Weekly Update: 1/7 - 1/13
Enjoying the January Sun!
reflection
As the week comes to a close, Ellie’s sleep is finally starting to get back to it’s old predictable self. The past three mornings we’ve had consistent ~7/7:15 wake up calls, hooray! This week marked the official start of winter term (i.e., students were back on campus) and it was exhausting. Early starts to the day with late endings and no room to adjust my schedule to compensate on other days… making me feel scattered and tense and headache-y. Looking at my calendar, I think things will lighten up once February rolls around, so there is an end in sight, and it also makes me think about why we pile all these things into our schedule at once and the price we pay (in both our health/well-being and the quality of our work). I had initially thought I’d try and do some work this weekend (given an upcoming conference) but I decided against it in favor of spending time with Mike and Ellie. Lots more thoughts about the structure of academic life and how it doesn’t feel like it promotes health/well-being… but they aren’t flowing freely right now and I’d rather head to bed than spend more time trying to get them out! Another time… in other news, it’s been sunny! We spent time outside this weekend and it was lovely.
research
Paper 1: My goals for this week were to review where I left off/determine next steps and also check in with my collaborator. Goal met? No, there was way too much going on this week and research was one of the things that got dropped. Not thrilled about it, but it is what it is right now. Next week isn’t looking much better… I think the theme for January is going to be lowering my expectations. I do have some previously identified next steps, but I haven’t looked at them since before break so I needed a refresher before getting back into it.
teaching
Course prep (condensed research course): My goals for the week were to finalize course prep for class 1 (making paper airplanes, reviewing materials, posting updated materials on the course page, updating the grade book, creating assignment folders, double checking class location, and final printing needs). Goal met? Yes. I taught on Friday so there was a high level of built in accountability this week.
Course prep (online research course): My goal for the week was to check in with my TA, create/finalize/upload week 3 videos, do a final review of week 2 content before it opened, finalize week 3 content, post an update in the class announcements section. Goal met? Yes. New (to me) online courses are a beast at the beginning. I’ll likely be teaching one more new (to me) online course next year (that I do teach in a face to face format in the spring). I’m trying to think about ways to set myself up for next year so the prep at the front end isn’t so intense.
Course prep (condensed stats class): My goal for the week was to do one piece of course prep for spring term. Goal met? Yes. I ended up creating a course calendar, that included this course and my spring online course, that I’ll share with my TA for next term to keep us organized. It’s not completely finished but it does count as doing one thing!
Lead instructor: My goal for the week was to create a brief presentation for our program meeting to talk through strengths, challenges, and ideas for re-envisioning the human development course I serve as the lead instructor for. Goal met? Yes. The presentation was just providing an overview of what the current structure of the class is, so it wasn’t difficult to quickly put something together. After the presentation we had small group work time, so there wasn’t anything I needed to prep for that part of it.
Advising: I finally got around to all those non-urgent questions from students that had piled up, woohoo!
service + admin
Search committee: I played host for part of the day for a visit this week.
Applications: My goal for the week was to plan out when I’m going to tackle reviewing my assigned applicants for our program’s grad school application pool. Goal met? No. This wasn’t 100% necessary this week as they aren’t due until February, so this will have to wait.
Equity committee: My goal for the week was to share a previously created document with new work group members in preparation for our meeting on Thursday. Goal met? Yes.
3rd year review: My goal for the week was to update my narrative. Goal met? I’m giving myself half credit for this. My goal was so vague that really anything could have qualified. I did spend about 20 minutes updating it, but not the actual hour and a half I had blocked off because other things popped up during that time. So, I did some basic editing/brainstorming, but not as much as I had hoped.
Conference: My goal for the week was to book travel for an upcoming conference. Goal met? No. Not essential meant it didn’t get done this week.
Other general admin tasks: My goals for the week were to print my winter 2019 goals so I have them front and center and also add my syllabus to the school’s shared folder. Goals met? Nope. Not essential, so not happening.
Planning: My goal for the week was to plan for the upcoming week. Goal met? Nope!
meetings
Meetings: ✓advising office hours (x2), ✓campus visit, ✓TA check in, ✓online office hours, ✓program meeting, ✓equity committee meeting, ✓class
personal
Workouts: Goal: 3 workouts Goal met: No, did 2. I did make it to the gym for an Olympic lifting class! Whenever I set foot in the gym I’m reminded of why I signed up for it… it’s small, the people are super laid back, they have lots of bumper plates and a number of oly lifting platforms, they offer a bunch of different classes, and it’s $30/mo. If it was only a bit closer to my side of town it’d be perfect.
Toddler on the Tenure Track: Goal: Get 2 posts up on the blog. Goal met? Yes!
Meditation: Goal: 5 minutes every other day Goal met? Yes!
Budget: ✓Update budget