Hello 2018
I realize this is a year and time when a lot of people are pretty down or apathetic. I already see where people's resolutions have gone to the wayside (after 17 days? That's quicker than usual!) I tend to be extremely upbeat and optimistic about the tone and the trajectory of the year.
I'm doing the thing like I did last year where I have 26 "mini resolutions". I didn't do terribly on the ones last year; I completely finished about half of them, and did the majority of another third. The ones that had to do with fitness dropped by the wayside, but that's one of my big pushes for this next year.
There are really five categories I'm focusing on in 2018, and getting my mind wrapped around them:
- my PhD. This is the defining thing of my life; my final degree and my largest accomplishment. I have made some major movement in this in the past four years, but this is where the rubber hits the road. My proposal defense will be this year (next month), and then I start my interviews. If all goes well, I'll be completely done by April 2019, set to graduate in May. Tied to this I will be doing at least four conferences throughout the country, so a lot of submissions are coming. Lastly, publishing. My goal is to have three things in publish mode by the end of this year. Fingers crossed on that.
- my finances. It kind of hit me over the weekend as I was talking to a friend that this is really the first period since my move to JHU that the paycut has hit me. I mean, it's simply the act that I had 15,000 more dollars every year. There was logic behind switching jobs (the other one was going to pot with the change in leadership, and even if it wasn't, I couldn't manage a department and do my PhD classes, much less my comps), but I've now become quite sober about what needs to happen. So any opportunity or attempt to earn extra money, yeah. It sucks that TU doesn't have any summer classes open for me to teach; I may approach UMBC. If I just had one, the extra $4,000 would be nice, especially with all the travelling.
(And I shouldn't make it sound like I don't have any money. Like I was saying to the friend- I'm not in a 'paycheck to paycheck' place or even the 'out of money by payday' place. I used to just be at a point where I had like, $700 extra dollars sitting in my checking account on the day before payday, and that isn't the case anymore. I put away savings, but not as much as I want to. I wish I could do more)
- my fitness. I haven't been running regularly since the summer, mainly because of how crazy my work schedule got. Getting back into it has been slow. It hits you when you realize you used to be able to run for 20 solid minutes, no prob, and now you struggle to run 8 and a half (i.e. a mile). I know it's a process and I know there is the opportunity to get back, but it seems so far away. If I had extra money I'd pick up my personal trainer again - sucks that is NOT an option.
- my connections. I really need to work on my social connections. I find myself relying on the same 3-4 people and doing not much when they aren't available. I need to widen my social scope. More traveling will help with this.
- my future. What do I want to do next? I'm getting some strong (and sounding more reasonable) pushback about academia. Do I *really* want to, next year, be earning a base salary of 50k? That's a huge step back, but it's what assistant professors earn. One of my diss advisors is trying to encourage me to look into research, government positions, and the like. I don't know. Maybe. I could always adjunct, which is fine (I like the lack of rigidity in adjuncting, but hate the "not sure if I will get a class" portion of it). I really want to have a decision and a plan by August.
So, yeah, bottom line, lots going on.