Advice for a sabbatical

I got advice in my inbox this past week on how to have a successful sabbatical.  It came a few months too late, but still, thought I, there may be something I could learn from it. 

Apply for visas and work permits early, it suggested.  Check that one off!  Look into tax laws.  Get your family prepared.  Check and check!  Finish off all your old research projects before you leave, to have a clean plate while on sabbatical, to devote to brand new projects!  

Frankly, one of the major work-related goals I had for this sabbatical was to use large chunks of uninterrupted time to finally finish some of the ongoing research projects I have.  If I did nothing besides finish projects, I would call my sabbatical as a success.

So how has it gone so far, you ask?

Well, in the first three months of my sabbatical, I wrote solid drafts of four papers.  These I passed along to coauthors, letting them know I was happy, and all we needed was their approval before sending them off into the wide world!

Meanwhile, I had started a really great project here with a colleague.  We had an idea, and within the first three months of my arrival we had made amazing outstanding wonderful progress.  And then, we had awesome results!  The kind of results that would get me a very strong publication, a promotion, grants, fame, fortune, movie contract!  (Well, maybe not a movie contract, but still....)  We started writing up our results, and told a few people about how exciting they were going to be.

Best sabbatical ever.  All within the first three months! 

At the beginning of the fourth month, I found a hole in one of the projects I was about to speak about at a conference.  I realized it wasn't actually correct as we had thought.  I spoke on something else.

At that same conference, when it was over, and I was trying to get other work done, I realized that there was actually a problem with the new project.  Upon further investigation, the amazing outstanding wonderful awesome result fell apart completely.  So much for fame and fortune.

Coauthors began writing back.  There were issues here and there in the other papers, too, that needed to be fixed and thought through. 

And now, with 70% of the sabbatical finished, I find myself still working on the same collection of projects that I began with.  All in various stages of disrepair. 

I will probably fix them up.  The first hole in the first project has been patched, for example.  Another hole in another project has also been patched, and the corresponding paper will probably be finished this week.  The amazing outstanding wonderful project is also ongoing, and my collaborator and I continue to discover interesting stuff, stuff that will eventually become another research paper (the currency of the research part of my job).  It just won't lead so swiftly to fame and fortune.

Am I disappointed?  A little.  But I've been in this job long enough that I know this is the way research works.  I just wish it didn't work this way on my sabbatical.  I liked the first three months better.