the rest of it

While pulling out a book earlier today, an old (AmE) planner/(BrE) diary came with it. I don't know why this thing was shoved into the bookcase all by itself, but I couldn't help but have a look. Seventeen years ago today, I was in Rome with my parents, spouse, and one-year old, on a memorable vacation. But I was more interested in the following week:  That week, the first week of summer term 2009, is analogous to this week in 2026, which is the first week back into spring semester, after our three-week Easter break (itself a holdover from when our university had a three-term structure). The blankness of those pages struck me. Here's what 2026 looks like: My first reaction was: wow, that really shows how much more complicated and pressurised academic life has become. But then I looked at it harder.  My Google calendar is colo(u)r-coded: the old-blood-stain red is work. Lilac is self-care and life admin. Orange is social. (The bits of blue and green can be ignored.)  work ...

My resolutions from last year were pretty useless and boring, so I'm not even going to review them here (though things related to them might come up under the following categories). It was a year of important birthdays for everyone in the house. I threw Phil a party in a pub, organised a couple of nice days for G's, and for mine, I have a series of new experiences to have before my next birthday. I've had 11 so far... Eating and exercising : Not having bread in the house is continuing to work for us. I have not lost weight, but I've kept it at the slightly lower place that it got to after starting Zoe.  Like last year, I'm doing  two online classes on Saturday mornings (which has miraculously lasted, even though there is almost never more than two of us in each of the classes). Phil and I are still going to a trainer once a week and we're getting some use out of the dumbbells we got last year for Christmas. My 'get on the floor' every day resolution fro...

I have finally found the solution for collecting thoughts I have about teaching a class "next time" when I'm teaching it "this time" or when I'm not teaching at all.  In the bad old days, I'd write ideas down in notebooks or scraps of paper or in files on my computer, and then I'd not remember to look at them when it would be helpful to do so. These would come up when: I was reading an article or listening to a podcast and getting good ideas for the reading list or classroom activities. I was marking the students' work and realizing which aspects of writing I needed to teach more explicitly—or find some supportive resources for them. I had just given a lecture that was a bit too short/too long/too detailed/too loose...and needed to note that somewhere so as not to do it again next year. I got helpful feedback on students on what they found too tough/too easy. I was at a conference and learned something new. Colleagues shared some clever assessmen...

So, I've been keeping notes all year on possible 2025 resolutions. Some of them involved managing money and some of them involved spending money. Everything about money scares me right now, since we don't know who's going to be made redundant at work. I don't want to make resolutions that are going to floor me with regret later. Ugh. So here we go.  The big thematic one Last year's big one was to prepare for death—and though I'm not 100% finished with it , I hope to be in the next two weeks. So this year's was always going to be: prepare for old age . Here's what I think I need to do: Work on fitness : particularly strength-training, eating well and stamina. This means reinvigorating some old habits (narrowing my eating window, walking up more hills—faster), and adding more (below).  Get some financial help to review what I've got and what I should be doing now. But do that later in the year, when things are clearer. Ideally, I'd like profession...

It's time to navel-gaze! My favo(u)rite time!  2024 Resolution Round-up My resolutions for this year , and how they went: Health : spend some time on the floor each day . Success.  It was a minimalist goal, but put a reminder in Omnifocus and it generally happened. I'm going to keep the reminder in, and try to stretch more while down there. Interpersonal :  ask more interesting questions when I'm chatting with people I don't know much . Minor success?  I kind of forgot about this one, but I think I inadvertently did it. I'm getting better at chatting with some people at least. I have found that in some contexts it is very hard to get anything but the smallest of small talk going—there are lots of people for whom that is the comfort zone. We are in the midst of 'small talk' season now...I am coping. One and done : prepare for death In progress.  I really left this for the last minute, and I have done some of it and have other things on my to-do list for the r...

Time for the resolutions, in my traditional categories: A habit Last year, my plan was a plank a day, but I only made it part way through the year. I'm going to stick with the theme of weight-bearing exercise and go with this: Add yoga or Pilates to my online fitness class regime. I've signed up for the first one, so I'm on my way! I already pay for the Frame online membership, so this costs me nothing but time. (And if it replaces a dance class, then it's not even costing me time.) A side-resolution: If I manage to attend fewer than three live classes in a week (or if I fail to sign up for a live yoga/Pilates), then I have to do an on-demand class. A 'one and done' project I have two things I want to do under this heading. The first, and simplest, is: have my hearing tested I doubt it's bad enough to do anything about, but it won't hurt to have it checked. The more involved one is: make a spreadsheet of all my regular outgoings, including charity donat...

As I think about my resolutions for 2023, it's time to review my successes and not-so-successes of 2022. While I make resolutions/work on habits at any time of year (especially the starts of semesters), I do find the space around the  new year very useful for thinking about life. And it's nice to have some new things to think about in winter, after the fun, decorated part of it ends. The 2022 resolutions Here  they are as they appeared on this blog last year . 1. Daily habit Do a plank every day. Having left my trainer, I need more weight-bearing exercise in my life. I’ve been trialing this resolution in the between-holidays time and a 30-second plank, at about a 45° angle, is leaving my abs sore the next day, so this little thing can do something, I think. The plan is to increase the time or difficulty weekly. I did this for some months. It got more irregular as I was getting bored of it, and then I took it off the to-do list when I had an injury. I do still need more weight-...

It's become common in academia to put messages like "My working hours vary. Please don't feel that you have to reply out of hours." (or similar) in email signatures. I have to say it annoys me because (a) it gives the message "Look at me, I'm working so hard out of hours, but I don't expect you to be as dedicated to the job as me" and (b) there is a much better solution ! Most email programs have a 'send later' function. On Outlook, if I hit 'send later' the default time it gives me is the next weekday at 9am—you can change that, but it's usually perfect. I write my emails at all sorts of hours of the day (and especially night), but I try to make sure no one gets them out of business hours. This both obviates the need for a 'look at me I'm working late' signature line AND reduces email traffic out of hours. If I send my colleagues a message at 9pm, I might get responses at 9:30pm, which create responses at 11pm, which...