Sabbatical Blogging
First, of course, I'd like to thank my oh-so-supportive Department Chair and the rest of the folks who made it possible. One thing I've learned since coming to NKU is just how much better academic life can be with administrators who actually want to help professors do their job, as opposed to all the other nasty things they are all-too-often so much more likely to do.
Sucking up to the powers that be aside, I've been wanting to reflect a bit on the beauty of the sabbatical. What other job in the world pays you to take a year off from your normal duties in order to do something creative? I feel like I've scored a one-year MacArthur Fellowship.
And, for me, I have to say it couldn't have come at a better time. First, I have somehow dug myself a hole of epic proportions in terms of writing obligations. As Ralph kindly noted a little while back, I just had a book come out (get your FREE exam copies here!). But, I've got another bigger (and I mean WAAAY bigger) book under contract. Big enough that even with taking the whole year off from teaching and with a brilliant co-author I'll still be cutting it very close. And on top of this I am on the Advisory Board for a World History encyclopedia, which turns out to be a huge (yet rewarding) time vacuum. Plus, I'm still serving on a search committee for my department, and still acting as faculty advisor for a hyperactive Phi Alpha Theta chapter. And, of course, there is Cliopatria, with Ralph Luker's gentle admonitions that some of us need to blog more...
Mind you, I been doing this kind of stuff while teaching a load of three or four classes a term for the past few years. The trick is that I couldn't have kept it up. I could feel a professional train wreck coming down the track. The book projects floated over my head like cartoon storm clouds. Every student with a question or needing a reference seemed like a demonic imp sent to snatch precious moments away from"real" work. Departmental, University, and Community"service" connived to keep me away from the computer and from home. Quite simply, stress was replacing the joy I normally felt in doing my job. And let's not even start on the guilt about taking time away from my family.
And then, like a Deus ex Machina, there was the sabbatical. The storm clouds parted, light shone down upon me, a heavenly chorus sang out...
Today, I woke up early, made a big pot of coffee, and sat down to work. Note cards on the influence of bronze working technology on Southeast Asian political formation are spread across my desk. Shortly I'll take my ten-month old son for a walk. Then, I'll come back, make more coffee, and write some more.
It's good to be on Sabbatical. I love my job again. I stop by the office every few days to pick up mail and take care of the search and advising duties already mentioned. I find that I miss the students and the teaching already... but I know that I need the break.
Indeed, I think that a chief glory of the Sabbatical that it is like an academic"reset" button. Scholarly duties and obligations have a nasty tendency to snowball to the point where they become overwhelming. A sabbatical provides an opportunity to halt that process... and perhaps even roll it back a ways.
Time for that walk. The Dong-son drums will be here when I get back.