Hello! Greetings! Welcome to TLQ session 3, first week! If you've been around for awhile, or just following along (hey! how about saying hello in the comments?), you know the drill. If you're new, read on. As often happens, I'm borrowing introductory text from previous sessions, with thanks to those who drafted it.
This week, please introduce yourselves and set some goals for the session, as well as for the coming week. Goals can be in any aspect of life, although the key focus is often writing tasks that are personally and professionally important but that never quite tip over into important AND urgent. Urgent things sometimes find their way in here too; that is completely okay, and process goals are also most welcome.
Most weeks there will be a discussion topic or prompt to write about if you feel so inclined, but skip it if you don't feel like it. Your hosts this session, Dame Eleanor Hull and Daisy, have ideas for prompts, but this will not be a themed session. We've already had two of those this year, and JaneB especially is a hard act to follow! So if you want a more "business-like" support group for getting stuff done, try us out this time.
We'll have fourteen goal-setting weeks, a mid-term check-in on session goals, and a final "party" reporting on session goals on 15 December. Anyone is welcome to join! Bring a friend! We aim to be supportive of and generous to all participants, whether they're every-week types or just drop in from time to time.
This week's prompt, if you want one: what nice thing could you add to this week, or what tiring one could you take away? Example: I skipped a party yesterday. A party should be a nice thing, but when I thought about driving, packing my own food (as I would need to do), and seeing people I like fine but who are not friends of the heart, it sounded too much like work (I mean literally: those are all things I do on campus days). I stayed home. I went to the gym, graded some papers, did a couple of loads of laundry, and cooked. Not exciting, but overall more restorative than I think the party would have been.
I look forward to working with you during the coming months!
Thanks to Dame Eleanor and Daisy for hosting. I'm Julie, an associate professor of history at a university in the north of England. I've been a widow for three and a half years, and I'm a single parent to a 16 year-old daughter and 13 year-old son. TLQ is part of trying to rebuild a career that bereavement and Covid took a wrecking ball to, alongside finding a new normal that works for my family.
ReplyDeleteSession goals:
From 1st October, I go down to working four days a week, so part of this session will be working out how to set boundaries and make sure work doesn't spill into 5 days and that there is still time for TLQ stuff. I'll use last session's headings, which I think I stole from Jane B.
1. Teaching/admin
(i) Revise second-year module to a new format, but keep manageable.
(ii) Keep on top of first-year module and try to maintain energy/enthusiasm without setting myself impossible standards (I co-teach with someone who is a bundle of energy so I always feel students are comparing us unfavourably).
(iii) Three PhD students: one submitting in December, so a lot of drafts to read; one seems to be worryingly AWOL when he should be writing; one about a year from submission.
2. Research (TLQ!):
(i) If grant application gets through first round, write longer version. If it doesn't, put Plan B on hold until next session.
(ii) Write journal article for January deadline. This is the most important session goal.
(iii) Work on call for papers for possible collaborative workshop.
3. Kids
(i) Work out new routines, be as present with them as possible and as much as they will tolerate!
4. House/life admin
(i) One big project: new bathrooms.
(ii) Decluttering & small to medium projects.
5. Self-care
(i) Reading
(ii) Exercise: improve fitness
(iii) Healthy eating & more sleep.
(iv) Fun stuff - see friends, try to do more creative stuff.
So glad TLQ is part of your career reset. COVID and widowhood at once is *A LOT*.
DeleteSetting boundaries and sticking to your work hours is both an excellent thing and something we're very happy to help support you in doing! I'm glad you've found the group helpful.
DeleteThis week's goals:
ReplyDelete1. Prep for trip to archives next week.
2. Revise grant and submit - this is the grant from last session, which finally came back from the last round of review on Friday, with thankfully only minor suggestions.
3. Meeting with PhD student.
4. Tedious but urgent life admin - car service, get laptop keyboard fixed.
There are so many tiring things this week that I would love to ditch, but sadly they are all essential. The best I can do is postpone as much work stuff as possible until after I get back from the archives. Future me will not be happy, but she will just have to deal with it. Something nice would actually be more sleep, so I will try to get in at least one early night!
