Weekly Update: 3/18 - 3/24

Exploring tide pools in Netarts, Oregon

reflection

We took an impromptu trip to the beach (very unlike me… the impromptu part, not the beach part). I was joking with a friend the other week that I needed a beach trip. While she couldn’t provide me with a trip to the beach, she did offer up a night in her guest room, free of charge. We took her up on the offer and had a family sleepover (last week), which was lots of fun. We tried to have all the kids sleep in one room (two 2 year olds and one 4 year old)… didn’t work so well! Doing a little local getaway made me want to go to the beach even more! I searched around for reasonably priced lodging and found a place on Airbnb for $45/night (really $60/night when you add in fees/taxes) that was a short walk to the beach, had decent reviews, was under a 2 hour drive, and had 2 bedrooms. So… on Monday I booked it and we headed to the beach on Wednesday. We’re continuing the trend from the last 2 years where we’ve done short beach trips during finals week since prices go up during spring break. Regardless of how chaotic the end of the term can be, I think doing a small trip before jumping into spring term is much needed. We stayed 2 nights and it was just enough time for a reset. While I did do work (mainly grading and providing comments on a manuscript), I got to break up my work with walks on the beach… can’t beat that (I guess technically I could beat that, if I didn’t have to work at all at the beach… 😉).

In work related news, I (along with collaborators) had a paper accepted not too long ago (can’t remember exactly when and I don’t feel like looking it up!), so that’s good news! I also moved offices, which went much more smoothly than I anticipated. Spent most of my week grading, which was to be expected. I did make space for a sizable chunk of research time early in the week, and then had at least 30 minutes every other day where I edited a manuscript (because I needed to send it back to collaborators by Friday). I did end up working in the evenings and on Saturday this week; however, the beach time offset the evening/weekend work time.

research

Paper 3: My goal for the week was to do some data management (creating a new variable). Goal met? Yes and doing so made me remember just how much I love playing around with datasets!

Paper 4: My goals for the week were to finalize edits/comments on this paper and send it off to co-authors on Friday. Goal met? Yup. I debated checking in and saying I needed another week, but I really just want to focus on course prep next week so I decided to just do it and be done with it (for now, at least!)

Systematic review/interview project: My goals for the week were to check in with my collaborator, letting them know I’m super behind on my end of things. Goal met? No… will definitely do this next week!

teaching

Course prep (condensed research course): My goal for the week was to post feedback for their final assignment. Goal met? No. Going to do all feedback posting for both classes next week.

Course prep (online research course): My goals for the week were to review/provide feedback for their article critique assignment, review/provide feedback for their final assignment, and post a wrap up video. Goal met? Yes.

Course prep (condensed stats course and online human dev course): My goals for the week were to get week 1 videos ready to go for the online course and to do one piece of prep for the stats course. Goal met? Got the week 1 video done (I may add another but at least the basic info they need is ready). I did not get to work on the stats course at all.

service + admin

Planning: My goal for the week was to have my weekly list ready to go on Friday with Monday’s tasks picked out. Goal met? Nope.

meetings, appointments, + events

✓TA grading check in
✓TA check in for course next term
✓pick up new office keys
✓BEACH! 🌅🎉

personal

Workouts: Walking on the beach counts, right?!

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? Nope… nothing this week.

Budget: ✓Update budget - our grocery bill for March is looking pretty good right now!