Sabbatical, day 3

This year I am experiencing one of those periods which make others so intensely envy scholars. I have almost a year away from what most people recognize as "work" - I am not teaching and not doing administration, two of the largest and most immediate tasks of a contemporary academic. However, at ITU we are supposed to do as much research as teaching, and more teaching and research than administration, so when I, like so many other academics, ignore research or do it on our spare time, we are actually ignoring our jobs - no matter if the jokes very often are on us when we try to create some room in our calendars.

The norwegian-language link states that the use of time has not changed in 12 years.

Which leads me to this sabbatical. Much as I am looking forwards to this year, and it will take me to exotic and wonderful places, it will be a year of intense work. To give you an idea about what kind of work a sabbatical may contain, here's my schedule for this year:

February: finishing an article for an anthology, sending one panel proposal, one paper and one extended abstract off to conference. Finishing one exam.
March, April, May: writing 4 chapters for a book. Also: two exams, one abstract for a conference, organizing one seminar, possibly going to one more conference, and making a camera-ready paper out of the work in February, if it's accepted.
June: Either writing a 70 page research proposal, or a 40 page research proposal.
July: Just kidding about the proposals. If I am doing the 70 page one, this month will not be the vacation month it is supposed to be, but instead one conference, and more work on that proposal. No way I can do that in just one month.
August: Two articles, because I really need to write out some of the stuff that has been accumulating on my to-do list.
September: Finishing one of the two proposals, and editing a special issue for a journal.
October, November: Finishing the book, and all other academic work I want to have published.
December: Rounding up, and starting to plan for the spring term, when I am back.

Looking at this, I want to go back to bed. If I manage to keep my own schedule successfully, 2018 is going to be a record production year (because none of this will actually be published in 2017), and if I just manage to do half of this, I'll still be producing more than I have in years.

Looking at this, I am sitting here with a huge grin. This is why I am a scholar. I now have a chance to do the work I am already doing in week-ends and evenings, all day and without interruptions. For this one year, I am at the far right in the figure above, while I am also in the middle figure, just with an even slimmer "teaching" part. The more than 100% research is pretty much true though.

And that is day three obligatory to-do list. Day one I went out and did something totally different, because the day before I had submitted another research proposal and my arms were hurting too much to touch a keyboard. Day two I cleaned my office of six months of intense teaching/exams/proposal writing stacked to about 130%. All in all, productive so far. Just 300+ days to go.