I'm hoping I'm not out of order here; according to our original plan, March 4/5 was supposed to be the midterm check-in, but it was also supposed to be Week 8, which this apparently is (?!). So I'm going to take the liberty of doing the mid-term post now and hope for the best. To review from Week 1: April 22/23 (week 16) will be the final week of goal-setting, and we'll do a session recap in the week of April 29/30.
But first, I'm going to abuse my host privileges and post pictures of the NEW KITTENS that we somewhat unexpectedly got this week. (We knew that we were going to look at kittens, but we didn't know that they would be ready to take home! Yet here they are.) Meet the nameless kittens currently known as Smudge (the one with the white nose) and Not Smudge.
They are really very wee--only 6 weeks old (the owner of the mother cat was fairly motivated to move them out into the world)--but settling in quite well. Litter box successes all around, and they love to play like maniacs and then snuggle on laps.
So I didn't have a very productive week. This week's prompt was going to be "What do you think of my kittens?", but an alternative is, "What are your comforting thoughts when you need something to make you smile?" Because kittens definitely serve that purpose.
--And there's not much need for a prompt anyway, because it's time for midterm check-in! How are these goals serving you? Are there any that you want to jettison or to add? --Session goals listed first, followed by week gaols. I mean goals. (Decided to keep the typo there.)
Session goals:
Daisy:
Get my new lab completely functional and organized
Submit 2 papers that have been languishing for far too long
Get my library/music/games/craft space functional and beautiful
Try two 100-day projects (one with yoga, one with drawing)
Get back on the exercise wagon
Do one fun thing every week, bonus points if it is new
Dame Eleanor Hull:
- grade efficiently and return comments in a timely manner
- make progress on book
- do some Responsible Adult tasks (such as get a new driver's license that satisfies Real I.D. requirements, find a new doctor)
- make progress on unpacking and other House Tasks
heu mihi:
1. Encyclopedia entry due 1/31
2. Conference paper due 3/7
3. Book review due 3/25
4. Draft three (ha ha! Look at me being ambitious!) chapters
5. Do fun things, like seeing a friend, at least three times a month
6. Sit regularly, run regularly, get back into a steady yoga practice (at least one lesson a week on average); keep track of alcohol consumption, out of curiosity
JaneB:
1) Self-care - this comes first, and is about making sure that when I don't have very many 'spoons', I don't automatically throw them all into work. It's about maintaining the little habits and slowly adding to them, finding the motivation to make a pan of soup on the weekend, practicing saying "later" and "no" and "not today."
1a) reclaim my immediate physical environment. October, I decided to take some steps, and reached out to a professional declutterer plus researched and signed a contract to get the house doors and windows replaced (original wooden ones are close to 40 years old and have not been well maintained, plus drafty). In November, my roof sprung a leak which ended up requiring a complete re-roof of the house which emptied my accessible savings and beyond - but I do now have a water-tight house. And I'm committed to the windows and doors, so they should get done this month (all these expenses makes industrial action and pay deductions scary... but the medium term will be OK, just got to get through the next few months). After which, I want to work with the decluttering lady every few weeks, until I get to a point where I can possibly feel OK having a cleaner in once a month, and start saving again towards getting some redecorating done by persons not me! (unlike the Dame, I am terrible at painting walls).
2) research stuff. This is mostly just "ticking over" - I have two grad students at the moment, and several early career folks who I work with/mentor in various informal ways at other places, plus am part of various collaborative projects. Things which need to happen during this session:
2a) poor abandoned multi-author paper - needs to be revised using all the comments I got 14 months ago and be resubmitted
2b) review paper - a collective effort, the journal wants it in March (already about a 6 month extension).
2c) paper with senior grad student - their first manuscript, a little side project of theirs which we worked on together - would like to get a full draft by the end of the session
2d) consultancy - SGS and I have about a week's worth of computer modelling to do which is applied work on an interesting problem, will provide SGS with a nice bit of extra pay, and form the final section of a paper the scientist from the commercial organisation is already writing, so low effort for a solid reward
2e) wish-we-never-started project - has been and still is a nightmare but I HAVE to start producing outputs, even through I still don't know how to pay for stuff from the project (it's only been 18months of internal confusion...)
2f) what-do-you-mean-we-got-the-money project (I'm a minor partner on a very off-the-wall sort of project idea which was thrown together in about ten days for a cross-funding-body new horizons funding call, and, well, we were all rather shocked and now something has to happen. Thank the good LORD the hiring has worked smoothly and we have a great technical hire locally to actually do the making things happen...).
3) teaching. I have three modules to coordinate (all team taught, all non-standard in some way), a small herd of final year project students to support, and a newish administrative role to navigate on top of the two I already have. This is actually not only my light semester, but I have some extra-for-this-year-only help with some of the in person teaching (for two units, I do the writing/slides/ViLE setup/marking, and teach the virtual repeat, but the in person classes are taught by other people which saves me some commuting)... my main goal here is just survival, but to set something a bit more measurable, I'm aiming to be at least 7 days ahead in terms of prep/paperwork, and more once we reach March, the bulk of the content delivery is over, and the focus is on workshops and projects and the like.
