I love the movement of this chapter. It starts with the startling assertions that more faculty report the feeling that they can't get everything done no matter how hard they work than CEOs. More faculty feel physically or emotionally exhausted at the end of the day than CEOs.
A key quote to me (among many -- I have 4-1/2 pages of notes, mostly quotes I wanted to spend more time with):
The fact that we need to give ourselves permission to eat, bathe, and pay bills reflects our loss of balance in the current university climate. The time crunch is not just a personal issue. It is detrimental to intellectual work, interfering with our ability to think critically and creatively. (17)
Berg and Seeber do a great job of going through some representative academic self-help literature and calling out some of the key assumptions behind their time management advice. (One that I had read was Donald Hall's Academic Self, but though I had admired the way he called for academics to have credos or purpose statements, his time management never worked for me.) Berg and Seeber ask "Is academic time really as 'subdividable, regular, and predictable' as Hall posits?" (24) (to which I want to scream no way. Not only is academic time not regular and predictable, but I am not regular or predictable! And these relentless time management systems seem to assume people are not moody or emotional or that their days are more regular than mine at least are. If the point of the time management systems is to get intellectual work done, my moods and emotions are going to be relevant. But I can't turn on a dime because it's 11:30 and a month ago I thought it would be a good idea if I'd work on my scholarship now. Go! But that's not Berg and Seeber's point here.)
It turns out that "[r]esearch show that periods of escape from time are actually essential to deep thought, creativity, and problem solving" (26). We need timeless time or timelessness; this "flow" or "engrossment" not only makes us more effective at our intellectual work, it makes us happier. "The major obstacle to creative and original thinking . . . is the stress of having too much to do" (28). (Oh how well I know this.)
The following quote I'm pretty sure I need to see in front of my face on a regular basis:
We need, then, to protect a time and a place for timeless time, and to remind ourselves continually that this is not self-indulgent but rather crucial to intellectual work. If we don't find timeless time, there is evidence that not only our work but our brains will suffer. (28)
I may put that one on my office door. The rest of the chapter offers some concrete suggestions about how we can champion timeless time:
1. Get offline.
2. Do less.
3. Create/schedule (?) regular sessions of timeless time. (Berg and Seeber have five components here that are worth exploring. Anyone?)
4. Give self regular timeouts. (Kindness to self with radiate out to others.)
5. Change the way we talk about time all the time.
So what were your reactions to this chapters and its assertions about time management versus timelessness or timeless time? Am I the only one who sees a relationship between timelessness and mindfulness and maybe even the current craze for meditation? If you are, as I am, hooked already by Berg and Seeber's arguments, then how do people at your institution talk about or regard time and how could you resist that by proposing a counter-example? How could you be a slow-er professor? What would each of Berg and Seeber's suggestions look like for you? Is it worth it to try one suggestion out this week even?
What do you think, y'all?
Friday, July 15, 2016
Friday, July 8, 2016
Slow Week 2: the Introduction
The introduction to The Slow Professor argues that stress in academia exceeds stress in the general population (finally, some empirical studies to show what we live every day!) and that this stress has a lot to do with busyness, time pressure, and lack of work-life balance promoted by the corporatization of the university. With corporatization and increasing managerialism (of particular relevance to me right now because academics at my institution are being restructured) comes the language of efficiency and crisis.
While much of this may be familiar territory to those who've been paying attention to the many critical studies of the university (or just living in academia), what surprises me (but shouldn't) are assertions like these: "individual professors' well-being has far-reaching effects.. . .It goes without saying that stress is bad for the individual and has direct consequences for society. The harmful effects of stress our our well-being, health, and communities are widely documented and now generally acknowledged. What is less evident is that addressing individual professors' stress has political and educational ramifications" (4) and "faculty stress directly affects student learning" (6). Instead of asking "what is wrong with us?" that we seem to be struggling as academics within our institutional contexts, the authors ask, "what is wrong with the academic system?" that it creates conditions that we know are actually detrimental to our being effective as academics. That these issues of stress and time crunch can be directly connected to some of our most significant work -- teaching -- is really important. I know that I've felt very compromised as a teacher lately because last quarter as we were reading about how we need more time to deeply think about our actions and responsibilities, I was also completely behind in their grading and everything else, unable to role-model what I was talking about. If I can't actually do what my class argues for in the context of my visible work life, how can I expect my students to take seriously what I'm advocating? (What's more, at my institution, which is deeply entangled with the corporate model, I may be able to more effectively argue for better conditions by talking about the way it makes me an ineffective teacher and role model than by arguing for traditional academic values. This is just an oddity of my institution, though. It may be that others can do more with that argument.)
