Seeing the End and the Beginning
It's still freaking me out to get hundreds of hits a day for an entry I wrote months ago, but so be it! Wish I got a dollar for each one of those hits.

But we are nearing the end of the semester. And what is looming for me like the giant elephant that it is is the tenure file I'll be putting together all summer. My plan is to get my office on campus organized and take everything there to work on throughout the summer. I plan to go in two or three days a week and work a couple of hours on it all so that I make steady progress. I've been collecting sample files from my colleagues, and it certainly doesn't look complicated. It just takes time to condense everything into one coherent document.

I have to admit that I did get a little excited the other day putting together a list of possible outside reviewers for my scholarship. That part is stressful, but I am actually enjoying putting that list together. And I've been emailing a ton of people asking questions about acceptance rates. It's been kind of nice to find out that some conferences I attended were pretty competitive.

Since I won't have grading to do until Monday when final projects come in--and no class prep since they are just turning in projects--I spent today doing some major organizing here at home (much like other people). I finally went through some piles, made some new files, and just cleared off some surfaces. I'll do more of that tomorrow.

And my email is empty! I'm doing the GTD thing of going through it and responding to all messages I can while filing all others away into an Action file for later. I'm also trying not to check it as often. So far, so good (after two days of it).

I really want to go about all of this as smoothly as possible. I'll freak out later, but for now, I'm enjoying the preliminary parts of the process.
- posted by Nels @ 10:37 PM | | | Link |