Greetings everyone! Not quite sure how it is already November, but here we are. It was Guy Fawkes aka Bonfire Night last night here in the UK, so a noisy evening despite the wet weather! Fluffball is not too bothered by fireworks - he's much more afraid of plastic bags and running short of kibble.
Last week we thought about arrows, and that led my image searches to some pleasant places:
some directional arrows in an Autumn wood
some free-flowing editing-type arrows by starline from freepik
a beautiful modern interpretation of the quilt block "Flying Geese" pattern HERE
GOALS FROM LAST WEEK
Daisy
- Incorporate all edits, polish, and submit grant
- Catch up on ALL the grading and class prep for the next month.
- Catch up on some dropped balls related to association work and conferences.
Dame Eleanor Hull
- - keep smoothing the essay
- - Notes on MET book and C&C read 4 weeks ago
- - Grade new set of undergrad papers
- - Do some House/Life/Car thing
- - do yoga at least 4 times, weights x2, walk x5
heu mihi
Welcome back, we’ve very glad to hear you still got to travel!
- Recover from travels
Humming42 (carried 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
- don't do more than 9 hours a day max. Aim for one day with NO WORK.
- prepare teaching for two week's hence
- work on the paper (it's due next Monday)
- list out some easy steps on the Toy Project for next week (which is so badly neglected)
- do minimum house chores that keep getting lost.
- do something creative - D&D, words on a page, SOMETHING.
Julie
- Minimal teaching prep, but do a bit of work on next term's module while I have more time this week.
- Do some research.
- Spend 4 hours at writing group on Friday
- Referee an article
- Book Covid jab for son.
- House stuff.
I love this prompt! Having just spent some time in the woods--both in my week of sickness, which definitely threw the plans off the rails, and in the planned non-goal-ness of travel (for two weeks!! Which is just too long)--I'm finding it very helpful to think about the balance between map and real forest. I had to keep reminding myself that I was on vacation for the last two weeks--and not only that, I was also recovering from Covid, which did make me feel generally tired for about a week after I was actually testing negative. Luckily, the first week of our trip was spent at a friend's house in Kefalonia, where there was very little to do but go to the beach, eat amazing Greek food, and pet the island's many friendly, well-fed stray cats. (In the second week, we were first in Rome, which was mobbed and exhausting but still had some cool parts, and then in Cortona [Tuscany], which was beautiful and very quiet.)
ReplyDeleteSo now that I'm back and have some normal amount of energy again, I'm feeling inclined to leap into the map--but with a bit of panic because we're going out of town AGAIN this weekend (to see friends; this was the only weekend that worked), and then next week I'm likely going on a three-day research trip, two days of which will be spent on trains. Sigh.
Anyway, if anyone finds the secret for balancing plan and woods, please tell me. Or even just for being okay with oscillating between the two forever.
Last week: No goals.
This week:
1. Finally process journal submission; figure out who's responsible for the next one
2. Edited collection: Edit notes and bibliography for two remaining chapters; offer to do more if co-editor is overwhelmed; email folks who need to translate their Middle English
3. Get a HAIRCUT (which I had planned to do three weeks ago, but Covid)
4. Email clear-out (this is like five things, so really not too bad)
5. EXERCISE! Run x 3, yoga for real x 1, stretch daily to deal with the stiff neck I got hauling a backpack and looking up at church ceilings/Roman ruins
6. Look at a manuscript
7. Schedule trip to German monastery
That's too much. Look at me jumping back into the map. Please note that I have 4 days in which to do all of these things (except the daily stretching, of course). Ha ha ha ha ha! Let's see what I do.
If you're always inside looking at maps, you lack experience of hiking in the woods; if you're always out in the woods, you may lack perspective (depending on the terrain; mountains can provide map-like views) and knowledge of other useful facts like where that road goes. In Myers-Briggs terms, academics tend to skew N (intuitive) rather than S (sensing), looking at patterns in information, so it makes sense that a successful academic like yourself would spend a lot of time mapping! Xykademiqz recently re-posted a blog post from four years ago about ways of approaching planning, which might interest TLQers (go back to the original for the comments then): https://xykademiqz.com/2018/11/01/kindred-spirits/
DeleteI'm glad you're feeling better and that you had a lovely place to recuperate!
