Hello at the end of what has been an unseasonably warm weekend in the UK. It is scheduled to be cold again this coming week, but yesterday and today were glorious. I sat outside a café yesterday afternoon with a good friend, while our daughters sat by the river with ice cream.
Prompt for this weekend is thinking about friendship. I am absolutely drowning in marking and other stuff, and it is going to be a hard few days before I surface. But I spent all of yesterday with very good friends who were visiting from Scotland. The female half is one of my oldest friends from university and she and her partner have been rocks the last few years. Their kids and mine get on great. We don't manage to see each other that often, but it is always a huge boost when we do. And tonight the kids and I went for dinner with local friends, who again have made a point of being there for us the past few years. We have a regular monthly evening together.
As a result, I am feeling more up to facing the coming week than I was on Friday when I felt absolutely exhausted. Being part of this community is a boost as well, even if Susan is the only one I have (knowingly) met IRL. (Since I have yet to go to a US conference, I doubt I've met anyone else from TLQ, but who knows? Maybe one day).
So what friendships and communities keep you all going? Friends from childhood, uni days, more recently? IRL or online?
Last week's goals:
JaneB
1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15
minutes x 3 days, a social thing
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores, tidy up the upstairs landing (one
day this WILL happen)
* make card & get presents for Ma's birthday (this is the many-events
period of the year)
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
next week is Reading Week so no classes for my undergraduates - but the
following week is overly full for me with some new material, so I'd like to get
ahead. Also that way I might manage a day or two OFF (to catch up on house
stuff) next week since apparently my normal weekend isn't enough to do that
right now...
* prepare half of teaching for week after next & do ViLE stuff
* email all tutees who didn't make the meeting
* plan some methods training with new masters student
* check in with student with crisis
* write more applicant letters (I did all of MINE by the deadline but as ever
the reward for doing things is more things and now I need to help out with
other people's allocations)
* meet with now-senior grad student to follow up on their mid-year meeting
4) RESEARCH
* exciting new project idea meeting
* if possible, spend an hour on reading/writing for vague grant idea
* if time, look at the Consultancy Paper that is back on my plate, sigh. I am
so fed up with this paper...
Contingent Cassandra
--Continue work on site: figure out csv import; add
additional documents (both full documents & individual pages for
transcription); work on making site more easily navigable, especially from key
landing pages
--Draft call for transcribers and other helpers and run draft and site by
organizational leaders who need to okay distribution of the call via the
organization’s communication channels
--Finish signup directions and guidelines for transcribers, communicate with
people who have volunteered to test the directions/site
--Write department chair, program director, and scheduling coordinator re:
possible adjustments to fall schedule
--Write colleague who has recently dealt with HR/university’s medical leave
system for advice
--Continue movement, especially strength training of arms/shoulders (perhaps
begin using some of the recommended post-op stretches as warmups?)
--Do additional work in the garden (weeding, seed-sowing, mulching,
bed-building)
--Make progress on choosing/ordering refrigerator (and possibly stove), moving
over-fridge cabinet, other fridge-replacement-related moving around of things,
and/or packing/mailing returns.
--Plan/prioritize other household work
Julie
1. Revisions to grant application.
2. More and more marking.
3. Read final chapter of thesis and meet with student.
4. Teaching prep: keep minimal.
5. Celebrate (hopefully) with other grad student after her viva.
6. Get organised for friends visiting this weekend.
7. Book train tickets, find replacement booking for Easter, apply for
daughter's provisional driving license (so not ready for this).
