappeared suddenly - I had an unforeseen and serious eye problem, and I'm only back at work this week after four weeks of medical procedures and appointments, resting, and struggling to just keep on top of basic functioning. The good news is that I'm on the mend (though still dealing with the problem) and have had a lot of support. But we're now a third of the way through semester and so I'm radically rethinking my expectations and goals to make them more feasible. Cutting back to manageable and realistic essential tasks and recognising that time to rest is very much part of those essentials is probably my answer to setting myself up for progress at the moment as well.

    So, held over goals:
    - Finish syllabi, get materials/tech requests in, make progress on first module VILE content - thanks goodness, first two were done before being on medical leave, and I was able to mostly replicate enough of last year's VILE content to stay just on top of it.
    - Write on my own research each day (read for my own research each day) - no
    - (if permitted by gatekeepers), get draft grant complete - no
    - conference paper proposal in - no
    - 2 x yoga (livestream classes from home) - well, I've done two classes since the last check in (yin classes where I keep my eyes shut most of the time anyway).

    This week:
    -teach the five classes I'm down for this week
    -keep just-in-time VILE content ticking over
    -mark and release first assessments
    -get to one yoga class

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    Replies
    1. Welcome back! Sorry to hear about the eye problems, but glad that you are on the mend! Hope that the week is good and the classes go well.

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    2. So sorry to hear about the eyes---that sounds scary! I'm glad you are improving, and hope that that continues. Take care of your health first and let everything else wait/get the minimum while you recover.

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  4. How to keep some of the momentum of writing going? I find that dedicated blocks of time and borrowing Jane’s “parking on a downhill” help. It takes a lot to keep those times clear when I’m working where I can be interrupted, but my telecommuting days are more productive. I also have a idiosyncratic writing process that helps with having only small snippets of time. Starting with an outline, I keep filling in the gaps until the narrative is only a few transitional sentences away. In that way, I can write in a disjointed way in small amounts of time while still progressing.

    Last month’s goals:
    Enjoy the week off. Yes, I definitely enjoyed the week off.
    Send off the mid-internship evaluation to the requisite folks. Yes, despite several scanner hiccups, I got the darn thing turned in.
    Swim in my younger daughter’s pool (such luxury!) What a luxury, indeed, in the middle of a heat wave of triple digits.
    Read and write as the impulse hits. Read a lot, but not much writing.

    Also done:
    Several doctor’s appointments.
    Several MRI’s and X-rays.
    Roughly sixty hours for the rest of the internship.
    Wrote and turned in the final evaluation for the intern.
    Roughly 30 hours of committee work.

    Next week’s (next three days) goals:
    Outline two female patrons.
    Outline two female translators.

    I hope I can keep up with the group the rest of this session—it really helps me. Float like mist, everyone.

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    1. Nice to see you! Yay for pool swimming and week off and reading! All those things are good and necessary. And you got a ton of other stuff done too!
      I like your snippet approach to writing, it seems like it would be great for incremental progress that turns into a draft without much fanfare... Might try that with a new paper I'm doing in a non-science topic, it looks like a great fit for that and is less intimidating since I can do little bits at a time...

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    2. That approach sounds brilliant! Like Daisy, I want to try it, and agree with her that swimming and reading are excellent achievements in the summer.

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  5. This is a brilliant post/topic; thank you, JaneB, and thank you for explaining those points about the way the UK system works. I think I'm not completely ill-informed about it, but I didn't know these fine points. That sounds very stressful for the faculty!

    I'm sorry I didn't manage to respond to the prompt earlier this week. We were traveling, and though I read the post and comments, I just didn't get around to logging in and responding till now, when we are back home. I'm glad we went, but it was all a bit stressful, too: mainly b/c so.much.driving, and so.much.road.construction, which made the driving s.o...s.l.o.w...

    All these ideas about how to set ourselves up for success are really good, and I want to put several of them into practice. I have a picture from our trip that will be a good reminder/inspiration. I'll be working on schedule-planning this week, and will pre-book some social events (having Sir John around helps with that, as he has become my social secretary, at least w/r/t our shared friends).

    How I did:
    - daily exercise, safe food, bed by midnight: about half, yes, yes though there was one night I couldn't get to sleep till 5:00 a.m., so that was a bit of a problem.
    - Two hours x 3 on research: x2, not bad, and then the third day at home last week was all spent on trip prep.
    - Set up VILE sites for both classes. YES. One class is complete; the other one has a few bones (not even a complete skeleton)---I'll have to do a lot of work on that this week. But I should save that as a goal in the post I'll put up this weekend!
    - Life Stuff as possible, see friends, enjoy self: All the Life Stuff was trip related. Saw friends. Enjoyed self.

    I prefer to go somewhere and stay there. I think I'd rather put in one twelve-hour drive and then BE where I was going than divide the drive across two days and be perpetually on the move---though that did let us see more people on this trip. Oh well. It will probably be awhile before I go anywhere, now that the term is about to start, so I will be glad to look back on this trip and know I did it and saw my friends.

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