Sorry for the late posting -- a friend was visiting over the weekend and I had NO TIME!
But, since we did lots of fun things, tell us one fun thing you did in the last week, something that gave you pleasure.
Goals from last week:
JaneB
- mark three final year projects and at least two questions from first year short answer quiz
- get caught up on dishes
- read an entire novel and an entire non-fiction book as a MINIMUM
Daisy
ALL the admin things - I have a two-page list...
Finish all grading
Read new thesis chapters
Do a bunch of analytical work for upcoming talk/paper (THIS IS IMPORTANT!)
Susan
1. Finish restructure of chap 6/7 into 6/7/8
2. At least look at Epilogue and think about how to split (this is less difficult)
3. Do Conference submission
4. Finish expenses
5. Weights x2, Yoga x1, walk x 2
6. Enjoy activities with friend from home who is visiting this weekend.
One of the fun things we did this weekend was to go to one of those design house fund raisers (very fancy house, each room redone by a different designer). It was interesting to see all the design ideas, some good, some not so good. . .also nice shops!
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
1. Finish restructure of chap 6/7 into 6/7/8 Pretty much
2. At least look at Epilogue and think about how to split (this is less difficult) NO
3. Do Conference submission
4. Finish expenses NO
5. Weights x2, Yoga x1, walk x 2 NO NO YES
6. Enjoy activities with friend from home who is visiting this weekend. YES
I mean, not terrible, but not great. I'm making progress on famous author, but the restructure was hard (going from a thematic to a chronological structure). Exercise has been almost non-existent -- morning allergies, not sleeping etc.
For this week (I mean, it's Wednesday, but still)
1. Write paper I am giving on Saturday
2. Go to library to look at new manuscript
3. Start re-reading book I have to respond to for another journal
4. Get back into exercise, figure out sleep stuff.
(I have a trip Sunday night to Monday, for a day of meetings, so I'm keeping everything pretty light.)
The restructuring sounds like such a headache that I think that that--plus the allergies!--exempts you from everything else. Well done!
DeletePrevious comment was by me, heu mihi!
Deletebetween restructuring and allergies it sounds like you're doing great just to show up!
DeleteRestructuring is always hard, I think. So many things depend on so many other things, and we don't always realize just how many small, interconnected, perhaps even unconscious decisions we made. On the bright side, I guess that's a sign that the original version was carefully crafted?
DeleteThe design house sounds great. Which was your favourite room?
ReplyDeleteI was still just about on holiday at the start of last week (came home Tuesday), so I'll count that. It was a great holiday: a week by the sea with a lot of time for reading and sleeping, but also sightseeing and time with family. If we're being very strict about weeks, the last day of the holiday (Easter Monday) we had a fancy lunch out with family.
This week is a very strange one, as we're on strike again, trying to get the university to rule out compulsory redundancies among support staff. It's hard to set goals, since I'm not meant to be working and today was taken up anyway with pickets and union meetings. But in the interests of sanity and having some structure:
1. Finish reading and taking notes on book I was reading before Easter.
2. Start planning two articles/chapters I agreed to write (these are tangential to current research project and one will be paid, so feel these can be justified as not university work).
3. Exercise.
4. Enjoy the enforced break: do something fun, small house jobs.
Being on strike sounds very strange. How does one not work? I'm in a union but we're not allowed to strike, so it's not something I'll ever have to worry about, I guess!
DeleteGood luck with the strike! We're starting another round of cuts (with compulsory as the last resort) so, new summer same old...
DeleteYour vacation sounds great! Like heu mihi, I think strike sounds weird. But I think the way we work in the US, our scholarship always feels like something we own, and we are not nearly as good as folks in the UK at actually not working when we are not paid. I hope the book is good, and the other stuff keeps you occupied --and maybe even a bit caught up on small house stuff, which is endless in my experience.
DeleteIt sounds weird to me that a union not be allowed to strike - what options are there to win goals? An academic strike essentially means we do no work that is in our university contracts, so no teaching, marking, research supervision, admin etc, and we don't answer emails. We don't reschedule anything we missed. Those of us who are local also take turns to picket i.e. standing outside buildings with placards and leaflets, trying to drum up support and persuade others to join the union and the strike.