8. Self-care: read a novel, try to get outside as much as possible.
Susan
1. Finish the "And Also" response, add footnotes
2. Add the next revisions to my talk, practice it again
3. Try to get back to exercise: weights x 2, yoga x 1, 1 good walk
4. Figure out the next 3 talks (increasing panic, as one is at the endof the
month)
5. Read for pleasure
6. Keep up with earlier dinners / bedtime
7. Work on migrating church website to a new hosting platform
8. Make reservations for summer travel.
9. Enjoy the public lecture and it being done.
Daisy
ENDLESS student thesis stuff
Advertising posters and organizing for interdepartmental event
Many meetings about hiring
All the marking…
Make March plan for schedule and activities
Distinguished Dame Eleanor
- continue work on slides for at least one conference paper
- do some scholarly reading, take notes on whatever has stickies sticking out
- load some more stuff to ViLE site
- read Thing for a friend
- fill in one set of forms that involves money
- yoga x5, cardio x5, trainer session
- find & print some tax documents
- order more flowers for niece
- set goals for March
Heu mihi
Shovelling!
How I did:
ReplyDelete1. Revisions to grant application. - SOME
2. More and more marking. - YES (many more to go)
3. Read final chapter of thesis and meet with student. - YES
4. Teaching prep: keep minimal. - SOME
5. Celebrate (hopefully) with other grad student after her viva. - YES (she passed with minor corrections, so very happy all round)
6. Get organised for friends visiting this weekend. - YES
7. Book train tickets, find replacement booking for Easter, apply for daughter's provisional driving license (so not ready for this). - SOME, YES (thankfully), NO
8. Self-care: read a novel, try to get outside as much as possible. - YES, YES (long walks in sunshine yesterday)
This week:
1. Finish the marking (due Thursday)
2. Somehow find time to work on grant application.
3. Final proper bit of teaching of term.
4. Finish booking train tickets, apply for daughter's provisional license, optician's appointment, plan for weekend in London (son in a cross-country race on Saturday).
The marking will be a marathon, so keeping goals to the minimum.
Sounds like you had a really cup-filling weekend! And congratulations on the graduate student's success and on finding an Easter alternative!
DeleteDo you have a third term of teaching, or is that actually nearly it altogether?
I'm glad you found somewhere else for your Easter break, and hope it's nice! Good luck with the final marking!
DeleteThank you! New place is less central but looks nicer and has a private pool (I suspect quite a small one, but still a pool). And no, no teaching in third term apart from a couple of revision sessions. There will be marking and more marking, although we are being balloted for strike action at the moment, so who knows.
DeleteThese days - mostly friends I haven't seen for years, or have never met. My D&D group, most of whom I've only known a couple of years, someone I "met" as a penpal from a dieting magazine decades again (we are both still very large people, and both still good friends), my former flatmate... and of course all the friends I can never meet from the pages of books, whether they're fictional or from a different time and place.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a week - a certain colleague has been completely failing to respond to my emails, I had to get the Head of School involved. And that person's share of grading got done four days late. I get that said colleague is under a lot of pressure, but that to me does not excuse not replying to emails/letting anyone know that you might not make a deadline/leaving other people to send out apologies to students without even being able to say when the marking WILL be done. I'm very very tired. I'm also having allergies in all directions (very warm early spring weekend has filled the air with allergens, and I Do Not Like Spring, it's my "SAD Season". And Shoutypants the cat is being a cat, and has decided he dislikes just about every kind of cat food I have in the house so is sucking off the jelly/gravy and leaving the "meat" cubes around the place, acting pathetic, shouting a lot, (then raiding his biscuit supply in the middle of the night and stuffing his little face, despite there being a bowl of it available, no, the bag has to be opened - so at least there's nothing wrong with his teeth?). This week should be relatively light - only one day on campus - but NEXT week is my heaviest teaching week, on campus three days, and I need to be prepared to solo teach what should be a joint session since a colleague is travelling back from a research trip on another continent and scheduled to land very early morning before our 10am class... yes, thanks colleague for not telling me that until you were already away! I CAN do it but I'm not feeling very appreciated or informed!
Ugh.
