Sabbatical Kickoff!

Officially, my sabbatical starts on July 1, but in my book it started the day after commencement, when my on-campus professorial duties ended. Here's how the first five-ish weeks break down:

[May]

Day #1: Commenced planning an October conference with colleagues from Mt. Holyoke and UMass. Working title: "War, Dictatorship, and Memory: An International Symposium on Spain"

Days #2-#10: Post-op semester meetings, lunches, and drinks. Frantic manuscript revising. (Day #5: Massage)

Day #11: Book manuscript done, off to publisher, round two!

[June]

Days #12-15: Washington, DC. Vacation. Yesssssss.

Day #17: Installed a dehumidifier in my basement (as readers of Facebook well know)

Day #20: Finished reading two novels -- Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Corazón tan blanco. Only one is relevant to research.

Day #24: Partial conference funding is attained! The show will go on.

Day #25: Visit to Wesleyan to reconnect with undergraduate thesis advisor. Discover that he has an iPhone, wears funky glasses, and does yoga. Otherwise, it could be 1998.

Day #26: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists in Connecticut. Sabbatical rocks!

Day #30: Begrudgingly say goodbye to friends who have decamped for an even smaller town with a liberal arts college. :(

Day #31: Tune in to thrilling World Cup USA v. Algeria game while getting rid of all of my remaining videocassettes.  Oblivious to tiny Canadian earthquake tremor while working at a coffeeshop in the afternoon.

Day #32: Write a reader's report, think about transnational cinema, join Twitter and leave Twitter. Resurrect blog. Turn on air conditioner, make myself a sandwich and get back to work.

Welcome to the SJB Sabbatical

Today I joined Twitter for an hour. Then I deactivated my account. It is the prerogative of any dubious social media user to change her mind.

At any rate, all I really wanted to do was catalog my sabbatical.

But before I discuss all that, let's go through the ground rules:

1. Yes, I have been granted a paid leave for a year.
   
2. No, I won't be teaching during that time.
3. No, I won't have any other official campus duties (advising, committees, etc.)
4. Yes, this is an amazing thing.

Yet there are certain expectations for this sabbatical, both formal and informal, that I've discussed with colleagues, friends, family, and encountered while trolling through the discussion forums on the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here are a few:

• Recover from the previous three years, relax and meditate. Repeat as necessary.
  
• Publish. Publishpublishpublish.
• Read.
• Travel. Vacation-wise, conference-wise, research-wise.
• Resurrect a hobby, volunteer, exercise, cook, fix things around the house, sort out previously-marginalized life issues.

I'm sure there are others, and I've set some broad goals for myself, too. But one of the big questions remains: how do all these things filter down into the day-to-day of an unscheduled year? I'm making my way through it, and thought I'd try to keep track of how.

So... welcome to my sabbatical.

Next up: Sabbatical kickoff!