Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Vacation?

So I was told by a professor here about how when he accepted his position here, he went on a two-week trip to Africa during the summer before moving. He then asked if I had any such plans. His thoughts weren't along the lines of "whenever someone gets a faculty job they should vacation in Africa," so much as "this may be the last chance to be able to do such a fun vacation."

On the surface this seems ridiculous, because everyone takes vacations, right? Yes and no. Up until now, I have not really taken vacations. I have visited family of course, but every trip has a specific purpose otherwise (whether its work related or for someone's wedding). Even when we spent three weeks in Germany and Austria it was because I had a conference there, and on every train ride I actually worked.* Even when I'm with family, I check in on work every so often, to see if anything is urgently required to be dealt with.

The reason is of course that the whole point of my work is to get to a faculty position. In a sense, up until I got this offer, I was working for this one thing. Once I get into my new position, the next step will be getting tenure. And as for that, everything I do between now and September, when I'm officially there, is in a sense worthless.

So this summer is special compared to all those before and all those to come (until tenure). In a sense, nothing will really hurt my career if I do nothing for the next two months.** Thus, this professor's question makes some sense. And, truth be told, I have definitely decreased my work throughput since I got the offer.

However, travel seems so miserable, so I (we) will not be going anywhere (far) for fun this summer, except to look for apartments all over the state of New York. However, there are several things we wanted to do here in Virginia before leaving, so hopefully we'll actually get out of the house and do them.
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* Okay, this was mostly before the conference because I was frantically trying finish analysis before giving a talk that hadn't been written yet.
** Ignoring the fact that if I do absolutely nothing this will hurt me since I'll get behind and have to catch up after I have all sorts of new responsibilities starting in the fall.

by Topher at 2:29 PM |