dreaming about travel when there is work to be done

[kareina]

Having grown up with a hearing problem I tend not to pay attention to sounds unless I know that they are somehow significant and it is important to do so. As a result there are noises I hear, but don't register. Yesterday was a prime example of that. I'd worked late the night before, so slept in in the morning, and while my years took in the loud noises from the street, my brain didn't bother processing the information--I live in a city just now, there are always noises from the street, and there were certainly no sounds that I'd never heard before. As a result I didn't make the connection that at least one of those noises, whilst one I'd heard before, was not one I'd heard in a city before. It wasn't until I walked out the door on my way to school and saw the guy standing in the basket at the top of the extendible crane thingie using a chain-saw to give a hair-cut to one of the trees that the fact that I'd been hearing the chain saw, alternating with the sounds of the crane lowering, moving to the next tree, and raising again, all morning long.

Looking down the street it was easy to see which trees had been trimmed, and which still were to be done--they removed a fair bit of biomass from each of them. The day before yesterday I couldn't see through the folliage to the building my office is in, now it is possible to see the windows above my office. In another week or so, when the last of the leaves on the remaining branches fall, it will be possible to see my office from my apartment once again. Remembering that there was at least one wind-storm last winter that causes some really major huge branches (the size of trees themselves) to come down, I am not surprised that they are getting a haircut now. I also expect that after next spring's growth comes in most people won't be able to tell that anything had been removed. Of course, I don't intend to be here to see it.

Realizing that at this point pretty much all of the jobs for which I have current applications in progress, or will be applying to soon are for an August start I am now starting to think about how I wish to spend my first vacation in years. I haven't had time truly off since starting the PhD project. Sure, I took days now and then, but even then I knew that time off then meant longer time would be needed to finish the project. Yes, I did have two weeks between turning in my thesis and starting this job, but that isn't much, really. This time it looks like I might actually get several months off in a row. (Subject to change, without notice, if I happen to get a job offer that starts sooner than that, of course.)

So, what to do when unemployed? Travel! Of course. Therefore I've sent a note to the Drachewald e-mail list letting folk know that I'm looking to do some travel, and would happily teach classes or workshops on any topic I know in exchange for crash space. I've already had replies from Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Finland saying I should come visit and offering me crash space. South Africa offered, too, but I politely declined--getting there would use up too much of my savings, and I don't really know how long I will need it to last. I won't make any firm plans till I've made more progress finishing up this project, but I think I will manage at least all of those countries, and possibly some others besides--I can do couch-surfing in addition to SCA travel. If any of my European readers wants me to come visit them on my great Drachenwald tour of 2011, let me know, I'll add your location to the spreadsheet and will work out a logical path from one place to the next later. Stop 1 will likely be Edinburgh, since I plan to leave my stuff with colvis_t until I know where I'll be living/working next. Because flying is often cheaper than train or bus, I may well be stopping back there often between trips, depending on where I can get cheap flights.

While the week's progress has been quite good, today's uni progress wasn't as much as it should have been. I did accomplish one important task that I'd been putting off, but I spent much of the rest of the day replying to e-mails. Oh well, tomorrow is a Saturday, and I tend to have less e-mail and LJ to read on weekends, so with luck I will get some work done during the day. In the evening I've been invited to a party by the guy who is on record as the official SCA contact for Milan--never mind that he hasn't actually made it to an SCA event in three or four years, still he is an Italian local, and can answer questions at need, and he does enough other re-enactment stuff that someone looking to do medieval stuff can find plenty to do by contacting him. Alas, the party doesn't even start till 21:00, and his place is a good hour away by public transit (he tells me that everywhere in Milan is an hour away from everywhere else--the buses and trains that connect the far-flung spots go faster than the ones that connect locations that are close to one another, and as a result it doesn't matter where you are going, it will take you one hour. He could be right about that--it takes an hour to get to the home of the family from Calontir, too. I've never really tried getting anywhere else though, so haven't really tested this theory.