Sabbatical - Coming Full Circle

It seems fitting somehow that I kicked off my sabbatical year during summer 2013 by attending the SEFS conference in Germany, and then in October 2014 I traveled back to Europe for the 8th International Shallow Lakes Conference held in Antalya, Turkey (http://shallowlakes2014.org/). It feels as if the professional part of my year abroad is complete, having closed the loop.

Last year, I presented at SEFS in July, gave invited talks in Scotland in Oct, at Trinity in Nov, and talks in two different departments at Queen's in Feb and March. All of these international presentations gave me lots of experiences giving longer seminars to broad audiences, as well as helped to build my professional network. And, as a result, I was invited to give a landscape limnology plenary/keynote address at the 8th International Shallow Lakes Conference in Turkey. This was my 1st plenary, and I was honored to be asked. In my field at MSU, it is expected that you become internationally known in order to be promoted to full professor, and one way to demonstrate that you have done so is by giving a plenary address at an international conference (check!). Of course, it was extremely difficult juggling teaching two classes, transitioning back to the U.S., preparing to be out of the country for a week, and writing a plenary talk. And, to make matters worse, I also agreed to give a lunchtime workshop about how to make and maintain high-performing research teams while at the conference in Turkey. Yikes!

Anyway, the trip to Turkey was LONG. About 27 hours door to door, and my suitcase didn't make it to Antalya until 36 hours after I did - I was in the same clothes from Sat lunchtime to Tues lunchtime (yuck!). I was able to sleep some on the plane (it is amazing how much easier it is to fly without children), but arrived at the conference hotel completely knackered. Monday I awoke to see the landscape for the 1st time since it was dark when I got in. The hotel was a fancy 5 star resort on the Mediterranean (http://www.akkaantedon.com/). From my balcony, I saw steep mountains in one direction and the Sea in the other. So gorgeous.

The hotel was also all-inclusive, which I had not before experienced. The food was ridiculous - both in quantity and variety. Some of it was quite good, but not all. Some was Turkish, but not all. And, I was taken aback by how much gluttony and waste that sort of system promotes. Although I can see the appeal of never having to cook anything and having enough choices that anyone, even the pickiest eater, would be happy, I remain someone who prefers to stay at non all-inclusive lodgings.

Although I attended almost all of the plenary sessions (2 per day) and a few of the talks in concurrent sessions, I will admit that I spent a great deal of the first two days of the conference working on my own plenary address and my workshop preparation, and then later catching up on class prep (it is so hard to miss a week of teaching!). But, I met a lot of really nice scientists. This conference was by far the most international I have experienced. There were ~300 in attendance and I met people from Brazil, Mexico, Ethiopia, Australia, Canada (and I was one of a handful of people from the U.S.), China, Singapore, Japan, and ALL OVER Europe. I have never attended such a social conference before either - they had an opening banquet Sun night (I didn't get in until afterwards), a Latin dance Mon night (I worked on my talk), a beach party Tues down on the beach (was fun), and a gala dinner and dance Thurs night. These shallow lake ecologists definitely know how to have fun after a long day of science! And, they are really dancers - at the gala dinner, there were very few people who didn't dance actually. I cannot imagine the same experience at the U.S. conferences I often attend.

Let's see…the talk and w'shop! Both went well. I think that about 200 people were likely at my plenary and about 35 attended my w'shop. I had questions after each, and lots of people came up afterwards to discuss topics I presented. Generally, the folks at this conference do not think very broad scale - they tend to work on one to a handful of lakes. Therefore, my landscape limnology talk was something very different for them and gave them some different ideas to think about.

Although I didn't attend as many talks as I would have liked, being at the conference was intellectually stimulating - I have a new idea for a research project that I will propose to my CSI Limnology group during next month's conference call related to shallow lakes!

After my plenary was over, I had a traditional Turkish bath - they have these marble rooms and someone gives you a full-body scrub and bath and then a short massage. There was a somewhat sketchy guy who wanted to give me a pre-bath massage...Anyway, it was an interesting experience and just what I needed after such a stressful few days. Then, after my w'shop, I went down to the beach and had a swim in the Sea (lovely!) and a short lay out in the sun. I also used the sauna at the hotel a couple of times - the hottest one I have ever experienced…it was all I could do to make it to 8 minutes! But, it was nice.

