Welcome back, and thanks for coming along on this last-quarter-of-the-calendar year session!
I enjoyed looking at last week's images and reading about your associations with spirals and spiraling. For this week's prompt, I'm going to shift the geometric image from spirals to squares. What ideas do squares convey to you? The tired cyclist "pedaling squares," the lines on graph paper, the old slang for a conservative person, windows, plaids, quilts . . . we have a lot of options here!
Let us know how you did with last week's goals, and what you want to focus on for the coming week. Here are your previous goals:
Daisy
- Write and submit giant grant report
- Talk to co-authors about revisions on big joint paper, do something for
revisions
- Pick another section of grant application and write it
- Midterms
- Pack lunches for 4 campus days
- Exercise at least 3 times
Dame Eleanor Hull
- Add 1000 words to essay
- Notes on MET book
- Grade grad papers
- Grade new set of undergrad papers
- plug mouseholes
Elizabeth Anne Mitchell
- Get flu shot.
- Get son moved into his new apartment.
- Outline very roughly one article.
heu mihi
1) Finish translating my paper into
French for my research talk.
2) Attend opening event for research group at the University.
3) Make travel plans for Munich and Vienna.
4) Process new journal submission.
5) Work on chapter 3: write up narrative notes for two of the bullet points in
my brainstorm-outline.
6) Go to a yoga class (probably online, with my US studio).
7) Attempt to organize a playdate for my kid.
Humming42 (held over)
1 catch up on grading (already!)
2 write 1000 words for Food chapter
3 create module structure for online class
4 catch up on emails and organizing online files
JaneB
1) do two days on campus without
guilt at not being there more
2) prepare for the following week
3) don't do more than 9 hours a day max. Only do reactive research stuff (I
already have a few hours of grad student meetings and know a draft needing
urgent attention will appear at some point during the week in my inbox, so
that's PLENTY of planned content).
4) do minimum house chores that keep getting lost. Prepack lunch-type food for
the two days on campus.
Julie
1. Prep introductory lectures for
the two modules I start teaching the week after.
2. Prep VLE for both modules - update handbooks, add new readings.
3. Mark an MA dissertation I've had assigned to me as second marker.
4. Try to keep two days free for research this week and finish up these
accounts/work on journal article.
5. One life admin task
6. Some self-care - exercise, pack proper lunches, read, journal.
I set these goals in my Moleskine last Tuesday, but didn't make it here to check in till Saturday! I'm none too sure where the week went. I guess much of Tuesday got lost to a dentist appointment and subsequent recovery, and there were various out-of-the ordinary errands to run (like packing up and mailing back a defunct Bose radio, since we found that doing so would give us a substantial discount on a replacement). I'm taking a 3-week online course that adds to my workload now (but will make things better in spring, and I get paid for it). And the more I have to do, the more I read fun novels and think "la-la-la can't hear you" at my to-do list! This week's were more Agatha Raisin (my continuing-summer read, back from this post: http://topleftquad.blogspot.com/2022/07/2022-second-session-week-9.html), and Jane Lindskold's Library of the Sapphire Wind and sequel, which I just started this morning. I like the central idea; they're sometimes heavy on exposition and the adventures seem D&Dish, not necessarily a bad thing, but perhaps a tad formulaic.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
- Add 1000 words to essay: CLOSE ENOUGH, 950.
- Notes on MET book: NO. This is an electronic book and I prefer reading hard copy.
- Grade grad papers: YES.
- Grade new set of undergrad papers: NO.
- plug mouseholes: NO, and I need to do this while the weather is warm enough for the caulk to work.
OTHER: the aforementioned dentist appt and radio exchange; graded & resolved a student's Incomplete from last spring; received e-Bay order and returned one piece of it; a lot of scanning and copying for my grad class. On the health front, my Monash U app updated and it is now clear that I have been poisoning myself with fructose in excess of sucrose in foods I had thought were "safe." This is annoying but also opens up the possibility of getting some foods back if I re-test without the confusion of extra fructose. I have peanuts already, which is great for on-campus snacking! I'll see what else may be possible.
New goals:
- Add 1000 words to essay
- Notes on MET book and C&C read 2 weeks ago
- Grade new set of undergrad papers
- do stuff for online course
- plug mouseholes
- do stuff with visiting friends of Sir John's next weekend
Ah the joys of self-experimentation! Sometimes I really wish there was such a thing as human kibble...
DeleteGreat job with the 950 words! I too can't stand reading ebooks, convenient though they may be....
DeleteI'd have to have the special expensive allergen-free grain-free kibble from the vet!
DeleteSquares are great!! I love squares, they are geometrically satisfying and can be endlessly divided up into other shapes. I love quilts and geometric patterns, and I love origami which of course has a square sheet of paper as the most common starting point. I think of squares as stability, which I’m a big fan of…
ReplyDeleteLast week’s goals:
Write and submit giant grant report DONE
Talk to co-authors about revisions on big joint paper, do something for revisions TALKED, DID NOT DO ANYTHING
Pick another section of grant application and write it NOPE
Midterms DONE and MARKED EVEN!
