Well that flew by! It's still hot and summery here, but in the US I know some schools are going back and others preparing, and there's a definite make the most of the dregs of summer feeling around. In the Celtic Year, the month of August is in autumn, although in meteorological terms in the northern hemisphere it's usually the last month of Summer, and in astronomical terms Summer doesn't end until the Autumn equinox, September 21st. All of which is to avoid saying - we're done with this session. Thank you all for your company!
Like all breaks, much as we enjoyed taking a break in our journey, the time to get packed up and moving has snuck up on us, and it's time to discuss how we got on. We have two things to review this week, last week's goals and (collected together at the end) our session goals.
This week's discussion points are two-fold, and we do encourage all readers to join in, whether you checked in regularly or not! First, we've talked a lot about what we want to leave behind and what we want to bring with us to bring summer into the academic year. Let's treat this as the new start it can be, and make a new academic year resolution or two - or of you're not a resolution kind of person, set an intention, pick a word, or choose a mantra or motto for the year. Essentially, in whatever mode suits each of us, let's share our main wish or intention or request for the academic year we're going into.
Second - the next session! Does anyone want to host? When should we start? I'd be willing to co-host again unless someone or two someones are keen!
LAST WEEK'S GOALS:
Daisy
- Get ready for vacation trip!
- Get ready for field course teaching immediately after trip
- Edits for old paper after coauthor shreds it again
- Course outline for new class, and first 5 lectures
- Work through first 2 labs for new course
- Turn paper notes into something less random
- Read/edit giant report
Dame Eleanor Hull
- -daily yoga, walking, safe eating, work bedtime back to 11 at latest
- -finish planning one class and set up its VILE site
- -research at least 1 hour/day
- -dentist, walk w/friend, daily weeding, replace another electronic gadget, other Life Stuff as possible
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (carried over)
- Outline two female patrons.
- Outline two female translators.
heu mihi
(no goals set, but in France!)
JaneB (carried over, because she forgot)
- 1) work my contracted hours (nominally 22.5 in August . . . will either be working M-W or . . . M-Th but as four short days)
- 2) do some things on the lists -
- 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
- 4) pressure reduction: apply for the administrative role, work on the honours module
- 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.
Karen (carried over)
- -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
SESSION GOALS
Daisy
- Pack up my entire life and office (ten years of rocks is a LOT!) and move…
- Get child settled in new place…
- Adopt cats
- Finish one almost complete paper, preferably before the moving stuff really hits the fan and I start field work again because then everything else is off the table.
- Do a decent job on new project paper with colleague I really want to help.
- Finish conference finances and wrap-up reports for giant and totally awesome conference that just finished.
- Write conference how-to guide with all new hybrid meeting stuff.
- Field work and all attached writing things with student.
Dame Eleanor Hull
- - keep regular office hours for research/writing and teaching prep
- - keep moving forward, rotate projects, don't get stuck
- - do one significant Life Stuff task per week
- - plan weekly Fun Activities
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
- Communicate
- Cogitate
- Coordinate
- Create
heu mihi
- Work:
- 1. Revise intro for WH and resubmit manuscript.
- 2. Messy zero draft of chapter 1.
- 3. Substantive notes regarding what might find its way into the other chapters.
- 4. Letter of recommendation; tenure letter.
- Life:
- 5. ... all the things. Touch up paint here and there, paint counters, clean garage, clean workroom, dispose of all recyclable/donate-able stuff, thoroughly clean Bonaventure's room, wash windows and screens, make steps and path in the garden, stack firewood, clean EVERYTHING, and pack stuff away to make it hospitable to the renters.
- 6. Car inspections, wash cars, possibly get "Real" driver's license (finally), move secondary car to mom's house.
