Take one. We're just doing some on-camera testing, checking on lighting and so on, no pressure! Some of the local crew have supplied placid, friendly, outgoing cats for cat-lovers to interact with while we film your reactions to these interview questions. Meet Katja, Leon, and Minou!
CUT! Who let that dog on-set? If that belongs to someone on crew, they're fired. Animal wrangler, whatever your name is---get that dog out of here, then find the cat treats and round up our on-set cats. Not you, you're a camera person! Oh, Katja's yours? OK, carry on then. I thought these were supposed to be placid cats who can deal with other animals and people. How are they going to give the right relaxed impression when they're all poofed up? What are our stars going to think? We'll be lucky if they don't all poof up in sympathy, since they mostly seem to be cat people.
Send them for a brisk walk on the beach followed by hot drinks while we get ourselves re-organized here. And listen: the only on-set animals I'm willing to deal with are cats. No dogs, no llamas, no alpacas, no goats, no snakes, emphatically nobody's pet tarantulas, no marsupials, no birds, no rodents. Are we clear? Cats. Only cats. Nothing that will chase cats or that the cats will chase. We want happy, relaxed cats who will contribute to the stars being happy and relaxed---nobody needs to be traumatized by critters getting mauled. Except that I will personally maul whoever brought that dog in.
Take two. Welcome, stars! I hope you've had a lovely walk on the beach and enjoyed your hot coffee, tea, or cider afterward. You look great, all energized and enthusiastic, ready for a wonderful day on set. We're going to do a little on-camera testing, checking on lighting and so on, no pressure! Some of the local crew have supplied placid, friendly, outgoing cats for cat-lovers to interact with while we film your reactions to these interview questions. Meet Katja, Leon, and Minou!
And while you get to know the cats, we'll just ask you a few easy questions, background stuff, we probably won't use it in the final film (but you never know). Ready? How old were you when you first became aware that your field of study was a professional field, as opposed to just reading or collecting pretty rocks? When did it occur to you that you wanted to work in that field professionally? When you went to graduate school, was that a long way from home for you, either in literal distance, or socially, or any other way you want to take that question?
Don't mind the crew, we'll just be fiddling with light meters and so on while we film you answering the questions. Or if you want to skip the questions, just talk about your goals for this week and how you did last week---that'll be fine.
Contingent Cassandra:
Professional:
--Catch up with lit feedback/grading; catch up with comp feedback/grading
--Submit contract renewal portfolio (I actually did this a few hours ago, but
I’m putting it on so I can celebrate being finished at the end of the week,
too)
--Catch up with various online trainings that need to be up to date for
contract renewal (all worthwhile, but they do proliferate, and I’ve been
neglecting a few)
Household:
--Containerize items from cupboards as the containers I’ve ordered arrive, and
temporarily stow most back in the cupboards
--At least begin moving books and bookshelf sitting where the refrigerator
needs to temporarily live while I’m working on the area around/behind its usual
spot.
Personal:
--Exercise: stretching routine x 2; weight lifting x 2; walk x 1 if
weather/pollen cooperate; swim x 1 if pool is open.
--Friends & family: meet up with friend if we can get our schedules to
work; touch base with NY nephew
Daisy:
Make a weekly schedule with all
major tasks blocked off
Put writing blocks into that schedule and ACTUALLY DO IT…
Finish writing newsletter and collection of people-managing things
Fun dinner out with kid
Finish reading/commenting for student thesis draft
Do two figures for in-progress paper
Do galley edits on paper I’ve almost forgotten writing
Dame Eleanor Hull:
- join the gym I decided on
- grade a set of papers
- do some other teaching prep
- research 1 hour x 5, mainly Alms chapter, also some time on Latin, conference
paper project
- patch holes in kitchen wall
heu mihi:
1) Revise and finish grant
application (due 9/20)
2) Read 3 articles and incorporate them into my chapter(s)
3) Finalize Assignment 1 prompt
JaneB:
Self-care: take proper lunchtime
breaks since this is probably the last week I can for a while. Move
intentionally for at least 10 minutes a day. Next weekend, get the house in
order, lunches packed etc. ready for the first week of students. Go to various
appointments - and continue to proactively ask for a plan to be in place if I
can't cope with being back in person.
