The holiday season has been over for a good bit of time, and I feel like I’ve finally recovered. I had to host a few people that made pilgrimage to see my little one, and some were great guests and some got in the way. Overall, it was a good holiday season with a decent amount of relaxation. We just took down the decorations (a pseudo-Queen’s Chistmas?). I have no teaching duties again this semester, so the last semester and this one I’ve termed as my babybatical. My SO has been able to shoulder some load so I can at least stay reasonably involved in my research from both an external and internal standpoint. I didn’t want to show my face too soon or I thought people would think that I’m a bad parent, but if I didn’t show up at all I felt like people would think I’m a bad researcher. I know that’s totally messed up, but I sometimes buckle under pressure that I most definitely put on myself. So I did some outside appearances, and have been keeping on my lab relatively well. I do feel grimy for thinking this way though.
I know my students’ hours have dropped off during the babybatical, but I’m still holding them responsible for a certain amount of progress. I suppose that my constant bothering them has allowed them to focus. Though sometimes they’re focusing in the wrong direction and I notice that the course correction is more difficult when I’m not on them more. It has been nice to not have teaching duties, but given the complete lack of sleep and constant attention to the baby, though rewarding so far, it’s incredibly tiresome. I don’t think I want to go through this again; I’ll gladly teach.
With my sole work focus being research, during moments of lucidness I have been able to start on a couple new grant ideas. I love my time with industry, and it’s a major part of what I’m doing, but my projects are at a point where it’s a little more on the basic research side of things rather than applied. I also want to wean off of industry because the heavy leaning worked well when establishing my lab and while every company out there was pouring money into new technology. There’s been less technology investment from talking to my industry funding sources so it is coming at an ‘ideal’ time. And this babybatical has given me the chance to reorganize.
academic infiltration 