More sleep is always good! I support this move strongly! And life will be better with a functioning keyboard to your laptop and a reliable well-tuned car. Good news on the grant front---I'm glad to hear that the suggestions are minor.
DeleteI hope that the archives trip is to somewhere interesting and enjoyable! Maybe with a few nice restaurants! Seconding DEH's comments on the grant--it sounds like that application is nearing completion.
DeleteHave fun in the archives! And more sleep is always a good thing...
DeleteHello, I'm JaneB, I'm a STEM academic at a University in northern England which is like many others in crisis. My job is in an at risk pool - so I might cease to be an academic by the end of the session, or be changing my contract substantially, and my overall goal is to look after myself through this very difficult season so I can be supportive and present with my colleagues and students. It's been a very tough few years - COVID disruption, health issues which led to a breakdown and quite a lot of sick leave last academic year, and discovering I am an arthritic neurodivergent (AuDHD which at least explains why the squirrels in my head are often in conflict with each other!) - and in some ways I'd like to just jump a few years forward so I could financially make it work to retire early! So it's probably going to be another overly verbose, unloading all the angst type session, apologies in advance!
ReplyDeleteI'm not TOO sure about specific session goals but I'll have a go.
1 SELF-CARE. I need to keep working on keeping up all the necessary basics that can get difficult living on your own, because I'm still in burnout - my batteries are mostly around a 40% it feels like, which is much better than the 10% they were this time last year but still nowhere close to normal.
(i) doing at least one mildly creative-with-the-hands thing each week (draw, diamond painting, colour, paint, knit, crochet)
(ii) read three non-fiction books this session along with at least that many novels (hopefully a lot more but my reading mojo is a bit fragile)
(iii) doing at least one social/creative-with-words thing that isn;t excessively draining (playing D&D, writing for fun, talking to people on the phone or a proper chat online)
(iv) reading thoughtfully and journalling through a "self-care for autistic adults" book which I read last month.
(v) building a more solid exercise habit now we're out of the season of Disgusting Humidity!
2 HOUSE-LIFE ADMIN
i) working on getting better at the regular chores
ii) doing at least one additional care-for-home-environment thing every week (building on summer momentum)
iii) working on financial things that both bore and scare me (I'm not a very adult-y adult)
3 TEACHING AND ADMIN
i) successful teaching delivery (this has to happen but it will take time so it's going on as a goal)
ii) prepare for next trimester (one-two teaching blocks a week which are not about the immediate needs, to build on a mostly successful strategy last session) - totally denying that I don't actually know whether I'll be teaching it!
iii) stay in my lane (I have actually got a substantially reduced workload this year thanks to Interim Head being somewhat petty and taking away the module admin which I enjoy in exchange for more classroom hours which can be pretty stressful between the mobility/pain stuff and my anxiety and the incredibly inconsistent timetabling/trekking all over campus stuff - largely BECAUSE of her pruning of contact hours from modules so there is now less actual classroom teaching and more faffy admin stuff and support materials than there were even three years ago, and because leading the core modules has come under my "reign" to mean a lot of additional things like responsibility for the tutorial groups and the peer-to-peer support activities and the how-uni-works sessions, which are now Not My Job). But between my enjoyment of all those making-stuff-work things, my over-developed sense of responsibility, my fear that if I'm not useful all the time I won't keep my job (if I actually want it...) and the way my colleagues tend to loop me in anyway (out of habit, or hope I'll do stuff 'accidentally' for them, or because they value my opinion), it's HARD to actually stick to that lower workload!
iv) all the necessary paperwork-y and chapter-reading-y stuff to support my senior grad student to submission of her thesis at the end of December (has to happen, but still, going on the list as it will take time).
4 RESEARCH
Deletei) make measureable progress on at least three papers
ii) write a fairly small grant application to buy out some of my time
iii) and leaving this one open as a new project of which I am a very small cog is probably starting up, and I don't know what the expectations of me will be for that, but it will probably make a goal.
Right, I'm going to rewrite those more concisely for the record!
