July 2024 round-up

July was ridiculously stressful on the house search front. But all is well that ends well, and we are now, definitely, in a good place: we secured a new house, moved out of the other one, and experienced some great displays of friendship. Ah, and my knee is better, and we celebrated the kiddo’s birthday.

Research

The main achievements on the research front, this month, have been collecting some data and working on a literature review.

Writing

I worked on some paper revisions and reviewed a policy report.

Teaching

I wrapped up marking, attended exam boards, and signed off on resit assessment briefs.

I continued to supervise two student projects related to the use of generative AI for sentiment analysis, and I am super impressed with the students’ calibre!

I also attended some training related to the impact of generative AI on assessment. Finally, I had a meeting about my workload for the next academic year and agreed which modules I will be teaching. In particular, I will be taking on a new advanced qualitative research methods’ module, for doctoral students, which should be really interesting.

Service

I participated in the SeNSS Doctoral Conference, at the start of the month, which included various sessions about public engagement and academic vs non-academic careers. I am a bit annoyed with myself that I didn’t join in more in the social activities – but I was busy wrapping up the marking and moderation (and my knee and house search situation were not helping with the mood). Next time, I will embrace it, fully.

I also prepared a report about the SeNSS doctoral students’ training needs, and reviewed some policy documents.  But, sadly, I had to miss the planning day for personal reasons.

Finally, I reviewed a paper for a journal.

So, that’s it. Some times it felt like July was never ending, and others that the days were flying by. Friends really made the difference, this month.

How was your July?