Intersession space

 Happy Christmas everyone, or whatever holiday you celebrate! 

I have a seasonal  eavesdropping to share: about half an hour before most shops shut on Christmas Eve, I was out putting a misplaced bit of post in the letterbox of a house down the road when a young man with a small child in a pushchair (stroller) came around the corner into the street, just in time for me to overhear him saying "Oh no!  That was Mummy's Christmas present!" I looked up and noticed that the child was VERY chocolate-y, and grinning, with their hand shoved in a ripped-open bag from a rather expensive chocolatier.  He sort of slumped, and turned around to trudge back into town...

And this post is a convenient space in case anyone wants to chat or share - Christmas can be both wonderful and very hard at the same time.  I'm here alone because of a) my own issues, b) my Mum has bruised a rib, c) they've both been on antibiotics for a couple of weeks for tooth problems and are feeling very un-Christmassy and d) my Dad had a root canal yesterday - so basically they're having a very quiet, minimal decorations, soup and the Christmas Cheese, kind of Christmas, and will do something more celebratory in a couple of months.  I LIKE being alone, but... Christmas is both wonderful and very hard.

2022 Session Three Wrap Up

This week, as well as goals reviews, let's talk about:

• plans or goals for the holidays (if you want to set any)
• the next session - any offers to host or co-host?  Suggestions for dates?

That session, that semester, was a long slog for me and I think for all of us, and I'm very grateful to have finished teaching and to have a break coming up!  I'm also grateful for family and friends, including the ones like you that live in my computer.  So my images of our last "shape", which I think is pareidolia ("the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern"), I chose to look for images that bring to mind hearts:

A frosted leaf

A pareidolian murmuration

snow in a twig

And of course a stone.  I loved collecting stones with pareidolic shapes as a child (still do,,,), 

LAST WEEK'S GOALS

Daisy

• Finish, supervise, and grade exams and submit final grades
• TRY AGAIN for finishing enough of the out-of-my-field discussion paper to send to co-authors
• House stuff as much as possible, try to put rooms back together!

Dame Eleanor Hull

• - visit my dad at least once daily while I'm here*
• - walk and do yoga daily
• - be polite to brothers and their attachments
• - rake the driveway and otherwise be a good houseguest
• - make my flight home on time
• - take weekend to decompress from trip

heu mihi (carried over)

• 1. Finish, prep, give talk; don't stress too much.
• 2. One yoga class (online), for God's sake.
• 3. Journal: Find second reviewers for two articles; process latest article.
• 4. Schedule haircuts
• 5. Enjoy Strasbourg as much as possible and do some of the things on our Last-Things-Before-We-Leave list.

JaneB (carried over)

• * get rest of Christmas packages to friends wrapped and posted
• * wrap family gifts
• * get next week's teaching prepared - including lots of NAGGING of students who need to sign up for 1:1 meetings
• * mark a lot of things
• * work only 30 hours... (not compatible with the previous point at all).
• * restore baseline habits, like movement every 45 minutes and eating the foods that suit my body FIRST
• * NOT feel pressured to drive to campus if I still have hip pain

 Julie

• 1. Marking
• 2. Finish current journal article
• 3. Do teaching prep ONLY if 1 and 2 finished (so no chance)
• 4. Deal with last bits of admin (references, scheduling stuff) in as little time as possible.
• 5. Finish Christmas shopping
• 6. Book car MOT
• 7. Have lunch in favourite cafe, with book/notebook.

SESSION GOALS

Daisy

• Massive grant application. I will hate every minute of writing it but it has to be done.
• Write and submit 3 papers – one new as first author (a bit out of my field), one new as co-author, and one rewrite of a big joint effort.
• Set up new lab to be able to do some basic stuff for research
• Keep kid happy with transition to new place.
• Be patient with everyone, including me.

Dame Eleanor Hull

• - grade efficiently and return comments in a timely manner
• - complete article that will also be a book chapter or part thereof
• - maybe do NaNoWriMo or a private follow-along
• - take care of at least one Life Task per month

Elizabeth Anne Mitchell (we all hope you’re doing OK and keeping warm!)

