Year in review 2017

[liv]

I ended up skipping an end of year retrospective in 2016 and 2015, which I regret, as I knew I would. Those two years were very full of exciting new relationship on the one hand, and the long, drawn-out train wreck of my academic career on the other. And I didn't quite want to write about them.

Up to summer 2016, my little research group was gradually unravelling and I was constantly scared about whether I would be able to salvage any career at all, and increasingly convinced that the only positive outcome would be to get out without any glaringly obvious black mark on my CV. I was spending a good chunk of my week commuting between Keele where I was struggling with job, and Cambridge where I was trying to cram as much relationship stuff as possible into about 40 hours of weekend plus a couple of weeks at Christmas.

Summer 2016, the ongoing bad situation at work came to a head and my second PhD student was removed from my supervision, against her wishes as well as mine. Also in summer 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union, and I... haven't been sleeping well since, even though so far not much has changed materially for a British citizen who reads (passes?) as white. In spite of the political awfulness, in many ways the academic year of 2016 - 17 was easier than the previous several years; I knew, instead of fearing, that I couldn't progress much further on the traditional academic track. And having half my job, the research part, effectively snatched away from under me was upsetting, but it meant I was giving my whole time and energy to half a job and was able to excel rather than struggling to catch up.

So this year's significant events:

• I applied for and was offered a new job []. This entailed moving properly to Cambridge, and generally reorganizing my life.
  
  
• The move meant that I used up my annual leave so I didn't have time for many major trips, or for giving as much attention as I'd have liked to other major events, like my parents' ruby anniversary and Forestofglory's visit and Lethargic_man's wedding.
  
  
• Talking of simchas, my excellent student celebrated his bar mitzvah towards the start of the year. And illusive_shelle celebrated a magnificent wedding, and fluffymark married bella_luugosi and it was much talked about, though I wasn't able to attend. Congrats also to monanotlisa on her marriage, and to hatam_soferet on the birth of a daughter.
  
  
• In fact, it was a really good year religiously! I went to a really great interfaith event in March. I hosted my partners at some Seders in April. I led some successful Shabbat services including the one where I bid farewell to the community where I've been organizing religious things for the past 8 years. And I returned to them for the High Holy Days. I started teaching at the same Sunday school where I worked as a teenager, and was invited to take over as headmistress (!) from next year, but said no as my plans are too uncertain to commit to that. And right at the end of December I read Torah in the synagogue where I spent my teens, where they have incredibly high standards of who's allowed to read and apparently I now meet them.
  
  
• There was a mass exodus from LJ due to draconian changes in the Terms of Service and concerns about the legal and moral situation in Russia.

Places: Not many; I was limited in how much I could travel due to the job change.

• Cambridge
• Stoke-on-Trent (for the last time :'-( )
• Helsinki
• London
• Norfolk

Books: Haven't really got back into the habit of spending a lot of time reading since I stopped in 2014. I've read slightly more than five books this year but not by that much, and lots of this is Hugo reading. Anyway, I've got excited about:

• Katy by Jacqueline Wilson
• Ninefox gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
• The fifth season by NK Jemisin.
• The interior life by Katherine Blake
• A taste of honey by Kai Ashante Wilson

Music:

• Bring it on by Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed by Bodywork Company
• Semele by GF Handel, performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
• Girl on fire by Alicia Keys (I was slightly disappointed to find out this has nothing to do with The Hunger Games)
• Mercy me by Alkaline Trio
• Rosenrot by Rammstein

Notable posts:

• How to bootstrap (almost) any relationship by commodorified
• We never think it's us (about volunteer burnout) by mrissa
• Things I should have learned in library school: How To Tell Parents That Confidentiality is Turtles All The Way Down by silveradept; in fact the whole series on the craft and politics of being a librarian is just amazing.
• The War of the Worlds review and commentary by rushthatspeaks
• I was anticipating the total destruction of Polish Jewry by sovay. I linked to this one already, and as you can probably guess from the title it's about the Holocaust, specifically the Jewish experience of it often termed the Shoah. But it's important enough to link again in my end-of-year round-up.

My posts:

• Jew-ish [Jewish]
• Religion and sexuality [religion]
• Scarcity [issues]
• Group work, mainly for the comments discussion rather than the main post [work]
• Liberals and opinions [religion]

I'm not going to make lists of people this year. My partners have been a constant wonderful presence in my life, and I always miss so many of my dear friends, and there aren't many new people joining DW these days.

Anyway, happy New Year to those of you for whom changing the calendar is important. As every year, my resolution is to be better at keeping in touch, and hopefully this year will have few upheavals (she says, optimistically) and I will actually have time and energy to do something about it.

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Comments

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

That 'bootstrap a relationship' thing sounds like how I generally deal with relationships. I didn't get it from anyone though, I worked it out myself with help from Colin.

[(Anonymous)]

Happy New Year!

I don't think I'd realized how train-wrecky things were at Keele - sorry you went through that, but glad you seem to have landed in a much better situation in Cambridge.

Wishing you all good things for 2018!

[smhwpf]

Reposting, this time as me. Sorry, I failed to notice that I wasn't logged in:

Happy New Year!

I don't think I'd realized how train-wrecky things were at Keele - sorry you went through that, but glad you seem to have landed in a much better situation in Cambridge.

Wishing you all good things for 2018!

[emperor]

Happy New (Calendar) Year!

[silveradept]

Felicitations of the new year. I'm sorry I'm getting to this late - thank you for the recommendation.

Here's hoping for a much better year for us all.