conference travel — Blog — Toddler on the Tenure Track

Weekly Update: 6/17 - 6/23

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.

Weekly Update: 6/10 - 6/16

We are. Still. Traveling. We’re coming up on the two week mark and I think that might be my limit. Or at least my limit of not having a consistent schedule.

Weekly Update: 6/3 - 6/9

This week Mike and I celebrated 8 years of marriage… by flying across the country with a three year old, which is probably the most fun way you could spend an anniversary. It actually wasn’t that bad. Everything went as smoothly as it could go, we didn’t have any major meltdowns, and the airplane snacks/drinks kept Ellie entertained for a really long time.

Weekly Update: 5/27 - 6/2

Most weeks I try to reserve weekends and evenings (and holidays… like Monday) for non-work related activities. When the work week includes a holiday and a day long workshop, mixed with meetings and other events, it makes it hard to do much else. This week I had about 12 hours (not even 2 full work days) to get all of my non-meeting work done, which wasn’t enough time… so work crept into personal time.

Weekly Update: 4/8 - 4/14

I have so much respect for people who travel regularly for work. I left for a conference in San Antonio on Tuesday morning and came back on Saturday morning (should have been Friday evening) and I am so exhausted. Prior to the conference I thought… I’ll have all this time to myself to get work done and work on the blog and relax and explore and watch cable TV and read… HA!

Tenure and Life UpdatesJillApril 14, 2019weekly update, course prep, working out, meditation, goals, reflection, april, travel, conference travelComment

Academic Conference-ing with a Toddler

This will be my last post about our recent San Francisco trip/conference, I promise! In general, I’m not a huge fan of large conferences. All of the socializing is exhausting and a lot of the networking that happens feels fake (unless you’re getting connecting through people you already know). I think the most valuable thing I got from this most recent conference was having the chance to catch up with friends and mentors from my grad school days. I hadn’t seen most of these people since I graduated and it felt like one big reunion. It seemed like every corner I turned I saw someone that I hadn’t seen in years. After 2.5 years of living across the country from everyone we know, it was nice to run into so many familiar faces.

Academic LifeJillFebruary 23, 2019conference travel, traveling with a toddler, travelComment

Toddler Approved San Francisco Spots

Before taking a trip with Ellie, Mike and I scour the internet for free/cheap kid friendly spots in our destination. I appreciate seeing what’s worked for other families, so... in this post I’m sharing Ellie’s top 10 San Francisco spots. I’ve been to SF twice before, but never with a kid and I will say that it is definitely a fun city to explore with a toddler. If I can manage any other work funded trips, we will definitely be back again!

Just for FunJillFebruary 16, 2019traveling with a toddler, travel, conference travel, san franciscoComment

Traveling to San Francisco with a Toddler

In January we headed to San Francisco for 5 days/4 nights for a conference (for my work). We were able to find quick/reasonably priced flights for a little under 100/pp round-trip, so Mike and Ellie joined me. We bought the tickets awhile ago, before we had our serious finance conversation. I’m not sure we’d spend ~200 on flights at the present moment (my flight was covered with startup funds). It was our first plane trip that didn’t end with a visit to see family on the east coast (and with people who could provide us with a free car seat and a ride after getting off the plane!).

Academic LifeJillFebruary 16, 2019traveling with a toddler, conference travel, travel, san franciscoComment

Weekly Update: 1/28 - 2/3

This week was better than last, but still not ideal. I went to bed at ~1:30am on Thursday night in an effort to finish course prep so that I could have all of Friday (for the most part) to work on my 3rd year review that is due on Monday. While I got course prep done and was able to have the day for third year review work (which included working until ~9:30pm), staying up late, skipping dinner with the fam, and sitting hunched over a computer all day is really no way to live. As I look at the coming week and my ever growing to-do list I’m struck by the fact that there is really no possible way to get everything done (which I have to remind myself time and time again) and that academic life is just a perpetual cycle of triage.

Weekly Update: 1/21 - 1/27

January, January January. This is my third one on the tenure track and every year there’s been something that just makes it extra special. My first year it was my first term teaching (I had course buyouts in the fall) so I was figuring all that out. Along with teaching we started Ellie in daycare (for a week until deciding on the whole stay at home dad thing). Ellie and I both got really sick, she had her first ear infection and I ended up getting walking pneumonia. My second year our cats got fleas and we spent all of January (and Feb) getting rid of them, constant vacuuming and washing of any fabrics in the house. This year, we’re not sick (knock on wood) and there are no blood sucking parasites currently living in our house (that we know of), so it’s definitely an improvement, but I am putting in way too many hours in front of my computer and in meetings.