Tag Archives: sabbatical
Wait For It
Day 86 Since I’ve stopped numbing myself with busy, I’m getting clarity in many areas of my life. For over two decades, my first thought when I wake up in the morning has been ”Where am I?” I became numb to the jarring changes that come from frequent, unplanned, spontaneous, flexible travel between cities and countries. So now [...]
Full StoryFlags Of The World For $2000, Alex
Day 85 What do I need to know? I try to choke down The Economist every week, and the experience is like taking calcium supplements: good for me, but difficult to ingest. I always have to look things up. I don’t recognize all the words or the literary allusions or cultural references. For me, reading that magazine-that-calls-itself-a-newspaper requires Googling. (Maybe [...]
Full StoryWe Interrupt This Blog
Day 82 I am taking a deep breath and learning to be more flexible in my commitments to myself. I am choosing to enjoy my moments, listen to my body, and do what I want instead of what I told myself I wanted at a different time. It is really difficult, but I think this [...]
Full StoryPain No Gain
Day 79 When people hear I’m on sabbatical, they often make suggestions about what I should do during this year. Several have advised that I try something that’s out of my comfort zone. Today I did. I didn’t enjoy it. I was terrified, in fact. I thought, “This is not how I want to spend [...]
Full StoryS’Kidding
Day 77 Hmmmm. Spend the day slaving over a hot keyboard, or play water tag and watch the visiting 9-year-0ld break in the new thing he calls a “skidboard?” (I learned it’s really a “skimboard .”) Yeah, I made the right choice.
Full StoryKidding
Day 76 Hmmmm. Play Uno with the 9-year-old who is visiting, or write a really cool blog post?
Full StoryYou Think This Blog Sucks. I Don’t Care.
Day 71 I don’t go on Facebook every day, which you already know if you try to communicate with me there. But almost every time I visit the site, I find something useful or interesting or edifying. Cyn Liggett and I are FB friends (and have actually broken bread IRL). Her updates show up on my [...]
Full StoryTelling Myself A Different Story
Day 70 My houseguest asked yesterday, “What is the difference between what you do on your sabbatical and what you do when you are working? Because last year, when you are working, you are on the computer. When you are on sabbatical, you are also on the computer.” That’s easy. What I’m doing on the computer [...]
Full StoryThe Plan For Today
Day 65 Someone close to me is in an unfamiliar situation today: there’s no plan for the day because of a travel snafu. This is creating discomfort, because the person always has a full schedule. The surprise shutdown of the customary flurry of activity brought this person to a revelation. It’s the same one I had when I [...]
Full StoryWhat If…..?
Day 63 What can change if you take a sabbatical? Just your whole life, that’s all. Filmmaker Nic Askew created a five-minute portrait of a woman who changed careers twice. (She went from “nun” to “academic” to “coach.”) The second change came about after she stepped away from her work for a year , just as I’m doing [...]
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