New Zealand Odyssey: Week 42, My Work

The Physics Building. My office is in the upper-left (ignore the red circle).

I've written little about my work in this blog, perhaps giving the impression that I've done nothing but play while here. On the contrary, there's been rarely a weekday that we've been in Dunedin that I haven't gone into the office for my obligatory half-day (4 hours on average), with the remainder of the day spent doing something outside.

My office in the Physics Department at the University of Otago is a humble one; I'm in a room with four desks: mine, Chinese PhD student Erfang Ma's, and two others that have seen more sporadic use.  I turned away the offer of my own office, liking the idea of being anonymous and perhaps even mistaken for a PhD student rather than visiting faculty.

The experience has been a good one for me professionally. I've done some work that I'm proud of, submitted several papers for publication (one co-authored with my U. Otago host), learned some more statistics, and wrote a National Science Foundation grant proposal for future work. All of the major items on my work list have been checked off, so I can leave Dunedin content with what I've accomplished.

I've been pursuing scholarly research long enough now that it begins to suit me and I it. I enjoy the process: following my esoteric interests, learning new things along the way, coming up with new ideas, experimenting and testing on the computer, writing up the results. For me, the greatest joy in the work comes from new discovery and understanding, as well as from sharing in the process with PhD students.

Professionally, I'm ready to get back out into the world,  interact with my research colleagues, and share my NZ work with others in my community; just as in Finland, I have found it difficult to maintain enthusiasm for the hard work of research (and nothing else) for an entire academic year. I'm also looking forward to getting back to my job at UM, to teaching, and to over-full days of work.