Oh, it’s that time of year again, my dears, where I realize that it’s probably impossible to do all of the things that remain on my summer to-do list. And by “probably” I mean “totally.” Now, this is in part my own stupid fault because I refuse to be a workaholic for the next month. Last weekend A. was in town for our annual weekend of awesomeness, which was an excellent success, and Thursday FL gets into town for a weekend visit. Then, the following weekend my mom is coming to town and we’re going to go to The World’s Longest Yard Sale!!!!! It’s going to be great. But this means that over that three week period, I will have lost 15 potential work-days. Perhaps not the wisest scheduling on my part, but fun! And then my ambitious summer schedule has been negatively affected by adding in three grant applications, which I hadn’t had on my agenda originally, as well as the work that goes along with the one grant of those that I already was awarded (internal), which while not a lot of work, is still time spent away from my other work. Add to this the pesky problem of needing to prepare myself to teach four classes, and, well, you see the difficulty.
But so this seems like as good a time as any to reflect on what I have accomplished, because what good will it do to beat myself up about what I can’t get done? That’s right, none. So what have I done with my summer of 2012?
May
- Visited BFF.
- Finished writing an article, polished it, and submitted it to a journal.
- Read a handful of books for pleasure.
June
- Figured out three grants to apply for, one related to research and two related to teaching.
- Completed the application for one of the teaching grants.
- An exceptional amount of reading, including but not limited to around 25 scholarly books (though obviously I wasn’t just luxuriating in them but reading them for what I need, so in some cases that amounted to a few chapters), as well as three or four novels related to research/teaching.
- Had my aunt, cousin, and cousin’s son come visit for a weekend of fun.
- Went to Hometown for a week and attended my HS reunion.
- Learned that I’ve been accepted to November conference, so thought a bit about what I’ll be presenting there.
- Learned that I can go up for full in Fall 2013, so began to think about what I need to do in order to be in position to do that successfully.
July
- Plowed through reading about 50 journal articles.
- Learned that I received the one internal grant, so then have been doing some planning for meeting its terms.
- Read a bunch of theory that I’d not read before (approx. 300 pages).
- Revisited the outline of my book and refined the overall argument.
- Planned what will be the first chapter of the book, and got about 15 pages solid pages written, as well as a huge mass of note-y pages that are in outline form, so really all that’s left is to write around the notes and that chapter will be done (the goal is that I’ll have a (rough, but complete) draft of that chapter by July 31.
- Reorganized my Big Binder of the Book project.
- Bought a new refrigerator and stove (for I SHALL redo my kitchen this year! I shall!)
- Worked on the application for Teaching Grant #2 (with the goal being that I’ll have a draft of that written by the time that my mom arrives the night of Aug. 2.
- Signed up for a day-long internal conference thing.
- Registered for an actual conference at which I’ll be presenting in November.
- Worked on the syllabi for two of my four courses in Fall (nearly complete, just a few tweaks left to deal with for those classes).
- Had visitors two of four weekends.
All of this is a lot of things. I need to get over the fact that some of my original summer goals are pushed back a little. When the semester is underway, I am not going to feel like I wasted this summer. I mean – seriously! And even with doing all of that, I’ve socialized with my local friends, gone to the pool a bunch, and managed to take an afternoon nap most days! I am delightful! I accomplish all the things!
So on that positive note, I need to go accomplish some things with my day, including to work on Teaching Grant #2, as well as to reorganize my closet and do laundry.
Thatte’s a lotta fucken shitte you didde!!!!!!
I never, ever meet my own deadlines, and yet I think it’s important to set these deadlines.
I have decided that when I am un-busy enough to do things like organize my closets and to have a clean desk, that will mean that death is near, because I think that the doing of many things, however imperfectly and incompletely in the moment, is what life is all about.
Also, life is about regret. But that’s another post.
If I weren’t buying a house this summer, I feel like I could have gotten a lot more accomplished. The housing stuff just took over.
It looks like you did a lot of stuff, though. No regrets!
The end of July is always when I start feeling the end of summer starting to close in. I often wish that we all just had the sense to take August off, like the Europeans do. But your list inspired me to do a similar list of what I’ve done so far this summer, which has shown me I’ve done a lot more than I thought I’d done. Your list–especially the huge amount of work you’ve done–is downright intimidating: I think I need to start working towards that kind of summer stamina.
CDS – don’t be intimidated! First of all, let me note that I really did take weekends off this summer, in part facilitated by all of my weekend guests and my own trip to Hometown. But also: as a rule I don’t tend to work for more than 5 hours in a regular day (I did have a few marathon days, but by “a few” I really do mean like 4 throughout the course of the entire summer). Second, all of that reading? LOTS of it was done at the pool. I’ve finally learned that “working” doesn’t mean punishing myself by locking myself in my house. Doing it that way, work kinda feels like fun. Finally, I was very motivated to accomplish a lot this summer because I had an (internal) summer fellowship to do it. I am very motivated by acknowledgment of the fact that I’ll be working – much less so if there isn’t that sort of (cold hard cash, with a reporting requirement at the end of the summer) acknowledgment. Also: I didn’t TEACH this summer, and I had relinquished all of my major service stuff in the spring, so that wasn’t hanging over me this summer. I cannot stress enough how important that was in what I got done research-wise. Another thing you’ll notice about my lists: I count *everything* – from thinking, to reading for pleasure, to “fun” stuff, to drafting, to outlining…. The way I figure it, if I don’t count that stuff, nobody else will. And finally (again): this is my 8th summer employed at this job: I do feel like I’ve finally figured out how to organize my summer time so that I *both* accomplish a lot and *also* so that I feel rested. Did that take like 6 years to figure out? Yes. But you know what I didn’t do this summer? Yard work, wash my windows, reorganize my closets, get as far on the book manuscript as I’d intended to get, devote myself to dating…. But it’s better to think about what we HAVE done than what we haven’t.
Fie Upon This Quiet Life – Buying a house is a job in itself! Yay house! (I got about 1/4 of this amount done the summer I moved into my house. Sometimes life is more important than work.)
H’Ann – YES, except for about the regret part. I’ve been experimenting with the idea that the things not done aren’t actually important, thus not worthy of regret. I mean, hell, I’ve done a lot! That’s worthy of celebration! Not regret!
CPP – I KNOW, right?