It will be six months next week since I started my position as Digital Scholarship Coordinator at Bucknell University. The experience has been, by turns, exciting, exhausting, exasperating, and metaphorically exsanguinating. Ultimately, though, it’s been exhilarating (all right – I’ll stop with the alliteration now). In the process of trying to make sense of what’s going on here, what it means for me, and what I mean to the digital scholarship initiative at Bucknell, I’ve had to deconstruct myself, rebuild myself, and think a lot about what I do and why I believe in it. I’ve looked at the DH community with which I’ve aligned myself and reached out to friends and colleagues in ways both beneficial to the university and necessary for me. I’ve been hyperconscious of what it means to write about this in public spaces at the same time I encourage my colleagues to demonstrate transparency in their work. [Read more…] about Six Months In: Taking Stock of my Situation
Settling In
Bucknell: Week One phase is now complete. It’s been exciting and exhausting and confusing and exilarating. There’s so much to do, and so many people to meet, and so many goals to set, and … I still can’t quite adjust to the feeling that the Bucknell DSC (both position and center) is a reality and not something I’ve wished into being. There were so many meet-and-greets this week that it was Friday before I was able to start to make sense of my notes.
On Shifting Gears
Here I am in my new home office, listening as Mennonites in their buggies ride by on their way to church. Bonnie is sleeping in her bed at my feet (the hardwood floors are hard on her hips, so I’m investing in plenty of dog beds.) This morning we walked across the street, down a gravel road and through Mr. Baker’s farm. Last week at this time I was frantically packing boxes. Tomorrow I start the new job at Bucknell. This is a curious bucolic limbo.
Organization and Procrastination
I love Things. I’ve become a to-do list junkie, and although I don’t really embrace the GTD lifestyle, LifeHacker has given me food for thought about threshing away at my inbox and slicing up the tasks and projects and goals and objectives that threaten to overwhelm me.