Most if not all professional academics relish each and every day of summer. Like plants, we grow to our fullest potential during this time, going into hyper-drive while many other people are taking it slower. Freed from the administrative routines of the academic year, we can go do research and attend conferences all around the world, write and edit at all hours, and re-direct our teaching hours to searching our souls about the meaning of our scholarly toil. Academics become voluntary workaholics for three blissful months -- those 18-hour days don't seem long as they say time flies when one is having fun.
This summer has been different for me, for obvious reasons. I had to give one conference paper over Skype, and will be giving another by proxy. Instead of visiting research sites and digging up new materials, I had to make do with one boat trip to neighboring Macau and am sitting at home with a pile of things I copied over the past year. Rather than starting each day super-early and ending super-late, I have to figure out what I am physically capable of doing on each given day, which has usually meant starting early but also curtailing academic work by dinner time.
As mentioned in a previous post, I have been fortunate enough to be granted an extra summer by my department in the form of a teaching sabbatical this fall, so with daughter by my side, I hope to make up for my currently diminished capacity by milking every minute from September to December. For now, I am learning how to be more patient about taking things slowly and awaiting a challenge that I haven't studied enough for.
This summer has been different for me, for obvious reasons. I had to give one conference paper over Skype, and will be giving another by proxy. Instead of visiting research sites and digging up new materials, I had to make do with one boat trip to neighboring Macau and am sitting at home with a pile of things I copied over the past year. Rather than starting each day super-early and ending super-late, I have to figure out what I am physically capable of doing on each given day, which has usually meant starting early but also curtailing academic work by dinner time.
As mentioned in a previous post, I have been fortunate enough to be granted an extra summer by my department in the form of a teaching sabbatical this fall, so with daughter by my side, I hope to make up for my currently diminished capacity by milking every minute from September to December. For now, I am learning how to be more patient about taking things slowly and awaiting a challenge that I haven't studied enough for.
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