Humming42
- Teaching
- 1 edit summer online class
- 2 outline fall online class
- 3 complete spring online class
- Research
- 1 submit abstract for lit-lit
- 2 finish food chapter
- 3 outline boredom
- 4 lit review for dark
- 5 draft cfp for mind
- 6 write proposal for DQ
- 7 write presentation for Life
JaneB
- 1) Personal replenishment household rescue, reviewing my finances, thinking through some things, getting some counselling, moving more and eating better and working on my sleep schedule
- 2) Reducing the pressures next year - I need to do as much teaching preparation as I can, in a more systematic way, especially for the heavy points in the trimester - whatever I can do to not have to work quite such long hours. If it happens, I will also be applying to be Teaching Tsar, which would come with a lot of work but also teaching reallocation. This one will also involve working on my campus space and on feeling safe and confident on campus, which is both about never having liked or enjoyed my current office which was never properly unpacked when I moved into it multiple years ago and the whole lack of COVID precautions and greater awareness of how unhealthy our indoor spaces on campus are (and worse anxiety about windowless teaching rooms).
- 3) Minimising my research expectations I'm part of two research grant applications which will hopefully get submitted this summer, and have one paper where I'm lead and need to do a last round of edits/comment incorporating before it is submitted. I'd also 'like' to write a PhD student project application for later summer but that's not essential.
- 4) Write for pleasure, read for pleasure, do something crafty, and play D&D.
Karen
- - Complete first draft of KL article
- - Grant application done
- - Start semester 2 with VILE eight weeks ahead
- - Keep attending to self-care
What I want to carry over: time to relax, to feel unscheduled. This summer, I tried to avoid scheduling anything except outings with friends; woke up when I woke up (no alarms); spent a good bit of time outside. It was glorious. I did work, and rotating projects (especially class planning) worked very well, so I'm pleased with progress there. Though I still have a lot to do for one class, I'm probably more prepped for the autumn term than I ever have been before, and with some advance planning done for spring classes as well. Starting tomorrow, I'll have a lot more on the schedule and may need to use morning alarms (at least some days), but I want to be sure I keep some unscheduled time in the week.
ReplyDeleteHow I did, last week:
-daily yoga, walking, safe eating, work bedtime back to 11 at latest. YES! I finally worked out what has been irritating my gut all summer, an herb that is supposed to be safe but apparently for me is not, so sleep has improved markedly.
-finish planning one class and set up its VILE site. PROGRESS. I have a long list of things I have to do for this class, but the syllabus is complete and on the VILE site.
-research at least 1 hour/day. 4/5, and it's going well, so I'll say YES.
-dentist--YES, walk w/friend--YES, daily weeding--TWICE, replace another electronic gadget--NO, other Life Stuff as possible: re-potted houseplants, arranged winter trip with Queen Joan, made long lists of house stuff, life admin, and fun/creative things to do during the coming year.
How I did, session:
- keep regular office hours for research/writing and teaching prep: Sorta-kinda; I worked fairly regularly but without being strict about when (see above about the unscheduled summer!)
- keep moving forward, rotate projects, don't get stuck. YES (though more for work than House or Life Stuff)
- do one significant Life Stuff task per week. NO. Things I did: painted the guest room, cleaned my clothes closet thoroughly, re-potted houseplants, replaced my phone.
- plan weekly Fun Activities. YES.
I think I need to be more mindful about House and Life stuff, and schedule them, so that I know that (say) Saturday I will be doing Project, so work has to be completed during M-F, and maybe the hardware store run done during the week as well so I'm ready to start the Project on Saturday morning. The Unscheduled Summer was awesome for relaxation, but not so much for getting to All The Things.
That is a pretty great list of done things for the session, especially the weekly fun things, and being well-prepared for classes already! Scheduling life stuff definitely helps me, especially if it is something I don't want to do... I will have to do that deliberately this year because being in the office a lot and having a drive to get there is going to be quite an adjustment after being able to do things any time. I'm actually really looking forward to having that structure!
DeleteThanks again for hosting!
Next session: I'd also be willing to co-host again. I hope the smaller number of participants this summer is just due to people traveling or something, not me boring (or irritating) the pants off you. (It can't be JaneB; she's had such good ideas in her posts.)
ReplyDeleteI hope it's just a combination of summer and overwhelm - two and a half years of emergency is very wearing...
DeleteDefinitely overwhelm and summer combo, the posts were so fun this session!