1 SELF-CARE. Remember I'm still recovering from burnout and be kind to myself.
(i) do at least one mildly creative-with-the-hands thing each week (draw, diamond painting, colour, paint, knit, crochet)
(ii) read three non-fiction books this session and at least three novels
(iii) at least one social/creative-with-words thing each week (playing D&D, writing for fun, talking to people on the phone or a proper chat online, writing a social letter)
(iv) journalling through a "self-care for autistic adults" book.
(v) building a more solid exercise habit
2 HOUSE-LIFE ADMIN
i) working on getting better at the regular chores
ii) at least one additional care-for-home-environment thing every week
iii) working on financial things that both bore and scare me
3 TEACHING AND ADMIN
i) successful teaching delivery (TRQ)
ii) prepare the rest of this trimester and for next trimester (one-two teaching blocks a week which are not about the immediate needs of the week)
iii) stay in my lane given my changed responsibilities
iv) support my senior grad student to submission of her thesis at the end of December
4 RESEARCH
i) make measurable progress on at least three papers
ii) write a fairly small grant application to buy out some of my time
iii) find out my committments within small cog project and meet them.
For this coming week - it's the last week before the students are back, and so there are a lot of unexpected things popping up and some last minute things to deal with and some Zen Practice as certain other module leaders have still not started the ViLEs for team modules so I can't do my part. plus it's suddenly gone Autumnal - which I like, but the mould spores are very abundant so I am allergy-riddled.
1 SELF-CARE. Remember I'm still recovering from burnout and be kind to myself.
(i) do at least one mildly creative-with-the-hands thing
(ii) start book about Aztecs, start another novel
(iii) play D&D with nibling (who has moved into their uni flat!
a week early to let them settle in to the city and walk around finding out where everything is before it's chaotic)
(iv) three days of stretchy/bendy type intentional movement for at least 15 minutes
2 HOUSE-LIFE ADMIN
i) at least 75% of regular chore list
ii) declutter kitchen
iii) do some sums related to latest voluntary redundancy scheme and some pension modelling
3 TEACHING AND ADMIN
i) set up new teaching commonplace book/bullet journal thing
ii) list out teaching blocks for the first half of the session; finish blocks for second year module reading lists/case studies
iii) get ViLE content done as far as I can
iv) comment on first half of a chapter for Senior Grad Student
4 RESEARCH
i) at least two hours on part 3 of discussion OR supplementary info of consultancy paper
ii) an hour of notes on my grant idea
Fingers crossed for a good outcome on your employment situation! It's nerve-wracking to read about and I'm sure worse to experience, so we're glad to be able to provide a safe space in which you can vent, prioritize, and get support for your self-care plans.
DeleteFinancial stuff is both boring and scary for lots of us. Our taxes were late this year b/c I just could.not.look at an account containing money I inherited from my father. It wasn't even really relevant to the taxes (I mean, it didn't affect what we owed, though it had to be acknowledged), but there were so many feelings there. And then I beat myself up for not being able to treat money as a neutral, sensible adult topic, which of course just made it worse. I'm dealing better with it now, but it is amazing how fraught money is.
Thank you for hosting!
ReplyDeleteI'm heu mihi, a mid-career (?? When is the tipping point from mid- to senior?) professor of medieval literature at a flagship public university in the Northeastern US. I'm in my second year as director of my academic program and starting my first year as associate chair of the huge, unwieldy department that houses my program, so I have a lot of administrative tasks and only teach one course (although I'm also coordinating the weekly practicum for our new TAs, which is sort of like a mini-class). I have a husband who's a minister (The Minister) and a son who just started middle school (Bonaventure), as well as two lively cats who are currently careening around the house.
A nice thing for myself this week would really, I think, be watching junk TV and knitting all by myself in the bedroom for an hour here and there. This past weekend was exhausting (I hosted a party for the program, including our grad students) and this coming weekend will be exhausting (a Friday evening + all-day Saturday meeting with the national committee for a huge conference we'll be hosting in 2026). My husband is sick with a stomach bug that he's had for a week, and now my son has a bad cold. Plus I've cut down on alcohol pretty dramatically, so my usual glass of wine to self-soothe is out (and didn't usually help all that much, if I'm honest). Junk TV it is!
This is a long post. I'm going to put session and weekly goals in sub-comments.
