My upcoming sabbatical

For what seems like an eternity, I have been trying to arrange a sabbatical. This has been easier said than done: After my original main project with my current customer, I have received extension after extension, due to a mixture of new projects and problems with filling a permanent position. (Hiring good software developers in the current Germany is quite hard, demand exceeding supply considerably.)

While a “luxury problem”, the delays have grown frustrating in their own right, there being so much that I want to do, including reading, writing, studying, watching movies, fixing my web site, fixing my apartment, traveling a bit, … To boot, my December vacation did not leave me rested, through a mixture of too much ambition* and the need to catch up with a number of left-over tasks, including tax filings and other bureaucracy; the last few months have left me correspondingly over-worked and lacking in energy.

*In turn rooted in my wish for a sabbatical: With these long delays, I wanted to do the most of what time I did have free, resulting in a (with hindsight) faulty priorisation.

I am almost there: I managed to keep the last extension down to a minimal ten days, of which only four remain. March is a mix of work, preparations*, and recuperation; from April on, I can finally get started.

*Address changes, moving things from Cologne to Wuppertal, ensuring that this-and-that works in Wuppertal, …

Exactly how long this sabbatical will be is yet to be determined, but it will be at least until the end of 2018.

There will likely be a considerable increase in my post rate during this period; however, I hope to eventually switch all my writings back to my web site, and to abandon this WordPress bullshit. (Except to keep existing contents available and, possibly, to inform about new writings published elsewhere.) This too is somewhat open-ended, however, the switch being more time consuming than urgent.

Advertisement