The trip sounds amazing. I'm glad you got to rest and recuperate. And 'schedule trip to German monastery' is a good thing to have on any list! Dame Eleanor, I really like that blog post (and others of hers), thank you.
Deletesounds like a great trip, and glad to hear you're feeling better!
DeleteJaneB has such lovely images! Thank you for the medieval one. My favorite is probably the quilt. My grandmother was a quilter. I love that combination of angles, curves, and colo(u)rs.
ReplyDeleteThe topic is also a good one. Having brought up MB categories, I'll go on, though I realize they're like horoscopes for smart people: perhaps most useful as a way to think about what resonates with you. Unlike most academics, I skew S, though I'm more or less in the middle of the S/N axis, and I think that's because I've been trained to think analytically though my instinct is to observe and respond to real things (why I like manuscripts!). I spend October doing very little planning because I was feeling pretty fed up with it, and I still got the most important stuff done, including a lot of literal walking in the woods and prairies. But this morning I set up some calendar pages for November because now I feel more like doing some planning/mapping. At least in the coming week, the grading will be light, so I might finally make real research progress instead of slow slow chipping away at the project. "Balance" in my case seems to mean sometimes being a planner and sometimes throwing the plan out the window.
I'm also thinking about making a map outside, modeling mud into hills, using sticks to represent trees, re-directing some run-off from a stream to create the rivers and lakes: that seems like a very literal way to bring together the map and the organic reality that JaneB wrote of!
Outside maps sound like FUN. Mud is so unctuous and nice to work with...
DeleteI think real-life balance is best measured over longer periods - trying to fit All The Things into one day is just too hard for me at least, but as long as I circle around the different touch-points over a week or month or so I feel that's good enough. The problem I have isn't with maps so much as calendars - maps let you wander as your interests take you on a given day, they help you make better choices and avoid cliffs and bogs but they don't trammel you, where calendars feel restrictive and I Don't Like Them. Right now trying to conform, to calendars as well as to social norms, takes a large chunk of my limited energy...
Anywho, how I did:
ReplyDelete- keep smoothing the essay: YES. Made a what I have/what I need document to guide further work.
- Notes on MET book and C&C read 4 weeks ago. NO.
- Grade new set of undergrad papers. YES: plus a set of grad drafts and a set of undergrad exercises, and two discussion boards intended to help students make up for missing classes or just get extra credit. Whew!
- Do some House/Life/Car thing: YES (deck is mostly put back together).
- do yoga at least 4 times, weights x2, walk x5. YES.
- OTHER: besides the other grading, I also took care of three required online training modules, made cookies, and bought two pairs of comfortable walking shoes and some wool socks.
New goals:
- keep smoothing the essay
- Notes on MET book and C&C read weeks ago
- Grade more grad drafts
- work on at least one spring class
- Do some House/Life/Car thing
- do yoga at least 4 times, weights x2, walk x5
lots of grading! AND movement, that's a balanced week right there!
DeleteOooh I love that quilt design! I’m starting to wonder if I should take up quilting, or at least try to make a little one? All crafts and activities are on hold because of the house chaos, but maybe that is something to put on the list when I excavate my sewing machine… I think the chaos might last for a while, we’re signing up the construction crew for a few more jobs because construction people are like unicorns right now and once you get hold of a few you just keep paying them to do everything they can!
ReplyDeleteMaps are my bread and butter, and I really feel the difference between the map arrows and real paths! Those days when you are in the bush and your map shows you are 400m from the pick-up spot, and the terrane is just brutal and you walk and climb and crawl and double back and fall down and crawl some more, and then two hours later you plot your position, and lo and behold, you are now 300m from the pick-up spot… Rinse and repeat until you get there… TLQ work and specifically writing very often feels the same way, you work for ages and you get a little bit closer. Then you do it again, and again, and again, and eventually you get there!
I think I see the arrow or the plan more like a set of waypoints to look for and a suggestion of what to aim for rather than the actual path. Good to have a plan and an arrow but being too stuck on it will just make you walk through bogs and over cliffs that were not on the map. Better to have a decent sense of general direction and adjust as you go…
Last week’s goals:
Incorporate all edits, polish, and submit grant DONE YAY!!!!!!!
Catch up on ALL the grading and class prep for the next month. MOSTLY
Catch up on some dropped balls related to association work and conferences. MOSTLY
The grant is done and gone and I’m happy with it. I will now try to forget it ever existed. I will be moving on to revisions of all kinds, I have one paper due with revisions next week, and one a couple of weeks later so those will be my big job for the next month for sure. I really have to get myself exercising again, I miss it, and I need it! With the house in shambles I need to get outside.
