Post Because I Skipped Yoga Today

Somewhere around 6:00 am, when it was clear I wasn't falling back to sleep (Tiny Boy had woken me at 4:45 to cover him and then called repeatedly until I threatened to detain him from his school field trip, which I totally would have done) I decided I was skipping yoga.

I like yoga, I do.  But the class is about 30-45 minutes too long--the teacher recently tacked on an extra 15 minutes, and she generally doesn't finish on time--which is tantamount to giving up the bulk of my morning (between the drive and the getting dressed and the class itself) which today was just too much on under 6 hrs sleep.

I decided if I wasn't going to yoga, I needed to do something with that time.  That's included (a) watching 20 minutes of Madam Secretary, which is the new thing I'm watching, (b) writing toward Shiny New Project (which I don't generally do on Fridays), (c) submitting old work, (d) doing my five minute email triage, (e) writing this.

I still have an hour before I need to leave for campus.  An hour!  So I'm going to start working on my annual review materials, which are due next week (ugh ugh ugh).

I'm contemplating tracking my time next week, because I'm interested in seeing how much time I'm spending on things other than Shiny New Project(s) during my work hrs.  More on that soon!

Slowing Down and Getting Stuff Done

I had a good first week on the grant.  Tuesday ended up being a snow day for LG, so not optimum (I can do some amount of work while she's around, but it's really not the same quality as having the house to myself).  Friday was a campus day (I was there 11-4 with nonstop meetings/appointments.) But over the course of the week, I wrote on Shiny New Protect #1 daily.  I also sent off an essay revision, which required a fair amount of revision and retooling.  I did some domestic work (cleaning and paperwork) though not as much as I'd planned.  That is, I think I found a pretty good pace.

I was privy to a conversation the other night--academic women talking about the difficulty of getting work done while mothering (on the one side) and others talking about the usefulness of the NCFDD program and the like (on the other side).  And what occurred to me is that (a) neither of those is my narrative and (b) it seems increasingly that having an "ordinary" narrative of balanced work life feels taboo.  If we're moving away from the problematic 'you can't get tenure unless you work [fill in the blank of high hours] per week,' I think we've swung far in the other direction of the difficulty of doing work (and by work I mean research, that is the work that we are really paid for and required for promotion).  Maybe this isn't broadly true, but it's certainly what I see in my own program.

While I'm not one of those prissy writers I know who requires long expansive time of retreats and hours of silence to get work done--I mean, I did my daily writing on a Whole Foods grocery bag because I'd forgotten my notebook on Friday--I also see that freeing up mental space (by not teaching, by minimizing email checking and service obligations, etc) is unquestionably valuable to beginning a project.  This is the first time in years, I think, that I can just read around and see what happens.  That is, I can always work on my research, even in those fifteen minutes here and there.  But that's unquestionably a different kind of work, more about maintaining skills than it is doing the "deep work" of asking the hard questions.  I don't know, honestly, that I've done this since graduate school.

So starting Tuesday, I'm going to build in an hour per day of unstructured reading time (I say reading, but one of my plans here is also to look at art books and maybe even watch experimental films).  I'm excited.

Making the Most of a Semester "Off"

I'm writing this as a break from working on the co-edited book that is the bane of my existence.  Our initial deadline was 10/1, our extended deadline 10/31.  While I could just be done, I'm trying to create a bit of space for my collaborator to actually have a voice (like, it would be nice if she contributed to the description that will be on the book jacket, say).  So I'm sort of waiting, as I've been waiting, and being frustrated.

I've been looking forward to having this done and moving on to the next thing for a long time.  But instead of being able to dive right in to the next BIG THING, the two book projects (related) I'll be working on when I'm "on leave"* in the spring, November it seems will be chock full of committee work and cleaning up the mess from October.  I'm on a search committee for a junior position that I'm guessing will net about 150 applications (which is low in general, but I think the ad was crafted in a smart way to do some of the weeding out).  Grad students are suddenly coming out of the woodwork; I have three students at the comps stage and two sending chapters.  My undergrad thesis advisee will have a complete draft in a few weeks.  I'm in the process of getting two or three research interns in place, so that requires review, interviews, etc.  I'm in charge of another guest writer coming in.  And more.

But.  I really want to start moving toward the direction of writing and reading and generally being immersed in my work.  Right now it feels too much like checking off tasks instead of doing meaningful things.  So I just bought Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad so as soon as the book ms is off my desk I at least want to spend some time remembering why it is I do what I do.  And then I need to start making a careful plan for making use of next semester, complete with a reading list.  The last time I was on leave, I had a nursing infant (who was at one of his lowest points in terms of sleep, and recovering from surgery, and then getting used to daycare and constantly ill) so while it was nice it wasn't the most productive.  This time, it's going to be grand.  But, if there are any academics out there who have tips for making the most of such time, send them my way!



* The way this works in my department is that grants and such buy out teaching in order to preserve research time; they do not excuse you from service, unlike on a "sabbatical," though I have some (junior) colleagues who believe this to be the case, which is a constant source of departmental disagreement and angst.