DeleteLAST TWO WEEKS:
ReplyDeleteI did GREAT until the Thursday when my sister and nibling visited, but it was HOT, and I got myself quite anxious about the visiting and the state of the house (which did motivate me to DO some things I've been procrastinating on), and just went floompf for a few days afterwards, and was really deeply tired and unable to concentrate for more than a few hours at a time (and not sleeping well at night, sigh), so after that it was a slog. Work was mostly supporting students who have resits, marking resits, writing emails about students, and working on two summer surprises - a bit of consultancy for an archaeological unit and acting as a "critical friend" for a group of undergraduate programmes at another university which are going through revalidation. So not as much progress as I hoped on my actual summer projects, but ::shrug::
1) work my contracted hours (nominally 22.5 in August) 24 and 29:30, and last week was a spread out wearying mess because see above
2) do some things on the lists YES in terms of household things (visitors are an incentive)
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.variable - strong at the start, weak at the end
3a) substantial house projects: make the main downstairs room and the hall not too embarrassing before my sister 's visits YES. Partly by throwing a load of boxes and bags into the kitchen and shutting the door on them...
4) pressure reduction: apply for the administrative role, work on the honours module YES and waiting for the interview, a bit
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. variable - am running out of prepared D&D material and didn't do much crafty stuff, but did do a little more reading and we've played D&D quite consistently. My nibling made me bead bracelets for some of the recurring characters I run in our games and wrote an "in character" letter - it's fun to see nerdiness passing through the generations!!
SESSION GOALS:
Delete1) Personal replenishment - some small progress.
** household rescue - yes... in the last two weeks mostly!
** reviewing my finances - nope, still avoiding it
** thinking through some things - a bit
** getting some counselling - used my EAP entitlement from work... looking into cheap options locally
** moving more and eating better and working on my sleep schedule - doing a bit better at the first two and the last one is just... blah. Not My Thing
2) Reducing the pressures next year - very little done here.
** wanted to do a lot of prep - have done maaaaaybe 4 hours of class time so far
** applied for NotTheTeachingTsar role
** working on my campus space and on feeling safe and confident on campus, which is both about never having liked or enjoyed my current office which was never properly unpacked when I moved into it multiple years ago and the whole lack of COVID precautions and greater awareness of how unhealthy our indoor spaces on campus are (and worse anxiety about windowless teaching rooms) - NOPE. Have not been on campus at all this session! Ooops
3) Minimising my research expectations - er... well I didn't do much!
** I'm part of two research grant applications which will hopefully get submitted this summer - I've contributed a bit. Not sure what is actually going on though!
** have one paper where I'm lead and need to do a last round of edits/comment incorporating before it is submitted - not touched yet
** I'd also 'like' to write a PhD student project application for later summer but that's not essential - also not touched
4) Pleasure - I did some of this quite consistently!
** Write for pleasure - none outside of D&D
** Read for pleasure - erratically. My reading mojo is all over the shop...
** do something crafty - have been working fairly consistently on doing a bit of crochet and a bit of pencil or watercolour art-ing regularly. The crochet feels productive & I can see progress, the art-ing is something I'm not good at but enjoy so it's good practice at being bad at stuff and still persisting!
** play D&D. I didn't actually get to play as a player yet, but I have run at least one game a week nearly every week, finally concluded our Very slow Lost Mines of Phandelver run, done the prep for a Curse of Strahd run, created a lot of short "job board" games, we've slightly progressed our pirates campaign... oh, and some of the characters want to start a cat cafe... lots of collective creativity going on, and it's a social thing which is Good For Me. So...
My "resolution" - I want to keep the work focus on kindness - to myself, to my colleagues, to the institution, to my students. Rigorous kindness, active kindness, kindness with "no" built in, but kindness all the same. And to remember that trying to pour from an empty jug leads to a broken jug, and that's even HARDER to refill!
DeleteSo glad that some of the fun, relaxing stuff made it into the summer for you! Love the idea of water colours and a bit of art, that is a lovely change of brain activity!
DeleteI'm going to copy your kindness goal, so important to keep that in mind especially when things are difficult... We all need a bit of that!
For the coming academic semester’s intention, I’m borrowing part of JaneB’s: I was going with “Communicate,” but I am adding “with kindness.” I have found that a lot of communication (especially when people are forced into it by circumstances) lacks kindness to any of the people involved.
