Weekly Update: 3/4 - 3/10

reflection

Started off the week not feeling so great. I had planned to be on campus on Monday but chose to stay home to try and get some rest, which meant cancelling office hours, rescheduling a research related meeting for later in the week, and not attending a workshop. While I didn’t actually take a sick day, I did try and get a nap in during the day… which didn’t work out so well. When I was trying to sleep Ellie was screaming, about what I’m not sure. All I know is that I got out of bed to see what was going on because it was kind of intense. I go into the living room and see her with her feet propped up on the couch, hands on the floor (in an elevated plank position) and screaming incoherently. She wanted me or Mike to do something, but neither of us could figure out what. She eventually calmed down and she left for the library with Mike. I laid down again and one of our cats (pictured above) started meowing loudly and my stomach was rumbling and sun was shining into the room… so I gave up and started grading. I did get a nap in today (6 days later!). This week feels like a bit of a blur, we had a very social weekend, which was awesome and also exhausting at the same time. My work week was filled mostly with grading and some research related work (which included getting blocked from google scholar for 24 hours thanks to Zotero…). As I look at my list, the number of things on it feels like its lessening, but the time/effort needed to complete these things is still pretty intensive. I spent ~3-4 hours each day this week grading papers/assignments for my 2 classes, leaving the other half of each day for research, course prep, administrative stuff (mainly emails), and meetings. I’d really like it to be the other way around, that I’m spending half of each day on research related tasks and then using the rest of my time to get all my teaching and service related work done. This is certainly possible when I’m only advising or teaching 1 class in a term, but with 2 I’m not sure it’s possible (unless you’ve taught both courses many, many times before).

research

Paper 3: My goal for the week was to collaboratively come up with next steps based on a co-author meeting. Goal met? Yes.

Systematic review/interview project: My goals for the week were to create updated search terms (we shifted our focus slightly, which means new searches), start searching, and some administrative stuff (emails). Goal met? Yes.

teaching

Course prep (condensed research course): My goals for the week were to review/provide feedback for an article critique assignment (13 total) and do some admin stuff (emails). Goal met? I graded their assignments but did not get around to releasing my comments - so it’s done, just one more step to finish it up (and releasing feedback always takes longer than I think it will).

Course prep (online research course): My goals for the week were to create/finalize/upload an end of term wrap up video, finalize and do a final review of week 10 content before it went live, post an update in the class announcements section, troubleshoot some tech issues, review course feedback, and review/provide feedback for 14 study design assignments. Goal met? Everything except creating a wrap up video (which I’ll do early next week - I just needed a break from making videos!).

Course prep (condensed stats course and online human dev course): My goal for the week was to do one piece of prep for each course. Goal met? Nope.

service + admin

Planning: My goal for the week was to have my weekly list ready to go on Friday with Monday’s tasks identified. Goal met? Sort of… I have the list (but haven’t cross checked in with my larger to do list) and have a few things picked out for Monday, but probably could add some more. I’d give myself 50% credit for this goal.

meetings, appointments, + events

✗Open Edu Workshop (sick)
✗✓office hours (x2; cancelled one, had the other)
✓collaborator check in (re-scheduled to a different day)
✓dentist
✓online office hours
✓lead instructor meeting
✓faculty meeting
✓collaborator check in
✓Open Edu grant meeting

personal

Workouts: Got at least 5 in (maybe 6). Still on the body weight kick. Want to try out the barbell again as I have a PT appointment coming up. Went over to a friend’s house (Mike dropped Ellie and I off) and instead of Mike picking us back up when we were done, we took a 30 minute stroller walk back to our house (at a pace where I broke a sweat) and it was lovely (and Ellie was content in the stroller the whole time). Very ready for spring weather.

Toddler on the Tenure Track: Goal: Get 2 posts up on the blog. Goal met? Yup.

Meditation: Goal: 5 minutes every other day Goal met? Had a good week last week, but this week all my well-being effort went to getting some workouts in… apparently I can’t do both!

Budget: ✓Update budget