It's going to be a busy semester. I have the administrative things I mentioned above, plus some other committees; I co-edit a journal, although that's pretty low-key at the moment; I'm running a weekly writing circle (mandatory writing time!); and I'm taking an upper-level Italian literature course, because I'm nuts (my Italian is pretty much just intermediate). Plus I have a couple of deadlines.
DeleteSo, session goals:
1. Deadlines: Last-minute tenure letter due Oct. 1, short weird experimental essay due Oct. 13.
2. Research: a) Submit book manuscript!!!!! b) Start planning essay due in April (which I think I'm also supposed to give a talk on next semester...maybe try to get out of the talk, that would also be good). c) Submit proposal for festschrift.
3. Enjoy Italian! Remind myself (when, as last weekend, I'm spending hours on my homework) that I'm learning and it's great!
4. Exercise: I exercised a lot this summer, and it felt great, so I really want to make this my priority. Possibly join a gym (with a pool!) when it gets too dark to run in the morning (so, like, next week).
5. Graduate students: Get X defended and out; support G; work with R towards spring defense; others as they arise. (Just putting this here so that I can check it off at the end of the session--it's such time-consuming work and I want to record it.)
I'm quite certain that there are other things I'm doing this semester.... But I'm going to stop there, because everything I can think of is just fiddly and administrative and SO not interesting or TLQ. So that's that!
Goals for this week:
Delete1. Write a very basic draft of short weird experimental essay.
2. Submit Kalamazoo abstract and apply for funding.
3. Start reading book for last-minute tenure letter, with the goal of finishing enough of it to say something intelligent by the end of next week.
4. Work on edits to ch. 3 of manuscript.
5. Exercise: Run at least 3 times; 1 yoga class.
The practicuum class sounds fun! As does short weird experimental essay...
DeleteI hope you got and enjoyed your time knitting in front of the TV, and that your husband and son are now doing better, and that you haven't caught anything! I will encourage you to join a gym and swim---we can be the TLQ swim team!
DeleteI made it to Wednesday and forgot to post! I'm Susan, a senior academic in the US in a newish university that is perpetually financially challenged. This year I have a fellowship that has taken me away from my home and my campus (and my cat) at a research institute in southern California, the place I call My Favorite Library (MFL). MFL has a museum and gorgeous gardens in addition to the library, so I'm working hard on the sabbath part of sabbatical. And there are about 20 fellows, so lots of people to talk to.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently really at the end of two big projects, one known as Big Collaboration, a collection of 30 essays in a 5 volume project I am co-editing; and Famous Author, a shortish book that I've written and need a publisher for. It's out for review at a press that makes sense, so. . .
I'm also starting on my "rest of my life project", which is currently quite amorphous, so getting a structure will be important.
Goals for this session:
Research:
1. Make progress of Rest of Life (RoL) project, or at least phase 1 of it.
2. If the press takes Famous Author, I will need to add some words. Do it.
3. Do any last work on Big Collaboration that needs doing.
Life:
1. Figure out an exercise routine that makes sense and is manageable.
2. Try to not work weekends and evenings
3. Read books for fun
4. Keep up with tapestry projects
5. Buy new car (maybe new used car)
Goals for next week:
1. Finish dissertation related to what I think is part of phase 1 of RoL project
2. Read some of books that I've piled on my desk
3. Keep up with embroidery
4. Read for pleasure
5. Figure out gym situation
I think we're all going to enjoy reading about your sabbatical! Being at Favorite Library sounds like a great way to structure that time away from your uni.
DeleteYou can tell how my week is going! I can't get my head around long-term plans. I hope tomorrow to post session goals, though it will be too late for this week's plans (unless I just report on what I have done). At this point I'm somewhere between "Do All The Things" and just "get through the semester."
ReplyDeleteSometimes "just get through the semester" is the best you can do!
DeleteHello! I hope you all had a good week. I notice Daisy seems to be in similar straits to mine, which is a comfort. In addition to my actual day job, and my exercise obsession, this week I've been proofreading, with a particular focus on phrases in foreign languages, for one of my favorite fantasy writers. I am in total Fangirl Squee mode that I get to do this! So that's way cool. But I do have Actual Real Work to do, of which I have been doing just enough to scrape by.