4) fun: this includes writing fiction or poetry, reading fiction or non-work-related non-fiction, making things, and playing Dungeons & Dragons with my nibling and their friends. I want to spend at least a couple of hours a week doing FUN THINGS.
Julie:
Research:
Finish and submit the journal article I was working on last term (I came so close before Christmas!)
Plan how to use research leave next term.
Teaching:
Keep teaching under control - do only essential prep/revisions, resist the temptation to go the extra mile. Remind myself no one will notice whether I do or not.
Home:
Try to tackle some of the projects on the list, but not beat myself up about them.
Life:
Book holidays.
Regular exercise
Try to make some time for myself and use it mindfully.
Karen:
Research - have KL article ready for submission; be on track with body project
Teaching - stay at least a week ahead on VILE; all marking done within 2 weeks
Self and home - keep up monthly and weekly planning in bujo, maintain an intentional exercise schedule each week
Susan:
Research:
1. Actually finish Famous Author (with whom I am very bored) so I feel free. Send to publisher. Get it done.
2. Get draft of Intro to Big Collaboration drafted. I'm not teaching this term (lots of admin instead) so this should be possible)
Home:
1. This is the busy season for the garden: prune roses, pull up grass while the ground is (VERY) wet. Put down weedblock and mulch.
2. Plant some low growing drought tolerant plants along the new irrigation piping so the yard looks better.
3. Sort books that I don't want to keep and take them to various places where they might find homes. (This is in preparation for moving/downsizing when I retire, probably formally 3 years from now.
Life:
1. Make sure I do something social for fun every week.
2. Regular exercise. At the very end of this session I've signed up for a 10 day walk along the Portuguese Camino de Santiago. So I need to be able to walk 10 miles a day. Walking, riding my expensive bike, yoga etc. Something every day.
Weekly goals:
Daisy:
URGENT Accounting for conference and research purchases
URGENT Requisition forms for equipment
Ship off samples for processing (hard part, finding the relevant POs)
Review that I forgot about, damn…
Do actual research with actual samples!!!!
Write something (anything!) for local joint paper
Start on music for upcoming concert
Dame Eleanor Hull:
- continue to spend 10 hours/night in bed
- walk and yoga 5x each
- set up assignments for both classes to spring break
- read at least 500 lines of Irrelevant Romance
- dead language group prep
- choose new PCP
- one House Thing
heu mihi:
1. Read dissertation chapter, like I promised I would
2. Maaayyybeeee reread chapter that I've been working on
3. Ease up on routines; anything that I do in that area is a bonus
4. Don't let my mom mix me any drinks while I'm visiting (seriously--they're dangerous, and I'm too old for that nonsense).
5. Work a little bit on Sustainability Committee stuff (for my town, not my job)
JaneB:
1) self-care: trying again about the food. After pancake day. And prioritising sleep over extra work-y bits.
1a) environment: do the small chores, 1 lot of laundry-from-dusty-corners-of-cupboard, and aim to hoover/sweep every floor surface once
2) R - do something else concrete towards the teaching-related R project. meet colleague about multi-author paper which is crawling towards submission. CRAWLING. But at least we do now have time to meet this week.
3) T - Get fifth and sixth week materials onto all the ViLEs.
4) read a bit; play D&D. Excavate the crochet blanket from the pile of "one more wear" stuff on the chair and put it somewhere obvious so I might work on it. Wrap and mail my sister's birthday presents!
Julie:
1. Prep teaching for next two weeks.
2. Submit the article!
3. Review a journal article I foolishly agreed to review.
4. Try to get more sleep.
5. Exercise.
Karen (held over):
KL article - pull apart and outline structure for the two articles
Teaching prep - have everything up to week 3 fully polished apart from the bits being done by the digital learning team
End of year exhibition - send out info to sound/session people
3 x yoga
Plant winter seeds
Susan:
1. Finish last three essays we have for Big Collaboration
2. Read book for book review
3. Start work on taxes :(
4. Keep up with admin stuff
5. Enjoy weekend trip for a birthday party for NY friend visiting nearby big city.
6. Keep up with sleep/ eating / exercise
ohai! Fang you 4 kitten pix!! TOTES ADORBS
ReplyDeleteKittens!!!!!!! Yay kittens!!!!!!!! They are going to make a lot of people very happy this week!
ReplyDeleteOh, they are sooo cute! I think we may need a regular kitten picture each week now. Are they male/female/one of each? I actually like Smudge as a name, but I suppose Not Smudge might end up with a complex. Keep us posted on name choices.
ReplyDeleteI have no cute pets, so random things that make me smile are mostly my kids, especially remembering how they were when they were little.