LAST WEEK
1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15 minutes x 3 days, a social thing knitting and a card for my Mum's birthday, D&D twice, read a couple of chapters a night of a tolerable but not good multi-viewpoint story, 4 days of movement, no additional social
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores, tidy up the upstairs landing (one day this WILL happen) nearly, no
* make card & get presents for Ma's birthday (this is the many-events period of the year) yes - the package should be picked up tomorrow morning for delivery
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
Deletenext week is Reading Week so no classes for my undergraduates - but the following week is overly full for me with some new material, so I'd like to get ahead. Also that way I might manage a day or two OFF (to catch up on house stuff) next week since apparently my normal weekend isn't enough to do that right now... looks like I won't manage actual days off as there are multiple student needs going on but I will try really hard to keep my hours short except for the day I have to be on campus for a training thing to do with the wretched Research Excellence Framework)
* prepare half of teaching for week after next & do ViLE stuff did all the substantial parts of the prep, minimal ViLE stuff
* email all tutees who didn't make the meeting yes
* plan some methods training with new masters student tried. Ran into some technical issues
* check in with student with crisis yes. Crisis continues. Student's adorable toffee coloured curly-eared spaniel puppy joined the meeting which was nice, and they not only agreed to do some paperwork for the university they actually did it and mailed it the same day, which makes a nice change
* write more applicant letters (I did all of MINE by the deadline but as ever the reward for doing things is more things and now I need to help out with other people's allocations) yeah. They feel really artificial and are making me mad, but I did another 20
* meet with now-senior grad student to follow up on their mid-year meeting yes, very successful meeting
4) RESEARCH
* exciting new project idea meeting yes, and it IS exciting - we agreed an "only ask nice people to join the project team" policy which is welcome!
* if possible, spend an hour on reading/writing for vague grant idea no
* if time, look at the Consultancy Paper that is back on my plate, sigh. I am so fed up with this paper... no. insufficient spoons
NEXT WEEK:
1) SELF-CARE (recovery and self-kindness)
* habits: something creative, D&D, read a novel, intentional movement 15 minutes x 3 days, a social thing
2) HOUSE-LIFE CARE
* 75% or more of the weekly minimal chores, tidy up the upstairs landing (one day this WILL happen)
* a couple of small things off the list
3) TEACHING AND ADMIN
* prepare remainder of teaching for next week & do ViLE stuff
* write even more applicant letters
* meet with now-senior grad student to go through their technical terminology (their phonetic spelling is amusing at times but science also needs consistency...)
4) RESEARCH
* review article for journal
* if possible, spend an hour on reading/writing for vague grant idea
* if time, look at the Consultancy Paper that is back on my plate, sigh. I am so fed up with this paper...
I once had a massage therapist who told me that in Chinese medicine, spring is 'the angry season,' and so it often seems to me. The weather is changeable, the winds are often high, after 3/4 of a year of teaching my patience is wearing thin . . . I do have more energy, because winter is my really low season, but I see where you're coming from, especially w/r/t allergies.
DeleteBoo to selfish colleagues. Hope the exciting new research continues to be exciting.
DeleteFriends! That's a good prompt, because I've been making plans with not-quite-yet-friends for the coming weeks (a coffee this Friday with a cool-seeming philosopher I met in a writing group, coffee in three weeks with a Latin Americanist with whom I tried to make plans for a drink back in 2019 [!!], coffee at the end of April with a new hire, a scholar of premodern Chinese literature--that's a lot of coffee, wow). In terms of being sustained: My journal co-editor and I have periodic work check-ins (by phone) which always become life check-ins, and that's so helpful. Conference buddies (the best reason for going to conferences). My colleague down the hall--who's on sabbatical at the moment, alas, but still pops in from time to time and yanks me away from my computer. Then there are a couple of little groups I haven't hung out with outside of work in far too long.... That needs to happen, soon.