Pack lunches for 4 campus days ONLY 2 out of 4
Exercise at least 3 times DONE
Not bad, except for the lack of grant writing. I need to have something ready to send to colleagues to read near the end of the week so I really need to get going on it. That will be my only writing task for the meek, just so I have nothing else to hide behind! I failed at my lunch goals, clearly I hate packing lunches. My most successful ones come when I cook a huge batch of something and freeze portion-sized containers that I can throw in a lunch bag and microwave. I need to do something like that again soon, maybe next weekend can be a cooking one.
This week’s goals:
Write something for the grant EVERY day
Do something for revisions only if grant is done
Pack lunches for 5 campus days
Exercise at least 4 times
Do something fun with kid (very inspired by JaneB’s weekly nibling D&D game! Maybe I can think of a regular fun thing to add to our week, preferably not one that costs money…)
A couple of things for lunches - making a lot of sandwiches and freeze them (they then act as coolpacks in the lunch box and thaw for lunch) - no vegetables (e.g. cheese, sliced meat or meat substitute or nut butter) - especially if you use bagels or sandwich-thins type bread which has a sturdier outside. Then grab a tomato or couple of inches of cucumber or an apple or whatever to eat alongside. The other one that works for me as prep is to chop up various leftovers of cooked vegetables etc. or just use some frozen vegetables, throw them in a rectangular baking dish, and pour over a few beaten eggs, then top with some grated cheese and bake in the oven to make a sturdy spanish omelette, which cuts up nicely into chunks and is good cold or reheated. Mixing cottage cheese in with the eggs is a nice change, and it's especially good if there are some potatoes or sausage of some sort to chop up & throw in...
DeleteIs there a game you and the kid could play together just during your weekly 'thing'? Or learn a craft together if they're crafty? (Christmas cards and gift tags started now...)
DeleteOoh thanks for the lunch ideas! Love the veg/egg one in particular.
DeleteLike the veg & egg lunch as well. Batches of soup work well for me (assuming you have somewhere to heat it up). Fun things with kids: we used to have a regular games night, where each person took it in turns to choose, and we still have a film night (again, take it in turns, no one gets to complain too loudly about other people's choices). I used to do quite a lot of crafting with my daughter. Cooking together?
DeleteA wide mouthed soup thermos is good too, but then you need to zap the soup in the microwave in the morning AND do washing up at lunch time or in the evening which is usually a Step Too Far by the middle of the week for me...
DeleteThank you for all the excellent lunch suggestions, for some reason I always forget that eggs exist and that they can be pre-made for take-out lunches...
DeleteThanks for the fun kid activity ideas too, one so easily gets into ruts where nothing happens. Once the activation energy for picking and starting an activity is overcome everyone ends up enjoying it, but that first step is the hard one!
Squares make me think of square pegs in round holes, and of the kind of pragmatic quilts you make on a sewing machine quickly. And of crochet squares which are very portable so fun to work on, and squared paper which I like a lot (and dot grid paper - I use squared paper for my lab book notebook and dot grid for my "common place book" and journal, and I prefer that to lines (I LIKE blank paper but my writing goes all over the place and I tend to get through paper faster without a bit of a reminder...). Mostly the word square makes me feel slightly guilty - since nothing is EVER squared away in my life, and square peg-ness tends to feel like My Fault, and there's something regimented about a square which my inner toddler instinctively starts to grumble at. Despite how much we both like squared paper!
ReplyDeleteLAST WEEKS GOALS:
1) do two days on campus without guilt at not being there more did one day on campus - the second day, my car started to make very ominous noises and I limped it home rather than risk getting stuck on campus (the emergency rescue service guy reckoned the noises weren't due to anything expensive... the car is booked in for service on Tuesday and hopefully will be fine after that. Switched things online, and worried hugely about having caused more upset to the Teaching Tsar (who is obsessed with All In Person and does not seem to get that commuting (& being around people) is really hard at the moment for me - or possibly, being a skinny minnie, thinks I'm a lazy fat person and should just lose weight. Which I should, and am trying hard to, but symptom-not-cause...). Felt a lot of guilt.
2) prepare for the following week just finished that, all except the second year tutorial, but nothing has changed since last year so that's a 15 minute job...
3) don't do more than 9 hours a day max. Only do reactive research stuff (I already have a few hours of grad student meetings and know a draft needing urgent attention will appear at some point during the week in my inbox, so that's PLENTY of planned content). I did two 9 hour days and they were not great for me. And I did 45 hours overall last week and it is just too much. But it's also nowhere near enough to get the work done. I 'lost' a lot of Friday and all of Saturday to being unable to do anything, and next week has more prep in it and.... another thing I forgot there was a deadline on popped up and I had to spend a couple of hours in a meeting - we made progress, but AAARGH!
4) do minimum house chores that keep getting lost. Prepack lunch-type food for the two days on campus. not really (I opened a new pack of socks because I ran out of clean ones due to laundry issues and the chaos is encroaching everywhere). Did pack some healthy food at least!
GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK:
Delete1) do two days on campus without guilt at not being there more - especially important to NOT GUILT about it.
