I finished the letters of recommendation today. I had agreed to write more of them than usual, and it's a judgment-heavy task on the heels of the judgment-heavy end of the semester. But it's done! Huzzah!
This is the point at which I usually sag like a SAD-dened 4-day-old helium balloon, but this year, thankfully, I am feeling more like a helium balloon purchased the day before yesterday. That's progress, right?
I have more work to do before I wrap things up for the year. There are 40 messages in my work inbox, most of which require me to complete some small task, and I would prefer to have zero messages in my work inbox and zero lingering tasks. I agreed to peer-review two papers before the end of the year, because (a) I enjoy peer review, especially when I am not trying to shoehorn it in around teaching responsibilities, and (b) both outlets that requested my peer-reviewing services are fancypants journals. This year I have to complete a 5-year post-tenure review on top of the usual annual review, so hey-- I might as well tell the powers that be that I'm a peer reviewer for Nature these days. (There's a whole family of journals published by Nature, by the way. I'm not peer-reviewing for the mothership.)
It would be smart to draft both of those review documents now so I just have to do the final tweaks before their early January due dates, but we will have to see whether there's enough coal in the tender to propel my personal steam engine that far. We might have to ease this steam engine into a siding and wait for a future coal delivery; see above re: drooping helium balloons (and pardon the mixed metaphor).
There is a fair amount of Christmas stuff that needs to happen around here as well. I'm a little stressed out about writing down the actual list, which is a counterproductive flavor of stressed out. Pete will be home tomorrow; maybe he'll make a list with me. He will also give me a little sanity check on how much knitting I can really get done before Christmas. I have been cruising through a pair of plain worsted-weight mittens and they are filling me with a sense of potential that is probably a little delusional. But! Hope springs eternal!
How's by you? How are your December tasks coming?
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