Teaching: Get every VLE and module handbook/syllabus ready. Work on first week
materials for the three modules seeing significant changes this year. Feed back
on draft for late MSc student, try to help student in a bit of a mess after
resits sort out their choices for next year.
Research: do comments on Unexpected Paper. Two graduate student meetings. Add
text from long report to consultancy paper draft (aiming to submit end of
month, probably not going to happen). Possibly find an hour for Special
Collection Chapter.
Admin: review minutes from early summer meetings. Ensure intern is keeping
busy! That may be all I can do.
Fun: one each of a chunk of time reading, drawing, crocheting and playing
D&D. Half an hour is enough to be a chunk. More would be good but only
D&D is sure to be longer.
Julie:
maximise archive time, keep focused on grant application (this is a taking soundings trip).
Susan:
Survive!
I grew up in a college town, and had friends whose parents were professors, so I probably knew early on that that was a possible career. But I'm not sure when I realized that it was possible *for me.* I was in college when I started thinking of being a professor, but originally that was while I was a math major and I thought it would be just fine to teach calculus over and over, maybe at a community college; I didn't then have great ambitions to do research. When I applied to graduate schools in other areas entirely, OTOH, research was all I really wanted to do, and I had to think about what teaching would be like in the humanities. I moved across the US for grad school---so it was a big move physically---and though the milieu probably wasn't as foreign as it might have been, I was determined to fit in as best I could with the preppies. I definitely took the opportunity to reinvent myself in various ways.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
- join the gym I decided on: YES. And put in two half-hour sessions on a cross-trainer.
- grade a set of papers: YES.
- do some other teaching prep: YES.
- research 1 hour x 5, mainly Alms chapter, also some time on Latin, conference paper project. YES: Alms and Latin, not sure I did a thing on the conference paper. But I'm very pleased with this accomplishment!
- patch holes in kitchen wall: either 3/4 or NO, depending on how perfectionistic I am about this. When I sanded down the spackle, one hole had to be re-filled. The others are kinda lumpy still, and possibly I should just start over, but OTOH I may settle for "good enough." At any rate, progress here.
OTHER: made 3 pair of earrings, baked carrot muffins and potato bread, had two meetings about Special Project.
New goals:
- swim twice, contact gym manager about finding a trainer
- grade a set of papers
- do some other teaching prep
- research 1 hour x 5, mainly Alms chapter, also some time on Latin, conference paper project
- do some House Task (or garden, or Life Stuff)
the muffins and potato bread sound fantastic - has the weather started to go fall-like where you are or is that just wishful thinking?
DeleteA lot of yes. And making earrings sounds like a nice thing to do.
DeleteYay for all the done things, and especially for the research progress!
DeleteI can definitely recommend doing some work with a trainer at the gym, they can be really great for getting one going in a sensible way. Hope you find a nice one!
A very productive week!
DeleteSigh. It tells you everything about this production that I completely missed last week's check in. Monday and Tuesday are my teaching days, and last week they added meetings, and...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, there was a moment of revelation for me in my second year at university that I didn't need to be a school teacher: somehow that was all I could see myself as. I pretty quickly started thinking about becoming a professor, and it helped that I took classes every semester from a woman professor -- a rarity at my formerly all male university in 1972. The shift from undergrad to grad school was not very difficult, but the way in which grad school was a professional school was a bit of a shock for all of us.
HOw I did last week:
I survived. It was almost like the pre-pandemic world in terms of events and in person stuff. If I'd had goals, I would have wanted to have finished the prize stuff (DONE) and set up a bunch of events for my graduate program (almost all done). There were a bunch of things for Big Collaboration that got done. I even managed to stay pretty physically active in spite of everything. And I had a couple of nice visits with friends. So in spite of the crazy (a nail in a tire required 3 hours waiting at Costco; a specialist appointment required 5 hours of driving) it wasn't a bad week.
Goals for this week:
Very limited: I leave Tuesday afternoon for 2 days in New York seeing friends; and then we head out to the coast to bury my mother. So it's *very* limited time.
