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!).