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Janice
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My major time for podcasts is when I'm at the gym using the elliptical, the treadmill or doing the weights circuit.
I've finally found a pair of earbuds that work for me - some Mpow bluetooth earbuds I got from Amazon last year. The smallest inserts actually feel comfortable so I can enjoy listening as I workout. I don't listen much on my walks because it makes Mike nervous (I think he suspects I'll get hit by a careening car that I don't notice.)
Cleaning is also a good time to listen, or when we're folding lots of laundry or doing a tedious round of cooking in the kitchen. Chopping a whackload of veggies or making a lot of dough seems less of a chore if I have a fun podcast to offset the boredom factor.
Question: How do you subscribe/save podcasts?
I really enjoy listening to podcasts in some specific situations -- long car-trips, lazy hours of listening while cross-stitching, while doing gardening, etc. -- but I can go weeks in between my listening jags. Part of my difficulty is that I don't like wearing headphones, so I can't take advant...
Good for you. I think you need some time to recharge and reframe yourself as a reader. By the way, I'm on Goodreads, too, and if you see my profile, you see that I read whatever the heck I want. I almost never list academic books there, just because I don't want the pressure.
Reclaiming ownership of my reading life
I've read a lot this spring, but I haven't been that happy with a lot of the reading because I've felt trapped into doing it. But I'm reclaiming ownership of my reading life: A friend convinced me to join Goodreads in January, and I'm really liking it, not least because it's pushing me to finish...
Hooray! You and I will be on sabbatical at the same time. I propose we serve as sabbatical buddies and help keep each other on track despite the worst that winter throws at us in our respective parts of the world.
(And whatever is your project area, if you can vagueblog? Mine deals with more of the Old Bailey cases - assault and the way in which families figure in or don't.)
Again, hooray!
Here's some happy news!
I've been granted a sabbatical! From January through June 2018, I'll be on paid sabbatical from FGS. I am very excited. (FGS offers the same deal as many colleges do: a year at half-pay or a half-year at full pay. I'm choosing the latter option.) It's taken quite a few years for me to get to th...
I'm rather dreading this winter. I don't know why this year's bothering me more than others but it is. Hrm. I'll try to adopt your outlook!
Reconciling myself: autumnal edition
I'm fortunate to live in a part of the country where autumn is quite pretty ... and yet I've always been gloomy during fall because it signals the coming of winter, which I find a very difficult season. I'd actually much rather live in a part of the country where autumn isn't spectacular but win...
Our cats sprawl in the same ways on our bed. Life is good when there's shedding to be done!
Saturday Cat Blogging
Yes, it's a break with tradition, but I'm sure we could all use a picture of cats on fluffy blankets, courtesy of Lydia Gwilt and Allan Armadale.
It's a hard skill to employ, I know well!
Clearly haven't mastered that skill yet!
One of my professional goals this year is to talk less, with the purpose of listening more and allowing more space for others' voices. So far, not so good. We had three days of pre-year meetings this week, and I talked up a storm. Partly the problem is that apparently I talk to learn -- mostly i...
How's the fit plan going? I'm well over fifty now but keep upping the ante. A gym membership and having a dog who requires two walks daily helps. So far I've logged 61 minutes of walking without even getting to the gym which is a must-go three days a week to accommodate Youngest's workout schedule. I'm still not as fit as I'd like but I'm in better shape thanks to these regular requirements.
Another summer project: Fit by 50
This morning I did the first "run" in the Couch-to-5K program. Not that I have any particular desire to run a 5K, mind you, but it seemed like a good jumpstart to my Fit by 50 program. Doesn't "Fit by 50" sounds like an official thing? It's just a phrase coined by a colleague of mine, who is al...
If all we do is change and tweak and alter and update, we are never going to see what is working, what isn't and what needs to be worked on in different ways besides pedagogical philosophy. You are smart to step back from a lot of changes for a little while. Better to use that interest to track what you like in the current material and make notes for the next time you're updating your teaching.
