I am going to be teaching a workshop on how to write more strategically (basically, how not to beat ourselves up when we are not writing and how to make goals more realistic, particularly during a pandemic).
I have identified these challenges within myself, on this very topic.
1) I have a trillion things to do, and I feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of commitments I still have, despite having said NO to about a gazillion.
2) I have a full day of writing, and somehow, I am neither inspired, nor do I feel physically well enough to write.
3) The sequence of projects I NEED to tackle is different from that of those I WANT to tackle.
4) Everything is taking WAY longer than I expected it to, particularly with so many Zoom meetings that end up draining me of energy.
5) Care- and home-work are taking A LOT OF TIME.
6) Pandemic burnout is very real. I felt it about two weeks ago and I am feeling it now, despite having said NO to basically everything.
I mention these challenges for transparency, and because I want everyone to know that what we are facing is unprecedented and awful.
While you're probably tired of speaking about this, it would be helpful to me (and to the attendees of this workshop) to hear from you on how you're struggling with time and project management during a pandemic where The System(TM) appears to be operating "As If Normal"
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Today, I gave a talk on polycentricity as it applies to Mexican water governance and Mexican climate politics for students of Dr. Marcela Lopez-Vallejo. This particular class has students from @gpandtps and the Masters in International Economic Relations and Cooperation.
As most of you know, ever since I moved back from Canada to Mexico I had an opportunity to teach in English in a Spanish-speaking country. I was very heartened by the Masters in Global Politics and Transpacific Studies @gpandtps programme, which IS taught entirely in English.
When I was a professor at CIDE, I taught most courses entirely in English because I always felt I gave my students an opportunity to develop their thinking, reading and writing skills in that language should they choose to pursue grad school in an English-language country.
En la charla que dí en el seminario #SIGMAS organizado por estudiantes de mi querido @I_Solorio me hicieron la pregunta que más frecuentemente me hacen cuando doy clases de métodos, talleres, o charlas.
"Profesor, cómo le hago para empezar a escribir, me siento bloqueado/a"
Hoy en la mañana se me ocurrieron 3 sugerencias sencillas para todo nivel de pre-grado y posgrado (al final de este hilo para Twitter hispanoparlante les voy a poner algunos blog posts míos en inglés que describen otros "prompts") basados en lo que he estado leyendo últimamente.
1) escribir una respuesta a algún punto que un/a autor/a está haciendo. Por ejemplo, en este extracto pueden ver que NO estoy de acuerdo con los puntos normativos que hacen las autoras. Esto me motiva a escribir un contra-argumento. De aquí salen fácilmente 125 palabras.
THREAD: On delving into an entirely new topic and doing a literature review, but performed with an example.
A lot of people use my blog posts as guides to literature reviews, either for themselves or for their students. I have received similar questions to the ones I'm quoting.
Questions like the ones posed in the quoted tweet are quite common. A few people asked me "Professor Pacheco-Vega, how do I go from having read All The Things to producing a Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) that makes sense to writing my lit review?"
If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you probably know I've written a metric tonne of blog posts on specific items of the literature review (when to stop reading, how to create a mind-map of the literature, how to produce paragraphs of the lit review, etc.)
I think it was Dr. @KathrynNowotny who recommended this book to me.
If you use ethnography to study illicit behaviour this book is a must read.
As someone who studies vulnerable populations (individuals experiencing homelessness, toilet-insecure and water-insecure people, and informal waste pickers) I’m fascinated by how different disciplines and fields categorize “vulnerable populations”
I have an anecdote to share: one of my best research assistants and Masters's students has ALWAYS been interested in drug policy and in studying individuals using drugs. HOWEVER she pivoted to my own research interests because she wanted to do her thesis with me.