Midterm goals - I don't even remember setting these!
Research:
Finish and submit the journal article I was working on last term (I came so close before Christmas!) - Almost!
Plan how to use research leave next term. - NO
Teaching:
Keep teaching under control - do only essential prep/revisions, resist the temptation to go the extra mile. Remind myself no one will notice whether I do or not. - SORT OF - haven't been as disciplined as I could be, but have cut a few corners.
Home:
Try to tackle some of the projects on the list, but not beat myself up about them. - New shelves, fair amount of decluttering.
Life:
Book holidays. - YES!
Regular exercise - SOME
Try to make some time for myself and use it mindfully. - Not much, but will be easier over next few weeks.
Considering how busy the teaching has been, this isn't too bad.
Last week
1. Prep teaching for next two weeks. - Mostly, one lecture to write.
2. Submit the article! - NO - I tried twice, and both times I was asked to resubmit because it wasn't accepted format and my name was in a couple of footnote references (to very different works, citing which wouldn't give me away as the author of this article).
3. Review a journal article I foolishly agreed to review. - NO
4. Try to get more sleep. - Managed a couple of early nights, but cancelled out by other late nights.
5. Exercise. - pilates x 1, run x 1. Have had very bad backache, finally saw a physio, which I should have done years ago, and it's basically too much sitting, leading to lower vertebra pain and inflammation. Not serious, but I need to move more and get a different desk at work.
This week:
Last heavy teaching week, yay!
1. Submit the article!
2. Write final lecture
3. Review article I foolishly agreed to review.
4. Start marking
5. Movement - try not to sit for too long, walk, exercise.
6. Zoom call(s) with friends.
The repeated article submission/format "problems" sounds very frustrating! I hope it gets accepted once it finally is in the form required. More sleep always sounds like a good goal! And it's good you got to see the physio; I hope that moving around more will stop the pain.
DeleteSubmission formats can be so annoying! I've been pleasantly surprised by my last two submissions for different journals which both did not require particular formats and also no particular reference style, it was a nice change from some others that were extremely specific...
DeleteHope back starts feeling better soon!
Ugh, submission formats, and triple ugh, bad backs from sitting (my current issue is hip-centred, but it's just a variation on years of lower back issues). But GO YOU for actually DOING something about it!!! Giant win...
DeleteThank you! Wish I'd seen a physio years ago, as it was so simple once I actually booked an appointment. Classic trap of putting off self-care...
DeleteWEE WEE KITTIES! So cute! 6 weeks though, poor babies, at least they have each other to practice catting with... and seconding the call for weekly updates on the precioussses!
ReplyDeleteIt's gone 1am on Monday and I need to go to bed so will wander back for the rest of it later today after sleeps.
I know--too little--I was pretty anxious about taking them home. But they seem to be doing just fine and learning their way around cat-ness.
DeleteYou know John Scalzi has a black & white cat named Smudge. Two others of his are Sugar and Spice.
ReplyDeleteI had completely forgotten what my session goals were, though of course I could have looked them up myself at any time! It's interesting to see them again. :-) I will keep them all, and here are brief comments about them:
- grade efficiently and return comments in a timely manner: So far, so good, though I haven't had such a lot of grading yet.
- make progress on book: Just started back to it this week!
- do some Responsible Adult tasks (such as get a new driver's license that satisfies Real I.D. requirements, find a new doctor): both of these are In Progress* now.
- make progress on unpacking and other House Tasks: not much happening yet here, but I have hopes for the second half of our session.
*I have failed in two different browsers to create an online account with my health insurance, so I will need to make phone calls. But I have located a whole batch of relevant paperwork, so am keeping it visible to encourage myself. As to the license, I never did manage to locate the papers I put aside last summer when the DMV cancelled my appointment at the last minute, but in the meantime, they simplified the list of what you need, so I was able to reassemble my documents in about 10 minutes. Next step is finding an appointment somewhere tolerably nearby; nothing available tonight but I'll try again in a few days.
Last week, how I did:
- continue to spend 10 hours/night in bed: more like 9, mostly.
- walk and yoga 5x each. YES.
- set up assignments for both classes to spring break. NO, still barely staying ahead.
- read at least 500 lines of Irrelevant Romance. YES, 750 or so.
- dead language group prep. YES, and group was cancelled, so I'm ahead!
- choose new PCP. YES in the sense that I think I know who I'll select when I get in touch with the insurance, online having failed me.
- one House Thing. YES if we count some minor tidying in my study today---I managed to recycle a fair amount of paper. Let's say I made the task smaller.
New goals:
- grade a set of grad papers
- set up two new discussion boards
- read at least 500 lines of Irrelevant Romance
- some other scholarly reading
- work on F&C chapter outline (expanding from article)
- rest, walk, yoga in good measure
- try to get driver's license appointment
Making big tasks smaller is a worthy win! Lots done for the week... Good luck with the insurance stuff! It is great that you started back on the book too, hope that keeps momentum and turns into something satisfying!