What else I'm not reading, at least for now: Pedagogy
I went on a bit of a pedagogy-reading kick last spring and summer, and I totally enjoyed it. With colleagues, I read and talked about Grant J. Wiggins and Jay McTighe's Understanding by Design and Ron Ritchhart's Creating Cultures of Thinking. Also, in preparation for the week-long seminar I too...
Thinking good thoughts of you with regards to the politics of the deanship candidacy and also the grading. Guess what I'm facing (or avoiding as the case may be)?
Bits and Bobs
Updates on the there's-nothing-to-update front: This week, the FGS administration released the names of all three of the internal candidates for the Academic Dean position. One of them was me, naturally. One of them was someone I was fully expecting to be on the list. She's fabulous, I respect ...
I can sympathize on the so tired front preparatory to an evening activity and my classroom time is nowhere near as much as yours. Thanks for sharing this information on Project Zero. It looks fascinating and reminds me anew of how I want to shake up my classrooms to be more active venues!
Education-speak
Last night I went to an interesting conversation arranged by a colleague in another department. He's a big acolyte of Project Zero (PZ), a Harvard Graduate School of Education program. As the colleague explained last night, many cities have cohorts who have been through PZ training and who stay ...
Ugh. Good luck with the grading. I'm sympathetic on the puzzle issues. My mother-in-law has the puzzle set up on a well-lit basement table where everyone can go take turns at it. It's a nice escape and no one tells anyone else how to do it (which is how it always seems to end up when we're all around the table together).
Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays
D. and I got home last night from the annual Thanksgiving whirlwind to my home state. In some ways, it's the most ridiculous time to visit, because FGS works on a trimester system, and we have exams in the last few days before Thanksgiving. That means that the faculty spend our Thanksgiving "bre...
Awesome news on the leadership hiring. I agree that I tend to prefer people who know the teaching and research end in academic hirings. We've had great luck with our current president who is not from that end so much but I believe that he is an exception. And he would also NEVER answer those questions as you describe in that fashion.
Glad that the crisis is averted and that there is some neat new hope on the horizon.
New leadership on the horizon
One of the many things that has been interesting but stressful this school year is that we were in the process of selecting a new head of school to start next summer. And by "we," I mostly mean the board of trustees, but the faculty all met and talked with the three finalists and then submitted ...
Teaching coach or teaching mentor sound like good ways to crystallize what you're doing unofficially.
But, also, yes, maybe not to take on ALL the things in week one or whenever. We could try and learn that! ;-)
My good deed this week, and the thoughts it's inspired
Last week, I spent several hours in a van with some colleagues as we drove to and then from a class retreat that we were all chaperoning. (The students were on two big busses from a local bus company, but we always need to have a separate vehicle in case of emergencies -- taking a student to the...
I'll just bet that you're feeling wiped out. Geez! What a last few weeks. Enjoy the weekend to sleep and recuperate.
Zoinks -- wiped out already
The first week of school has been a whirlwind, such that it feels like it has included the work of two weeks at least. I got back from South Africa last Monday. On Thursday, faculty meetings began. I was on weekend duty on Sunday and spent a fun but very tiring day in Adventure City with all the...
Good luck with all of that. You're right that the re-reading can be mostly deferred to the flights. I like to take a notebook (paper or electronic) with me for these re-reads so I can make notes on what I want to emphasize in teaching.
Is there anyway you can contract someone to replace the alarms for you and ease some of your burden?
Zoinks -- squeezing a summer's worth of work into two weeks
Okay, that title is an exaggeration, of course. But it is true that I am now embarking on the final two weeks of free, mostly unscheduled time for the summer. We got back home last night after a week-long stay with my mother-in-law. Some good moments, some stresses. I think it will take D some t...
How wonderful!
Friday Cat Blogging
Introducing Lydia Gwilt, Allan Armadale, and Ozias Midwinter. They're two months old and, as you can guess, from the same litter.
You and I are crafty twins. I did so much cross stitch and other needle arts in grad school. I became notorious for that among my cohort. I also played the folk harp (little four octave affair) and the bowed psaltry. When the girls came along, I really called it quits on all of my craftiness. *sigh*
So maybe I need to really pick up my cross stitch again and get back at it? Wishing you luck at your own project (it is beautiful!) and with the upcoming conference.
