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Christmas Eve Eve Eve
The year is coming to a close. There are two more workdays left, including today. The students are gone for the most part. I know of a few that are trying to get some bulk work done on their research, but other than that, it’s been quiet. A surprising number of us are still in the office. Perhaps because of the mild winter, no one is leaving early to travel. We are all in the office wrapping up the year. Today I have a backlog of stats to get done, a project to install for one of my committees, and the last of the communications for the year. Next year…
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Day in Review Tuesday, September 22, 2015
My brain threatens to make this entry a list of all the things to get done. It’s tempting simply because it’s such a habit. I’m on the long train home, I had to take drugs to get through the morning. What happened in between wasn’t as productive as I would like. Freedom can be a dangerous thing. I did get a walk in the late morning though, just from one side to another, but it was enough. For now, I think I will try to get another module of my IRB training done. Past that I will work on ideas for NNWM. My husband would like me to write something…
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Day in review Sept 9, 2015
The workday began well enough. I spent some time fixing my citation managment database for the meta-analysis that I am involved in. I am thrilled to say that the working relationship between the PI and I is good. So far, he has been prompt in conversations and responding to email. He has been clear in his communications, deadlines, and goals. The tenor of the relationship has been positive and one of equals. Not bad for a first run. The next month will be heavy on work, but worth it do get it done. I hope to have the majority of it done by the end of the year. The pilot…
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Day in review Friday August 28, 2015
The end of the week. I have two more instruction sessions next week. Today was unexpectedly good. The student were animated and willing to participate. It was more than I expected on a Friday afternoon immediately after lunch. And I finally got to get some scheduling done, until the end of the semester, for the data management project that I am shepherding. This said, I started to realize yesterday that I have the habit, probably formed from my other jobs, to do only short term planning. I need to develop the habit of long term planning. Further, I need to develop a cycle in planning. I had the conceptual idea…
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Day in review August 27, 2015
I have yet another headache. It is making me short tempered and judgmental. Someone is sitting near me that had an odor that isn’t helping. I’m listening to the guy next to me discuss with his kid, the editorial changes he made to his homework. There are more than a few that are on the rush hour train taking up extra seats. Earlier today, I was supposed to spend about six hours at a variety of clincal shadowing experiences, but I was stood up (essentially). It left me with a free day, but I didn’t use it as productively as I would like. Which always brings me back to the…
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First orientation with data managment done
Today is the first of a series of orientations. My colleges are in session and classes start on Monday. I have spend some serious time since RDAP thinking of how to incorporate an introduction to data managment into their sessions. Conceptually I thought this was important because I wanted the seed of these practices, and the ways we could support them in this effort to be there in the begining. The harder part was figuring out what to cut. I already have a full plate with a basic orientation to accessing materials, and I usually hit PubMed pretty hard since that is their main database. Typical session send them thorugh a…
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Day in review June 16, 2015
Wednesday has become my day of sleep. I get to the middle of the week and my energy flags, productivity goes down, and basic tasks can take all day. On top of that, today my stomach didn’t like the rice noodles I tried to feed it for a snack. I haven’t felt ill, but something isn’t right. Today work wrapped up a couple of projects I had been working on. Each was different aspects of the same proposal. The first part landed in mine and a colleague’s lap five weeks ago. We were tasked with updating a previous document on information seeking behaviors of clinician’s of all types. We then…
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Day in review June 9, 2015
The beginning of the day went well. Research was tedious because it was data gathering. I had a hard time paying attention and will have to do some coding and cleaning of the data before I can use it. I truly had no idea how many different types of degrees and certificates can be offered. Evaluating each of these programs takes a certain amount of discernment that I hadn’t anticipated, but it is slowing me down. There will be a lot of data to play with when I’m done. I hope that it will yield some meaningful connections to the library. I fear I may need to learn some scripting/coding…
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Day in review May 29, 2015
Good news on the employment front. It looks very good that my contract will be renewed. I’ll be happy when I have the contract in hand, but this is as good as it’s going to get until the budget gets in and things get signed. That said, it feels good that I can focus on planning for the year. Some thing I have been trying to do for a month. My current time has been taken up with preparing for this weeks lecture and working on the regional NN/LM proposal. I am working with a colleague on this and will be turning in a draft of it on Monday. I…
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Day in Review May 27, 2015
Today was the first day of my Divvy riding. I successfully, and enjoyably, rode from Union station a half mile west to my library. I don’t think it saved me any time, but I think it will save me some money and give me some exercise at the same time. I went to the gym and at least I feel like I’ve had a full workout. I figure that if I use Divvy three times a week to work, that’s saved me minimum $24 per month. Four times is $32. At that price, if I bike for two months, I break even. I don’t mention riding back from work, because…