DeleteJumping right in to the check-in now, because I need to Get To It:
ReplyDeleteSession goals:
1. Encyclopedia entry due 1/31 - Yes
2. Conference paper due 3/7 - Yes (it's almost done; will be delivered in a week and a half)
3. Book review due 3/25 - Yes
4. Draft three (ha ha! Look at me being ambitious!) chapters - First of the three is nearly drafted. I'm actually giving myself until the end of May to complete this crazy goal, so I almost certainly won't have completed it by the end of this session; still, I'll keep it here as a motivator.
5. Do fun things, like seeing a friend, at least three times a month - I've been managing this, I think. January was highly social; February less so. I need to be careful that I don't lapse into reclusive habits.
6. Sit regularly, run regularly, get back into a steady yoga practice (at least one lesson a week on average); keep track of alcohol consumption, out of curiosity - I've been doing well on all of this (except for last week, when parental visit and kid's break disrupted things); will keep the goal.
Last week:
1. Read dissertation chapter, like I promised I would
YES (finished it on Saturday evening, at last)
2. Maaayyybeeee reread chapter that I've been working on
NO
3. Ease up on routines; anything that I do in that area is a bonus
YES--I ran once, and I think that that was about it for routines
4. Don't let my mom mix me any drinks while I'm visiting (seriously--they're dangerous, and I'm too old for that nonsense).
YES--I was very prudent during the parental visit
5. Work a little bit on Sustainability Committee stuff (for my town, not my job)
A little bit. I have more to do.
This week: Catch up and move forward!
1. Finish/print conference paper
2. Draft concluding section to chapter 3
3. Look at totally terrible half-draft of chapter 1; freewrite about where the chapter ought to be going
4. Catch up on work for both journals
5. Brew beer
6. Read for fun (finish one book; return to another)
7. Re-establish all routines, including language work
I like your goal 5, about seeing friends! It sounds like you had a great visit with your family (what visit isn't better with KITTENS?). And it's helpful to hear about your terrible half-draft and free-writing---writing struggles always enjoy company!
DeleteYour session goals are ticking along beautifully! And you ticked off the best one with the kitties!
DeleteI like the read for fun plan this week, good luck with getting the routines started again...
Freewriting is just the BEST tool, even if many of my colleagues think it's a crazy idea. I do get frustrated how many items in my writing toolkit had to come from reading blogs, not from decades of formal education, but hey, it's all tools...
DeleteReading for fun is a great item to put on a to-do list. And agree with JaneB on the benefits of freewriting - it's so liberating at times!
DeleteKittens: love love love them! So sweet. I’m so glad you have the two to keep each other company. I think all posts need cats!!
ReplyDeleteFor happy thoughts, cats and kittens are right up there! My kid definitely makes me smile, especially when there are unexpected glimpses of the potentially lovely grown-up she is turning into… Another good one is getting something something beautiful like flowers for a pick-me-up for no reason other than beauty.
The week was nowhere near as calm as I hoped for. A major professional kerfuffle took up two full days (nothing wrong with me, larger profession issues but needed lots of talking and thinking and involved many men telling me lots of things I know as well as they do… not so fun…). A colleague came for a visit so that was great fun, we actually got some work done and some inspiration to do more… I failed miserably at accounting and ordering and shipping, will try again!
Last week’s goals:
URGENT Accounting for conference and research purchases
URGENT Requisition forms for equipment
Ship off samples for processing (hard part, finding the relevant POs)
Review that I forgot about, damn… DONE
Do actual research with actual samples!!!! DONE YAY!!!
Write something (anything!) for local joint paper SOMETHING!
Start on music for upcoming concert DONE
This week’s goals:
URGENT Accounting for conference and research purchases
URGENT Requisition forms for equipment
URGENT Ship off samples for processing (hard part, finding the relevant POs)
Two conference abstracts
Marking for 2 classes
Continue with local joint paper
Exercise every day
Keep doing physio (blah…)
Session Goals
Get my new lab completely functional and organized
This one is going well and there is definitely lots of progress, I will keep it because I know it will be a win!
Submit 2 papers that have been languishing for far too long
One is done and in review, the other is making some progress so this is a keeper. I will add another paper to the list, optimistically!
Get my library/music/games/craft space functional and beautiful
Definitely making good progress, it is basically there but needs some tweaking and organizing.
Try two 100-day projects (one with yoga, one with drawing)
The yoga one is going well, I have not missed a day since January 7th. As far as effects I cannot say there is much to report… I think I sleep better? Hard to tell with cats. I do sort of look forward to doing it in the evening before bed, it is mostly relaxing. I got over my need for predictability (turns out after about 2 weeks that gets boring) but I’ve also learned that apparently I am far too impatient to do it in the mornings… The most concrete effect is that I vacuum my carpet more frequently because spending time on the floor every day really drives home how much the cats shed! So overall not bad, probably not a lifetime commitment or major transformation, but kind of fun in a stubborn way.