• Communicate with kindness

heu mihi 

• 1) Give research talk (IN FRENCH!!) at local university (Oct. 20).
• 2) Develop paleographic skills by exploring manuscripts.
• 3) Look at all (or nearly all) the manuscripts I said I would look at and write up my observations about each in some kind of coherent fashion--i.e., not scattered jottings in my notebook.
• 4) Ideally find at least ONE thing that will help my project move forward.
• 5) Get into a position where I feel ready to write in January: firmer prospectus/outline, a couple of chapter maps.
• 6) Begin crafting chapter 3; sketch out an argument about BN.

Humming42

• 1 finish Food chapter
• 2 finish Boredom chapter
• 3 finish Dark chapter
• 4 create new online class
• 5 draft and submit program proposal
• There are other things, but these matter most.

JaneB

• 1) SURVIVAL - self care, saying no, balance
• 2) TEACHING - focusing on kindness to myself and students, and remembering that my "scraping by" is actually better than some people's "standard practice" in teaching. Doing enough, basically, not even trying to be "the best"
• 3) RESEARCH - two goals right now, getting one paper submitted (incorporate comments from multiple co-authors, finalise, submit) and a second drafted (another multi-author thing and I'm not the lead which is a bonus).
• 4) CREATIVITY - hand crafts, art, writing fiction or poetry - making space for fun stuff. Eyeing up NaNoWriMo even if I set a lower goal for myself...

 Julie

• I'm coming back to a full teaching load after research leave for a year and a major admin role before then that limited my teaching. So the main goal is perhaps to survive the first term and just keep on top of the teaching, but without letting the research slide again.
• More specific research goal: do a significant amount of research for an article and preparation for a big grant.
• Teaching is mostly stuff I have done before, but to do enough revision to the module I will be teaching next term that I don't have it looming over me at Christmas. (I haven't taught it for 5 years, so it needs quite a bit of revision).
• There's a lot of ongoing house, financial, life stuff to sort out - one task a week.

2022 Session Three, Week 13

Week 13! The "theme shape" this week is the weird mis-perceived shape, like the bear that's actually a tree stump, or the unicorn that's a horse in front of a branch at just the right angle, you know the sort of thing. It's more common in a new house, when your furniture takes on odd shapes in a new configuration, or when you visit old friends who have rearranged their living room so the coat tree looks like a monster just broke in. Though these shapes are often spooky, they don't have to be. Sometimes they're the cushion pretending to be a cat (or vice versa). What's yours?

Here are the goals posted from last week. Let us know in the comments how you did, and what's coming up in the last week of our session #3. Next weekend there will be an end-of-session party post, where we can reflect on the whole session, but for now, give us one more set of goals.

Daisy

Finish final exam and practice exam
Finish enough of the out-of-my-field discussion paper to send to co-authors
Endless meetings, lots of association-related cat-herding
Clean out office space for new student
House stuff as much as possible

Dame Eleanor Hull

- finish the essay and send it
- finish all the grading, work out and post final grades
- pack for week visiting family
- exercise as usual

heu mihi

1. Finish, prep, give talk; don't stress too much.
2. One yoga class (online), for God's sake.
3. Journal: Find second reviewers for two articles; process latest article.
4. Schedule haircuts
5. Enjoy Strasbourg as much as possible and do some of the things on our Last-Things-Before-We-Leave list.

JaneB

* get rest of Christmas packages to friends wrapped and posted
* wrap family gifts
* get next week's teaching prepared - including lots of NAGGING of students who need to sign up for 1:1 meetings
* mark a lot of things
* work only 30 hours... (not compatible with the previous point at all).
* restore baseline habits, like movement every 45 minutes and eating the foods that suit my body FIRST
* NOT feel pressured to drive to campus if I still have hip pain

 Julie

1. Final teaching prep of term (yay!)
2. Marking
3. Writing maybe, depends on progress with 2.
4. Read a PhD chapter for a student
5. Final meetings with students stressing about essays.
6. Try not to stress about next term's teaching.
7. Lunch with friends
8. Exercise - pilates x 1, run x 1 at least, walks

2022 Third Session Week 12

 Hello!  My roof is fixed, my bank account is very empty (the lack of "running away money" doesn't feel good...)

For pictures today, first I have a final paisley - Fluffball's favourite sleeping position is definitely a paisley "feather" or "seed" or "flame"...

For tori, a few examples:

Tori for play...

Artistic tori - stainless steel sculpture in a public park twists the familiar, digital art of a knotted torus 

And a ceramic double torus - donut AND mug!

