Weekly Update: 12/31 - 1/6
In an effort to prevent Ellie from sleeping too late during her one nap of the week we opened up her door, turned on the hallway light, and I went in and took pictures… didn’t work, 5:30PM and still sleeping!
reflection
Back to reality and hello to 2019! I was still on break on Monday and Tuesday of this week, so it was a short work week for me. While I love that academic life has built in “breaks,” it takes so much of my energy to get back into work mode that sometimes I wonder if it’d be easier to do a little bit of work each day during the break so that I’m not as drained during the first week back. This could also have something to do with Ellie’s sleep lately. If you follow me on instagram you may have seen that she woke up at 2:30am (and did not go back down) one day this week. She also got up at 3:30am another day and thankfully was able to put herself back down. She’s been skipping her daily nap too so we’ve been instituting quiet time, which seems to work more often than not. She’s only 2.5 so I can’t imagine she’s completely dropping her naps, hopefully it’s just a phase! When Ellie’s sleep is off, our sleep is off, which makes everything else more difficult. Certainly a fun way to start off winter quarter!
research
Conference submission: My goal for this week was to submit a conference abstract. Goal met? No. I misread the abstract due date and thought it was due later this month, which would have been doable. Turns out it was due on Friday, oops! I considered quickly putting something together as I’d be pulling it from a paper I’m working on, but it would have involved a collaborator and I didn’t want to spring this on them two days before it was due. In the end, the benefit of potentially having another line of my CV didn’t seem worth the stress of pulling something together last minute. There will be other conferences!
teaching
Course prep (online research course): My goals for the week were to finalize week 2 videos and content and also do a final check of week 1 content and course assignments before going live. Goal met? Yes. The fact that I was able to get week 2 videos done is so exciting (8 more to go, ha!)
Course prep (condensed research course): My goal for the week was to do 1 piece of course prep for class next week. Goal met? Yes. I got the online portion of the course ready for it to go live this past week and also sent off materials to be printed. Still need to give my slides/notes a once over before I teach. We’re also doing an activity that involves paper airplanes during our first meeting, so I need to make those this coming week.
Advising: Lots of letters, forms, and coordinating going on this week. I have a number of non-urgent questions from students that I need to follow up with next week as I’ve been putting them off in favor of things that absolutely need to get done.
service + admin
Search committee: Next week will kick off a flurry of campus visits so there were some minor admin related things I did this week in preparation.
Planning: My goal for the week was to plan for the upcoming week. Goal met? Nah, doing this on Monday morning as I’m not ready to face a full week back at work yet!
meetings
Meetings: ✗program meeting (cancelled), ✓admissions meeting
personal
Workouts: Goal: 3 workouts Goal met: Yes! Haven’t made it to the gym in awhile but I did 3 workouts at home (2 lifting sessions and 1 cardio).
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? Not quite, but I did get three sessions in, so that’s an improvement from last week!
Budget: ✓Create January budget