2) don't do more than 9 hours a day max.
3) prepare teaching for the following week (too much to do ::pouts::)
4) Rewrite assigned sections of draft paper I forgot, and put off whatever else I can.
5) do minimum house chores that keep getting lost. Prepack lunch-type food for the two days on campus.
And I'm getting my Autumn COVID booster on Friday, so may not be able to work the weekend - this week I was already down to the nubs, without adding that on top... oh well. I can only do so much...
NO GUILT! And no guilt if you need to take the weekend off (like a normal non-academic person, might I add). No guilt! So says I!
DeleteI also like dot grid paper . . . that was one of the first things I thought of! I hope your car will be all right and not too expensive a fix.
DeleteI know that I wrote last week about the year as a spiral (or I think I did), but honestly I think of the year as a sort of square with rounded corners. We're climbing up the right side of it right now. Each part of the square has colors and vague images associated with it; this part is greenish-and-dried-yellowish (shocker), and sort of damp. That's the best I can do at describing my mental image.
ReplyDeleteLast week:
1) Finish translating my paper into French for my research talk. - YES; I hope that I've guessed correctly regarding the format. One of this week's tasks is to find out.
2) Attend opening event for research group at the University. - YES; I was terrified, but it was actually pretty low-key, and now I feel calmer about my own presentation. Still, those grad students and postdocs talk SO DAMN FAST.
3) Make travel plans for Munich and Vienna. - YES
4) Process new journal submission. - MOSTLY; waiting to hear back from a prospective reviewer.
5) Work on chapter 3: write up narrative notes for two of the bullet points in my brainstorm-outline. - YES; I know that I'm writing too soon, but what's to be done??
6) Go to a yoga class (probably online, with my US studio). - YES, although it seems to have aggravated a pulled muscle in my abdomen (which is also stopping me from running)
7) Attempt to organize a playdate for my kid. - YES! Success! One of his classmates speaks no English and very little French, but they sit near each other and communicate pretty well with gestures. He came over and they made a stop-motion video together.
This week:
1) Miscellaneous: Annual faculty report; comment on grad student's job materials; find out if I'm eligible to get a Covid booster and/or flu shot in France?
2) Emails: Research group leader re. presentation format; program chair re. next year's program chair; friendly colleague at distant university; prospective grad student
3) Journals: Read one new submission for each; reject one article; get second reviewer for last week's new submission
4) Research: Keep working on chapter 3: let's say, fill in remaining outline blanks with some notes (I'm going to borrow DEH's 1000-word goal) and attempt to straighten out the mess into some kind of rough draft; smother doubts about my Process
5) Fun: College friend is visiting this week, so honestly I don't know how much of #4 will get done; accompany child's class on a field trip
What an interesting "square" image! Congrats on getting through the opening research event, and on the playdate for Bonaventure! I hope you have a great time with your friend.
DeleteNice prompt. Squares to me suggest order and stability, but also putting things in boxes, which is bad intellectually (I'm always telling students not to) but useful if I think of it in terms of drawing boundaries, keeping work stuff out of other areas etc. But I also think of squares in terms of public spaces - city squares, so shared spaces, people coming together, and the ways in which that can be productive. I suppose quadrants are also squares and that's why we're all here, but maybe that's too obvious!
ReplyDeleteLast week's goals:
1. Prep introductory lectures for the two modules I start teaching the week after. - DONE (well, final tweaks this morning, but I'm counting that. And the students didn't look too confused or bored this morning...)
2. Prep VLE for both modules - update handbooks, add new readings. DONE - again, a bit down to the wire
3. Mark an MA dissertation I've had assigned to me as second marker. DONE, though this was one thing I could have done without.
4. Try to keep two days free for research this week and finish up these accounts/work on journal article.NO - managed a half day maybe. Too much teaching prep
5. One life admin task - again, NO, but see above. I managed to feed everyone and do laundry. Anything else was a bonus.
6. Some self-care - exercise, pack proper lunches, read, journal. - sort of. I ate proper lunches, and went to the library on Saturday. And did pilates once. I could really have done with more exercise, though, and more evenings free.
This week's goals:
1. Teaching prep for next week, but keep to minimum time and effort.
2. Revise grant application, add in feedback from my mentor and estimated costs.
3. Keep at least two days for research, ideally more.
4. At least two exercise sessions.
5. Life admin task - get either plumber or carpenter round, preferably both.
I had not thought about the quadrant thing at all, so well done! I'm reminded of a remark by a character in one of Amanda Cross's mysteries, something like this though probably not exactly: "You can get a long way with academics by keeping a firm grip on the obvious and stating it from time to time." Some weeks, keeping everyone fed and clean is a victory! Also, just in time counts as on time!
DeleteOh, I haven't heard of Amanda Cross. I'll check her out!
DeleteLikewise, did not see the quadrant connection with squares... I do love the virtual town square we have here!
DeleteConsidering how desperately late I am, I just wanted to say that I like the various ideas of squares mentioned by everyone. I did not think of quadrants, either; my first thought was quilting and crochet--second thought was the parks in New York City, which are often "squares."
ReplyDelete