Many people do not realize how flexible an academic’s schedule can be. Most people who are in teaching posts (aka professors) don’t have a boss who keeps tabs on them at all, so they are free to come and go as long as they show up at their meetings and teach their classes.
However and unfortunately, I am not a professor. I am a postdoc. I don’t teach at all, and I devote 95% of my time to research. My schedule is flexible, in theory, except that I am under the gun to crank out oodles of manuscript-quality data as quickly as possible. I’ve been really busy and stressed out lately, so it is absolutely delightful that tomorrow, I have almost the entire day off. I’ve been so productive lately that taking the day off sounds like an excellent way to reward myself. I do have to stop by the lab to take care of two quick things, but other than that, the day is mine. I have no meetings on Monday, and my data are organized, analyzed, and up to date. I’m (almost) free! Free from work! Suddenly I’m a lady of leisure. A very organized lady of leisure—so organized, in fact, that I thought it necessary to make a list of my weekend to-dos.
* Paint toenails.
* Take a couch cruise and read Dreaming in Hindi for a while. (Couch cruises, by definition, can’t be done hastily.)
* Take a photo walk.
* Drink a chocolate egg cream. I made the syrup tonight; now I just need to run to the store for some fizzy water.
* Call my brother (who didn’t call me back last weekend).
* Finish watching The Stepford Wives. Matt suggested this movie to me after hearing about my research on female sexual behavior in fruit flies. Let’s just say there’s something distinctly Stepford about one of my assays.
* Make a batch of soup. You know how I feel about soup…
And finally, the most important item…
* Sleep late! There’s nothing quite like sleeping in to give you a reprieve from the effect of chronic stress.
Happy weekend, my dears! What’s on your to-do list for the holiday weekend?
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