I love that Berg and Seeber assert that in response to "crisis!" and calls for efficiency, "Slow Professors act with purpose, taking the time for deliberation, reflection, and dialogue, cultivating emotional and intellectual resilience, able, as Collini puts it, to hold our nerve" (11). In the face of all the calls to rush to a decision (and I know I'm NOT the person I'm capable of being when I'm rushed, as suggested in the Rettig quote in the Preface), asking for time to consider something has seemed weak or ineffectual or just plain not possible. My chair and I spoke about exactly this once, where zie affirmed that it was okay to say that I needed more time to make a decision. But it still seemed weak in the face of my highly-corporatized institution and institutional culture (where even some of my best colleagues would rather just throw something together, put in place, and then improve it later, which drives me nuts because a bad decision can definitely be worse -- and more damaging -- than none at all); Berg and Seeber help me see this differently -- that asserting that I need more time to consider a decision can be seen as resistance. What's more, I can also think of it as role-modeling to others that we should be taking more time to think deeply about our decisions.
While Berg and Seeber are both humanities scholars, they also assert that "[The humanities] are paradigmatic of the non-instrumental intellectual enquiry which we need to protect across disciplines. It is precisely this critical thinking that is at the heart of the university as a public good" (13). This reminds me of the movie, Contact, and the pulling of funding for all pure research in favor of applied research. So I can see the connection to the STEM disciplines here. Though my strange context has made me wonder about the notion of a critical citizenry as a public good. Obviously, while some critical thinking can be deployed to solve corporate problems, it doesn't necessarily seem helpful to corporate interests to have an informed and critical citizenry. So the corporate university does not support the notion of critical citizenry as a public good. (In fact, what I'm learning about neoliberalism is that it does not support notions of the public or common good.) So I'm wondering whether the notion of a critical citizenry as a public good now sounds like a liberal (as in liberal versus conservative) notion. I know that it's very difficult to argue, in my context, for these broad values; both students and faculty in other disciplines at my institution believe implicitly in the instrumentality of the education we provide and academic knowledge more broadly. (Another, perhaps too harsh, way to say this is that my institution doesn't really believe in academic values.)
What are your thoughts about the introduction? What does the culture of busyness, overwork, and efficiency look like at your institution? (Perhaps sharing these will help us all to recognize the signs -- and opportunities for resistance -- at our own institutions.) And I've been thinking a lot about this one: how can we decolonize our own heads of this thinking (that what's wrong is us rather than this efficiency and overwork culture) so that we can change our own habits, self-talk, and interactions with others so we can be people and academics we're capable of being?
Please don't feel constrained by my questions or opinions! Take the comments in any direction you like. I look forward to it!
While much of this may be familiar territory to those who've been paying attention to the many critical studies of the university (or just living in academia), what surprises me (but shouldn't) are assertions like these: "individual professors' well-being has far-reaching effects.. . .It goes without saying that stress is bad for the individual and has direct consequences for society. The harmful effects of stress our our well-being, health, and communities are widely documented and now generally acknowledged. What is less evident is that addressing individual professors' stress has political and educational ramifications" (4) and "faculty stress directly affects student learning" (6). Instead of asking "what is wrong with us?" that we seem to be struggling as academics within our institutional contexts, the authors ask, "what is wrong with the academic system?" that it creates conditions that we know are actually detrimental to our being effective as academics. That these issues of stress and time crunch can be directly connected to some of our most significant work -- teaching -- is really important. I know that I've felt very compromised as a teacher lately because last quarter as we were reading about how we need more time to deeply think about our actions and responsibilities, I was also completely behind in their grading and everything else, unable to role-model what I was talking about. If I can't actually do what my class argues for in the context of my visible work life, how can I expect my students to take seriously what I'm advocating? (What's more, at my institution, which is deeply entangled with the corporate model, I may be able to more effectively argue for better conditions by talking about the way it makes me an ineffective teacher and role model than by arguing for traditional academic values. This is just an oddity of my institution, though. It may be that others can do more with that argument.)
