{"id":1679,"date":"2018-08-03T18:58:50","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T18:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/?p=1679"},"modified":"2018-08-04T06:02:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T06:02:58","slug":"reflections-on-6-months-of-part-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/?p=1679","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on 6 months of part time"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last 6 months I’ve been part time at 70%, in pursuit of a bit of headspace and some work-life balance. This was part of Aberystwyth University’s “flexible working” scheme where you can apply for different hours for 6 months on a trial basis, so it was a relatively risk free way of experimenting with a little bit more free time. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Obviously, it’s not always possible to get work done in the time available (and some things – like open days or travel – I didn’t count because nobody bothers counting them). Generally I’ve tried to stick to my days off though, keeping track of my hours, and here I am at the end of the period owed just 4 days. This is a level of slippage I can deal with, and I’ll take those days here and there before term starts. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Did I get everything done at work? Well I’ve had to be a little less perfectionist than usual. I’ve tried to manage everything WRT teaching, admin and research, and my workload has been reduced a bit (no tutees). I do feel like I’m missing stuff and I am no longer on top of everything that goes on in the department, but that’s OK and also part of the point of being part time. I don’t<\/i> actually have to do everything myself.<\/p> \r\n\r\n

So that I didn’t let myself sit indoors messing about on the Internet for a day and a half every week, I set myself some “part time challenges”, because nothing says work-life-balance<\/i> like a to-do list. I’ve been pretty good at this. On the list were some physical things – walk up a big hill (Cadair Idris), get fit enough to cycle home from town. I had to cycle up the back way<\/a> (still not fit enough to cycle up Penglais Hill) but I have made it home from town on my bike. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Others were dorky, and these have already been reported on this blog as I built a retro games controller<\/a> and a drum kit ball pit<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The remaining things on the list were creative; I wanted to paint a picture using watercolours as I’d never used them before, and a picture using acrylics because I’m out of practice. I also decided to teach myself Blender, which is a 3D modelling system. I’ve managed all of these except for Blender, and I think I’m going to give up on that. It’s a fiddly piece of software and I’m happier writing code than digging about in menus so if I get into computer graphics I’ll do it at a lower computational level. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Here’s one of the watercolours, which is a poster of things around Exmouth that my sister in law might like:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

Here’s the acrylic which is as usual of Penglais woods:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

The problem with that woodland picture is that the patch of pale pathway looks a bit like a ghostly sheep from a distance. I’m going to have to fix that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

I’ve found it quite enjoyable having the time to do things that aren’t work, and to do some dorky “almost work” things which I would otherwise not have had time for. So I’ve gone part time as a permanent measure. This means that in the future this blog’s readers (both of them) can expect more crap watercolours and daft electronics, and fewer conference reports.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the last 6 months I’ve been part time at 70%, in pursuit of a bit of headspace and some work-life balance. This was part of Aberystwyth University’s “flexible working” scheme where you can apply for different hours for 6 months on a trial basis, so it was a relatively risk free way of experimenting with a little bit more free time. Obviously, it’s not always possible to get work done in the time available (and some things – like open days or travel – I didn’t count because nobody bothers counting them). Generally I’ve tried to stick to my days off though, keeping trackRead More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-handee","post-1679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-worklifebalance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1679"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1687,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1679\/revisions\/1687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannahdee.wales\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}