So how's it going for you all? Is it just me, or does it feel like we're still stuck on a merry-go-round of doom, terror, and burnout? I've had to make some adjustments recently to cope, one of which is making a simple, short must-do list each day and often quitting when I finish it … Continue reading How to Prep for an Academic Conference
Author: tawnyaazar
Your Future Self
The first time I remember reading about "your future self" was in Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project. She gave the example of preparing the coffee machine the night before so all you had to do was enjoy your coffee the next day. It isn't about saving time necessarily, but rather thinking of what your future self … Continue reading Your Future Self
Big Dreams
How's everyone doing so far this year? It's been a minute since I've posted because I found I needed time to adjust to the spring semester schedule. Remind me to blog about navigating periods of transition sometime. Today's blog is about making big plans, dreaming big dreams, for your academic (or professional) life. I'm inspired … Continue reading Big Dreams
Organizing Your Files for Research
This is post #3 in my miniseries on organizing for research (in case you missed them, here's post #1 & #2). I don't know about you, but it took nearly 10 years of being in higher education for me to develop a digital filing system that actually works for me. A combination of things (the … Continue reading Organizing Your Files for Research
Research Pipeline
This is post #2 in my mini-series on organizing your research (also, here is #1 and #3). If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may have read about my Low-Key System for Managing Academic Projects. This post is an update to that original concept as well as some general advice about creating project … Continue reading Research Pipeline
Research Themes
This is post #1 in my miniseries on Organizing Your Research (find post #2 & #3 here). I remember having a moment of clarity after reading/hearing (?) Roopika Risam discuss how she organizes her research interests (see her awesome website for inspo). Up until then, I was like a lot of current early-career academics: jumping … Continue reading Research Themes
Spring 2022 Goals
Don't you just love a good goals post? Right now most folks in my feed are either "my only 2022 goal is to survive" OR "I'm going to do all the things!" This post is...somewhere in the middle. It's not in my nature to go from thing to thing without a plan, and, on the … Continue reading Spring 2022 Goals
Negativity Bias
Today's rather short post is brought to you by an instructor with 100 student projects to review! lol But seriously, I wanted to take a moment because it is officially the season of course evaluations, and I saw some interesting chatter in my program's slack about this topic. There was the very familiar back-and-forth about … Continue reading Negativity Bias
Why Does Grading Feel So Hard?
Tis the season for faculty complaints about grading. Not that I blame them. Grading is the absolute worst part of teaching---just ask any teacher. I myself was feeling incredibly unmotivated to review my students' midterm projects, and then I immediately felt guilty. After all, I am the one who sets the assignments. I am the … Continue reading Why Does Grading Feel So Hard?
On Pointless Writing
I didn't know what to blog about this week until I was looking through my screenshots and found this legit gem: Screenshot of Miriam Posner's tweet reading: "Writing is so annoying when you have to have 'an argument' or at least 'something to say' and you can't just 'vibe.'" As you know if you've been … Continue reading On Pointless Writing
Tawnya Azar 