I love that Berg and Seeber assert that in response to "crisis!" and calls for efficiency, "Slow Professors act with purpose, taking the time for deliberation, reflection, and dialogue, cultivating emotional and intellectual resilience, able, as Collini puts it, to hold our nerve" (11). In the face of all the calls to rush to a decision (and I know I'm NOT the person I'm capable of being when I'm rushed, as suggested in the Rettig quote in the Preface), asking for time to consider something has seemed weak or ineffectual or just plain not possible. My chair and I spoke about exactly this once, where zie affirmed that it was okay to say that I needed more time to make a decision. But it still seemed weak in the face of my highly-corporatized institution and institutional culture (where even some of my best colleagues would rather just throw something together, put in place, and then improve it later, which drives me nuts because a bad decision can definitely be worse -- and more damaging -- than none at all); Berg and Seeber help me see this differently -- that asserting that I need more time to consider a decision can be seen as resistance. What's more, I can also think of it as role-modeling to others that we should be taking more time to think deeply about our decisions.
While Berg and Seeber are both humanities scholars, they also assert that "[The humanities] are paradigmatic of the non-instrumental intellectual enquiry which we need to protect across disciplines. It is precisely this critical thinking that is at the heart of the university as a public good" (13). This reminds me of the movie, Contact, and the pulling of funding for all pure research in favor of applied research. So I can see the connection to the STEM disciplines here. Though my strange context has made me wonder about the notion of a critical citizenry as a public good. Obviously, while some critical thinking can be deployed to solve corporate problems, it doesn't necessarily seem helpful to corporate interests to have an informed and critical citizenry. So the corporate university does not support the notion of critical citizenry as a public good. (In fact, what I'm learning about neoliberalism is that it does not support notions of the public or common good.) So I'm wondering whether the notion of a critical citizenry as a public good now sounds like a liberal (as in liberal versus conservative) notion. I know that it's very difficult to argue, in my context, for these broad values; both students and faculty in other disciplines at my institution believe implicitly in the instrumentality of the education we provide and academic knowledge more broadly. (Another, perhaps too harsh, way to say this is that my institution doesn't really believe in academic values.)
What are your thoughts about the introduction? What does the culture of busyness, overwork, and efficiency look like at your institution? (Perhaps sharing these will help us all to recognize the signs -- and opportunities for resistance -- at our own institutions.) And I've been thinking a lot about this one: how can we decolonize our own heads of this thinking (that what's wrong is us rather than this efficiency and overwork culture) so that we can change our own habits, self-talk, and interactions with others so we can be people and academics we're capable of being?
Please don't feel constrained by my questions or opinions! Take the comments in any direction you like. I look forward to it!
Friday, July 1, 2016
Discussing the Slow Professor: Week 1: Introductions and Preface
Welcome! I am delighted to host a discussion of Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber's The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy. Please join us for a thoughtful discussion about its principles and how we can apply them to our own academic and other work lives. In keeping with the book title and focus (and to keep me from swallowing the book whole), we're deliberately reading slowly in order to savor each morsel and really digest its lessons, so we'll read one chapter per week and discuss it (which should allow even those who are on challenging reading schedules to weigh in).
Here's the breakdown by week:
Week 1 7/1-7/7: Introduce ourselves and read/comment on the Preface.
