2026 Summer session: Week 2

 Hello everyone!

We have excellent collections of summer goals and wishes from last week. And we all like all the flowers! What’s not to like about flowers? Love them all.

I spent a lot of time last weekend digging up and moving plants, and doing all those garden preparation things like mowing, mulching, weeding, sowing, dividing clumps of things, and weed whacking. We’re planning to hire a tiller to pull up some grass and putting in new actual garden beds. The work is not the most satisfying because it does not look like much actually happened, but I know it is there, and I know it is important.

So, for this week’s prompt, here is a lovely unfurling baby hosta to inspire you to think about what invisible but important work you can do this week to set yourself up for success with your goals later in the session? Which project needs to mulched and protected? Which project is in need of a good pile of compost? What needs to be ruthlessly weeded out? What needs to be trimmed to make space for something else?

 

Good luck with your week!

 

This week’s goals:

DEH

-Write (or transfer) 3000 words for Overdue essay.
-Write 1000 words for First Conference Paper
-Contact 2 (or am I up to 3?) writers with reviewer comments
-regular PT exercises, otherwise rest cranky back (maybe try a short swim, short walks)
-finish booking 3rd summer trip

Daisy

Get three talks ready for conference
Data processing for other people’s talks
Do a million interviews
Organize student assistant’s work for the next month
Three fun things with friends

JaneB

SELF-CARE:
* 3x20 intentional movement, 1 x making, 2 x small things with people, reading every day (with dinner, in waiting times)
* make a list of different making methods and projects I might play with this summer
HOME AND ENVIRONMENT:
* 75% of chores
* braindump the steps for the living room and clothes projects
* braindump smaller house and environment things I would like to get done this summer
* braindump where I want to get to with my personal finances
TEACHING AND ADMIN:
* last week of marking, I hope - finish the marking! And the reminding of colleagues on shared modules!
* meet with the MSc by Research student who is furthest from submission
* start writing the summer block list for teaching preparation tasks
RESEARCH:
* submit small group paper
* check in with student author of the paper that got the horrible review (my review luck continues to be bad. Former PhD student submitted their first paper last week and got it desk rejected in 13 minutes - with a letter that began "we have read your paper, and..." - I really don't think they could have! Fortunately they are a very resilient person who said "they can't have read it, and their reason is wrong. Oh well their loss!" and we resubmitted it elsewhere the next day (same publisher so limited reformatting needed)).
* continue calm systematic exploration of the laptop problem. No crying, no suppressing the urge to throw the laptop out of the window!
*write a start of TLQ session list of writing projects and their status.

Julie

1. Finish 30,000 word chapter and try to draw a line in the sand with editor.
2. At least one day on Big Article
3. Teaching prep: check draft timetable for next year has everyone's teaching in correctly, suggest some seminar readings to rest of teaching team.
4. Plan archive trip for end of June ahead of funding deadline next week.
5. House/life admin: book trains for summer travel, sort out insurance, book annual leave, optician's appointment, organise daughter's birthday party.
6. Self-care/fun: run x 3, read, journal, fill hanging baskets and patio pots now it seems to have stopped hailing at random, enjoy surprise trip away with friend this weekend.