February 2002

I am, you will recall, on sabbatical leave this spring.  For many non-academics, and I suppose a few academics as well, sabbatical is often mistaken as a vacation--a time to kick back and relax.  Sheila has suggested I use the sabbatical as a trial run for my eventual retirement, when I will be writing more heavily but not teacching as much.  By either standard, I think I am already a failure at sabbatical.  I'm still coming to the office six days a week most of the time.  I just got back from a division meeting and just signed a departmental approval on a curriculum matter.  I'm considering a movie called, "Clueless on Sabbatical."

And it's not just Chapman; writing is supposed to be the main focus of my sabbatical, but I'm spending a lot of time in meetings.  I've had meetings with two different editors in the past week.  Plus, we had to have an annual board meeting for Babbie Enterprises.  In fact, Sheila and I had to go out of town for the meeting, since BEinc is a Hawaiian corporation.  Darn it all.  We did try to work in a little fun in the process, however.
 

All in all, life is good.  My work on the 10th edition of The Practice of Social Research is coming along nicely.  I'll be doing a more extensive revision than I had planned, but I am happy with the prospective changes.  Moreover, while sometimes sparked by editors and reviewers, they are all changes I want to make--all things that will make it an even better book.  I just realized that my first book was published 35 years ago, and I still think that writing books is a great job.  I feel blessed to be able to earn my living doing something I would want to do anyway.

Still, when we went to the Long Beach Aquarium a couple of days ago, I did come across a tempting role model.  I'm looking for ways to incorporate this lifestyle into my ongoing activities.