Week 2 7/8-7/14: Discuss Introduction (pp.1-15)
Week 3 7/15-7/21: Discuss Ch. 1: Time Management and Timelessness (pp.16-32)
Week 4 7/22-7/28: Discuss Ch. 2: Pedagogy and Pleasure (pp. 33-51)
Week 5 7/29-8/4: Discuss Ch. 3: Research and Understanding (pp.52-70)
Week 6 8/5-8/11: Discuss Ch. 4: Collegiality and Community (pp. 71-84)
Week 7 8/12-8/18: Discuss Conclusion: Collaboration and Thinking Together (pp. 85-89)
At the beginning of each of our weeks, I will put together a (hopefully) thoughtful prompt about what we read and then we'll use the comments to discuss the text (whether your comment follows my prompt or not).
I would ask that everyone play nicely and engage in collegial, productive discussion. Most of us probably have strong feelings about academic life as well as the culture of crisis and efficiency that is encroaching on, or come to dominate, our work lives (for good or ill); we just need to remember to keep from turning our strong emotions on each other. If you hate the book or someone one's comments, please just critique thoughtfully.
For this first week, please introduce yourself, your institutional background (if you wish), and what you're hoping to get from this discussion. Once you've read the Preface, please feel free to comment on that as well. (Also, if you're like many people with busy summer plans that have you busier some weeks than others, please feel free to join the discussion even if you can't be here each week. I realize that in starting today many US citizens are just about to start long weekends, which may or may not be perfect for getting some reading done. No worries: join us when you can!)
Welcome!
Here's the breakdown by week:
Week 1 7/1-7/7: Introduce ourselves and read/comment on the Preface.
Week 2 7/8-7/14: Discuss Introduction (pp.1-15)
Week 3 7/15-7/21: Discuss Ch. 1: Time Management and Timelessness (pp.16-32)
Week 4 7/22-7/28: Discuss Ch. 2: Pedagogy and Pleasure (pp. 33-51)
Week 5 7/29-8/4: Discuss Ch. 3: Research and Understanding (pp.52-70)
Week 6 8/5-8/11: Discuss Ch. 4: Collegiality and Community (pp. 71-84)
Week 7 8/12-8/18: Discuss Conclusion: Collaboration and Thinking Together (pp. 85-89)
At the beginning of each of our weeks, I will put together a (hopefully) thoughtful prompt about what we read and then we'll use the comments to discuss the text (whether your comment follows my prompt or not).
I would ask that everyone play nicely and engage in collegial, productive discussion. Most of us probably have strong feelings about academic life as well as the culture of crisis and efficiency that is encroaching on, or come to dominate, our work lives (for good or ill); we just need to remember to keep from turning our strong emotions on each other. If you hate the book or someone one's comments, please just critique thoughtfully.
For this first week, please introduce yourself, your institutional background (if you wish), and what you're hoping to get from this discussion. Once you've read the Preface, please feel free to comment on that as well. (Also, if you're like many people with busy summer plans that have you busier some weeks than others, please feel free to join the discussion even if you can't be here each week. I realize that in starting today many US citizens are just about to start long weekends, which may or may not be perfect for getting some reading done. No worries: join us when you can!)
Welcome!
Friday, June 24, 2016
Coming Soon: Discussion of The Slow Professor
(Ohmigod, ohmigod ohmigod. I am done! Let the summer begin! It's about time!!!)
Coming soon to this blogspot is a discussion of The Slow Professor. We'll be taking it slowly, reading a chapter a week and mulling it over, discussing it. I'm excited because I must figure out a different way to approach my job for everyone's health and sanity, and I long to discuss it with others! Here's a piece from NPR about the book that explains why you should join the discussion!
Coming soon to this blogspot is a discussion of The Slow Professor. We'll be taking it slowly, reading a chapter a week and mulling it over, discussing it. I'm excited because I must figure out a different way to approach my job for everyone's health and sanity, and I long to discuss it with others! Here's a piece from NPR about the book that explains why you should join the discussion!
