In the Dark

So it’s Maundy Thursday, i.e. the day before Good Friday, on which we are supposed to wash the feet of our disciples. Not having been issued with any disciples, I’ll have to give that bit a miss and just work as normal for the rest of today.

Tomorrow is a holiday, as is next Monday, Easter Monday. The rest of next week is a study break, a welcome pause before we embark on the rest of term.

There will still be three weeks of teaching before the end of the Semester when we return on 17th April, but I’ve actually done my last lecture in Computational Physics. I’ve taught them all the things they need for the rest of the module. When they get back students will be mainly working in groups on their mini-projects which are due in by 5th May. The other module I teach will carry on as usual until the end of term.

Anyway, the three weeks that have passed between the St Patrick’s Day study break and today have flown by, but at least I’ve kept up to date.

Yesterday I found out that I have been granted a sabbatical for half of next academic year. I had asked for a full year, but that wasn’t agreed, so I now have to decide whether to disappear from August 2023 to January 2024 or from February 2024 to July 2024. I’ve only got the Easter break to decide which option to take, so I’ll have to spend a bit of time trying to work out what to do. I had planned two different trips during a full-year sabbatical. I’ll probably have to drop one of them. I also made plans for my research students, which I’ll have to change. I’m sure I can work something out though.

My two biggest classes are in Semester 1 so I’d probably get more personal benefit from taking the first option, but it might be harder to find a replacement to teach these modules given the shorter notice. It will also be tricky to make the necessary arrangements with potential hosts elsewhere by August, which tends to motivate the second option. I’ll have to think about it.

The last time I had a sabbatical break was in 2005, when I was at the University of Nottingham. That also was just one semester. After an abortive attempt to get a J-1 visa so I could visit the University of California at Berkeley, I ended up going to Toronto, which was very nice, but instead of giving my teaching to someone else for the term I missed, it was just moved to the second semester so I had a double load when I returned. I hope nobody tries that trick this time!

At least this time there won’t be a problem with visas et cetera, as I intend to exploit the freedom of movement I have within the European Union…

This entry was posted on April 6, 2023 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Biographical, Maynooth with tags sabbatical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.