Whitman’s last day of classes is this coming Monday. Since my Computer Networks class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, today was our last day of class. This blog post is based on the notes for my farewell speech.
Outline due to Dr. Freda Rebelsky via Dr. Samuel Rebelsky.
Fall 2020 was my most difficult semester of teaching ever: more difficult than my first terms teaching at UW, Grinnell, or Whitman; more difficult than the fall I was pregnant; and more difficult than my return to teaching after maternity leave.
Why so difficult? Given the state of the world, surely that must be a rhetorical question – but there are reasons. Continue reading
Yesterday was a good day. The weather was perfect: not too warm, cool, cloudy, or windy. My daughter and I took a walk in the park and splashed in our backyard pool (5’5″, inflatable). We talked with her babysitter on Google Meet. I spent a couple of hours clearing my email inbox and taking care of some paperwork, while my daughter played by herself in the morning and watched extra episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood in the afternoon. I sat on the back patio during a long conversation with my closest colleague, and I took a walk during a shorter call with my longtime peer mentor. I wore a new pair of sandals, ordered online from the manufacturer at 50% off after a large retail order was cancelled. My Apple Watch says I got a full hour of exercise (though it also says I climbed 44 flights of stairs, which I know is not true). My husband picked up lunch from a taco truck and cooked Ottolenghi’s shakshuka for our dinner outside by the creek with a bottle of wine. My daughter’s bedtime was easy, and I had a little time to relax before bed.
This morning I woke early, took a shower, and started writing this before I heard the calls of “Mommy!” I’m about to publish as lunchtime approaches. Continue reading
Articles published by the Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today, and NPR point out we are all grieving over the changes that social distancing brings to our lives. This morning my colleague Amy Csizmar Dalal’s blog post about recognizing her grief made me reflect on how I am grieving as well. Continue reading
This post is about how I am trying to reduce my time on Facebook while still keeping the app installed on my iPhone. First a little backstory, then what I did.
In this post, I briefly discuss my doings of the last six weeks under two headings (“Yay, I’m on sabbatical!” and “Hey, I’m on sabbatical!”) and four sub-headings (“Scholarship”, “Personal”, “Service”, and “Things left undone”). Continue reading
In my last post, I reflected on kicking off my year-long sabbatical with a six-week trip abroad with my daughter and husband. In this post, I will discuss new routines for the next several months of my sabbatical, and the transition from traveling to being at home. Continue reading
A week ago, I returned from a six-week trip abroad. In this post, I’ll reflect on my goals for the trip and how they were (or were not) accomplished. In my next post, I’ll discuss the transition from traveling on sabbatical to being on sabbatical at home. Continue reading
For me, June marked the beginning of a year-long sabbatical. This meant an abrupt return to the research I almost entirely neglected during my first year back to teaching and administration after the birth of my child. All I had done was write two proposals – one for summer research, and one for the sabbatical itself.
This won’t be a post about the content of my research: that’s a topic for later in the year. Rather, this post discusses the habits I’ve retained from the academic year, new habits I am forming now, and habits I am considering for later in my sabbatical. Continue reading
I am writing this during my return flight from the CRA-W Career Mentoring Workshop in Phoenix. Continue reading