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Damage Control
It has been an exhausting work week. One day has been tumbling into the next with the amount of work to be done exceeding the amount of hours in the day. Today I was in meetings from 11am through 5pm. I spent almost no time in my office. Tomorrow morning I need to teach and it’s a good thing that it is something I have taught regularly, becuase I have had little time to prepare. But the most interesting part of today has been damage control in terms of colleague drama. I am trying to decide how to handle it. I have a colleague that I generally like and get…
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Homework
I sent out homework today. I’ve been working on the pre-consultation worksheet that will guide the mandatory consultation I have with all the students in my grant writing course. Last year I was involved in this course, but as a last minute instructor and the dates available had to be worked out on the side, making the session optional. This year, I am a embedded instructor and as such, I am taking full opportunity to act as one. I had my lecture a few weeks ago about different resources, tools, and methods for searching. The students are required to write the specific aims, background, research methodology, and rationale for an…
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Instruction
Today was the second in a series of instruction sessions for a variety of my students. I received an email from the course coordinator last last week stating that all our planning was going to get changed (read cut). Ultimately, this meant that I would be limited to explaining and introduction to library resources in thirty minutes. It wasn’t as horrible as it could have been. I have taught enough that intro material doesn’t need much preparation. I was also secretly relieved because I really had enough work to do without the original, grand plan. I have more consecutive weeks of work to do, but that’s fine. This class is done…
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Creativity rears its ugly head
Work has clarified itself, at least in terms of immediate tasks. I’m guessing this is why my brain has decided to be creative this morning. Not needing brain power in other places, it’s free to do other things. In this case, I’ve pulled out notes for a story that has never quite let go of me. Now that I think of it, the notes have been around for close to five years–way to long to be dormant. I’m surprised it’s kept with me so long. I don’t know how much material I’ll keep. My guess is that I will triage a lot of it. I may not even look at…
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Neck deep in data
This week, like part of last week, is processing data. I am working on two projects, both spreadsheet heavy. The first is for a paper that involved us going back and remining almost sixty websites for course offerings and program listings. I’ve derived subset data sets about three times now. Every time we do it, we discover new questions based on inconsistencies. We go back, diambiguate and try again. I hope this is the last time. I’ve gotten about one-third of the processing done. I will have time to work on it tomorrow morning as well. Then after that, I will finish the data for my presentation to the pharmacy…
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Exhaustion, stress, and headaches
Today I had definitive proof that I have a connection betwee exhaustion and headaches. I had the data last April, but today was a prime example. The past twenty-four hours have been a time of heightened vigilance regarding my son and his mental health. The start of this episode began at almost two in the morning. When I wake up that early and are ripped from the Nexus, I feel physically sick until I wake up enough to be alert. My husband and I discussed the issue and the steps we would need to take the next day for a few hours. We also discussed his reaction and how he…
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He’s 18
Today is my son’s eighteenth birthday. Time had methodically passed, as it always does, and yet I still was a bit surprised by it. In my day to day life I have a blissful ignorance of milestones like these. The last time I counted down to anything was probably fourth grade. I’m generally not good with long term tracking. And so her we are eighteen years after his arrival. He’s my youngest one. I have an oldest and a youngest. I was heartbroken when my daughter left for college because she was the first. I will be heartbroken when he leaves because he will be my last. I tried not…
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Health initiative
Last weekend I finally made it into the dietician, a task three months delayed for administrative reasons. The session was surprisingly predictable: she had my lab report, we discussed my typical diet/activity, I had a list of questions. The upshot of the visit was that my intake is too high in fat and carbs, my calorie load is too high. We discussed the changes I needed to make and the first steps I was going to have to do. We addressed my complete unwillingness to count calories, because I’ve tried and it doesn’t work and I quit. We discussed my need to have continual support for a while. There wasn’t…
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Day in review Jan 19, 2016
I still haven’t gotten used to typing 2016 yet. I’m keep catching myself and having to correct. As predicted, the year started out running. I just had my first instruction session today. This course is part of COM, which has been hard to get traction from. But I was remembered and included this semester. This is a grant writing course that runs grad students through the process of writing for NIH. I am listed as an instructor rather than a guest lecturer, so I took advantage of that by assigning students out of class work. We’ll be having one consultation to make sure they are on track for finding literature.…
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Prioritization through matrixing
Today went well. I haven’t been good at setting intentions for the day. My activity is still based on what the pressures are right in front of me. But having a task manager has been helpful in keeping all the individual pieces from scattering across email and slips of paper. Asana also has robust features that allow me to search task that have not been assigned yet, and for tasks that have not been assigned to a project. Add to that the ability to search robustly and change views from project to agenda to calendar, and I have a tool that is flexible enough for my daily, idiosyncratic thinking. Having…