I replaced the drawing one with music. I really want to get better at drawing but faffing around for 15 minutes a day was deeply unsatisfying… I think I need to do a class or something guided, otherwise it is just me puttering and I don’t really have much puttering room in my brain or schedule…
Get back on the exercise wagon
Well, the daily yoga is messing this up a bit… I think I might try a “15 minutes minimum a day” streak for the rest of the session just for a kick-start?
Do one fun thing every week, bonus points if it is new
Not doing great on this one… Will keep it and try to pay attention more.
Lots of DONE for the week, and it's good to hear that your lab settling-in is going well! Congrats on your yoga streak, too!
DeleteSo much done despite the kerfuffle and the visit! And congrats on the hoovering... my grotty hip/knee currently make getting up from the floor painful so the odd lying down type stretches get done on the bed (or leaning against a door, for some reason that often hurts less), but that is not great for the hoovering. And the Fluffball regards any hoovered stretch of carpet as a new canvas requiring adornment with tuft-art, so rolls and scratches himself diligently until the cat fur is back - sometimes it looks like a furry bird has been massacred, but I guess that's the height of feline art!
DeleteGreat progress on session goals. Sympathy on having your week messed up by other people - so frustrating.
DeleteOh, so cute. Kittens are so much fun. (Also destructive, but fun.) And lovely to see them snuggle, which is probably the only time you can get pictures! I'm sure I feel better when I see kitten pictures.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, session goals:
Research:
1. Actually finish Famous Author (with whom I am very bored) so I feel free. Send to publisher. Get it done. FIRST STEP DONE
2. Get draft of Intro to Big Collaboration drafted. I'm not teaching this term (lots of admin instead) so this should be possible) THIS NEEDS TO START
Home:
1. This is the busy season for the garden: prune roses, pull up grass while the ground is (VERY) wet. Put down weedblock and mulch. ROSES Pruned. The rest is behind schedule but we're still getting rain.
2. Plant some low growing drought tolerant plants along the new irrigation piping so the yard looks better. NOT YET
3. Sort books that I don't want to keep and take them to various places where they might find homes. (This is in preparation for moving/downsizing when I retire, probably formally 3 years from now. HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING
Life:
1. Make sure I do something social for fun every week. YES
2. Regular exercise. At the very end of this session I've signed up for a 10 day walk along the Portuguese Camino de Santiago. So I need to be able to walk 10 miles a day. Walking, riding my expensive bike, yoga etc. Something every day. MOSTLY. BUT the last week .. .
I'll keep my goals, even if I don't finish them. It's good to have them. I was not prepared for the way January and February came down on me, and I'm not sure how much is accidental and how much is just normal for the current admin job, but I've been completely swamped. And I'm not teaching, so...
Which is why this week was NOT good:
1. Finish last three essays we have for Big Collaboration ONE ONLY
2. Read book for book review NO< and I got the electronic reminder
3. Start work on taxes :( NO
4. Keep up with admin stuff NOT REALLY
5. Enjoy weekend trip for a birthday party for NY friend visiting nearby big city. YES
6. Keep up with sleep/ eating / exercise EXERCISE WAS NOT SO GOOD THIS WEEK>
Stuff happened: it included a crisis with a student, a colleague who didn't like a decision my committee made yelling at me (over the phone) for 40 minutes, discovering that the day we bring potential grad students to campus had become entirely open ended, so I had to plan something. I forgot I'd promised to interview students who had applied to my Alma Mater, and those reports are due Wednesday: I've talked to 4 college students in the last two days. One to go. Today I had to take my mother to the dr because she may have pneumonia in addition to a UTI. It's been relentless. This too shall pass, however: one step at a time. Interviews almost done, almost got my schedule done for grad visitation, and after I take my mother for a chest xray tomorrow, that will be done.
Goals for the next week:
-- Do two more essays for Big Collaboration
-- Start reading book for review
-- Do tax stuff
--Keep up with administrative stuff
--Plan Wednesday's Lenten service, make soup
--Eat, exercise, do something nice, sleep
Now I want to go to sleep. Instead, I'll eat dinner.
I'm sorry to hear about your mother's ailments, and the rest of your hard past week. At least you had a nice weekend trip for your friend's party. I hope this week is less beleaguered.
DeleteWell, my mother tested positive for COVID this morning, so... life continues!
DeleteOh my goodness. Well, Paxlovid seems to help a lot, so I hope you can get her started on it right away. (I probably should have made an effort to get some when I got sick, but couldn't face going out, dealing with people, etc.)
DeleteSo sorry to hear about your Mom, I hope she gets the right medications and feels better soon!
DeleteYou've had a rough week, hope there is some extra sleep and rest after all that!
So sorry to hear about your mum - hope she is improving quickly and doesn't share it around!
