Weekly Update: 6/17 - 6/23
On our way to the airport at the end of our 2 week trip to the east coast
reflection
In the words of Daniel Tiger… “that was fun but now it’s done.” We had two major endings this week. We ended our two week trip to the east coast and I officially ended my third year on the tenure track (my contract ended last Sunday and grades were due on Tuesday… don’t ask me why they make grades due after our contracts end and after graduation…). With these 2 big events coming to an end, I’ve been thinking a lot about the passage of time. When Ellie was an infant, I sporadically listened to the podcast, The Longest Shortest Time, and I think about the title often because it so accurately describes life with a young kid. In the midst of the year, it felt like time was dragging and that our trip to see family was light years away, and now here I am settling back into daily life and it’s all done. And even on the trip, the days often felt long (especially during the nights I slept next to Ellie who is quite the active sleeper), but the weeks short. All the more reason to stay in the moment (even when your kid is kicking you in the stomach, ha!). We jumped right back into life on the west coast with our first preschool play date to meet the other families at our school, had dinner with friends for the summer solstice, went to the grand opening of a new park and a milk carton boat race. Having lots of social things to do eased the transition from being with our families all day every day for 2 weeks to just being our group of 3. Despite feeling like I needed to crash last week, I didn’t feel the need once we were back in our own space (I did take a pretty sweet nap the day after we got back, so maybe that helped me recharge).
Grades were due on Tuesday, which was also the day we flew back to Portland, so I made sure everything was ready to go on Monday. In terms of non-grade related work, I was pretty loose this week. I did some minor editing of a paper, responded to emails, edited a syllabus for next year, and worked on setting up a meeting with instructors for the course that I lead. I was feeling a bit scattered by the end of the week, and I think it’s because I’ve got a number of things up in the air/on pause that I need to move forward on. In an effort to “fix” this, I wrote down everything (and I mean everything) that I need/want to do in all areas of my life… which resulted in 5.5 pages (front and back) of stuff. A lot of these things are already on my to-do list, but some aren’t and the simple act of getting them out of my brain has been helpful. My next step (which I haven’t gotten to yet!) is to review the list, get rid of anything that’s not necessary, and then put what’s left in my calendar. I did something similar at the beginning of last summer, which leads me to believe that my brain needs a big reset after the official end of the school year. I’m kind of following a similar process to Brooke Castillo from the Life Coach School Podcast, which she talks about in great detail in episode 261: throw away your to-do list.
One final thing to note… I’ll be pushing pause on my weekly updates for the summer. I’m thinking of doing monthly updates for July and August, and then starting back up with weekly updates in mid-September, but I haven’t 100% decided that this is what I’ll do. Still planning to publish some sort of content once a week though (while also trying to work up a surplus of posts for next school year!). I also have a few other ideas up my sleeve that I’ll share in early August!
research
Paper 3: My goal for the week was to help with cutting content from the paper to get it ready to submit. Goal met? Sure? I made some edits/cuts, but not a ton. I found it hard to focus on edits after our day of travel on Tuesday and getting back into the swing of things at home.
teaching
Grading (both courses): My goals for the week were to finish inputting grades into the university’s official system, triple check that all of the grades were entered correctly, and release final grades for the human development course to students (grades for my other course were released last week). Goal met? Yes.
Lead instructor: My goals for the week were to send out an email about a check-in meeting for those who are teaching the human development course next year and also work on updates to the syllabus for next fall. Goal met? Yes.
service + admin
Planning: My goals for the week were to plan for the current week (on Monday) and to have my weekly list ready to go on Friday with Monday’s tasks picked out. Goal met? Hmm… I just went with the flow this week. I reviewed my list last weekend to make sure I knew what needed to happen before we traveled, but I didn’t actually outline things to do on Monday (other than triple check grades).
meetings, appointments, + events
✓flight back home
✓preschool play date
✓doctors
✓PD webinar
personal
Workouts: Three 20 minute yoga session and two lifting sessions… my knees were super sore during squatting, usually it takes a few sessions to get them feeling good again. Despite my joints hurting, I did feel really strong. Since I hadn’t lifted for 2 weeks, I reduced my weights by 20% (10% per week) and that helped me ease back into things.
Toddler on the Tenure Track: Goal: Get 2 posts up on the blog. Goal met? Yes.
Meditation: Here’s an update for this past week. I missed 3 days this week, oops! One of these days was our travel day, the second was the day after we got back, and the third was a day where we were over at a friend’s for dinner. I’m thinking that I really should make sure I meditate in the morning, as the day has a way of flying by.
Budget: ✗ Really need to sit down with June’s budget and see where we’re at! Will definitely do this next week.