ReplyDeleteOh but we did have dinner on Saturday with my son's piano teacher and his wife, a couple with whom we have weirdly a huge amount in common (both he and my husband like to cook Ethiopian food; both he and I have walked the Camino de Santiago; she is considering divinity school and my husband is a minister--in fact, the piano teacher considered becoming a monk! Both of them are weirdly familiar with my research area, etc.). It was a lot of fun, though a bit tiring--much intense conversation.
Anyway...it's good to remember that there's life outside my self/family/work.
To do this week:
1. Research: Edit (on paper) chapter 5 and conclusion. Take a look at article due in April just to remember what I still have to do.
2. Grad students: Read intro and first chapter of a dissertation. Meet with various people. Plan *and announce* memorial event for student who died in December.
3. Teaching: Keep it going.
4. Exercise: Do what I can and forgive myself if I miss days.
I have an enormously busy week with meetings and the like, but there's nothing TLQ about it--it'll just all need to happen. So that's enough for now....
Colleague-friends are the best! There are so many things you don't need to explain in detail...
DeleteYour goals sound admirably stripped-down and focused, a good thing for what sounds like a very busy re-entry. I hope the planning of the memorial event isn't too wrenching; that sounds like a sad situation.
DeleteThat sounds like some great networks of old and new friends. The Camino is on my list of things I might do some day. And sorry about the memorial event, that does sound tough.
DeleteFriends: I have several friends who go back a long time (one to nursery school, others university) who I check in with from time to time, and see occasionally (but they both live on the other coast, so...) My roomates from university are a good support network, because we have known each other so long. I have a couple of good work colleague/friends: one I have zooms with from time to time that always end up less about work than other stuff; the other one and I spent half of last night texting each other updates. I also have a bunch of good professional friends, who I see at conferences (the group of women who dine well, led by the hispanists, of course). And while we are talking friends, I'm really grateful for my siblings, who are a great support network, and we've managed to keep that up since our last parent died.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
1. Finish the "And Also" response, add footnotes YES
2. Add the next revisions to my talk, practice it again YES
3. Try to get back to exercise: weights x 2, yoga x 1, 1 good walk NO NO YES
4. Figure out the next 3 talks (increasing panic, as one is at the endof the month) I know the 3rd?
5. Read for pleasure YES - Now have two books going, and for Lent I am reading in bed, so making progress.
6. Keep up with earlier dinners / bedtime MOSTLY
7. Work on migrating church website to a new hosting platform DONE
8. Make reservations for summer travel. THEY WILL BE PURCHASED FOR ME!
9. Enjoy the public lecture and it being done. YES
And Also: Read a manuscript for a journal, dealt with copyedits of the "And Also" manuscript from last week. Will get another round later this week.
THe Lecture went well, people seemed to enjoy it (one of the security guards was very excited!) and afterwards there was champagne and chocolate strawberries. Otherwise, I think I made progress on everything else (relieved I've migrated the church website, especially). The big flop was exercise. I managed one really good walk, but at the start of the week I felt like I might be getting sick, and with everything, it was just hard to get going.
This week:
1. Figure out the paper I'm giving in 2 weeks and write it. (It's theme and variations with what I've done already, so not as daunting as that sounds.)
2. Read next journal article for press, deal with the next version of "And Also"
3. Figure out visit with old roommate who was recently widowed.
4. Make plans for conference in Boston the end of next week
5. Weights x 3, one good walk, one yoga
6. Keep up with the reading
7. Maybe do a few of the image permissions?
I think that's it...
Lots of DONE! I'm glad the lecture went well, and the refreshments sound great! I hope you're feeling better this week.
DeleteGlad the lecture went well. I can't imagine any academic institution in the UK being rich enough to offer champagne and chocolate strawberries after a talk, sigh.