1. Stay up to date on grading/ canvas/ etc.
2. Post new batch of modules on Canvas
3. Schedule last group of events for grad program
4. Keep up with email
5. Enjoy visits with friends
6. Make family time work (lots of patience required)
I'll see you next Monday. I'll be in my trailer, recovering from a surfeit of siblings. (I really love and mostly enjoy both my sibs, and the niblings who will be with us, but it's 3 days, so a lot of togetherness.)
(Still Susan) I forgot to note that the laundry room project is now done. It entailed painting the kitchen, so I’ve almost finished hanging pictures back where they belong. I’ve also got almost everything back in the storage cabinet, and I’ve managed to get rid of one cabinet by getting rid of things I don’t use. Slowly decluttering!
DeleteCongratulations on getting the laundry room done, along with painting the kitchen! I bet you're enjoying both. On decluttering, I always find it helpful to aim to get rid of 1/3 to 2/3 of a type of thing---it's reassuring that I'm not removing a whole category from my life (I guess you can tell I have hoarding tendencies).
DeleteI hope the trip goes well and that you are able both to enjoy the time with family and also to get the time you need to recover from it.
That sounds like an awful lot of stuff done - impressive, especially with meetings on teaching days...
DeleteThat sounds very productive. I hope the trip is as peaceful as it can be.
DeleteHope your trailer provides a peaceful change of scene after all the excitement and people! We will make sure it is well stocked with relaxing teas, and a selection of excellent but non-demanding novels to help with the relaxing...
DeleteSending patience vibes your way. Memorial gatherings can be wonderful, but also taxing. They tend to bring out the extremes.
DeleteAnd yes, grad school being professional school was definitely a bit of a shock, to which my grad classmates and I responded in various ways (a few really took to it; some of us floundered but persevered and eventually finished the degree and found something to do with it; half my grad school class never finished, and I imagine there are a variety of feelings among us about that).
DeleteWhat an awesome prompt! I cannot wait to read everyone’s answers…
ReplyDeleteI found my current field completely by accident. After several degrees and a great but youthful career in music I had enough of it, for many reasons, and decided to go into science when I moved to a new country. I knew nothing about science (was thinking medicine or vet or something as a goal). I took all the standard first year courses and there was one in a science that I knew nothing about, but if fit in the schedule and I didn’t really want to take more physics, so I signed up. And I absolutely fell in love with it… Switched into major, did new undergrad, started masters, did upgrade to PhD and just never left… It was a totally unexpected choice, I would not in a million years have picked it if I did not stumble into it… Worked out amazingly well for an accident of scheduling!
Last week’s goals:
Make a weekly schedule with all major tasks blocked off MADE AND IGNORED
Put writing blocks into that schedule and ACTUALLY DO IT… NOPE
Finish writing newsletter and collection of people-managing things MOSTLY
Fun dinner out with kid DONE
Finish reading/commenting for student thesis draft DONE, 150 PAGES TOO LONG
Do two figures for in-progress paper NOPE
Do galley edits on paper I’ve almost forgotten writing DONE!
That was a rough week. Everything was chaos, then we got a blooming hurricane (almost one year since the last one…) and I felt under-prepared for everything. Took yesterday off for a reset (no power so no obligation to work), and worked today and now I feel a bit more caught up. This week is going to be
This week’s goals:
Make a weekly schedule with all major tasks blocked off and follow it!
Put together plan for all students, set up regular meeting schedule
Write newsletter
Write outline of regional paper and make one figure (low bar…)
Begin writing awful no-good pain-in-the-butt grant application
Oh wow! That is a great story about finding your field. It sounds like you had quite a week---topped off by a hurricane, no less!---so I hope this one is much calmer in every respect.
DeleteThe wonders of serendipity! But ugh on the hurricane... yay on the day off, sometimes you just need to stop for a minute
DeleteGreat story! Hurricane sounds very scary. Hope this week is easier.
DeleteSometimes power cuts come at opportune times. It sounds like you'd gotten quite a bit done, so reset day was in order. Hope the reentry isn't too bad.
DeleteWhat a great story. And a reminder of the importance of serendipity in student learning!
