It’s been a long time since I kept an active blog. No promises that this time will be any different, or that I’ll keep this section of the site at all.
Posting this is the last task for overhauling my website (aside from redirecting the domain), which was sorely overdue. That situation seems fairly common among junior faculty. No time for annoying little admin tasks that don’t produce papers or grant funding.
But I’m not a junior faculty member anymore. A lot has changed since I built the prior iteration of the website when I was a… IDK, doc student? postdoc? … including the all-important tenure. So reworking my public online presence seems like a suitable task as I work on reorienting myself to the next stage of professional development. Or something like that.
I wish I had deep thoughts on achieving tenure or big new goals that I felt confident in tackling all the sudden. But I don’t. I’m just tired a lot. I attribute it to surviving The Pandemic, during which time I got divorced and changed my name, came out 🏳️🌈, chaired a conference that went virtual, switched to online teaching, and applied for tenure. Those things would have been a lot to deal with even if there had been no pandemic; the pandemic was a lot to deal with even without having to rebuild my life. And I did all of it pretty much at once, so I’m tired.
I figure that’s OK. It should be expected and taking some time to recover should be supported; I know I don’t have to worry about it at UNO. I’d like to do some slow thinking and make my next moves forward more deliberate and considered. So I guess that’s the big new post-tenure goal I’m working on for now. We’ll see how it goes.