DeleteThinking about friends always reminds me that visiting my friends of the heart requires a plane trip. Around here, I have colleagues, former colleagues, friends of Sir John's, people I know from book groups and folk dancing. This probably doesn't say anything great about me, but I've known some of these people for 30 years yet don't really consider them to be friends. Growing up, I thought I would replace my not-very-satisfactory family with a family of friends, and to some degree I had that in grad school, but I just have not managed it here. Maybe I've moved around too much in the region; maybe it's my reluctance to turn colleagues into friends (too much risk if things go south, I feel); maybe it's that I have high standards for what makes someone a friend rather than a friendly acquaintance. I wish I were better at forging real connections with people but it doesn't seem to be one of my strengths. I have made a few friends as an adult, mostly people I've hit it off with at conferences.
ReplyDeleteHow I did: I think this is going to be one of those weeks where I wonder WTH I did do, because I sure didn't do much that was on the list:
- continue work on slides for at least one conference paper: NO
- do some scholarly reading, take notes on whatever has stickies sticking out: NO
- load some more stuff to ViLE site: YES (as of this morning)
- read Thing for a friend: SORT OF (made first pass, want to go over it again before providing feedback)
- fill in one set of forms that involves money: NO
- yoga x5, cardio x5, trainer session: YES, NO, NO (cancelled b/c I twisted my ankle badly and am trying to rest it properly)
- find & print some tax documents: NO
- order more flowers for niece: YES
- set goals for March: YES
ALSO: read an MA exam; went to a talk at relatively-local BigName U; lots of e-mails regarding graduate applications and the class I'm teaching; paid bills; went out to dinner with a couple (one a former colleague) we haven't seen in ages, in fact whom Sir John can't remember meeting! I think b/c there was so much driving around and going to things that kept us out late, and then the switch to Daylight Saving Time, I've been staying up too late, not sleeping enough, and just not getting anything much done; also sulking over my injured ankle.
This week is spring break, so I'm trying to combine Getting Stuff Done with some real relaxation. I was planning to do a lot of gardening, but I'm not sure whether the ankle will permit that.
Anyway, new goals:
- continue work on slides for at least one conference paper
- do some scholarly reading, take notes on whatever has stickies sticking out
- do some odds and ends of grading and ViLE stuff
- read/comment Thing for a friend
- fill in one set of forms that involves money
- yoga x5, trainer session if I'm healed up enough
- find & print some tax documents
- calls about an insurance bill
- more graduate applications (or maybe I'll leave them till after break!)
- sit outside on warm days
- 90-minute massage
- read something fun
- organize the linen closet; do some other tidying up
Hope the ankle heals soon and isn't too painful.
DeleteFriends are the best!! I think I have a close friend from every major place I’ve lived so far, so a nice mix of old and new ones. Many of the old ones are the kind you don’t see a lot, and sometimes don’t talk to for a long time, but the moment you are back together or on the phone it feels like no time has passed… The kind where you walk into their kitchen after not seeing them for 10 years and you can just start making tea without asking… Takes a while to get to that point with people, but it is worth the wait. Most people do not end up being close friends, but that is fine, different friends are good for different things.
ReplyDeleteI have made some friends in my new place who have the potential to become close ones over time, some are in different departments and some are not connected to work at all. Still miss the everyday interactions with my favourite people from former place, but they are close enough that we can organize visits periodically, and there is a lot of texting.
When things get really busy sometimes the friend time falls off the radar, but every time I make plans and follow through and actually hang out with someone I like I remember how much I need that in my life. So, I’m setting up a friend date for later this week, thanks for the reminder and inspiration!
Last week’s goals
ENDLESS student thesis stuff ONGOING
Advertising posters and organizing for interdepartmental event DONE
Many meetings about hiring DONE SUCCESS!!!!
All the marking… NOT DONE
Make March plan for schedule and activities DONE
March looks kind of rough, but definitely less intense than February, so I’m ok with that. Lots of marking coming up so I need to get started on the lingering stuff and get ahead of the new stuff.
This week’s goals
ENDLESS student thesis stuff
Learn new music
Midterms, study guides, marking
Plan analytical work