On Wed, the whole conference took off on excursions to see the area. I went on one that went to Phaselis, Mount Chimaera, and Omlypos. The countryside is just beautiful. So many olive, citrus, and pomegranate trees… and very dramatic vistas of mountains and beaches. We were lucky weather-wise, it poured rain while we were on the bus between two different stops, but cleared up for our hikes. Phaselis was mainly strolling thru old ruins (the theatre was especially neat) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaselis.

Mount Chimaera was a really nice hike up to an area with methane emissions that are on fire (lots of mythology there!) and back - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Chimaera.

Olympos was this really expansive ancient city - the ruins were in amongst the forest and along a river all the way out to the Sea and even along the beach and on cliffs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympos_(Lycia)). We only saw a small part of it, and it was amazing.

Interestingly, the Turks don't appear to be preserving the ruins (or studying them) we visited that day - people were traipsing all over the place with no regard for anything. The tour guide said something about the fact these ancient ruins are not their own - that the Turkish people have not been in Turkey that long compared to the age of many of the ruins. Perhaps that is why they don't appear to take much interest in them.

We also had an hour on the beach at Olympos, which was nice but would have been better if I had known to bring my suit! Some of the others brought their suits and changed right on the beach and hopped into the water for a refreshing dip. Funny how little body-consciousness they seem to have as compared to people from the States. Here are two articles about this beach and area from the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/aug/22/turkey-guesthouse-budget-beach and the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/bestbeaches/7634792/Best-beaches-in-Turkey-Olympos-Antalya.html.

On Friday at 5:30 am, I caught a van back to the Antlya airport. One other conference goer was with me, someone I hadn't met previously. She was from Singapore and funny enough - she knows one of my MSU colleagues (Joan Rose)! Random… The flights home were LONG - funny how much longer it seems when you fly during the day rather than at night. Really terrible! So So So glad to get home to my home and my family!

I have some REALLY big thanks to distribute…Thanks to Jubin for being so very supportive from the moment I first got the plenary invite until after I returned home (best life partner ever!); thanks to my parents for picking up the boys Tues and Thurs while I was gone since Jubin teaches until 720 those 2 days; thanks to my colleagues Mark and Doug for covering my classes for me while I was gone; thanks to Kath for helping to arrange my talks in Scotland, Ireland, and N Ireland last year, without which I would not have been invited to give the plenary; thanks to Laurence Carvalo (Scotland) and Meryem Beklioglu (Turkey) who were on the conference organizing committee, invited me, got me sorted along the way, and then were very welcoming in Turkey; and a huge thanks to Pat for giving me her plenary talk from May to start with and then providing me with great feedback on my plenary talk the day before I gave it (such an amazing work partner!).   

The move and re-entry

Wow - moving back to the U.S. was not exactly easy. Our Belfast friends made packing and selling our things easy, with Bob and Kath making multiple stops to pick up their things, Avril leaving her car unlocked in her drive so we could load it up with toys, our neighbors inviting Watson over for many playdates while we packed, etc... We said goodbye to our friends, visited some of our favorite places for the last time, and then made leave of our very happy home for a year. We ended up taking home 1 extra suitcase that we should have had to pay to check (and was donated by Bob and Kath), but the Aer Lingus representative took pity on us because their line was SO long and slow at Dublin...

On our way back to MI, we had a longish layover in Boston, MA. Kendra's sister and brother-in-law live just over an hour from there, so they came to the airport to see us (had been years!). It was SO great to see them and talk with them and introduce them to Jamieson. Thanks Korinne and Tom!

Arriving home in Lansing, we were greeted with signs and cards and balloons and food from our friends - SO thoughtful and nice! Jubin got our key from Izzy's house down the street and we opened the door to KEYA! We were so happy to see her...and, she us! It was a bit strange settling back into our home that didn't feel quite like home. Actually, it took us almost a year to fully move our stuff back down from the attic (surprise, surprise). In retrospect, we shouldn't have rented our car to the German's who rented our house (no oil in it, WAY many miles put on it), but really, it is hard to complain when they adopted Keya... And, they left the house in pretty good shape. That first week or so, it was great to see our family, friends, and pets. I collected Cedar from my colleague's house and I was so worried that she would have a hard time adapting to Keya and Jamie again, but right away she was happy and acting like she had never been gone! And, we were SO grateful for our large kitchen and laundry. ;)