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Telegrams from Land of Overworked Overwhelm
Have gotten to impossible part of quarter. STOP. All research goals on hiatus for duration. STOP. So much grading. Please make it STOP.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Anyone Want to Discuss The Slow Professor?
So TLQ is back, so I'm doing that work over there. But probably many of you have seen this report on NPR about the new book, The Slow Professor. It not only critiques the corporate university's emphasis on speed and efficiency, but uses Slow Food principles to advocate another way. With my love of slow food principles, I just had to get the book. I savored the first chapter and am reading the second. But I can already see how wonderful it would be to discuss the book with others. Anyone want to discuss this in a sort of book group way? I could host here or we could develop a new blogspace so everyone interested could have blogging privileges. I've also asked if people on TLQ are interested as well. Leave a comment here or email me at earnestenglish@gmail.com if you're interested.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Weekly and Secondary Field Check-In
So Top Left Quadrant is starting up again next week. Thank goodness. (I hate the quarter system.) It'll go from next week until August. I'll have to create session goals, as usual, which will be weird because the first five or so weeks will be during teaching and craziness, then starting in July, I'll have some time off. Woohooo! I can't wait! I really want to get some serious work done on Secondary Field Project! So let me think of that for a few minutes.
Secondary Field Project
So what's become clear since I made my ambitious goals is that some of them are easier to meet than others. Writing 3x a week is going okay. Some very busy weeks it does not get done, but mostly I can squish it between this and that, either in the morning or on the weekends. What I haven't been able to do is to make sure that the freewriting is actually leading to the monthly goal of 2Y. This actually has always been a problem. Freewriting is great. I can do that all day long. (I wish I could do that all day long.) But then when it comes to pulling that writing out of my notebook and seeing which pieces really have potential to be further thought about and developed -- I'm not getting that done. I actually think I have to wait until Summer for that, which helps me think about those Summer goals. In Summer, I want to continue the writing, but also go back and review what freewriting has potential. So each work day, I will need to start off by writing and then go back into my older writing and see what has potential and can be revised. I'd like to have a big chunk of Y by the end of the Summer. One TLQ-er mentioned figuring out what's worth doing this Summer by imagining sitting down with tea on the first day of Fall and feeling satisfied with one's Summer work. Now, what would cause that satisfied feeling? I think what I want is that by the end of Summer, I have the writing -- the Y writing and the writing with promise that can be worked on -- printed out and all together in a folder. I've been working on this project for so long and in so many places -- my journal, on my computer in various separate folders, in special notebooks of notes -- that printing it out and seeing it would really help my morale. So by the end of Summer, print out what I have. (Anne Lamott says you have to do this -- print everything out so you can see your progress. I remember it really helped while I was working on my diss as well.)
It's funny but a friend of mine in Secondary Field tells me that she does her new writing during Summer and then uses the year to revise that. I can understand the wisdom of this, since Summer time allows one to be much more exploratory while during the schoolyear one is more critical, a perfect attitude for revision. But somehow I'm backwards from that. I can write in a somewhat exploratory way, but going back into my work and engaging in revision is beyond me. Maybe I need the writing as an outlet during the year. Maybe I just need more time for revision.
In the "need more time" column, I worked on my sabbatical application again last night. I must get that done before the end of the quarter. Really.
Last Week's Goals
1. Research: Try to get back to 3x. Try to engage with or address one big source I've ILLd that must be returned very soon. Touch Sabbatical application at least once?
I think I did manage 3x this week, though that's complicated by the fact that I ran out of pages in my journal and must get a new one. I addressed the big source that I ILL'd and returned it. I worked on my sabbatical application last night and discovered that I'd overthought it, that I was trying to argue things I didn't have to argue. Still it feels like such a long shot.
2. Health: Supplements, good food, be kind to self. Sleep is good, and so is morale.
Well, I managed the supplements, good food, and being kind to self, mostly, but sleep is where I really failed because of the sleep versus morale problem where I stay up too late because I've had to work so much and if I don't get some me time I really will just freak out with grumpiness.
