A Semester to Focus

My sabbatical is half over. It seems like now is a good time to reflect on my progress.

Dr. H. is also on sabbatical, and we decided to get away. This has been good, but time-consuming due to logistical challenges. There is the new day care for the kids, the economics of maintaining two households and the like. We are spending our sabbaticals at the well-funded R1 university where I did my Ph.D. This means excellent library access and frequent top-notch seminars.

So here is what is good:

• I'm learning a new technique "everybody" does. Why is it the cool girl at the party? It appears to be very good for certain applications, and it allows us to do things we could not do before. Still, I can't help thinking some of the technique's popularity is simply because it is "in". Whatever the reason, because everyone does it now, I must also do it to be able to continue to publish in my field. I'm making some progress on this.
  
  
• I'm working on a paper for a project that has been gathering dust for years. Hopefully, I will be able to submit it in a few weeks.
  
  
• I may have set up a collaboration that could be very lucrative. This would have never happened had I not been here.
  
  
• The kids love their new daycare. It is a unique place and it is like they are on sabbatical too.
  
  
• Did I mention the library access?
  

What's bad:

• The "overhead" of being away cuts into our research time. It is likely this is compensated for by the removal from departmental/institutional time sinks at our home institutions, however.
  
  
• Dr. H feels more isolated here than I do. I am more at home in my department and am in a formal research group. He is working on a writing project, a much more solitary endeavor.
  
  
• Not everyone realizes we are on sabbatical to work. Relatives, for example, wonder why we can not just visit any time we want - or why they can't just visit us whenever they want. I've heard the second problem is much worse if you go on sabbatical somewhere like Hawaii.
  
  
• Did I mention that maintaining two households is expensive?
  
  

Despite the expense and overhead of being away, I would do it again. If we had stayed local I would not have such great access to journals and people, and I'd probably be spending half my time dealing with departmental stuff. It sucks you in. Now I just have to figure out a way to fend off time sinks and chatty colleagues when I return. ...assuming the e-mail in my previous post comes to naught.