DeleteSounds like such a tough week. Hope your mum gets well soon.
DeleteWell, I meant to come back here Monday evening, but I did not.
ReplyDeleteLast week was a bit fraught, for various reasons related to students, interpersonal stuff, the horrible loathed dreaded national student happy sheet survey, and the number of my project students who actually chose to take advantage of the formative draft submission by submitting complete drafts of their projects (in a normal year, out of every 10 students I typically get 1 close to complete draft and 4-5 partial drafts - this year I got 5 near-total and 3 partial) requiring hours and hours of feeding back (and one of them wrote a somewhat passive-aggressive note about how my "normal feedback" to them was not constructive, just a list of what they had done wrong and needed to do differently (which to me seems not un-constructive? It tells them something about how to fix things, not just what was bad), which led to a paranoid dive down the rabbit hole of past feedback to that student - which I found ALWAYS included at least a couple of positive "X was done very well in this assignment" type comments. AND that the "things to do differently" were actually the same concrete pieces of advice about addressing weak structure by using sub-headings and ensuring paragraphs each had a clear initial topic sentence, and about correct referencing of quotations, on multiple pieces of work spread over the last year. Hmmm. You can lead a horse to water...).
Anyway. I had a lot of meetings, and I was just feeling very grey and heavy and Fed Up with everything and everyone. But I worked my day off, and over the weekend, to try & keep up (which is contrary to the Action Short Of A Strike we should be on, but when you don't WANT to work (or be awake at all) it's really hard to properly know what is reasonable, and my brain is too good at catastrophising if stuff isn't done. And I ate some things I shouldn't have done, and not enough of things I should have done, and long story short took a couple of sick days this week (of which this, Wednesday, is the second one) due to stomach issues which are on the one hand kind of self-inflicted and on the other a physical manifestation of a precarious mental state. Shrug. Have slept an excessive amount of time, done enough laundry and dish washing that I now have clean socks and plates and forks enough for a week, bought some partially-prepared and easy to cook vegetables and meal elements (which are getting SO EXPENSIVE. But if I buy ingredients then hit a bad patch with either stress or "the 'ip" or whatever, they go to waste and I eat sandwiches or buttered toast or takeaways or All The Cereal, which is bad for me and a waste...), and have enough clear space on the dining room table to sit down and eat like a normal person if I want to. And tomorrow I will try and pick up the pieces and act like a professional adult for another day!
LAST WEEK:
Delete1) self-care: trying again about the food. After pancake day. And prioritising sleep over extra work-y bits. variable - but see above about the couple of sick/reset days
1a) environment: do the small chores, 1 lot of laundry-from-dusty-corners-of-cupboard, and aim to hoover/sweep every floor surface once no, but I am back to a sort of equilibrium - see above
2) R - do something else concrete towards the teaching-related R project. meet colleague about multi-author paper which is crawling towards submission. CRAWLING. But at least we do now have time to meet this week. sent an email (which took a while to draft. No responses, but I sent it). met colleague, we have a plan. And more items on the to do list...
3) T - Get fifth and sixth week materials onto all the ViLEs. fifth week done. Which is good as this IS currently fifth week...
4) read a bit; play D&D. Excavate the crochet blanket from the pile of "one more wear" stuff on the chair and put it somewhere obvious so I might work on it. Wrap and mail my sister's birthday presents! no, yes, no, yes and she was pleased - I got her a screaming goat 'toy' for her desk for the paperwork days that come with running your own business, and chocolate and novels for after desk-day self-care, and apparently I chose right
THIS WEEK (what's left of it):
1) self-care: more fruit and veg, prioritising stretching breaks, listening to podcasts in the dark and relaxing to at least rest my body and distract my brain instead of anxiety-spiralling during insomnia episodes - I've started listening to "No Such Thing As A Fish" so have over 400 episodes of people with voices that don't annoy me chatting about Random Facts to listen to. It's always reassuring to have a big podcast back catalogue to work through when I'm stressed!
1a) environment: do the small chores
2) R - do something else concrete towards the teaching-related R project. do my items on multi-author paper which is crawling towards submission.
3) T - Get sixth week materials onto all the ViLEs, finish writing feedback on the draft projects that came in on time, remind everyone else to do the same.
4) read a bit (might be time to reread book 1 of Murderbot to kickstart the reading bit of the brain again); play D&D. Excavate the crochet blanket from the pile of "one more wear" stuff on the chair and put it somewhere obvious so I might work on it. work out what to get my mother for her birthday AND for Mothering Sunday/Mother's Day (which is mid-Lent in the UK).
And session goals...
Delete1) Self-care - this comes first, and is about making sure that when I don't have very many 'spoons', I don't automatically throw them all into work. this still needs to come first. Especially after last year's Easter Breakdown, I need to remember that my "version" of seasonal depression always hits in March/April as the evenings get lighter and that I need to bear in mind that it's OK to be out of sync with the messages around me. And practicing saying "later" and "no" and "not today."! Especially with more strike days coming in March...
