As it stood this morning, the task list was:
- Finish reading Programmed Visions
- Schedule a meeting with four people who have widely-varying schedules
- Begin plans for the next Demystifying Digital Humanities session – identify main points
- Write up a review of previous DMDH sessions for Fiona and Hilary
- Email scheduling info for spring 18th/19th century reading group
- Seriously? Update the reading group website. You haven’t even got the new name on there – that’s ridiculous.
- Calculate overages for catering from prior DMDH sessions and request money to cover possible shortfall
- Buy cat food
Let’s see how that went, shall we?
- Finish Programmed Visions: not even close. I did, however, break down and buy an ebook version so that I could return it to the library and minimize the fines. As it was, I had only started it because I needed to get it back to the library. Now, without the time constrain, I’m back to George Sainsbury.
Schedule a meeting: Done! And reasonably painless.- Plan DMDH: Nope, but that will likely happen tomorrow when I meet with Paige Morgan, my collaborator.
- DMDH write-up: No, but again, it’s scheduled for tomorrow, and there’s a hard deadline in place. I generally make those.
Reading group scheduling: Done, and the first round of questions fielded.- Update reading group website: No; waiting on confirmation of a few things.
- DMDH budgeting: No, but this is rolled into tomorrow’s DMDH bonanza.
Buy cat food: Done! Once again, my tasty human flesh is safe.
But, of course, there were all the things that didn’t make the list that popped up anyway:
- Feed colleague-who-is-out-of-town’s cat
- Write and send off an abstract
- Schedule several more meetings
- Pass on information about the CTL poster session to our group’s lead
- Pick up The Offspring from school
- Feed Offspring
- Finish reading The Hobbit to Offspring
- Move and vacuum behind tatty, broken sofa in preparation for the arrival of shiny, new sofa
Not bad, I suppose, given that the to-do list is always a bit of a fiction. There’s a post I’d like to write about how we position ourselves as people with lives and responsibilities beyond academia, and whether DH allows us to value that other more (you can find my basic thoughts on that here), but I doubt that will happen before the end of Day of DH. Should it happen any time soon, I’ll all a link here.