Where I live, we're still getting April showers, but the calendar puts us in flower season. I missed my moment to put out the peony supports, so they're going to go all floppy; the lavender is still working on greening up; the rather expensive rose I bought for my birthday last year seems to have died over the winter (boo!); the "lawn" is a mass of dandelions and violets, plus creeping Charlie. A couple-three weeks ago I bought lettuce and spinach seedlings but haven't put them in the ground yet, as we had a frost warning on 1 May! Around here, you have to buy plants when they appear in stores, not when you're ready to plant, or they'll all be gone.
What are you ready to do? What needs to wait for the right moment? Does frost, real or metaphorical, threaten any of your projects?
We had warm sunshine the last few days, summer temperatures, but today it has rained incessantly and been very cold. I have seedlings in pots on windowsills, waiting to go outside, but am convinced the minute I put them out, there will be another frost.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I'm not sure there is ever a right moment or that I know when it is. This year's research leave has been a good moment for writing, but some projects have sprouted up that I wasn't expecting. Or have proven to require more pruning and nurturing than I anticipated. I think I need to concentrate on sowing as many seeds as possible, and then see what comes up.
Last week:
1. Finish and deliver seminar paper! - YES
2. Meeting about teaching - try not to get enraged/despondent. - YES (better than expected)
3. House/life admin: meet with financial advisor, niece's birthday present, make follow up appointments with optician, find time to call friend whose mother's funeral is this week. - YES
4. Self care/fun: enjoy time in Cambridge once seminar done, read, exercise, come up with birthday suggestions for family. - YES
The seminar went well, I think - at least, the questions were thoughtful. I was back in the very old university town where I did undergraduate and went back to for my PhD. I haven't been back for at least a decade, and it has changed a lot. It is still beautiful, but somehow bigger than I remembered, and much more crowded. I got to wander, caught up with a friend before the seminar, and the next day got to hear madrigals for May morning sung from the tower of the college in which I was staying, before spending the day with my PhD supervisor and his wife. I hadn't seen them in years (he just turned 80 and doesn't do big conferences any more). He was an incredible supervisor and is a lovely human being, so it meant a lot that I could finally catch up with him.
This week:
1. Make notes from seminar before I forget all the questions and comments.
2. More (!) revisions to 30,000 word chapter (see above on demanding plants - editor came back to me with further additions, which he could have mentioned last time).
3. Start reading thesis I need to examine.
4. Write bid for small pot of money for a workshop.
5. Reference for a former student.
6. Expenses claim
7. House/life admin: financial paperwork, visit from engineer to upgrade broadband, optician, try to get son a haircut.
8. Self-care/fun: birthday dinner, read, exercise, video call with friends, make plan for weekend away.
How lovely to get to catch up with your advisor like that! The whole trip sounds great. And look at all that YES! What a good week.
DeleteAh the joys of Ancient University City! I always feel a bit like a ghost when I'm there (a happy haunt). Until I get near the bookshops...
DeleteHave a great birthday dinner and other fun as possible!
It is definitely May, as the may is out - the first few hawthorns in the hedgerows along the back road I take to work were in full foamy May mode on the 30th of April and the rest were showing shimmers so I expect it will all be out tomorrow when I also have to go to campus. The weather is being spring-variable and sometimes hinting at the uncomfortable days of summer, and every time it gets hot I have a lot of extra hip pain from the arthritis which is a nusiance. And I somehow messed up my shoulder at the start of the bank holiday which didn't help with my feeble intentions to be productive! But here we are! And one plus of depressingly low student enrollments is that for once I was not doing deadline-driven marking on the bank holiday.
ReplyDeleteLAST WEEK'S GOALS:
1) at least 3 x 20 minutes intentional movement 2x20, 1x15, between two consecutive days on campus, hip pain and ouchy shoulder, I was not in the mood. But more than none!
2) 75% of chores list hahah no
3) finish marking big first year assignment yes. Quite disappointing overall, but only a couple of maybe-AI use elements which is a win
4) submit timetable plans for next year yes
5) draft kill-them-with-kindness response to hostile reviewer and to the editor of the journal who really should know better (as they DO use the methods in question). no, lots of emotional upset and stress about this one, it has really got under my skin somehow. Talked to a friend-colleague in the same field about it which was sort of useful, and waiting out the initial emotional layers because they don't help. The urge to just quit research has arisen again! It's also tricky because I'm an "interior author" on this paper - neither the lead nor the lead's supervisor - but I am the expert on the particular methods being criticised, so whatever action takes place has to be through them, which for me adds a substantial layer of awkwardness/uncertainty. And I'm just discouraged about academia in general at the moment!