DeleteIt is a bit weird not doing research, as that arguably hurts us more than the institution, especially in the shorter term, and I suspect many people do quietly do some anyway. As I said in my goals, I'm doing bits that are tangential and doing them more in a 'I want something to occupy my brain for an hour' spirit. I wouldn't be in the library on a strike day.
More controversial is the current plan to move to a marking and assessment boycott from 12th May - so more targeted action. Union members are divided on this, so we'll see what happens.
MABs are REALLY HARD - wishing you luck with yours, we went through that last year (not very successfully sadly - QMUL are the example to follow I believe!)
DeleteA week by the sea with reading and sleeping and good meals sounds heavenly -- and in fact is what I'm planning starting in the middle of next week (on the coast facing back toward yours). Glad you got that opportunity before having to deal with the strike, which does, indeed, sound stressful, especially since it seems likely that some work (e.g. marking) is going to have to happen at some point anyway, no?
DeleteI'm in a "right to work" (American for "union-hostile") state, so don't have the option of belonging to a real union; the closest thing we have is the local American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter, which is active, and to which I belong. I'm sort of glad not to have to make decisions that would affect students (but assume that students who go to school in places where strikes are possible know that, as do their future employers, etc.)
I missed last week because my internet has been fritzy! I'm writing from the public library while my kid works on a homework assignment. Comcast is supposedly going to send a team out to replace our cables, but when??? This is all very inconvenient.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember what my previous goals were, nor do they matter. I did finish that book review and I have a reasonable draft (I think) of my conference presentation; it only has to be 10 minutes and it's more about the profession than an academic subject, so it isn't too difficult. Easter was nice, but cold! My husband got us all a box of delicious dark chocolates from a local chocolatier; I've been enjoying those very much.
Some sadness: My brother's wife's sister, who just turned 55, died of cancer last week. Her funeral is tomorrow, so I've had to reconfigure my class a bit in order to go (it's a little over a two-hour drive away). I didn't see her much--hardly at all in the last decade, actually--but she was a sweet, lovely person, with two college-age kids.
What are my goals right now? Just getting through these last weeks of the semester! I'm really just hoping that Monday's faculty meeting goes well and we can approve a change to the graduate curriculum (I actually don't even care very much anymore which change we approve--I just want us to agree on SOMEthing!). And that we can finish the grad student handbook, which has been an endless chore this semester, mostly tackled by me because, well, I do things like that.
So I'll just leave it at that--plenty to do, but what exactly??--and get back to making good use of the library's wifi.
That was me, heu mihi--I don't know why I've gone anonymous!
DeleteSounds like a tough week; I hope there are still plenty of chocolates left!
DeleteOh, Comcast, I'm so sorry. And it probably has taken 900 hours on the phone to actually get them to come, mostly because they want you to use their stupid chatbot. (I have opinions.) And your brother's sister-in-law: that's hard, for everyone. Just sad, too. (As for why you're anonymous, for reasons that elude me I am anonymous unless I post on Chrome. Go figure.) Anyway, good luck getting through the week!
DeleteWhen there's a new post, the site sometimes loses me temporarily. When I click the "sign in" button, it still has me signed in, though it still may take another refresh before my avatar actually shows up for a comment.
DeleteI had good intentions about goal-setting in the interim session but just have not had any sense of what I'm doing for the week until about Thursday. But my fun thing has been reading Comissario Brunetti mysteries. These are new to me, I like them, and the series is loooong, so this is a very happy discovery. Also I made another yogurt cake this week. And I have now taught my last class of the semester.
Sounds like a tough week. I'm sorry about your sister-in-law in-law (Spanish actually has a term for that, which translates as 'co-in-law').
DeleteI really liked the Brunetti series at the start, but feel like it lost momentum in the more recent books. Some of the early ones are great, though. And yogurt cake sounds great.
I love Brunetti, even the later books, because I get attached to the people and places (and they are still good, just not REALLY good).
DeleteVery sorry to hear about your brother's sister-in-law (and yes, English needs a richer vocabulary for family relationships; I'm still trying to figure out how to refer to my niece's relatively-recently-acquired husband, who I think is just my nephew, but I already have two nephews, the niece's brothers, and it's not quite the same relationship, though it's a very nice one). That sort of death has very real ripple effects, as well as the effects on those most directly affected, and is just plain sad.
