Hello everyone!
Spring seems to be trying to stick its head out of the snow a little – the many garden centers and farms around my area are all running “get your seedlings and supplies” adds on their billboards and there is a distinct warmth in the air… Of course we also got 30cm of snow last week but who’s counting? I’m very curious about spring in these parts, I’ve never really been around here in spring so it is all new. It is definitely a different climate than my former area, so I’m betting we get our daffodils before June!
This week I did a bunch of organizing for a few upcoming trips, two work ones for me in May and a performance trip for kid, so I’ve been thinking about travel. I have not been on a plane since February 2020 so it is kind of odd to contemplate!
For a prompt this week – if you were offered an all-expense paid somewhere you have never been, and it has to be at least a plane trip away, where would you go? How about if you had to go alone? Would that be the same destination if you could take someone along? What is your favourite armchair travel fantasy trip?
Enjoy the daydreams!
Also, my two clowns because cat pictures are always good :)
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Goals below:
Dame Eleanor Hull
- grade undergrad papers
- set up discussion boards and at least one other assignment for post-break
- further book-spreadsheet work
- some House Thing (bookshelves? bathroom cupboard?)
- read at least 500 lines of Irrelevant Romance
- other scholarly reading
- Day Out With Friends
- call financial person
Daisy
Finish accounting
Finish project grant report
Catch up on marking
Do data processing for co-authored paper
Heu mihi
1. Content edit journal article (half
of it is fine; I can finish next week)
2. Rough in B of C and B of N sections of ch. 1; list some of the questions
that need answering
3. Bottle beer
4. Sit x 4, language x 5, yoga x 1, run x 1
JaneB
the goal is basically survival - do enough work on work days to not have a total disaster awaiting Future Me, use the strike days to do small things to improve my environment and restore a bit of self-energy, and that's probably it.
Julie
1. Finish first batch of marking (ha!)
2. Collate and send feedback to postdoc applicant
3. Watch c.20 video presentations of posters ahead of a meeting to judge poster
session for a conference in two weeks (that I'm not attending).
4.Answer last frantic emails from students about assignments due this week.
5. Email archives for one research trip.
6. Phone a friend for a catch-up.
7. Get house back to normal after teenage invasion.
Karen (carried 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 (carried over)
1. Read more of book to review
2. Re-read book by speaker
3. Keep up with the minimum admin stuff
4. Enjoy conference
5. Get back to walking/ exercising
More cute cats! The benefits of the internet, What are these called?
ReplyDeleteFantasy travel, always a good prompt. I have real travel coming up to get excited about, but that doesn't prevent day dreams. It's very hard to choose. If I had to travel alone, San Francisco, with all the Armistead Maupin books as a guide. And since this is a day dream, I could stay on Barbary Lane with an eccentric and charming landlady as host. If I were travelling with someone, then Iceland, as it sounds like the kind of place you would want someone to go 'wow' with every few minutes. And it's supposed to be unbelievably expensive, so all expenses paid would be perfect.
Last week:
1. Finish first batch of marking (ha!) - No, 5 essays left.
2. Collate and send feedback to postdoc applicant - Yes
3. Watch c.20 video presentations of posters ahead of a meeting to judge poster session for a conference in two weeks (that I'm not attending). - No (watched 4 so far)
4.Answer last frantic emails from students about assignments due this week. - Yes
5. Email archives for one research trip. - No
6. Phone a friend for a catch-up. - Yes
7. Get house back to normal after teenage invasion.- Mostly.
This week:
1. Finish first batch of marking (ha!)
2. Start second batch of marking
3. Watch c.20 video presentations of posters ahead of a meeting to judge poster session for a conference in two weeks (that I'm not attending).
4. Email archives for one research trip.
5. Exercise - run x 2, pilates x 1 class plus some practice, walk other days
6. Start getting ready for Italy trip
Both of those sound like great trips! You made a start on most of the things that are "no," so I'd say that was a good week. The teenage invasion sounded hard but like a good thing to have done. In your part of the world, it's so much easier to do things like that for a long weekend, so everyone can get a taste of another country without having to be there long enough to get homesick and miserable.
DeleteThey are Mocha (lighter) and Echo (darker)... They just turned one this week, they got some canned tuna as a birthday treat :)
DeleteLove San Francisco! It is a great city for wandering and following books around...
Good luck on the marking!
Thank you, yes, I should count starting things as an achievement! And yes, my daughter is heading off on Wednesday for a long weekend in the Netherlands. Two overnight ferries, so she will be exhausted, but she's very excited.
DeleteMocha and Echo are great names!
Wow lots of tortitude! I love tortie cats... My own fuzzy idiot lost his nighttime bedroom privileges by adding "leap onto owner's bed next to pillows, yowl, run full length of the human, leap off the foot board and charge out of the room" to the 3am zoomies, which usually go "sprint from back door through ground floor up stairs into study, reverse route, yowl at reflection in back door, repeat 3-5 times". He's about 12 years old, close to 13, but if anything is doing the zoomies more often than when he first moved in.
ReplyDeleteSigns of Spring include excessive cat fur everywhere and me getting random patches of gloom (on top of the usual) - my version of Seasonal Depression hits in Spring which seems particularly unfair, but it's how the world is.