1a) reclaim my immediate physical environment. making progress here - the windows and doors are replaced, and the decluttering expert visited January (preparing for the windows/doors, making my office less of a throw-and-forget-zone and more a place of organised piles) and February (sorted out the giant upstairs landing cupboard and all the landing corner doom piles) and is booked for March. Ongoing goal to work with the decluttering lady every few weeks, until I get to a point where I can possibly feel OK having a cleaner in once a month, and start saving again towards getting some redecorating/reflooring done by persons not me!
2) research stuff. This is mostly just "ticking over" - I have two grad students at the moment, and several early career folks who I work with/mentor in various informal ways at other places, plus am part of various collaborative projects. Things which need to happen during this session:
2a) poor abandoned multi-author paper - needs to be revised using all the comments I got 14 months ago and be resubmitted
2b) review paper - a collective effort, the journal wants it in March (already about a 6 month extension).
2c) paper with senior grad student - their first manuscript, a little side project of theirs which we worked on together - would like to get a full draft by the end of the session
2d) consultancy - SGS and I have about a week's worth of computer modelling to do which is applied work on an interesting problem, will provide SGS with a nice bit of extra pay, and form the final section of a paper the scientist from the commercial organisation is already writing, so low effort for a solid reward
2e) wish-we-never-started project - has been and still is a nightmare but I HAVE to start producing outputs, even through I still don't know how to pay for stuff from the project (it's only been 18months of internal confusion...)
2f) what-do-you-mean-we-got-the-money project (I'm a minor partner on a very off-the-wall sort of project idea which was thrown together in about ten days for a cross-funding-body new horizons funding call, and, well, we were all rather shocked and now something has to happen. Thank the good LORD the hiring has worked smoothly and we have a great technical hire locally to actually do the making things happen...).
these things just... have to happen somehow. I don't know...
3) teaching. I have three modules to coordinate (all team taught, all non-standard in some way), a small herd of final year project students to support, and a newish administrative role to navigate on top of the two I already have. This is actually not only my light semester, but I have some extra-for-this-year-only help with some of the in person teaching (for two units, I do the writing/slides/ViLE setup/marking, and teach the virtual repeat, but the in person classes are taught by other people which saves me some commuting)... my main goal here is just survival, but to set something a bit more measurable, I'm aiming to be at least 7 days ahead in terms of prep/paperwork, and more once we reach March, the bulk of the content delivery is over, and the focus is on workshops and projects and the like. I was 7 days ahead up until this week, so getting back to that is still reasonable. Still, just has to happen somehow
Delete4) fun: this includes writing fiction or poetry, reading fiction or non-work-related non-fiction, making things, and playing Dungeons & Dragons with my nibling and their friends. I want to spend at least a couple of hours a week doing FUN THINGS. very necessary. D&D is still the main thing that is happening, and that's not a bad thing at all, especially as it's fun AND social so two 'healthy things' in one taking less overall energy!
So they can stay.
Yay for reading plans! There is a new Murderbot book coming out soon! Not sure about the release date, but my e-reader suggested it in the "might like this" section and I pre-ordered it. I love pre-ordering books I know I will like because I forget about them and then one day they magically appear out of nowhere!
DeleteGlad you are fitting in the fun D&D stuff in - social and fun in manageable doses are really great!
I also saw the new book and it was pre-ordered as soon as I saw it - Amazon is not a Good Thing in many ways but having pre-orders of wonderful books appear on my Kindle when I forgot all about them is magic and delightful! AND Martha Wells has another fantasy book out this year...
DeleteThat sounds like a rough week. And ugh, student feedback. I hate it - I have to brace myself mentally before looking at it, every year. I think I'm less confident about my teaching now than I was when I started. I hate that it gets used for promotion even though there are now about a million studies showing how sexist/racist/every other biased the feedback is. They always want so much more from female teachers - in your case, this is clearly a student who thinks you should just be telling her how to get a good grade. What also makes me mad at the moment is that in-person attendance is terrible, even for seminars which are meant to be compulsory, so we're being judged on stuff they haven't even properly engaged with. (I will get low scores because apparently my lecture recordings are hard to hear - I reported the problem, but our IT department are so slammed it didn't get fixed until this week.) Hang in there.
DeleteReality check. The Teaching Tsar seems to be being a little... overly dedicated right now. I officially work Monday to Thursday, right? I was off sick Tu & W, met with her today about some stuff which is now delayed because I was ill, & mentioned I had to work part of tomorrow (because it was the only time we could schedule a formal PhD progression meeting with all the committee, so I agreed to cede the time). She looked at me oddly, said "that's just the job", and then went on to complain about another colleague who is on a 60% contract (Tues-Thurs) because of caring responsibilities who "refuses to be flexible in the slightest".