Tori made me think about two things, the little "treats" we use to bribe our inner toddler through the day, treat our students, and say thanks, I appreciate you to our colleagues (coffee and donuts/doughnuts seem like a prime example of that!), and the way that sometimes time and obligations fold around each other in impossible ways such that marking DOES get done and Christmas DOES somehow happen, even though there are so many times when it feels it won't.  I'm really tired of marking, have a great deal of it left to do, and Christmas in general is feeling like an obligation and source of guilt, so let's talk about little treats, seasonal or not!  What are your favourite things to bake or buy to share with  friends/colleagues?  What are the seasonal self-rewards you look forward to?  EAM and others, wishing you a peaceful season with lots of small pleasures whatever else is going on.

For sharing, I love making iced gingerbread biscuits (my grandma's recipe which is not excessively spicy and has a really good crunch, rather than the snap of most commercial ginger biccies) or sugar cookies (recipe acquired during my post-doc in a North American lab so nostalgia factor), or if I'm tired and in a hurry I make a seasonal tiffin cake (melt chocolate, golden syrup and butter together.  Mix in various items - the rule of thumb is at least one crunchy and one chewy add-in, and one add in at least should be not too sweet - and press the mix into a greaseproof paper lined cake tin of some sort.  Chill until set.  If you feel fancy, top with a thin layer of melted chocolate or drizzled icing (icing sugar (powdered sugar) and a little water mixed to a thick paste).  I like to do a ginger one (gingersnap cookies roughly crushed, chopped preserved ginger, possibly chopped apricots, and dark chocolate in the melt.  If the ginger was the 'wet' kind in syrup, you can use some of the syrup in place of the goldernsyrup, or save it for porridge and cocoa addins), or a "christmas" one (the soft ready to eat style dried apricots, glace cherries, good plump sultanas or raisins, a little candied peel, blanched or caramel almonds roughly broken up if you have them, a plain biscuit like a digestive or graham cracker roughly broken up, some Christmas spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves) added to the melted mixture and stirred before the addins, topped with sprinkles).  But there are a very large number of variations, just go with what sounds good/is lurking in the cupboard).  

For me I like hot chocolate with add ins (ideally made with grated real chocolate - the best recipe right now involves putting orange wedges and a piece of cinnamon stick in the milk (I use oat milk mostly at the moment, sometimes goats milk) when it's being heated, then stirring in the grated chocolate to melt it) or coffee with seasonal syrup (there's a refined-sugar-free gingerbread syrup available in one of our supermarkets which is great).  Chestnut soup.  Spiced caramel nuts.  Lebkuchen.  ALL the marzipan things.  Brussels sprouts (always cook extra and extra potatoes for bubble-and-squeak, an excellent post-big-meal brunch or lunch with an egg).

LAST WEEK'S LISTS:

Daisy

• Marking and logistics for class
• Set up final exam and practice exam
• FINISH revisions for old paper
• Finish enough of the out-of-my-field discussion paper to send to co-authors
• Finish website and award stuff for association

Dame Eleanor Hull

• - work on essay endnotes
• - Continue to pretend I will take notes on MET book and C&C read weeks ago
• - work for at least an hour on at least one spring class
• - grade as many undergrad final papers as come in on time
• - dead language prep
• - do some tidying, unpacking, or other house task
• - do yoga at least 4 times, weights x2, walk x5
• - pick up new glasses, I hope!

heu mihi

• no goals set

JaneB

• * get an abstract in for a conference I don't want to go to, but OUGHT to want to go to a lot, so I might actually want to by the time it comes around
• * get a few Christmas packages to friends wrapped and posted, and work out what to buy the last few difficult people that they will actually like and use
• * get all of next week's teaching prepared
• * mark a lot of things
• * work only 30 hours... (not compatible with the previous point at all). No, work 22.5 hours as there's another strike day included. It sounds so little... but between a foggy brain and emotional labour, it really isn't.
• * focus on restoring baseline habits, like movement every 45 minutes and eating the foods that suit my body FIRST, once the roof work is finished

Julie

• 1. Apply for much smaller grant to salvage some of my plans - URGENT (deadline today)
• 2. Marking
• 3. Teaching prep for next term
• 4. Research/writing - this ought to be TLQ, but will probably be squeezed by 2 and 3 becoming urgent. Sigh.
• 5. Xmas stuff - parcels in post like JaneB, buy & wrap presents
• 6. House stuff - declutter
• 7. Exercise - pilates x 1, run x 2, walk as many days as possible.