Travel - I don't want to right now! It sounds daunting and uncomfortable! But... travelling solo, I'd like to go somewhere which has both cafes and enjoyable places to potter around, and where there is lots of scope for people-watching. Right now, what comes to mind is Istanbul - lots of nice cool historic buildings to dive into, and some would say the home of cafe culture. Istanbul in winter for sure to avoid the heat! For a more adventurous trip, where I kind of need another person along (I don't feel comfortable driving or hiking much without someone else at least around to know if I'm late/went missing), it's hard to decide - Iceland, New Zealand, the Pacific North-West, a run all the way up Scandinavia all appeal. or even the Mongolian steppe and the foothills of the Himalayas (imagining I have a different body, a thinner, more obedient and less dramatical one).
Another three strike days this coming week, then a lot of self control needed not to then work all weekend to get back on track, after a LOT of online union drama. Oh well!
Last week's goal was survival. It was quite well chosen - a very busy couple of days including going onto campus, which was fine apart from too much standing around talking to students at a "your choices next year" event which led to two days of bad hip pain making sitting, standing, and most other things ouchie. And then being on strike, which is for some reason HARD (or maybe I was just really burnt out). Anyway, I didn't do much, but I do feel a bit less done with everything (and had a fun D&D session with nibling today, followed by Chinese take-out, so that was nice).
COMING WEEK:
Three strike days, one working day which is nearly full of meetings.
* pick up the house before the decluttering woman comes on Wednesday (& have a productive day when she does come)
* do some D&D prep, play D&D
* finish reading a book, do a little crochet
* do the bare minimum to prepare for the following week's teaching (by workload I have 1.5 hours NOT in meetings in which to deal with three days emails and a full week's prep - at least it's a light teaching week?)
* buy and wrap Easter treats for family members ready to post out the following week.
Oh, good, you've managed to get back to D&D! That always sounds like a lot of fun for you and nibling/n's friends. Sorry to hear about the union drama; that sounds the reverse of fun. I hate having meetings fill up work time, much sympathy on that.
DeleteExtra cat fur is definitely a good sign of spring! My old lady cat always got the midnight crazies (yowling, racing, climbing walls) when she needed her thyroid medication adjusted, hyperthyroid definitely causes hyperkitty!
DeleteGood luck with the week and the strike days, hope the D&D fun can continue for a good break for everyone!
Oooh, Scandinavia! I forgot Norway, have to put Norway on my list too!
Yes, too much union drama. Istanbul is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I went in spring, which was perfect - nice temperatures, sunny, but not too hot and tulips everywhere. Since this is a fantasy trip, you could be free from seasonal depression. It's very rough for that to hit in spring - I'm currently feeling buoyed up by crocuses and hyacinths. Hope the nice goals happen this week.
DeleteYes, it's very annoying to get the seasonal sads when the whole world seems to be waking up and small talk starts with signs of spring/longer days/feeling better so I get to either lie by going along with it or say a bit too much, so I probably come off as curmudgeonly! There again, I am, so that's not a lie in any way! It doesn't help that early Springs/marked fluctuations in weather are climate change signals which I can't help but be aware of, and whenever people enthuse about how unexpectedly warm it is for the time of year I twitch (especially when they are colleagues who teach in that general area...)!
DeleteYes, one of my sister's cats had hyperthyroidism and used to "get lost" at night and yowl, sprint around etc. Fluffball's midnight mads are currently still within his norms - an extra lively session often means he's just coughed up a hairball, and with the moulting going on and the hairballs I found under his favourite chair today, I think that's the most likely explanation!! Cats... adorable and gross in one package
Teaching Tsar is currently frustrated by students not feeling able to attend day trips which they signed up for, and is trying to work out ways to make them agree to just do the replacement essay months earlier so that the trip running doesn't need to include them in the count - the lack of tolerance of fluctuating conditions both physical and mental is really starting to get to me (especially as I'm sliding into a low on both again...)!
Travel: alone, or with Queen Joan, my first thought was Morocco. But now that JaneB mentions New Zealand, I might like that, and/or Australia. I know they're not exactly close together, but certainly they're nearer each other than they are to me, so maybe I could do a combination trip. If I were traveling with Sir John, I'd choose Vigo, in Spain, b/c it looks and sounds a bit like San Francisco was 50-60 years ago, or somewhere in France we haven't been, maybe along the southwest coast, or Brittany.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
- grade undergrad papers: YES
- set up discussion boards and at least one other assignment for post-break: ONE board, ONE assignment; call it YES
- further book-spreadsheet work: YES
- some House Thing (bookshelves? bathroom cupboard?): NO
- read at least 500 lines of Irrelevant Romance: YES
- other scholarly reading: SOME
- Day Out With Friends: YES, excellent fun
- call financial person: YES, three calls, and the 3rd would not have been necessary had I taken control during the 2nd, but I didn't really know what to expect.
ALSO: did a couple of service tasks.