DeleteBest wishes for an end of the semester that includes at least some agreement, and some tying up of loose ends, and for a return to working home wifi.
Fun - it's sad that I'm not actually sure. Haven't played D&D in a couple of weeks and that's my usual answer! Playing with Shoutypants - who _loves_ the laser toy I got for Christmas, and now has me trained to respond to a specific combination of posture-and-noise for "stop doing that and make the light run around!" - is definitely a little dose of fun every few hours...
ReplyDeleteLAST WEEK:
- mark three final year projects and at least two questions from first year short answer quiz yes and yes
- get caught up on dishes nearly
- read an entire novel and an entire non-fiction book as a MINIMUM yes! two novels actually. breaks are nice. And I napped a lot...
this week is already half gone and it's not been a good one at work for various niggly and annoying and upsetting reasons; keeping goals simple as a result:
- mark last two questions from first year short answer quiz
- finish re-review of journal article
- be kind to myself - unusually hot weather and hayfever do not make for a happy JaneB
- knit during the many online meetings where I mostly have to listen not speak rather than trying to sneak in bits of other work!
- mark three final year projects and at least two questions from first year short answer quiz
- make sure I move intentionally at least three days
- remember to put petrol in the car and book the service for the heating boiler!
Oh and order a new prescription contact lens because thanks, hayfever, I lost one... SOMEWHERE in my bathroom...
DeleteYour break sounds great -- like an actual break! My cats were mostly scornful of the laser toys, but I'm glad Shoutypants enjoys them and distracts you from other stuff!
DeleteEnjoying the mental image of cat and laser!
DeleteNone of my previous cats have liked laser toys - my first cat ignored them, Furball realised in about 10 seconds that the laser dot wasn't real and glared at me disdainfully and never reacted again, Fluffball wasn't much of a player anyway and he did ONCE "catch" a dot then tried to bite it but bit his own paw and was very confused and unhappy. However Shoutypants knows EXACTLY what to do and loves sprinting around the place - and also enjoys it when the dot runs up the wall and he can have a big stretch.
DeleteGlad shoutypants has been successfully training you to take laser breaks. That sounds like a win-win situation (and, yes, like fun; I'm not always entirely sure what counts as fun, either. One of my not-entirely-derailed goals for the study leave period, which I'm counting as continuing into the summer, is trying to rediscover what I actually find fun, or at least relaxing/restorative. It's definitely a work in progress, but/and observing myself plan and prepare for a vacation -- which is both somewhat fun and a bit stressful -- seems to be relevant).
DeleteMore an update than a check-in, since I don't think I've set goals for several weeks. But here's what I've accomplished:
ReplyDelete--Finished (finally!) the transcription directions for the study leave project site (which also involved my figuring out how to transcribe tables -- which can be done, and I've now done it).
--Attended physical/occupational and voice therapy appointments and (more or less) kept up with the various exercises assigned at each. Voice is still AWOL; I'm feeling fine otherwise.
--Attended a professional workshop (on AI; ugh) and a social/professional gathering (which went reasonably well given voice issues)
--Wrote a public comment re: an attempt by some members of my university's board of governors to roll back DEI measures and eliminate associated offices and staff (despite said staff working like crazy over the last few months to try to balance compliance with new federal mandates and supporting our extremely diverse student population)
--Planned a beach vacation for next week/the week after (midweek to midweek, to work around some weekend commitments at either end). So I guess I'm going to count that as the fun thing -- upcoming, but maybe the anticipation counts?
Not sure how the timing of the vacation and the timing of the beginning of a new session will work out, but I'll join a bit late if need be.
Before I leave (early next Weds.), I need to:
--Communicate with my direction-testers re: testing the directions
--Communicate with the leaders of the community organization re: timing of communications re: recruiting transcribers
--Communicate with the current archivist for the organization (who isn't exactly opposed to the project, but it's not their preferred focus, either)
--Take preliminary steps toward planning July project-related event
Oh, also accomplished:
Delete--Wrote my annual report (one of a couple of things from which being on study leave doesn't exempt me)
And we just got an email announcing both a small raise (not enough to keep up with inflation, even before we see the effects of the coming tariffs, but better than no raise) and a one-time bonus (which will help pay for the vacation, or the refrigerator I need to replace, preferably relatively soon, given the tariff situation, so that's good).