work-life balance
jane | November 9, 2008So as you can probably tell, since I've gotten around to posting the Scientiae carnival, I'm feeling better. Well, I'm out of bed, at least, so that's something. I think it's going to be a long road back to feeling like my "normal" self, though. I'm still tired all the time. Case in point: Yesterday I washed the kitchen floor and cooked dinner, and then had to spend the rest of the evening on the couch, because I was totally wiped out. I basically go to work and then come home and sleep.
Because I'm tired all the time, my thinking has been a bit fuzzy at times, too. (case in point: I'…
jane | October 30, 2008So the last time we heard from our heroine, she was battling the evil germ invasion. But that was over a week ago. What's happened? Has our heroine successfully fought off the germs, brought balance and rest back to her life, and gotten back on track with work?
Well, not exactly. She's just gotten herself sicker.
I don't know what it is about this job. Even if you prioritize the hell out of everything, even if you cut out all of the non-essentials, even if you swear on your grandma's secret veggie noodle soup recipe that you will get to bed at a decent hour for the next week....well,…
jane | October 23, 2008If you get very little sleep for several weeks running,
... and work under extremely stressful conditions (like, oh, say, tenure review),
... and fail to take time for yourself to recharge,
... and hang out with germy people, like college students and toddlers, all day,
then chances are really good (like 100% good) that you will get really, really sick.
And if you're stupid enough to, oh, not take a day off to try and get better?
I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
(please excuse the radio silence while I try to get better.)
jane | October 13, 20081. Baby Jane, who is one of the world's best sleepers, woke herself up coughing last night, then decided that if she was up, then the rest of us should be, too.
2. Which culminated in a 4am full-blown, all-out temper tantrum.
3. I got 3 hours of sleep. That number may be a bit generous.
4. This is on top of the huge sleep deficit I'm currently running.
5. Research is slooooooooooow. Software issues + summer students holding data hostage (OK, not responding to my emails, for like weeks now....I think I need to threaten to take them off the current pub author list) + finding it hard to find…
jane | September 16, 2008Well, so much for the year of being in balance, and so much for keeping my life in control. It's still relatively early in the school year, and I am already completely overwhelmed.
I've been up since 5am today. At one point today, I had 47 unread emails in my Inbox---and I check my email regularly. I spent maybe 10, 15 "quality" minutes with Baby Jane today, and 0 "quality" minutes with Mr. Jane.
Things were actually going along ok for a while. It's just over the past few days or week, maybe, that things have gotten out of control---like the Mack Truck of Too Much Work came barreling in…
jane | September 3, 2008In the past at around this time of year, shamelessly borrowing an idea from Laura at Geeky Mom, I've made resolutions for the new academic year. I've been trying to think about what I want my resolutions to be this year, but I've had a hard time of it.
Maybe it's the stress of the tenure year that's making it hard for me to focus (on anything, really, for that matter). Maybe it's a bit of summer angst---you know, summer is over and I had all these big plans and ideas and how many of them came to fruition? (Actually, quite a few---I'm pretty proud of what I accomplished this summer, work-…
jane | August 28, 2008...I'm playing hooky! I'm declaring not just a work-free weekend day, but a work-free, computer-free, long weekend. With nature and good friends and good food and all that fun stuff.
See you on the flip side, and hope you all have similar enjoyable holiday weekends!
jane | August 25, 2008Doesn't that sound scandalous? Sadly, it's not scandalous. But it is pretty darn cool:
I just signed up for free childcare. At a computer science conference, no less.
Yes, of course I'm talking about the Grace Hopper Conference. Continuing their fine tradition of being one of the coolest conferences ever, GHC (as of last year, I think?) now offers childcare. And it's free. Free, available, convenient childcare! Even during the banquet! (Not during the Friday night festivities, I noticed, but other than that, the hours are really good.) What a concept!
This will be my third conference…
jane | August 25, 2008If I feel like I need to take a day or 2 off, I should just take a day or 2 off, stress-free, and not try to "work through it".
I need a couple of weeks to decompress after all of the end-of-the-year stuff before I can really get down to doing serious work. (A vacation would be a really good idea at this point.)
Having new undergrads start work in my lab during this 2-week cushion (see previous point) is not a good idea, for my mental health or for their education in the ways of undergraduate research.
Baby Jane definitely inherited her mama's love of the water. Yay!
It's a good idea to go…
jane | August 6, 2008It never fails. During particularly stressful times, I tend to have nightmares. (In fact, sometimes I don't even really know how stressed I am until I start having recurring nightmares.) They were especially prevalent during my third-year review year, during a hiring mess a while back, and then again this past spring, when I was struggling mightily for some unknown reason. They seem to be back, now that I'm heading into my tenure review year---I've had one almost every night this week.
Oh, joy!
Helpfully, I've discovered that my bad dreams are usually some variation of the following:
The…
jane | August 4, 2008So. I was gone for a bit. Yeah, the plan was to do a "best of" series of posts from the old blog in my absence: after all, this was something I could easily set up beforehand, and besides, we'd have some Internet access while gone, so I could always post from the road!