3. Family: Therapy exercises! Keep evenings for family time.
Yes, I'm keeping on top of the therapy exercises as best I can. I'm doing my best at keeping evenings for family time. Spirited needs a new spring jacket and some other things and so I think I need to take him clothes shopping as well.
4. Gardening: Try to get the tomato seeds planted. Water.
It's been raining so I haven't had to do this. I haven't gotten the tomato seeds planted yet. Must get it done this week!
5. Work: So I need to commit to a good grading clip, keep up with seminar students, post something on our LMS, get that report revised and send it out for comments, and generally work with a good clip and commitment. I think I have to allow myself extra coffee as a reward/enticement.
I got the big report revised, sent it out for comments, revised it, and then distributed it to all stakeholders last week! I'm done with that nightmare! (Of course, the very minute that I got that done and was having the two-seconds of celebration, my department chair reminded me of other work on that front. Sigh. That's in progress too.) I got a stack of detailed grading done by Friday. Now I have a much bigger stack of much-easier grading I must get through. On Monday, I have another stack of detailed grading coming in, so it would be great if I could get the big stack done asap. Oy!
Interestingly, while I'm focused on Secondary Field, I got two pieces of good news this week (actually in the same day) about Primary Field work. A collection I submitted a piece for now has a contract with a publisher (huzzah!) and I was invited to do something related to that work. I love being invited to things, of course, and find it hard to say no because I suck at establishing and following my own priorities. No, that's not quite it. I have so many different interests that it's hard for me to say no to one because I have a commitment to another. Really, doing this thing doesn't mean stealing time from Secondary Field Project though after I said yes, I thought to myself: what are you doing? The truth is I need to keep one foot in each field, and this helps me to do that.
Upcoming Week Goals
1. Research: 3x. Work on sabbatical app. Get new journal, stat!
2. Health: supplements, food, sleep, baths. Do not drive myself nuts.
3. Family: therapy exercises and evening family time. Take Spirited shopping.
4. Gardening: tomato seeds in flat. Do it. Get it done. Water regularly.
5. Work: Okay. While I'd love to get the Easy Stacks done today and tomorrow, I'm also not going to have a crummy day with my family today and avoid doing all the other things I want to do (plant seeds, get new journal, maybe go get Spirited clothes?) in order to be a working machine because I also have work that is more urgent even than Easy Stacks! So I need to get to some reading and responding first, then see if I can get something done on Easy Stacks. Easy Stacks can be turned back later in the week, if necessary. Later in the week, I'll get a bunch more from those classes, so I do need to get on the stick, but I'm not driving myself nuts. (See Health.)
Happy May Day everyone!
Secondary Field Project
So what's become clear since I made my ambitious goals is that some of them are easier to meet than others. Writing 3x a week is going okay. Some very busy weeks it does not get done, but mostly I can squish it between this and that, either in the morning or on the weekends. What I haven't been able to do is to make sure that the freewriting is actually leading to the monthly goal of 2Y. This actually has always been a problem. Freewriting is great. I can do that all day long. (I wish I could do that all day long.) But then when it comes to pulling that writing out of my notebook and seeing which pieces really have potential to be further thought about and developed -- I'm not getting that done. I actually think I have to wait until Summer for that, which helps me think about those Summer goals. In Summer, I want to continue the writing, but also go back and review what freewriting has potential. So each work day, I will need to start off by writing and then go back into my older writing and see what has potential and can be revised. I'd like to have a big chunk of Y by the end of the Summer. One TLQ-er mentioned figuring out what's worth doing this Summer by imagining sitting down with tea on the first day of Fall and feeling satisfied with one's Summer work. Now, what would cause that satisfied feeling? I think what I want is that by the end of Summer, I have the writing -- the Y writing and the writing with promise that can be worked on -- printed out and all together in a folder. I've been working on this project for so long and in so many places -- my journal, on my computer in various separate folders, in special notebooks of notes -- that printing it out and seeing it would really help my morale. So by the end of Summer, print out what I have. (Anne Lamott says you have to do this -- print everything out so you can see your progress. I remember it really helped while I was working on my diss as well.)
