That’s right, it’s February Break, or Reading Week, here at Dalhousie, and just in time too, because I have so much to do! By way of motivating me and helping me keep track, here’s my task list for the week. I’ll update it as things get done!
Finish essay on Virginia Woolf’s Common Reader volumes for Open Letters Monthly(done!)
Finish essay on blogging and academic practice for Journal of Victorian Culture(done!)Mark 30 short fiction annotation assignments for Close Reading(done)Read and give feedback on 63-page Ph.D. thesis chapter(done)Write two reference letters, both due March 1(done)Prepare thoughtful reply to inquiry about blogging for someone else’s article about it(done)Finish reading The Woman in White and prepare concluding lecture for next Monday’s 19th-Century Fiction class(done)Keep reading Middlemarch and prepare lectures and activities for next week’s Close Reading classes, plusintro lecture for 19th-Century Fiction(done)Finish blog post on Ahdaf Soueif’s Cairo: My City, Our Revolution- Start series of blog posts on Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (my Balkan photos scanned)
- Submit book list to library for upcoming course on the ‘Somerville novelists’ (preliminary list underway)
Brace myself for Fall 2012 book orders, which will come due April 1.(begun exploring options; publishers contacted for review copies)Mark 1 late poetry assignment for Close Reading(done)Edit incoming pieces for the 5th Anniversary Issue of Open Letters Monthly(I almost forgot that my own duties to this issue don’t begin and end with my own contribution!) (done!)
That list is sort of in order of priority, though I’m likely to intersperse lighter tasks like the Soueif blog post with harder ones like the thesis chapter and marking assignments. And the class prep for next week is here because I don’t want to wake up on Sunday and realize that in focusing on my special projects for this week, I let the routine business slip and end up in a panic. It’s a lot to do, but because this is also supposed to be a bit of a break, my aim is to work hard during the day and not work (or not work so much) at night the way I usually do. I have one more season of MI-5 to go on Netflix. An episode a night would be a nice treat–well, not so nice, since they keep killing off characters I’m fond of. But still, it’s a distraction.
February 28 Update: I didn’t get quite everything done during the actual break, but now it’s looking pretty good. The Rebecca West posts weren’t really a high priority anyway, but I am eager to get started on them and to keep reading the book. Not on this list is ‘Read Winifred Holtby’s Anderby Wold, which I have in fact been doing…so a post on that should follow before long. I think having this list posted publicly did prove motivating!
Novel Readings 