As you can see, that didn't happen.
As is typical around here, the days leading up to vacation were busy. Why do work crises always pop up the day or two before one leaves? And packing---oh, how I loathe the packing. Especially now that the airlines seem to be charging for any and all luggage, except car seats and…
jane | July 3, 2008Rather than responding to all of the comments on my last post (and thanks once again---really, you all have done so much to help put me in a better mental state than I've been in in a while!), I thought I would do a brief update in a post.
First and most importantly, I'm doing better. Not great, but better---and that's huge, for me, right now. A few things happened in the past week to help put me in a better place:
1. I did as little work as I could get away with. I went in almost every day with the intention of Getting Stuff Done, but mentally, I wasn't up to it. Normally this would be…
jane | June 27, 2008You may have noticed that there's been some "radio silence" around here, as they say, lately. Never fear, I'm still here, and I'm....coping. Sort of.
Executive summary: I haven't been myself lately, and it's really, really starting to take a toll. (Warning: extreme frankness ahead!)
I am not really sure what triggered this latest, extended meltdown of confidence. It could be the extreme stress of the last few months, stored and bottled up and not really dealt with, finally coming out. It could be the end-of-the-year meeting I had with my chair, which was in some ways helpful (some…
jane | June 15, 2008In the spirit of this year's theme, "Fearless", I have signed up to run a race that's a bit longer distance than I'm normally comfortable running. Not significantly longer, but longer.
At the time I signed up for it, it seemed like a good idea---I would have plenty of time to train. But then....May hit, and the training took a hit. And now the race is less than a month away, and I'm very much behind in my preparation.
But this year I am FEARLESS, and I know the Worst Thing That Could Happen is that I have to walk for a bit instead of running the whole way. You know what? Big fat hairy…
jane | June 12, 2008I have been waiting for my summer to begin. May was a nightmarish whirlwind of deadlines and heavy amounts of work and way too many obligations, that spilled over into June. (But on the bright side, I did get another article out, so yay me!) Things, I think, are finally calming down, and indeed I think summer for me is about to begin.
But the experience has been unsettling. I've had very little downtime, either personally or work-wise. I haven't had time to reflect on my summer plans, map out what I need to do this summer and this coming school year (as I prepare for the dreaded tenure…
jane | June 2, 2008The theme of this month's Scientiae carnival is "Added Weight: Taking up Space." This theme is very timely for me, since I've been thinking about this topic lately---a lot. And, readers of the old blog may remember that my "theme" for the year is FEARLESS. Well, you can't really be fearless if you're trying to be invisible, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to take stock of what I'm doing this year to be true to the theme and, thus, to take up space in the world.
1. I am more direct in the way I communicate with people, particularly colleagues, but students as well. If there'…
jane | May 26, 2008I just saw this meme at ScienceMama's, which I believe originated at Sciencewomen. Yeah, so I'm late to the party on this one, but what the hell, it's late and I'm too wired to sleep, so here goes:
In 10 minutes .... I'll hopefully be in bed, trying desperately to get some sleep before tomorrow's busy busy day.
In 10 hours .... I'll be in yet another meeting, cursing the fact that I'm sitting in a meeting instead of doing Real Actual Work That Could Get Me Tenure.
In 10 days .... I will be playing hooky from doing Real Actual Work That Could Get Me Tenure so that I can do Fun Things I Don't…
jane | May 11, 2008In honor of Mother's Day, and in honor of the one-year anniversary of Baby Jane's appearance on Planet Earth, here, in no particular order, are the top five things I've learned from being a mom this past year. And, as a bonus, how each of these lessons can be applied to my career.
5. All plans are tentative.Life is probably not going to work out exactly as I'd like, so be prepared, have an exit strategy/Plan B, and keep my CV updated, just in case.
4. There are some things I can control, like bedtimes and mealtimes. Most everything else, though, is out of my control, and once I accept…
jane | April 30, 2008Do you ever play the game in which you fantasize about what you would do, career-wise, if you couldn't do what you're currently doing?
I do, particularly when I'm having an especially bad week or when someone is droning on AGAIN about stupid inconsequential stuff during a meeting or when I'm buried under piles of grading or when I'm seriously doubting my abilities to earn tenure at my current institution. So yeah, about once every 5 minutes.
Here's what's on my list, in no particular order:
Patent lawyer (yes, I realize this requires yet more school. Remember, this is a fantasy list.)…
jane | April 27, 2008A numerical synopsis of my weekend:
Number of sick babies in household: 1
Doses of Tylenol administered: 6
Amount of vomit cleaned up: 1 metric ton
Amount of baby snot/drool/various secretions on clothing: 3 pounds
Number of outings canceled: 3
Loads of laundry done: 1
Loads of laundry typically done on a "normal" weekend: 5
Net laundry: -4
Hours of work done Saturday: 1.5 (yeah, I know, this violates the whole Saturdays off thing)
Hours of work done Sunday: 8
Percentage of work that needed to be done that was completed: 90%
Stress level (1-10 scale): 10 at start of day, 3 now…