It was an interesting transition back to our lives in the U.S. I had assumed that we would need a month to adjust when we moved to Belfast, but hadn't expected the same on the return. It was a LOT tougher returning than we thought! We actually experienced true culture shock. Everything seemed so BIG, FAST, LOUD, BRIGHT! Life seemed so hectic and everyone seemed stressed and unhappy. Izzy down the street was a great help for Watson's transition, but he SO missed his Geneva Gardens mates (as did we!). And, we realized that we really like urban living - walking and biking and busing everywhere really appealed to us. We tried hard to hold on to some of the feelings (and our life style) we had in Belfast, mainly by NOT signing the boys up for lots of after-school activities and NOT scheduling lots of weekend events (of course, the down-side to that is that we still haven't hosted some of our friends over after almost a year of being home!). But, relatively quickly, reality set in - Watson was back at camps a week after we returned, Jamieson went back to Jen's house on the north-side of Lansing until ELSS started up after Labor Day, and we were back to work full time, getting ready for teaching.

One of the things that made a big impression on us was the realization of how much we rely on our car(s) in MI and how little we enjoy that fact. In fact, we tried to live with one car for the summer/fall. What a mess; we found that we needed a car for each adult, given the different adult and child schedules. Jubin and Kendra split time riding bikes back and forth to work for a couple of months. We enjoyed riding our bikes for the approximately 5 miles each way, but found the roads unforgiving, car drivers disrespectful, daylight short, etc... What a short-lived experiment! We ended up buying a used Toyota Prius in mid-Oct and even succumbed to an MSU parking permit in January. But, we have new perspective now, and are sure to be much more cognizant of the choices we make regarding where we live and how we get where we are going.

The gorgeous County Donegal - Part 2

More highlights from our week in NW ROI with Pat, Eric, Annika, Bob, and Kath! We are SO glad that we were able to cap off our year with this trip. VERY fun! Here's the map link again: MAP

DUNFANAGHY - This town was close by to our cottage. We drove through it many times on our way to hikes and beaches, and stopped a couple times for crepes, ice creams, shopping (nice art galleries - in hindsight, we should have bought something there!), etc... One night, the gang encouraged Jubin and I to go into town for dinner together (so nice!) and another night we all went in for dinner at a pub. Unfortunately, the local music didn't start until after bedtime for half of our group...

ARD'S FOREST PARK - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ards_Forest_Park - One day we went for a very nice walk in this Park and had a snack in the cafe. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great that day (SO glad I bought that coat with Holly), but it was still fun.

Part-way through this week, Pat and I got word that an NSF proposal we submitted just weeks earlier was ranked 1st by the panel and NSF wanted to fund our project a year early! How awesome is that? It was extra great to get that news while with Pat - reminiscent of our hearing from NSF when we were at a conference in Puerto Rico together!

PRETTY DRIVE - Bob led us on a great drive showing us some beautiful cliffs and beaches, as well as a few loughs (e.g., Lough Salt), areas being mined for peat, and other areas of interest like the Shuggling Stone.

Lough Salt

Not as many "marshmallows" in Donegal as SW ROI, but still a LOT!

The white blobs in the foreground are blocks of peat that have been mined and wrapped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shuggling_Stone

GLENVEAGH NATIONAL PARK - http://www.glenveaghnationalpark.ie/
This is a beautiful national park surrounding Lough Veagh. It rained on and off that day and was pretty cold (note the winter hats in the pix - in JULY!), but it never bucketed. We parked, took a shuttle bus up to the castle and botanic gardens and then went on a lovely, mostly flat walk on a mainly gravel path. The path went along beside the Lough and had gorgeous views of the castle, the Lough, a stream, and a great waterfall at the turn-around.

Unfortunately, Annika had a headache that day, so the Soranno-Torng's departed early, turning around at the above stream. And, Watson was sick of walks...so, after they left, we spent a fair amount of time coaxing him along with 20 questions and the like. Not the very easiest of days for some reason!

Mid-walk snack anyone? 

The view at the turn-around point.

The Park had a nice cafe, where we got lunch and Jamieson was quite charismatic...

Then, we waited at the dock for the shuttle bus back to the parking lot - a welcome diversion for the kids (how is it that they have tons of energy to run crazy when waiting for a bus but not when hiking???). We waved to Bob and Kath, who walked the path back to the car park.

I am quite sure that I've forgotten very memorable and happy moments about the week we spent in Donegal...but, that week definitely has a fond place in my heart!