It's funny but a friend of mine in Secondary Field tells me that she does her new writing during Summer and then uses the year to revise that. I can understand the wisdom of this, since Summer time allows one to be much more exploratory while during the schoolyear one is more critical, a perfect attitude for revision. But somehow I'm backwards from that. I can write in a somewhat exploratory way, but going back into my work and engaging in revision is beyond me. Maybe I need the writing as an outlet during the year. Maybe I just need more time for revision.
In the "need more time" column, I worked on my sabbatical application again last night. I must get that done before the end of the quarter. Really.
Last Week's Goals
1. Research: Try to get back to 3x. Try to engage with or address one big source I've ILLd that must be returned very soon. Touch Sabbatical application at least once?
I think I did manage 3x this week, though that's complicated by the fact that I ran out of pages in my journal and must get a new one. I addressed the big source that I ILL'd and returned it. I worked on my sabbatical application last night and discovered that I'd overthought it, that I was trying to argue things I didn't have to argue. Still it feels like such a long shot.
2. Health: Supplements, good food, be kind to self. Sleep is good, and so is morale.
Well, I managed the supplements, good food, and being kind to self, mostly, but sleep is where I really failed because of the sleep versus morale problem where I stay up too late because I've had to work so much and if I don't get some me time I really will just freak out with grumpiness.
3. Family: Therapy exercises! Keep evenings for family time.
Yes, I'm keeping on top of the therapy exercises as best I can. I'm doing my best at keeping evenings for family time. Spirited needs a new spring jacket and some other things and so I think I need to take him clothes shopping as well.
4. Gardening: Try to get the tomato seeds planted. Water.
It's been raining so I haven't had to do this. I haven't gotten the tomato seeds planted yet. Must get it done this week!
5. Work: So I need to commit to a good grading clip, keep up with seminar students, post something on our LMS, get that report revised and send it out for comments, and generally work with a good clip and commitment. I think I have to allow myself extra coffee as a reward/enticement.
I got the big report revised, sent it out for comments, revised it, and then distributed it to all stakeholders last week! I'm done with that nightmare! (Of course, the very minute that I got that done and was having the two-seconds of celebration, my department chair reminded me of other work on that front. Sigh. That's in progress too.) I got a stack of detailed grading done by Friday. Now I have a much bigger stack of much-easier grading I must get through. On Monday, I have another stack of detailed grading coming in, so it would be great if I could get the big stack done asap. Oy!
Interestingly, while I'm focused on Secondary Field, I got two pieces of good news this week (actually in the same day) about Primary Field work. A collection I submitted a piece for now has a contract with a publisher (huzzah!) and I was invited to do something related to that work. I love being invited to things, of course, and find it hard to say no because I suck at establishing and following my own priorities. No, that's not quite it. I have so many different interests that it's hard for me to say no to one because I have a commitment to another. Really, doing this thing doesn't mean stealing time from Secondary Field Project though after I said yes, I thought to myself: what are you doing? The truth is I need to keep one foot in each field, and this helps me to do that.
Upcoming Week Goals
1. Research: 3x. Work on sabbatical app. Get new journal, stat!
2. Health: supplements, food, sleep, baths. Do not drive myself nuts.
3. Family: therapy exercises and evening family time. Take Spirited shopping.
4. Gardening: tomato seeds in flat. Do it. Get it done. Water regularly.
5. Work: Okay. While I'd love to get the Easy Stacks done today and tomorrow, I'm also not going to have a crummy day with my family today and avoid doing all the other things I want to do (plant seeds, get new journal, maybe go get Spirited clothes?) in order to be a working machine because I also have work that is more urgent even than Easy Stacks! So I need to get to some reading and responding first, then see if I can get something done on Easy Stacks. Easy Stacks can be turned back later in the week, if necessary. Later in the week, I'll get a bunch more from those classes, so I do need to get on the stick, but I'm not driving myself nuts. (See Health.)
Happy May Day everyone!
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