ReplyDeleteAs for a start date, I will defer to those who are coming from several months of self-directed time. The beginning of classes has much less impact on me than on all of you.
Last week’s goals:
Outline two female patrons. Yes.
Outline two female translators. Yes.
Also done:
Three PT appointments;
Several hours corresponding with external reviewers for two P&T cases;
One sleep study.
Session goals/mantras:
Communicate: I did better this session, but not so well with written communication to others, which I had hoped to pursue. I have inked up several fountain pens, and hope that will inspire to pull out my stationery.
Cogitate: I managed to think a bit more this session, but it is still a work in progress.
Coordinate: Again, some progress here, but I need to work on better delegation–I still hate to ask people to help me on committees and the like
Create: Finally, a more positive response. I was able to think about future projects, weigh and sometimes discard previous orphaned projects, and to start bibliographies and outlines for some of the current and future projects.
Next week’s goals:
Familiarize myself with the brand-new writing software.
Spend an hour a day transferring previous work/notes/outlines into the software.
Spend an hour a day expanding/editing the previous work.
Get through PT and other doctors’ appointments.
Huge thank yous to JaneB and Dame Eleanor for co-hosting this session. I look forward to the next session. Float like mist, everyone.
That sounds like a lot done in the past week! Good for you! And great going on the "create" goal for this session. Delegation is often very difficult in academia and private life, so it's not surprising that this is a work in progress.
DeleteA good week and great to see "Create" having success - being creative in the summer is such a treat and a refreshment for the busier parts of the year
DeleteAlso love that "create" got some space to grow this summer for you!
DeleteHello!
ReplyDeleteThank you Dame Eleanor and JaneB for wonderful hosting, I loved all your prompts and it was great to have something constant in the midst of all the changes for me! I really appreciated the chance to really think about writing in the prompts, as a scientist my usual thinking about writing is basically “suck it up and get on with it” so it was nice to be reminded there are other ways to approach it!
I’m on vacation for a few days, a shorter one than usual but better than nothing. The kid and I took our regular two-week adventure and packed the highlights into four days, and will end with a couple of days in our old town so we can both have a little hang-out with friends. Then it is back to teaching immediately, field course first and then proper classes.
Last week’s goals:
Get ready for vacation trip! DONE
Get ready for field course teaching immediately after trip DONE
Edits for old paper after coauthor shreds it again DIDN’T GET IT BACK YET, YAY!
Course outline for new class, and first 5 lectures DONE
Work through first 2 labs for new course SORT OF DONE, BY SCRAPPING ONE THAT REALLY SUCKED…
Turn paper notes into something less random NOPE
Read/edit giant report NOPE
I did ok in session goals, I’m really happy with the paper that I got done. It will be submitted next week so that is a big win. Everything else is mostly done but all the moving stuff will take ages to finally finish. Student work and field work went well, I did not do everything I wanted to, but I did enough. I love my new department and university, I can live with the house, and I will gradually figure out everything I need to know…
Session Goals:
Pack up my entire life and office (ten years of rocks is a LOT!) and move…DONE, it sucked and the chaos is continuing, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Get child settled in new place… SORT OF I THINK… MORE TO COME
Adopt cats NOT YET… As soon as I am back from teaching field school!
Finish one almost complete paper, preferably before the moving stuff really hits the fan and I start field work again because then everything else is off the table. YES!!!!
Do a decent job on new project paper with colleague I really want to help. NOPE… But in fairness, he did nothing either so we’re even…
Finish conference finances and wrap-up reports for giant and totally awesome conference that just finished. YES
Write conference how-to guide with all new hybrid meeting stuff. PARTLY DONE
Field work and all attached writing things with student. YES!
As far as a theme or intention for the coming term, I think I need a reminder that this is still going to be a hugely stressful new environment for everyone and that I need to remember that Rome was not built in a day. My word for the term is “PATIENCE” and my intention is to “DO ENOUGH” and not try to do everything immediately. This will be a huge adjustment, I cannot expect to have everything perfect right away, so I need to do what I can, do it as well as I can, but remember that doing enough is ok, which is a bit of a contrast to my usual style which is more “if it is worth doing, it is worth OVERdoing”…
Thank you for a lovely session! Best of luck to everyone for the new term!
