Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Summer Work

Monday was a total bust of a day. The husband and I were both totally exhausted. I laid around and read basically all day after I came home from work. And we ate dinner ridiculously early and watched Alien on blu-ray. Yesterday I met a friend for lunch that turned into an all afternoon affair, which was quite lovely, but not good for work. So I went home and read. So much so far this week for my "schedule" of writing and cleaning.

Today, while my students were writing, I decided to write, too. This shorter article that I need to write? It became very clear to me today as I was writing with my students why I've not yet tackled it even though it's only a 2000-3000 word article. I'm not sure if I can write even 2000 words on this issue! Sigh. It has to be done though. I just have to go back through the journal and see how others have addressed the topic and consider that I may need to work on this more than 15 minutes a day if I'm going to get this done in any kind of time. Sigh. It's discouraging, really. But I *need* to write this article first and finish it by July 1 at the latest. My goal of June 15th I don't think is going to happen. But perhaps when my students have in class writing time, I too can be writing with them. Sheesh. This is seriously one of the hardest things I've had to write! I have total writer's block and I am completely stumped. Perhaps with just some consistent butt in seat writing I can pull something out.


So there we go. I got my 15 minutes of writing in at least today. And at some point I will clean the kitchen and kitchen table and let that be my cleaning for the day. Since I already worked out, I will have met my daily goals then once I clean. I think. I should be reading toward something, but I'm going to rec read instead.

I'm also trying to use my office hours for prep work and as much as possible (obviously not right now as I'm blogging, but I've got things under control for the rest of the week). Since it's only one class, and I don't have students coming to see me yet or needing to see me yet, I can make use of the office hours. Because even though I like this class so far, it's summer and I have a $hit ton of stuff that I *need* to get done this summer. This is a crucial summer in making sure that I stay on track for what needs to be done for tenure. I am very unwilling to be one of those last minute scramblers to get everything together full of anxiety in about 3-4 years. I'm rocking a good pace here. I'd like to keep that up. I don't want to lose my momentum. There will be time to breathe later. Since no one who has gone up for tenure here in the last two years in this department has actually gotten tenure, I'd like to make sure that I have more than the minimum required and that I am not coming down to the wire. I think next summer we're going to be thinking about buying a house and I'd like to have stuff in the pipeline so that way if summer is blown house hunting and moving I'm not in dire straights with regards to my scholarship. And right now people have some interest in what I'm doing, so I need to not let those opportunities pass me by.

It's weird though isn't it that I feel I need to justify publicly on my blog being protective of my time. That it somehow sounds like I'm shafting my students if I'm trying to get as much prep work in during my office hours when students aren't here to minimize my work outside of my office. Why does that sound awful? I think it makes me sounds like I'm only trying to do the bare minimum to get through this summer class, but I don't think that's fair. I'd like to think that what I'm doing is trying to get through the next six weeks in the most efficient way that benefits both me and my students and keeps me healthy and productive.

So that's where I am. 


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