Finally managed to make my Salmon Kedgeree -- and had it both for breakfast and for dinner. Delish!
Hearing back from two of the speakers I invited for two separate events, which brings me much closer to finalising the programme nitty-gritty for both webinars.
Clearing some more things off the to-do list. Although the list seems to go on for miles. And miles.
We're three weeks into the semester here and it's been go go go and trying to manage all the deadlines while also grappling with chronic pain and fatigue. My to-do list has me sometimes in tears. I've already told my music teachers that class is impossible for the time being. I love my job, but I often wish doing it wasn't such a pain in the you know what.
It's two weeks until writing month! What's everyones plans for AcWriMo and NaNoWriMo?
I'm planning to write an 8,000-word chapter, re-write a book entry that will be published in 24, and attend writing retreats.
Any recommendations for apps to track my writing?
Academics, writers, editors, and everyone else who puts pen to paper, what are your goals?
Hello Masto! Home late and very sleepy/hoping for an early night. Still working on CE for the article I submitted yesterday (editor bounced it back to me with some corrections based on the latest APA format -- is it just me who finds the new APA's requirement re sentence case when journal/book titles are NOT in sentence case, very illogical? It upsets my eyes, but I do what I must!)
Geese continue to delight me with every single released this year, so enjoy "Space Race"!
"... what is the point of asking scientists to write documents that can be easily created with AI? What value are we adding?"
The point never was to add value, it was to f-ing gatekeep you fool.
If things were fair, projects were selected based a cut-off value. The remaining (sizeable) pool would then be used to draw grants through lottery. Those on tenure track get a participation badge when ranking in this pool.
This has been going to rounds, questioning the practice of only submitting at one journal at a time. This isn't as "revolutionary" as some think. This is par for the course for anyone gaming the publication system, or trying to.
Submitting at multiple places as one is just the cherry on the pie. Scope your work well, get a ticket and get in line - and I hope they review their 3x share of manuscripts submitted 🤷♂️
Wednesday is my only day with no classes this sem, but it did mean that I was up to my eyebrows in course admin and supervision matters. Also battling a lot of exhaustion from having submitted four articles during semester break (also the mountain of grading I had to do and other stuff). Break? What break?
(It's a good thing I love my job and that there are perks that make it worthwhile)
When you're beyond dead tired but then are gently reminded by the very patient convener that your Folk Horror x Material Culture talk for a British uni* is going to go up on eventbrite soon, so you hammer out an abstract and are suddenly taken aback at your own cleverness.
gently pats self on the back
I'm actually utterly excited for this talk (eventbrite?! omg) but also really tired. Haha.
*edited because I've been such an over-extended/overworked airhead that I somehow had the misapprehension that it was an American uni!
Monday was okay-ish with some really super okay bits.
The super okay bits:
(1) One article accepted subject to some revisions (phew!).
(2) !! So I shot my shot a couple of weeks back and asked a memory scholar I admire if she'd be keynote for my Memory studies seminar. She said yes this morning! This will be great not just for me but my PhD supervisees who are working on #memorystudies with me.
(3) Got my meds from the hospital (tiring long drive though) and this marks the first time I've been there since injury without using a cane. Another milestone.
(4) First class of the semester went okay, despite a couple of technical hitches. Lovely students! And I had sufficient brainspace later to do event organising for the creative writing workshop (secured a #psychogeographer as guest speaker) plus work on another article.
Finalizing this article for submission by this evening -- telling myself not to do too much because I'm not first author but corresponding author so I'm uh, not going to be getting the credit for writing most of this article!
Also, uh, working on a new grant proposal because my mentor was very upset when I said I was never applying for another grant again. 😛
She urged me to apply for this one so I will. And the huge stake-holder agreed to be put on it again. They're really wonderful.
Apart from that, in talks with a potential keynote for my Memory in Literature and the Humanities webinar (the second one in the series). May open a very limited CFP for a panel of presenters (most of the presenters are my posgrads but I would like a panel of memory scholars if possible).
In case you're wondering when #Watermyth is coming out, I'm wondering too. 😕
I'm barely keeping my head above water here. I'm doing all I can to ensure I avoid the exit policy owing to no grants and no publications. But I'm informed it's if it's three years in a row. So hopefully next year will be okay given how much submitting I'm doing right now. At least admin (both my centre and Faculty) are really sympathetic and supportive of me and my health condition/disability situation.
It's the hardcoded rules that are 🙃 -- they've completely mechanised and gamefied work evals. Which makes it hard to concentrate on bringing out my debut novel -- but I tell myself it also counts as a publication for the system. At 0.05 marks. 🙃
Fairy-tale scholarship always has me listening to Eddi Reader because her discography was my mainstay back during my M.A. days (my Angela Carter M.A. dissertation), so I've been listening to her album of Robbie Burns songs all week.
It seems like Mastodon is losing its mindshare to #Bluesky among many academics.
I can't help but think this has to do with the self-imposed limitations of Mastdon — lack of quotes, ordered timeline, etc. Makes it less interesting to use, for no real advantage.
Sad, because the underlying decentralization is much more robust.
@boud@tiago@LukasBrausch@academicchatter can chime in that Bluesky is feeling like a new home for #AcademicChatter, and the power of quote posts (primarily in adding your own flavour of support to add context to an existing post) is a huge benefit. This, more than anything, is what feels different to me about Bluesky vs Mastodon. I'm homebase Mastodon but I am enjoying Bluesky more each day.
Are you an academic researcher, PGR, or post-doc who is feeling overwhelmed and burnt out? Here are some tips (courtesy of the wall in my office) on how to improve your physical, mental, and social well-being!
Dr Karikó's case lays bare so many of the institutional, disciplinary, and social background inequities that many researchers (natural and social sciences) face.
The vast majority will never be duly recgonised like she, rightfully, finally has.
My ecofeminist stylistics article turned into an ecofeminist semiotics article and one of the journal's editors told me it still fell within its scope so to go ahead and send it in (journal's server has been resuscitated). So guess what I'll be doing tonight after I do the usual chores.
I did have a happy afternoon reading fairytale scholarship including 2 very riveting articles by Uther of ATU fame and found some other articles for my own personal research projects (remember the opera articles I'm writing?).
Very proud to have contributed to the #paper led by Tamara Ben-Ari et al. from @labos1point5 analysing the ~ 130 000 #academic#travels from ~160 #research units in #France over 2019 and discussing their #carbon emissions. Most importantly, the paper reports various #mitigation strategies and quantify their potential for reducing their #CarbonFootprint.
I'm kind of resigned that I worked through the four day weekend.
And semester starts tomorrow here in my neck of the woods.
I'll be spending the week prepping for classes which I'm only going to start on the second week because the first week's usually orientation stuff. But at least I've got three articles submitted and the fourth will go in once the server comes back to life. Probably tomorrow.
For this evening, music practice, #startrek and #mealprep for the week. I'm gutted by the ending of #startrekenterprise and join fans in being outraged at the finale. Didn't expect the series to make this big of an emotional impact on me.
(This will be a very long list by the end of the year if I keep it up. We'll see.)
Your statements are basically done after the first few deadlines. I always thought I'd customize extensively for each school.
Nope.
On a week like this (with so many apps due Sep 15), you just don't have time. You have to trust that you already put in the work with your base template. It's a mental shift from fellowship apps.