This week’s goals:
Revisions for accepted paper
Start revisions for old paper
Write some sections for out-of-my-field discussion paper
Exercise!!
Well done on the grant! I think you go walking in wilder terrain than I usually do! But I agree that having a map is one thing, what it all looks like on the ground is another.
DeleteI really feel it when I don't exercise, but it's so hard to fit in, especially now it gets dark so early.
Congratulations on the grant!
DeleteYour description of finding the pickup point is so much what this trimester feels like - even though on paper (on the map?) it looks quite flat and straight-forward...
When I lived in North America I used to buy a magazine called Miniture Quilts, and have about 4 years worth of them (I had a subscription) - I think it's no longer published, but making mini quilts was really satisfying - I could do it by hand and it was very portable! (currently I mostly do crochet because it's less messy and easier to put down).
DeleteOooh I fell down the rabbit hole of miniature quilts! So cute and looks like a ton of fun! I do love crochet, and I really want to learn how to knit socks... So many things!
DeleteI love the images! The quilt is so beautiful. I love the way the regular shapes of the arrows combine to make an organic shape (I immediately thought dragon's tail). And I would love to know if it's a rabbit or a hare in the medieval image, as my son is obsessed with hares and I try to collect images for him.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think about how to balance the map with the wandering in the woods and seeing where I end up. I feel like we all need more of the latter in academia, but increasingly it's made hard for us. No one gives you a grant for saying 'I'll just try a few things and see what happens' (well, not in my area, they don't). And in general, there's much less space to experiment and fail, and go off the beaten track. At the same time, so much good research comes out of stuff people noticed in passing. I think for me I need to find more time to read, maybe in some kind of a structured way, but allowing myself to be open to new ideas rather than just reading with a question already in mind. I also need a system for recording all the stuff I notice in passing that would be fun to come back to.
Last week's goals:
Minimal teaching prep, but do a bit of work on next term's module while I have more time this week. - Yes, but looking at next term's module induced a bit of panic, as it needs a LOT doing. I haven't taught it for 5 years and now it feels a way from what I'm interested in. So something important, that needs to be tackled incrementally before it gets urgent.
Do some research. - Less than I hoped to, but some.
Spend 4 hours at writing group on Friday - Sadly didn't happen. My daughter was ill Thursday, which was Ok in that I was working at home, but still used some of my time. Friday she went back into school, I went to a Pilates class, got to writing group, coffee in hand, laptop open....and school called for me to collect her. I was so looking forward to it! I did salvage some time at home and over the weekend, and did some writing, but nowhere near as much as I would have done. The best laid plans...
Referee an article - Yes, probably shouldn't have agreed to do it, but I did it quickly.
Book Covid jab for son. - Done, for two weeks' time. Fingers crossed he doesn't catch Covid (again) before then.
House stuff. - Rather than the stuff I planned, did stuff that became more urgent e.g. calling a heating engineer when I realised the house was freezing. I feel all the house stuff I want to do, or that isn't urgent but probably still needs doing, gets pushed out the way by more urgent things suddenly needing fixing.
This week's goals:
I have much more teaching and some meetings, so have to accept upfront that research/writing time will be squeezed.
1. Revise a couple of lectures.
2. Teaching prep for two different lots of seminars.
3. Do some more prep for next term's teaching (see above on trying to stave off inevitable panic)
4. Do research/writing for a couple of hours IF POSSIBLE.
5. Peer review a colleague's grant application.
6. Admin tasks (impose strict time limit)
7. House stuff
8. Exercise - at least get out for a walk.
So sorry to hear you lost the writing group time - sick children always come first, but still...
DeleteYou've really put your finger on something I didn't manage to articulate - that the lack of time to ramble is fundamentally bad for academia, for learning, for research... and for human-ing. See my gripe with calendars above!
Intellectual rambling is so important! We really do need time to read widely and with no destination in mind, it pays off in spades but it is so hard to fit in among all the urgent things clamouring for attention...
DeleteThat is a rough week! It is so demoralizing when attendance is terrible. I hope you get your day without work, and something creative! And crochet definitely counts, it is very satisfying isn't it!
ReplyDelete