DeleteOoh, great prompt, but hard to answer. I don't know exactly when I decided. My father is/was an academic (retired, but still researching and publishing), my mother was a teacher, but did an MA. So I grew up with university very much as something people did and could do. I think I always knew I wanted to do something that involved reading and writing, but throughout school I dithered between English lit, history and classics as an eventual career- I did Latin and Greek and loved both, but I think saw them in the end as gateways to history and literature. Greek language is so hard! I did two years of English lit at university, and loved a lot of it, but also got very frustrated with literary theory and postmodernism. I wanted to study context, not be told that the author didn't matter, only the text. I think that was probably a gradual realisation that I was more of a historian. I ended up doing the kind of history I do out of serendipity, like Daisy - a module I wanted to take on the history of crime wasn't running, so I chose a module on the history of the city and the countryside, which turned out to be about big things like population, environment and so on, and I was hooked. So I've gone from being a literature person to someone who does the most social science kind of history there is, with numbers and graphs, which my maths-hating childhood self would never have believed.
ReplyDeleteHow I did: maximise time in archives - mostly. I have been finding a lot of stuff. I did get sidetracked a couple of times, and one archive turned out to have quite a few things I wanted to look at only available on microfilm, which I hate using. So that slowed me down a bit. Everywhere I've been has been very, very hot. Barcelona this weekend was the worst. But I did get to see family, which compensated.
This week:
1. Maximise time in archives (Carcassonne, Toulouse, Paris).
2. Go for nice walks in the evening, try not to mind eating dinner alone.
3. PhD viva (this is a cheat, as it was actually this morning!). It went well, and meant I got to see people I like in a lovely place.
4. Read and comment on PhD student's chapter.
I'm still trying to figure out why I didn't go into history (since I, too, am easily frustrated by theory and tend to find the people involved -- real and fictional -- more interesting). I think I wasn't exposed to social history early enough to realize that was an option.
DeleteGlad you're finding stuff in the archives. They're amazing, but, especially with the pressure to make the most of time, exhausting. Good dinners, even if alone, are key.
I've been called a historian manqué but I was in grad school before I realized what being a historian really entails---I managed to get through undergrad without a single class in history (or at any rate, any class worthy of the name). So I've gone my merry way with historically informed literary analysis. It is interesting how many of our stories involve some sort of accident or serendipity. I'm also interested in the attitudes toward family, and what roles they played in our choices.
DeleteI have pretty much always known some people got to do cool stuff as a job that involved exploring, digging up dinosaurs or ancient temples, and finding out how the world works, and I was the kind of kid who lined up all the toys and the younger sibling if they could be persuaded and played 'school', reteaching whatever they learnt that week, so I guess I've always had that general direction in mind as an option. My subject is very much an accident - I loved history, especially the "Dark Ages", wanted to do Maths, Further Maths, History & Latin for A level (last two years at school), but school thought I wasn't up to it so I did both maths, Physics & Chemistry because that was more acceptable (& it's easier to go science to humanities not the other way around). Went to university to do general sciences, not having any particular favourite. Loved the astronomy & quantum parts of physics, but I'm old enough that both subjects involved a lot of hands-on electronics which I am terrible at (I soldered my practical exam TO THE DESK at one point) & just about everyone else seemed to have been building stuff with their dads since they were tiny etc. In second year I was thinking maybe science communication (I like words!) or history of science, so I did the more physics-y bits of chemistry, history & philosophy of science (SO MUCH FUN), and randomly picked Botany to fill a slot. Was advised to do the more chemistry-related option within Botany, struggled with the memorising of lists and cycles (I dropped Bio at school aged 13 so was very behind my peers on the jargon), went against advice to switch to the non-chemistry side, and on a wet February morning an elderly professor gave a rather poor lecture on a sub-field (which was mostly delivered to the end of his tie whilst dropping his overhead sheets) and I discovered The Thing I Do, which was vaguely attached to Botany in that university (which is very unusual - most people who do What I Do are not from the standard sciences). Again, I loved the history & philosophy content, but thought I could probably go back to that later. One day!
