And So It Goes…

So it has been a quiet week or few in my immediately local world. This is by choice. Recall that I’m on sabbatical, and working on a project. I’m trying to work on it exclusively, but I keep getting interrupted by several other things, especially since I returned from Walkabout.

But I do what I can, saying no to some things, doing some duties where I am needed, and tending somewhat to my private life and friendships of course. But mostly I’ve been hiding and working on the project. Overall, I can report that I’m very pleased with progress in the last month (since I returned to LA) on several aspects of the work. I’m sorry that I have not – and still will not – tell you anything about the project. I’ve already given my reasons, and nothing has changed. Perhaps later.

Most of my work has been in Away mode, which means at offices other than the one assigned to me at work. I am certainly staying away from the department as much as I can, (no disrespect intended, but people find things for you to do if you’re perceived as being around – I am not around!), and the same goes for the campus, making only fleeting visits to the latter, mostly in stealth mode (my obligatory sabbatical beard, among other things, has helped here). Sometimes I appear for a meeting with a student or a colleague, or in interesting event, but sightings have been rare.

As for service issues, since the search committee work in the very early part of the semester, I’ve declined everything except when I emerged from hiding a couple times at the request of the Provost’s office to help out with a two-day discussion of an idea, and, after a phone call with the Provost himself, there will be a couple of times coming up where I will emerge to help out on another matter. Those are exceptional situations with long term implications that I chose to agree to assist with.

An unplanned but necessary task was to help out with beating an article into shape for publication in Physics Today. It took a lot of time, back and forth between myself and others (editors and so forth), grabbing big chunks of a day here, another day there, and so on and so forth, over several periods. There were frustrating times when I asked myself “why am I doing this!!!??”, mostly because I was champing at the bit to get back to the project, but in the end it was done and sent off to the printers (just last week), and I am happy that I did it. I’ll tell you more about it in a few weeks when it is due to appear and I am allowed to point to it. Note that it is in Physics Today, which means that it is aimed at a general physics audience, which might mean you. So look out.

So fully in Working Away mode means long stretches of work at my office at home, and/or in various parts of home as the mood and the time of day (position of the sun is a factor) dictates. This gets broken up by spending time in my other “offices”, which are various cafes, libraries, museums, and other public spaces conducive to sitting and working on whatever aspects suit the chosen environment. I keep rotating locations so as to keep things fresh, and so as not to become too much of a nuisance. (While I’m happy to be recognized when I walk in, and even have my order remembered by some wait staff, I don’t want to be known as that guy who nurses a cup of coffee for five hours over there in the corner…) It has been a lot of fun getting to know some of these places better than I used to. (An example is the wonderful Bottega Louie where the photo above was taken, just before I tucked into my lemon bar and (espresso) macchiato. I’ve liked the place a lot for a while – and regard it as a key establishment that downtown was waiting for to root the ongoing transformation – but I’ve really grown to love it in the last month or so. The atmosphere is wonderful, and both the food and the staff, who get on with their job with a rare level of pride and evident joy in what they are doing, make the place a pleasure to visit and just spend time. I recommend it a lot. Hey, I just noticed that they have a blog.)

Today, I’m starting the week a with a bit of a stuck feeling, unsure as to which direction I want to take the development of the project next. So I spent it reading (material that will help with the thought processes somewhat, I think) while hiding (mostly – curse you email!) at home. Tomorrow I will spend the whole day outdoors to compensate, I expect. I’ve my eye on the cafe and grounds of a certain museum I have not been to for a while… And of course, I’m not hiding from you, dear reader, and so this blog post is a wave and a “how’d you do” to you.

You might wonder why -since I say that I’m getting interrupted a lot since I returned from Walkabout– why I don’t just go off again on Walkabout. Indeed, that was the intention, and I was expecting to be finalizing plans to do so around now, leveling my eye at the East Coast, Western Europe again, and also Asia. I’d been clearing space for it, saying no to all sorts of requests and potential commitments, and so on and so forth…

…But then The Universe called… On that, more later.

-cvj