ALSO: doctor appt really should have been a goal, b/c of course it spawned further tasks/visits: back for fasting bloodwork and chest x-ray (to check for Covid damage, none, good), setting up online account, making two more appointments. Gah. At least the new office is very efficient, and I like getting results online, with all the numbers visible.
This was not a relaxing spring break. Too much adulting. The financial thing has to do w/my dad's estate, and thank Cat and my brother that I am not dealing with the heavy-duty stuff, but it's still draining. I didn't get nearly as much work done as I would have liked, nor was there a lot of fun. I'm glad we set up that day out well in advance.
New goals:
- set up more boards/assignments, at least one for each class
- further book-spreadsheet work
- take Reina to vet for teeth cleaning
- read at least 500 lines of Irrelevant Romance
- other scholarly reading
- sleep, walk, yoga in suitable amounts
That was definitely not a relaxing spring break! Hopefully all the things you got done make the next couple of weeks a bit easier as a trade-off?
DeleteGood that the day out with friends was fun!
Brittany would be amazing, lots of good food and beaches to walk on endlessly!
That sounds like a tough week, though still a lot of yes. Hope this week is easier.
DeleteGood news about the post COVID tests. I think the shorter breaks are almost always a disappointment when they arrive, there's just too much put off stuff to fit into them. Past you had the right idea planning the day out!
Delete
ReplyDeleteFor fantasy trips I have a pretty big wish list! For going alone I’d like to go to Portugal. Or Sardinia. Or Corsica…. Or Greece! Those would involve a combination of city stuff and museum things and gloriously fascinating rocks that I don’t particularly need to inflict on my family! For going with my kid my top choice would be Iceland, or Japan, or New Zealand… Or Australia! Hmmm… I think I need to start saving/planning for a couple of big trips with kid before they leave the house!
Well that was a busier week than I planned. Not sure entirely what I did, but there was a lot of music practice for upcoming concert, and the awful driving, and lots of organization, so it felt a bit like nothing got done. According to the list some things are done though, so that is good.
This week I have two performances, a solo concert and an orchestra one I picked up last week – one of those “oh you play X? Are you free next week?” sorts of conversations. I love being at a university that has good music people who do big programs!
I’m seriously behind in marking, and just got three thesis chapters to comment on, so I will focus on some of that this week. For the small win in research work I will take finishing the data and figures for the co-authored paper, that should be doable!
Last week’s goals
Finish accounting MOSTLY DONE
Finish project grant report DONE
Catch up on marking ABOUT HALFWAY
Do data processing for co-authored paper ALMOST DONE
This week’s goals
Finish data processing and make pretty figures for co-authored paper
End of fiscal year accounting (slightly different from regular accounting I guess?
Concert stuff
Read/comment/edit thesis chapters
Marking, marking, and marking
Volunteer tax stuff for community organization
Geeking out about rocks, plants, seashore critters etc. without bothering anyone else is definitely a plus of solo travel!
DeleteThe marking will get done, it always does. Being able to play a musical instrument well enough for performances is such a gift. Enjoy, I hope the concerts go well.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great prompt! And what completely adorable kitties!
ReplyDeleteDream trip: The Hebrides, Orkney islands, and points in between. (In the summer.) This may not seem terribly exotic to those of you who are in the UK, but I loved my two visits to Scotland, and I haven't seen enough of it.
Now that I'm looking at an actual map, there are ever so many places that I want to go--I'm already planning/mostly fantasizing about a trip to a Finnish sauna cabin for my 50th birthday (with a side trip to Tallinn), but for the purposes of this prompt, I stand by my first choice.
Last week:
1. Content edit journal article (half of it is fine; I can finish next week) - Finished it (it wasn't unreasonably long)
2. Rough in B of C and B of N sections of ch. 1; list some of the questions that need answering - DONE; excellent writing session with friends on Thursday
3. Bottle beer - DONE
4. Sit x 4, language x 5, yoga x 1, run x 1 - DONE
It was not a wildly ambitious week, and yet that pretty much filled it up.
This week:
1. Resume all normal routines
2. Work on draft of chapter 1 x 5, even if I'm not doing really substantial work
3. Research: Try to fill in (provisionally) some of the question/problem/blank areas
4. Take kid to two trial martial arts lessons (putting this here so that I don't forget about them!!)
5. Contact a friend about getting together
6. Some amount of yard clean-up, however minimal--I don't want to rake the leaves before the bugs are done hibernating under them, or whatever
I am definitely in favor of a memorable trip for your 50th! And that was an excellent week of DONE. I hope Bonaventure either loves martial arts or hates them, so you're in or you're out, and also that you can get together and have fun with a friend.
DeleteThat part of the world isn't really a flight away for me, so didn't feel in the spirit of the prompt, plus I've spent time there. But I would always want to spend more time there. It's really magical. Despite the midgies!!
DeleteI LOVE the Hebrodes! I was there for a conference field trip about 5 years ago and fell in love... Had a whole sabbatical plan there but then covid... Maybe next time that comes around!
DeleteScotland is very close, but I haven't seen very much of it, and we are actually thinking of going this summer, despite the midges. That was an excellent week for getting stuff done. I don't think it's about being ambitious: far too much of burn-out is being unrealistic about what is possible.
Delete