ReplyDeleteI discovered the PhD was a Thing at some point in my early teens and knew I wanted one. Preferably I wanted seven or eight and a career getting them, but... I also knew that was unrealistic.
I never really aimed to be a lecturer because I knew it was pretty hard to get into, especially for first generation to university awkward female people, but I kept doing stuff and applying for stuff to see what happened, with an exit plan, and I got a lectureship before the exit plan kicked in, and here I am. Thinking it might be time to find an exit plan :-(
Grad school was where I did my undergrad - it was a substantial train ride from home but actually quite close to the place my parents retired to and sort of on the way to some relatives, and it was home to My People (and a lot of other people who thought we were all weird). It was both really demanding and exactly what my brain needed to thrive, terribly stressful and full of delights.
The last week wasn't a great week - I have been discharged from the psychiatrist because it appears I have Paradoxical Reactions to ADHD meds - my ADHD symptoms get worse plus I have some physical negatives. This is a total pain (but the prescriber says is not unknown in people who are also autistic) but I've made it to my early 50s without meds so... And all my burn out fatigue has come roaring back. I had to try & explain what is going on AGAIN to my various bosses, but who knows if I'll get lighter workload or just have to go on sick leave once teaching starts. not me.
LAST WEEK GOALS:
DeleteSelf-care: proper lunchtime breaks YES Move intentionally for at least 10 minutes a day THREE DAYS Next weekend, get ready for the first week of students NO (I was wiped). Go to various appointments YES (they take so much energy!) and continue to proactively ask for a plan to be in place if I can't cope with being back in person YES (but answer came there none...).
Teaching: Get every VLE and module handbook/syllabus ready (ISH). Work on first week materials for the three modules seeing significant changes this year (ONE HOUR ON ONE). Feed back on draft for late MSc student YES, try to help mess student. YES
Research: do comments on Unexpected Paper YES. Two graduate student meetings YES. Add text from long report to consultancy paper draft (NO the report was SO LONG and my brain wouldn't play). Possibly find an hour for Special Collection Chapter NO hahaha.
Admin: review minutes from early summer meetings YES. Ensure intern is keeping busy! YES
Fun: one each of a chunk of time reading YES, drawing YES, crocheting NO and playing D&D YES but only one of planned two.
THIS WEEK'S GOALS:
Self-care: pace myself because no one else will. Move intentionally for at least 10 minutes a day. Do a few house things. Eat more fruit and vegetables and don't buy more bread.
Teaching: finish all VLE and module handbook/syllabus contents. Prep all first week materials for all modules and make a start on week 2. Mark some MSc presentations (and dissertations if time, but there won't be). meet my project students (who are all one way or another In Trouble with their projects already, lucky me).
Research: Try to add text from long report to consultancy paper draft (aiming to submit end of month, probably not going to happen). Draft application for PhD funding.
Ignore Special Collection Chapter until co-author prompts me.
Admin: summarise annoying report. Ensure intern is keeping busy!
Fun: one each of a chunk of time reading, drawing, crocheting and playing D&D twice. Half an hour is enough to be a chunk except for D&D.
Ugh on the meds and the failure of the various bosses to respond to timely warning that things need to be adjusted now lest they face an emergency later. "Pacing [your]self because no one else will" does seem like the only sane response (and you *have* given them timely warning).
DeleteIt also sounds like you're getting quite a lot of prep and a fair amount of research done, so at least the prep will be in place if someone else needs to do some of the actual teaching. And also keeping up with those who depend on you most directly -- grad students, advisees, intern, co-authors, etc.
Hope you get in a bit more fun this week, with fewer unpleasant surprises.
I am sorry the meds aren't a magic bullet! But as you say, you have a lot of coping strategies by now (when your uni will let you use them, sigh). And I have to say, I . . . kind of love that young you soldered your project to the desk. That sounds like something that would happen in a particular kind of speculative fiction.
DeleteIt was a very on-brand act for a young person who once told their entire class that their career ambition was to be an English Eccentric when they were about 8 (this was after I realised Queen of the Dinosaurs was not really an option)... and a Part-Time Hermit aged 12...