I am in awe that you managed to complete a paper, deal with conference finances and reports, and start the conference how-to guide in a summer when you also moved both house and job! Well done, and good luck/bon courage with the rest of the unpacking, sorting out, and getting re-established in your new place.
DeleteSeconding DEH--that's a lot!
DeleteOops, this is Heu Mihi here. I changed my blog name for the family blog....
DeleteYou have had an amazing summer, so much done! At least two people's worth!
DeleteThanks everyone! So easy for me to only see the things not done, rather than the ones that did get done! Nice to have reminders from others for that!
DeleteHello from Switzerland! I'm in Einsiedeln for a few days to look at a couple of manuscripts, and taking a badly needed break from reading 14th-c. German at the moment.
ReplyDeleteMy session really wrapped up on August 1, so I'll just say that I did everything, more or less, except for the "substantive notes on stuff that will find its way into other chapters" (I more or less stopped researching and writing on around July 1, when everything in my life became about trip preparation), and the revised manuscript of the edited collection isn't submitted yet because we're waiting on very-final edits from a couple of contributors (their revisions are all in, we just had a few questions for some folks).
Manuscript research is so very strange, as I have to remind myself every time I do it--which isn't at all often, normally; I've only done archival work a couple of times in the past. Right now I'm the only guest in the (otherwise locked) archive of a Benedictine monastery. So the circumstances are often strange, and then there's the randomness of the research itself: I generally have no very clear idea of what I'm looking for (or the idea that I have gets debunked in about 15 minutes), so there's a lot of slowly paging through very old books looking to see if I stumble upon anything interesting. Here's hoping I do!
I reminded myself today, though, that archival research needn't be about finding something totally new (although that would be nice); it can also be about *learning.* And I'm definitely learning today, even if it's mostly arcane things about particular Middle High German scribal abbreviations!
I plan to keep checking in here because I enjoy it, but likely not in a very structured way. I hope that everyone is having a lovely end of August.
Your archival work sounds like an experiment in time travel, putting yourself in the monastery, with the old books, and waiting to see if you get translated across the centuries when you read the right phrase . . . sorry, I'm writing fantasy lit in my head again! But it does sound very cool, and you're right, the work there is about learning and being open to whatever you might find, even if it winds up being the case that you basically say "yep, checked the MSS, due diligence done, nothing to report." It's good to hear from you; I think we're all planning to live vicariously through you this fall!
Delete(I'm sure that you already figured it out, but this is Heu Mihi here!)
DeleteThanks, DEH--I woke up this morning with a very uggh-why-am-I-doing-this feeling, and your words of encouragement help!
It's great to hear from you - my "alternate self" I think of most often, the road not taken, specialises in dead languages and the celtic influence on the European story in the Middle Ages (I have a friend from university who now lives in a nearby city who has made a career in Medieval studies, and knowing you folks through this medium plus seeing their facebook posts probably keeps that alternative close to the surface - in my fantasy university novel-world, that I hope to write more of one day, my main point-of-view character is polyglot in minority languages and the first discoverers of the connections between our-world and the fantasy worlds were the peregrinati of the Celtic Church, just for the fun of it. And the excuse to read about neat stuff.
DeleteA great deal of true blue skies research is poking around to see what is out there - in STEM, the expectation of most funding is that you can pretty much predict in advance what you will find and tell people it will be relevant and important, and that just isn't how the world works! Happy fossicking!
That all sounds so interesting! The research you are doing feels like field work in new areas for me - a lot of that is literally walking/climbing/crawling around in the woods to see what is there, what the exposures are, and decide whether it is worth working on in more detail. It is one of the few sciences where we regularly get to "go see what's there" without having a plan or hypothesis. And even if there is a plan it often does not survive contact with actual nature! So wander/wonder away and enjoy! Looking forward to hear about the adventure!
DeleteAnd.. JaneB, please put me down for a pre-order copy of that academic novel, it sounds brilliant and I would totally read that!
Delete