6) go to Away Day and All Staff Forum and behave with some decorum went, was moderately well behaved. Away "Day" could have been a couple of emails but did end up finishing hours early because the person who was supposed to plan it is leaving the university and the person who took over the role didn't officially start until 1st May and between them, well, it was pretty pointless but it is ticked off. And hopefully will count as enough of one for the Interim Head of School to not schedule another until next academic year!
GOALS FOR THE COMING WEEK:
1) at least 3 x 20 minutes intentional movement
2) 75% of chores list
3) start making a summer list of house/life stuff, personal stuff and fun stuff
4) ensure all timetable plans are checked and submitted centrally
5) draft kill-them-with-kindness response to hostile reviewer and to the editor of the journal who really should know better (as they DO use the methods in question).
6) try to sort out the problem with all the laptops I have access to skipping bits of the models I'm running (without throwing anything out of the window. I currently suspect something to do with the stuff the university puts onto our laptops to let us work from home, as everything works fine on the laptops of my colleague at a different university...).
You were only 5 minutes short on the exercise! That's a win in my book. And you've done the marking and the timetable plans, so also good progress on work things. Hostile Reviewer is one of those perennial blockages--I hope more a swarm of gnats than a dragon!
Deleteaaand now certain colleagues are kicking off (my subject area has several groupings, now with no more than 3 people per group, and one lot have always felt that they are the most hard done by and should be the most respected, but have the fewest students - they want to be the tail that wags the whole dog and the dog isn't playing. And one of them had an important administrative role, wasn't doing most of the tasks (they're having a really tough year, it isn't malicious at all), and has now handed over the role to someone else from a different grouping not entirely voluntarily. So the new person starts doing the role and the entire grouping is just going after them, aggressively and meanly, demanding to know why this and that and the other aren't being done instantly and why things are not exactly how they want. Even though the reason for all those things is that the previous person - who was ONE OF THEM - did not do them when they should have been done. So one day on campus, vast amounts of drama, and I am so done. But I still have to work the rest of the week! I'm too old for this, for the stress-driven infighting and nastiness - why can't we all work together? WHY can't people either do their jobs or admit that they're struggling before it's a serious problem and ask for help??
DeleteOn the plus side, I was reorganising the fridge this evening in hopes of seeing something that looked like dinner with little effort and found a small bar of fancy chocolate I had completely forgotten I had. Thank you past me, present me really needed that!
Past you clearly knew there would be weeks like these! Hang in there. I am glad research leave lets me stay away from the drama to a certain extent this year. It's so hard when everyone is overworked and stressed, yet there's also no excuse for not behaving like adults. Sympathies.
DeleteI'm not so much frostbitten as thrashy, so I'm trying to use mindfulness techniques and sit with the feelings of overwhelm (too many things), guilt (why didn't I do some of them sooner?), anxiety (will I get them done?), etc etc, acknowledging that yes these are uncomfortable feelings and of course I'd like not to feel them, but they will have to be felt so that I can do the things that will let me stop feeling them.
ReplyDeleteHow I did:
--Prep for big last-day-of-classes student-show-off extravaganza: YES (and it all went well, but as I expected, I did collapse after it)
--Exercise 3-4 times: 2x (not bad, all things considered)
--prep for meetings: YES
--write write write (make progress on W essay): NO
--edit edit edit (PR essay, anything else I get a review for): NO
--finish summer travel bookings: PROGRESS (have flights to France, found that Sir John's passport had expired, so he is dealing with that)
New goals:
--grade final projects, update gradebook with odds & ends, work out & post semester grades
--make substantial progress on W by working on it every day
--send PR comments on essay, plus other editing-related work
--exercise x5
--back exercises daily
--start making Big Summer List, also Big Summer Schedule
--2 more academic meetings (at least), dentist
aargh, the overwhelm AND the dentist AND grading! Wishing you plenty of surprise chocolate and some friendly grading elves and NO AI!
DeleteSympathies on the overwhelm. I felt that way last week. Deep breath. It will all pass and be done, eventually.
Delete