Something I thought about:

  • I’m trying to figure out my new, non-academic routines and rhythm. I realize I’ve been entirely out of academia for less than two weeks, and it’s truly weird that I’m not currently grading or preparing for the next semester or any of that. I still have various moving-related, transitional tasks on deck (getting set up with new doctors and systems here — I need to find a dentist for the grown-ups, etc.), but I’m trying to pace myself a bit more now that the big, initial rush is over. Work is busy, and my days are full, but I can read for myself in the evenings or watch a show or… whatever. I’m easing into that “whatever.” For now, it’s books and French and scribbling — nothing thought out or complete — but a doodling version of writing.

Something I did:

  • Played in the snow with the family.
  • Went to French class.
  • Went to book group.
  • Went to meetings in English and in French.
  • Found some truly weird bugs (my not so secret skill).
  • Had an in-person work day in Boston with my company’s partners, which was fun. I met one at a conference in Pittsburgh in 2019, and this was my first time seeing him in person since then. The other I met in person for the first time.
  • Read a lot.

Something I read:

  • Started a slow read of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel — this is a reread, which I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. I’ve been wanting to finish the trilogy, but by the time I started the second, I’d forgotten too much of the first. The goal is to slowly read the whole series over the course of the year following this schedule.
  • Started a slow read of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy — this has been on my TBR *forever* and the translator visited the translation seminar I took at BU (a different translator visited each week — it was *fantastic*). This will also be read over the course of the year, and here’s the schedule.
  • Enter the Body by Joy McCullough
  • “Why Parents Struggle So Much in the World’s Richest Country” by Stephanie H. Murray
  • “A Woman Hid This Secret Code in Her Silk Dress in 1888 — and Codebreakers Just Solved It” by Tim Newcomb
  • Sir Callie and the Dragon’s Roost by Esme Sykes-Smith
  • Ink Girls by Marieke Nijkamp and Sylvia Bi
  • Shanti by SJ Sindu and Nabi H. Ali
  • Customs by Solmaz Sharif
  • Sorceline by Sylvia Douyé and Paola Antista
  • “Invisible Ink: At the CIA’s Creative Writing Group” by Johannes Lichtman