ReplyDeleteA few minutes later, when I said if we schedule x event for y day I am unlikely to be available as it is a strike day, I got told all about how she can't tell anyone else how to do it, but if she needs to be available to teach she's teaching, AND forfeiting her pay for the strike day - she reckons if she didn't come onto campus to teach she'd only be at home doing research so it's all the same. Do I not realise there are millions of people who would take our jobs in an instant??
I know I tend to be overly sensitive, but right now not only am I horrified that this apparently very successful, well funded, many grad students, widely published Full Professor (achieved in a career which is nearly a decade shorter due to some following spouse disruption and three maternity leaves (during which I guess she worked...) than mine so far, and I'm stuck rather shakily at Reader (Associate Prof equiv) level with no hope of Full) thinks like this, I'm feeling completely justified every time I've interpreted her attitude to my health issues and part time status as disapproving and unsympathetic. Guess she's just gearing up for that inspirational international women's day "be inspired by our amazing female professors" schtick.
That's a bit of a sad, problematic way to think, right???
If you mean *her* way of thinking is sad and problematic, yes. Yours, no.
DeleteThe playing field is not level. We've all known people like Teaching Tsar, who have apparently unlimited spoons and aren't slowed down by moving and maternity. Some of them are lovely people; some of them actually grasp that they are benefiting from amazing gifts of health; but, sadly, many have no.effing.clue what it is like to live with any kind of ailment or handicap. I think when I was younger I was a bit like that, and then fibromyalgia hit me. On good days I have a sense of what I might have achieved if throughout my career I could have counted on normal energy levels. When people negotiate 80% or 60% schedules, it's not because they're lazy, but it is sad that some people in positions of power can't grasp that.
It's also sad that people like me don't get it till they experience it, though maybe just getting older and talking to more people would have done it, in my case (it would be pretty to think so, anyway). Sounds like Teaching Tsar needs some sensitivity training, either institutional or the sort that Life/the Universe eventually dishes out to most of us.
DeleteYou're not being overly sensitive. Dame Eleanor is right, this woman needs to check her privilege and learn some basic empathy. And more importantly, get some EDI training. If people work part-time, they are only available part-time. End of. Can you be firmer in saying no? It strikes me that the problem is that you're part-time for health reasons (presumably) rather than caring reasons. If you had kids, and were off with them, there would be no question of you coming into campus/agreeing to meetings. Does she not get that if you're overworked, you end up sick so are off anyway? And she really doesn't know what the definition of a strike is!
DeleteI was having a bad day Wednesday and on a Zoom call with two very good friends that evening, one of whom recently quit academia because she was so fed-up and had developed a health condition, both suggested I go part-time for a while to ease the pressure. People like your Teaching Tsar are what makes me reluctant (among other reasons) - I'm just not convinced that boundaries get respected. Though I've had the odd moment of considering it nonetheless...
DeleteI originally went part time because I kept getting laryngitis and being off for weeks, and suffering from voice strain in between, and going part time was the ONLY way timetabling were able to schedule my teaching on four days only, not five, so I could rest my voice a bit. This is crazy since I've always been on an R&T contract - broadly 40% research, 40% teaching, 20% administration - but it's how it was. And I stayed with it because I could afford to (worth noting I started it in the year when the pay situation started downhill - we've all lost 20-30% real terms since then) and because my voice was a bit better and so was my mental health. Now I'm seriously exploring what kind of neuroatypical I am, I appreciate that part of that need for time was just that being in public is more exhausting for me because other people don't constantly feel the pressure to "manually adjust" their behaviour, body language etc. or get continually criticised or side-eyed but regardless, I've always been a bit of a sensitive little flower (imagine that said sarcastically but affectionately since I am neither little nor floral, but this is a kind of family phrase as I'm not the only one)...
DeleteFor the first few years it worked quite well - my official workload was usually around 90-100% of the workload units, but that was a decent amount below what it was before, and I was able to do the work in either four long days or five normal days, giving me time (and importantly leaving energy) to do other stuff. But between changes in staff and attitude and just me getting older and getting more disillusioned, it's gotten steadily worse... I do still have a workload close to full time AND a workload which is lower than colleagues who are full time and comparable 'swiss army knife' teaching and admin types like me. But there are also full time colleagues who have workloads comparable to or below mine (they are all "research stars" or "specialised teachers" or otherwise make it tricky to pile workload onto them in areas other than letting them get on with their research without much management) which increasingly annoys me.
BUT I am lousy at setting and managing my own boundaries - the colleague with caring responsibilities who Teaching Tsar was complaining about has NO problems with that, never has, and was already one of those lower-workload-annoying-people before changing her contract. Other people manage a lot better, especially when they have substantial things to do on the days off, e.g. with no childcare that day or other things like that. Me, I just try to recover/get myself back in order. Maybe do a little writing or creating, if I can find the energy.
I'm a terrible example, in other words!