DeleteAt least you had the English part down already! I think that being an English Eccentric was always a secret desire of mine, but starting out American is a definite handicap.
DeleteAt least you had the English part down already! I think that being an English Eccentric was always a secret desire of mine, but starting out American is a definite handicap.
DeleteI think I began considering a version of my current profession when I won a prize for my undergraduate thesis, and faculty in my program began telling me about a fellowship designed to address a then-predicted upcoming shortage of humanities professors (due to anticipated retirements and a growing student population and a few other factors that I don’t remember). I’d spent my junior-year summer as an investigator for a Public Defender service, and had decided that law probably wasn’t for me. It sounded like there would be a need for college/university professors, and so some choice of the kinds of teaching/research jobs open to new Ph.D.s, and not too much competition (I’ve never much liked or been spurred to my best efforts by competition). So, the year after I got my undergrad degree, I applied to both grad school and the fellowship, and was successful in both.
ReplyDeleteWe probably all know how the predictions came out: the retirements didn’t materialize anywhere near as quickly as predicted, and when they did many of the lines transformed into adjunct work. So the job I actually have is somewhat different from the one I trained for (teaching mostly composition vs. mostly or entirely literature) and there are now separate composition and rhetoric degrees to prepare people for the job I actually have (but my program is staffed by people with a collegial mix of lit, creative writing, and comp & rhet degrees, and that seems likely to continue for a while). Fortunately, I like writing, and teaching people to write, and I did find a full-time non-tenure-track job after 5+ years of adjuncting. The benefits that come with the full-time gig are pretty decent, the contract lengths have gotten longer, and the pay has improved considerably over the years.
Graduate school was actually closer to home for me, geographically and psychologically, than undergrad was. I got my Ph.D. at my father’s undergrad alma mater, which was about an hour from where my parents grew up and my grandmothers were still living for the first 2 years of my grad career – I did some elder care during those years; not day-to-day hands on but writing checks from joint accounts and arranging care – and about a 3-hour drive from home. In contrast, my undergrad institution was a 10-hour drive or 1-hour plane ride away from home, and my family responsibilities were much lighter (though not nonexistent; I was, for instance, the person planning and cooking the big holiday dinners during my undergrad years, and did some other grandmother-support tasks, mostly during vacations).
The schools were also in different settings – suburban vs. urban – but otherwise culturally pretty similar, at least at the department level (in fact, one of my professors made the move from one institution to the other about the same time I did). The big changes for me during grad school were more in family life – the grandmothers died; my father, who had been a widower for a decade+, remarried – and in the cognitive dissonance of seeing the difference between the career trajectory my department (and fellowship funders, and family) expected me and other recent grads to follow and what was actually happening to people a few years ahead of me in the program (who tended to defend and then remain on the market and in the area, often working for the grad institution in some capacity, for multiple years). I chose to move away from the grad town before I defended and sought adjunct work in my home town, figuring (correctly, I think) that my ABD from a fairly prestigious institution would be worth more if I were a bit further away from campus. That led to the series of adjunct jobs mentioned above, and eventually to the full time position I’ve held for the past 20+ years.
Goals for last week:
DeleteProfessional:
--Catch up with lit feedback/grading; catch up with comp feedback/grading (I think this was supposed to be Catch up with lit feedback/grading; keep up with comp feedback/grading). Made some progress on lit, but still a bit behind; more or less kept up with comp feedback/grading (to the extent that’s possible with very process-oriented work with a good many revisions and replacements.
--Submit contract renewal portfolio (I actually did this a few hours ago, but I’m putting it on so I can celebrate being finished at the end of the week, too). Submitted, and verified with my chair that all is in order. Hurray, and phew!
--Catch up with various online trainings that need to be up to date for contract renewal (all worthwhile, but they do proliferate, and I’ve been neglecting a few) Done
Household:
--Containerize items from cupboards as the containers I’ve ordered arrive, and temporarily stow most back in the cupboards – in progress
--At least begin moving books and bookshelf sitting where the refrigerator needs to temporarily live while I’m working on the area around/behind its usual spot -- no
Personal:
--Exercise: stretching routine x 2; weight lifting x 2; walk x 1 if weather/pollen cooperate; swim x 1 if pool is open. Stretched x 2.5, no weight lifting, modest walk, no opportunity to swim
--Friends & family: meet up with friend if we can get our schedules to work; touch base with NY nephew. Caught up with friend on phone; still need to touch base w/ nephew.
