Far From Home

I’m on sabbatical an ocean away. Far from home.

My hope is that immersing myself in a new and different environment sparks new ways of looking at things. Many preparations were needed prior to the big move. Visiting a faraway place for two weeks is very different from adjusting to a new, albeit temporary, home for a whole year. I seem to have recovered from jet lag. My office is mostly set up. I’ve been meeting lots of people at my workplace. And, per my sabbatical proposal, I am starting to learn new and unfamiliar things that will (I hope) contribute to my long-term research goals.

No major flashes of creative insight have appeared yet. I’m plodding my way through learning some new methodology, with its attendant software packages, all of which I’m unfamiliar with. I’m finally teaching myself python as part of the learning process; I’d survived on perl and shell scripts for two decades or so. I’m also working my way through research papers filled with jargon I’m not as familiar with. All this feels somewhat similar to my last sabbatical, except this time I’m also far from home. Previously I camped out at the research university ten miles away from my college, which coincidentally was closer to home distance-wise, but with a much worse parking situation. (I took public transport.)

Before the move, I was working hard to finish a full draft of an article based on a research project three of my students worked on over the last two years. That allowed me to leisurely work on draft revisions while recovering from jet lag, and after submitting the paper I was able to shift my concentration to my new learning project. There’s one other paper on the backburner – my student made all the key figures – but I’ve yet to write it up because I haven’t settled on the story’s angle.

Sabbatical is also a time for rest and renewal. This means exploring my new environment at a leisurely pace. The country I’m in is not unfamiliar; I’ve lived here for short stretches. However, many things change over the years, and there are many new spaces I no longer recognize amidst the familiar things from time past. I even watched a movie! You might have guessed it – Spider Man: Far From Home. But in a different sense, I’m closer to home. My country of birth is across the border, not an ocean away. I still have family and friends in the area, and I’m enjoying catching up with folks. I’m visiting an institution I helped set up. In a sense, Spider Man: Homecoming might be the more appropriate title for this sabbatical.