Arts and crafts
In the midst of all of my mental overload, the constant pleasure has been doing needlework for the past four weeks. I used to do a lot of cross stitch, lo these many years ago -- it was my stress relief during grad school -- but I haven't lifted a needle in almost a decade. But just about a mon...
I sometimes thrive with diversity. Other times I want the mono-focus. Right now I'm having to be diverse as I shepherd a grad student to completion of the major research project (just the edits, yay!) while also getting an article out and maybe get the research for my October conference paper out of the way and let's not forget all the household maintenance chores of summertime. . . .
I like the metaphor of too many tabs open. I can't quit and restart but maybe I can winnow some down. Wishing peaceful progress to you!
"My brain has too many tabs open"
This image from Grammarly today exactly describes the way I'm feeling. I'm thinking about enough different things this summer that I'm getting my brain tied into knots. Seriously, I'm in the midst of reading about thirteen different books, and that is simply too much. Here's what's on my mental...
That sounds like a great visit and what a healthy attitude to NOT try to make it all about work when they were here. Have fun at your conference!
Full-time aunting
The blog radio silence has been due to my being a full-time aunt for the last 11 days. It was our fifth annual "Aunty Camp," and we now have lots of traditions that create continuity and reasonably happy living for all of us. They're growing up well (Elder Niece is starting high school this fall...
I'm also a big proponent of books by women. I aim for at least half of the texts that I assign to be authored by women and it's grand to see someone else do the same. I can't wait to hear how the new school year works out for you with these texts to teach!
Freshman English
I'm teaching half of the 9th-graders next year, just as I did this year. Three sections of a single course is a lot, and, dadgumit, it can be boring. It's especially boring because the 9th-grade books have been exactly the same ever since I've been at FGS. They're fine books, ones that I've enj...
It's tough when colleagues say they want student engagement but they also don't want students "rocking the boats" in sometimes inevitable ways. Good news on the upcoming editor and good luck with navigating the end of term!
“News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising."
That's by Katherine Graham, long-time publisher of the Washington Post. I am no Graham, of course, but I have for two years now been the advisor of FGS's online student newspaper. Let's just admit that most of the journalism my high school journalists create is not especially exciting, but it h...
Well deserved!
BRB, changing my .sig file
About six years ago I took over the family money management single-handedly. I still keep Mike informed, obviously, but I do all of the bill-paying and all of the budgeting as to what we can afford. I find it stressful but not as stressful as he does OR, and this is important, as stressful as we would feel working together.
The important part is to face your money management issues directly and take charge. Sounds as if you've done just that so hooray to D and to you!
whew! what a relief
As I have perhaps mentioned before, D. and I are both anxious and not especially competent when it comes to our finances. This is not a good combo! In fact, in general we tend to be good at the same sorts of things and bad at the same sorts of things, which makes us compatible in terms of our re...
You're wise to realize that you're overloading yourself and to no great purpose. Sounds as if you need to recalibrate your expectations more of yourself than of your students. What's reasonable in terms of grading? What are the clever ideas you can implement in measured ways but not in every course?
If it helps, these are problems I face, too. I was going to assign a few projects and a big lit review in one junior-level class when I said to myself "Self, that and the in-class presentation plus the exam is too damned much, especially at the end. Students and you will appreciate four projects and NO lit review!"
Things must change
I have just come through a horrible few days of grading my ass off (only metaphorically; I still have a big butt) in order to give my freshmen fast and helpful feedback before the end of the term, plus I gave my AP Lit students an extra grade-bumping assignment at the very end of the term. The t...
Sorry that you're feeling Crankypants. I know how that goes at this time of year and we've had our snow a bit more "spaced out". Wishing you well in health and everything else!
Turning my back on Mr. Crankypants
Wow, I've had the winter blahs. I've been grumpy and irritable, and everything has seemed like so much work for no reward. Partly this is just normal January and February syndrome, plus Adventure City is having a particularly hard winter. Partly this is ongoing blues from the whole job applicati...
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