ReplyDeleteIntroducing myself: I'm a senior scholar, I guess (old enough to retire but I don't want to), a medievalist, teaching in the English department of Large Regional University (LRU), which is smaller and more budget-strapped than it used to be. I like teaching, I like the structure and rhythms of the academic year, I love my research. I'm kinda-sorta thinking about what retirement might look like for me, because I'm not sure how long I want to put up with some of LRU's crap; though I enjoy the teaching, I would love to put down the committee work. But I need some interaction with people, and somewhere to go, something to dress up for. Also academia really suits my brand of nerdiness. I've joined a couple of book groups through my local library, and I enjoy them, but always have to keep a grip on my Professional Critic.
Session goals:
- Draft an essay due at the end of January
- tinker with what was supposed to be my sabbatical project
- grade All The Things in a timely manner and
- provide helpful feedback for students
- keep up with reading/notes for the new course
- read All The Things for the major committee I'm on
- continue to indulge my exercise addiction and refuse to feel guilty about the time I spend in the pool/at the gym
- complete at least three House/Life Things from my very long list
Things I have done this week:
Delete- the aforementioned proofreading
- graded 3/5, maybe 2/3, of the first short assignment from undergrads
- taught my classes
- swam three miles
- picked up the woodcut I took in for framing at the end of the summer session
Things I still need to do:
- finish the grading
- power-wash the north side of the house
- write my sabbatical report (due Monday)
- gym tomorrow
Thank you DEH for getting us started! My week, as she rightly observed above, has also been a “watch me check in way late to the session I am co-hosting” kind of week so here goes, just for intro and session goals…
ReplyDeleteI am a mid-career professor in a physical science field, at my dream university in a lovely place. I have an awesome teenager at home, two cats, and a partner who works partially at home and partially a couple of provinces over.
This term started out with a bang. I was away for most of the summer so I am starting the term pretty behind. I am assistant Department head, and de-facto administrator until one can be hired, and for many very good reasons I’m teaching an overload this term. So massively overwhelmed with small but seemingly infinite important tasks is kind of the feeling. My plan for this session is to focus on keeping myself healthy, getting exercise, and doing things outside of work that I enjoy. Work will fill every available minute, and I am feeling the effects of that physically and mentally. I love my job, but I need to be able to do it for at least another 20 years, so I need to do some thinking….
Session goals
Get back into a consistent exercise habit
Get half-done paper into decent shape
Revise 80% done paper
Do actual real work on coastal project
Organize my samples and lab space properly
Get student through thesis and defense
Tiring things removed last week, basically none… But I did go to a lovely mid-week concert so that was a good break. I also manage to revise and submit the Difficult Paper that was accepted near the end of our last session, a nice win and huge load off my brain!
Congratulations on getting Difficult Paper done and in! Yay! And the mid-week concert sounds like a nice thing added.
DeleteI'm checking in rather late, with apologies for disappearing during the spring session. I ended up dealing with some health issues, now mostly resolved, and it was all I could do to keep up with teaching. I did manage some regular movement, which was one of my goals, have continued with that, and have been seeing positive effects, so that's to the good.
ReplyDeleteI did not, however, make much progress on getting a head start on the project for which I have a study leave next spring (spring '25). So that's going to be my goal for this session. I might end up tracking some other things, especially household/financial projects that will leave more room for focus on the study leave project next semester, but mostly I want to track progress on getting started on aspects of the study leave project. So, goal for the session:
--plan and to the extent possible make progress on the study leave project (which has multiple aspects)
Goal for this week:
--Get advance publicity for mid-late October events related to the study leave project done and deliver to appropriate person.
Oh, and a bit of background on me: I'm a mid-late career academic at a large US state university. As my username indicates, I'm in a contingent position, but now on long-term contracts (and probably in my second-to-last one before retiring). My Ph.D. is in English, I teach writing, mostly to engineers these days, and the study leave project is at least tangentially related to my original dissertation field, though more "studies" verging on history than literature.
DeleteIt's good to have you with us again! Welcome back!
DeleteWelcome back! Hoping for a healthy and productive semester!
Delete