Weekly Update: 4/15 - 4/21
Lower south falls - Silver Falls State Park
reflection
The biggest news from my week is that the results (for lack of a better word) of my third year review came back and were overwhelmingly positive! It feels good to be on the other side of that milestone. Moving forward, I’ll just keep on, keeping on! Despite feeling pretty confident after submitting my materials back in February, I saw the response letter in my inbox this week and my heart started racing. I was sitting on the train on my way to campus, debating on whether or not to read the letter right then and there, or wait until I got to the privacy of my office in case there were any surprises. My curiosity won out and I read the letter on my phone (and thankfully there were no surprises!). Like so many academic milestones, it feels a bit anticlimactic. We happened to have a weekend trip planned to do some hiking (after I taught a class about an hour south of Portland), so I used that as my mini-celebration.
I taught my condensed, in-person stats course this Friday. Instead of teaching it in Portland, I traveled about an hour south for class. We decided to make a weekend trip out of it and Mike and Ellie joined me. We made plans with friends to do some hiking at Silver Falls State Park on Saturday, which was about 30 minutes from where I was teaching. We spent Friday night at a hotel with a pool, which Ellie LOVED. I’m also happy to report that we had a successful night in the hotel room (might have something to do with exhausting herself in the pool). Ellie slept in her pack and play from ~9:00pm until ~8:30am and didn’t require any middle of the night soothing. We headed to the park on Saturday morning. We’ve been wanting to check out Silver Falls since we moved here. A good friend told us about the Trail of Ten Falls, which is named for the ten waterfalls you see on the hike (and even walk behind some of them); however, we weren’t up for an hour plus car ride with Ellie (who refuses to fall asleep in the car). With me teaching about 30 minutes away from the park, we shortened our travel time on the way there. Still had the hour plus trip back, and Ellie refused to sleep despite being exhausted. We did about 2 miles (out and back), seeing two of the falls (both of which we could walk behind).
research
Systematic review/interview project: My goal for the week was to do one thing from this project to start building momentum again. Goal met? Yes! Picked back up with the updated searches, will continue with this next week.
teaching
Course prep (condensed stats course): My goal for the week was to prep for our second class (e.g., review last year’s content, make edits, update slides, update/print activities, update/print the agenda). Goal met? Yup.
Course prep (online human dev course): My goals for the week were to create 2 assignment walk through videos, update the syllabus, post an announcement, read and draft responses for their discussion posts, update grade book from 1st discussion post, create week 5 videos, finalize week 5 content, and double check week 4 content before it goes live. Goal met? Yes!
service + admin
Planning: My goal for the week was to have my weekly list ready to go on Thursday (b/c of teaching on Friday) with Monday’s tasks picked out. Goal met? Half… I have my list ready (and I even created it on Thursday!); however, I didn’t go through and designate specific tasks for Monday (I picked out a few things, but will need to add more to the schedule).
Conference planning: My goal for the week was to wrap up conference travel reimbursement paperwork. Goal met? Yes.
meetings, appointments, + events
✓dean candidate meeting
✓office hours (x2)
✓PT
✓online office hours
✓advising related meeting
✓paper 3 check-in meeting
✓lead instructors meeting
✓teaching
personal
Workouts: Two lifting sessions plus a ~2 mile hike.
Toddler on the Tenure Track: Goal: Get 2 posts up on the blog. Goal met? Yup.
Meditation: Goal: 5 minutes every other day Goal met? No… I did really well in the beginning of the week (Sun - Tues) and then missed the rest of the week.
Budget: ✓ grocery bill is looking good this month so far