We have one more session in the calendar year, and I'm going to run it almost up to Christmas: week 0 (introductions) this week, fifteen weeks of goal-setting, and a final week (20 December) in which to report in and PARTY. Here's the boilerplate about goal-setting: 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.
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. We welcome totally new folks or people who have been here in the past but had to drop out for awhile. Consider this your engraved invitation.
This session has a theme, which in itself takes some introduction (hence Week Zero, introductions!). You can treat it either as a purely creative-writing exercise, or allegorize it so that each week's topic relates to something in your work life. It's possible that the weekly topics will change in response to our participants' comments, but here's the starting point and the topics I have planned from here:
You (your real self, or a fictionalized version of you [younger self? older self?], or a purely made-up character if you like) have unexpectedly inherited a house. It has some problems, but is in a desirable (to you) location. The sensible thing to do would be to sell it and invest the proceeds, but for Reasons you are going to keep the house and live in it yourself. Over the next 16 weeks, we'll discover your Reasons for keeping the house; we'll explore its problems and your approach to fixing or living with them; we'll meet people and maybe critters who can help (or hinder) with renovations; there will be discoveries, good and bad, within the house, and connections to people or problems from the past. We'll try to get to a place where the whole situation is at least partially resolved just in time for a Christmas party in your new space.
This week, just introduce yourselves; session goals are fine if you're ready but they could also wait for next week. I'm going to list the weekly topics both so I can look them up easily and so that you know what's coming and can think about ways you might steer your story. If you really hate a given week's topic (or the whole thing :( ) just do the goal-setting and ignore the house-story! The story could be treated as a romance, or as a start-a-new-life tale, or one of those novels set in a village where nothing much ever happens but it's nice to visit with the characters. Despite snags along the way, there will be a happy ending!
0 Introductions; perhaps session goals
1 Where is your house? Who left it to you? Set session goals
2 What sort of house (size, vintage, style)? Reasons to keep it?
3 The biggest house problem(s)
4 Meet someone who can help you with the house, or at least cheer you on as you work on it
5 Tackle a small house problem with a happy outcome
6 Meet someone who is an irritation or a problem
7 An unexpected discovery in the house leads to confronting a Complication From Your Past
8 Tackle a problem . . . unforeseen complications result! Midterm check-in
9 A cheering interlude with your new friend/helper from week 4
10 Surprise inspection or visit: what happens?
11 Make a plan to deal with the results of the inspection or visit (maybe revise session goals again)
12 Animal event: do you adopt a pet? Suffer an infestation?
13 Outdoor work: another problem? Or something nice like planting bulbs?
14 Your new helper/friend encounters either the irritation (week 6) or the Complication From Your Past (week 7) and helps you to resolve the situation or just not care about it any more
15 A significant house problem is resolved (even if some other stuff hangs on)
16 Party in your improved house! Who do you invite, what do you serve, what do your guests admire about the place?
Ooh, this is a fun theme! Thank you for hosting.
ReplyDeleteI am very tired, so I am going to leave session goals for next week.
Introduction: I'm Julie, a history professor at a university in the north of England, one that is good academically but like all British universities, struggling financially and therefore taking in ever more students. I am not looking forward to teaching this coming year as we are making big changes that are going to involve a lot of work for dubious gain. I am trying to get research back on track after a long hiatus due to Covid, widowhood and solo parenting. I have a daughter of 18 who is off to university in two weeks' time, for which I am not at all ready, and a son of 15 who has important exams next year and very little inclination to study.
It must be very odd to be dispatching your own child to university whilst welcoming freshers from other homes - I hope she's excited and has a great time!
DeleteHi, I'm JaneB (when I joined blogger there was a Jane in the Academy (JaneA) and See Jane Compute (JaneC) hence my user name), I'm a mid or maybe late career STEM academic in a university in the north of England (south of Julie) which is not at all elite - very much middle of the pack. It's been a difficult few years - COVID I completely overworked myself, the return to in person was made more difficult by an actively not supportive Head of School, I started the journey of diagnosis as neurodivergent (AuDHD), and then I had a breakdown three academic years ago. Then the following year we got a great new Head of School then immediately went into a very difficult round of cuts, not well managed (although the unsupportive head did move on). Last year the great Head of School moved to temporary Deaning, and with a somewhat ineffectual interim we tried to pick up the pieces and keep our programmes working with reduced staff, drastically cut and hacked about modules, and a new organisational structure which merged my grouping with another one which has a very different approach to pedagogy and organisation, so that was No Fun. This coming year, the ineffective interim is now officially Head of School for the next three years, sigh. We are facing a major recruitment crisis in my part of the School when all the signs and omens are that more cuts are coming, plus introducing all sorts of new measures to "tackle" the genAI revolution. I'm burnt out and still adapting to the AuDHD diagnosis. I officially have ten years to go until retirement but I'm exploring options - I'm not sure I should or can do that!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a fun session theme, I look forward to taking part!
I'll aim to set session goals next week, tomorrow is a bank holiday in the UK and I'm trying not to think about work until I have to!