Goals for this week:
DeleteProfessional:
--Catch up with lit grading; keep up with comp grading; file midterm evaluations for all classes (yes, this is on the early side, but there’s a no-record withdrawal opportunity coming up, and we’re encouraged to file the evaluations before that)
--Ask colleagues who wrote successful study leave applications last year if they’re willing to share models
Household:
--Sow fall lettuce & other greens in community garden plot (we seem to have reached the sweet spot of cooler temperatures but still reasonably long days, so now’s the time. 2 weeks ago would have been better if the weather were cooler, but it wasn’t.)
--Continue containerizing, with goal of clearing dining table and adjacent windowsill of objects that aren’t supposed to live there.
-- At least begin moving books and bookshelf sitting where the refrigerator needs to temporarily live while I’m working on the area around/behind its usual spot
Personal:
--Exercise: take at least one short and one medium-length walk; stretch x 3; lift weights x 1
--Friends & family: touch base w/ NY nephew; make plans w/ local niece.
Thanks for sharing your story! It sounds like you were very close to your family, and that they enriched your life significantly. Congrats on the portfolio submission! Celebrate some more!
DeleteHm, what deceptively simple questions! I am, unfortunately, exhausted today, not having slept really at all last night (well, I think that I was solidly asleep from about 10:30-12, but then after that I just dozed a little here and there. I am completely rearranging my day so that I can take a nap. Office hours are likely cancelled).
ReplyDeleteAnyway--where was I? The point is, I'm exhausted, so I'm not thinking very clearly and may not be able to answer these questions very well. Hm.... I'm not actually sure when I became aware that I could get a Ph.D. in literature. I always assumed that I would go to graduate school--from a very young age--but I thought (at age 9ish) that I'd be a psychologist or an architect. For some reason. Then briefly a lawyer, but that was mostly because it was what my best friend at the time wanted to do. By high school, I wanted to be a writer, which eventually came to imply a Ph.D. in literature, which I now find odd. But hey, here we are.
I went to grad school in New England because the guy that I was dating during the time that I was applying to grad schools had just started a doctoral program at Harvard. I applied to three ivies and Boston U. I got into one ivy (not Harvard). I consider myself very lucky, given the utterly stupid way that I went about applying to programs! I had broken up with the guy by the time I started school.
So, yeah. That was my roundabout way of ending up where I am. Very lucky on all counts, I must say.
Last week: I'm glad that my goals were so minimal.
1) Revise and finish grant application (due 9/20) - DONE; also submitted a (very easy/short) application for a small internal grant that we're more or less guaranteed, as long as we do the paperwork
2) Read 3 articles and incorporate them into my chapter(s) - Two of them! I'm still working on the third. Gaaah I hate reading pdfs.
3) Finalize Assignment 1 prompt - Yes; it's kind of bad, though. I hope that the papers I get on Friday are okay.
This week: Husband just left to spend a few days taking care of things at his dad's house, and I have a lot going on, including a presentation at the local library (on behalf of the Sustainability Committee, not to do with my research) this evening. I'm strangely nervous about this and can't wait for it to be over. So I'll be busy, between a busy week and solo child care. Still, I have goals. I've been feeling a little scattered, and I need to get a handle on things.
Goals for the week:
1. Fill in 4 very specific gaps in chapter 4
2. Prep chapter 1 for printing (by tying up a couple of loose ends that I've noted on p. 1) and print it
3. Write 2 recommendation letters
4. Start notes for book review
5. If time: Read grad student's chapter
6. If time: Conflict of Interest training (just to get the notification out of my inbox)
Oh, the things we do for love, or something related to it! Remember Notorious Ph.D.'s story of applying to grad school because her ex was [in it? finished? now I don't remember whether he was a prof or a grad student], and she was going to show him that she was just as good? I think by now she must be much more accomplished.
DeleteGood luck this week!