Category Archives: Sabbatical

Sabbatical Day 2 – A Sunburn and Sore Feet

Leave a reply

Lots more housework today, but a bunch outside too.  I’ve burned my forehead a bit and my feet are sore from standing so much.  I won’t bore you with the details.

Tonight I have to finish up my writing project that I hoped to finish before the start of my sabbatical.  I started work on it nine days ago when I took my trip to Hong Kong.  I wrote about 21000 words on the flights and while at the hotel in Hong Kong.  I’ve edited about half that, and I still have probably about 3 to 5 thousand words left to write.  I was hoping to publish early this week which means before mid-day on Wednesday.  That will be challenging at this point, but is still possible.  Maybe by the end of the week.

Sabbatical Day 1

Leave a reply

Typical busy Saturday with just a bit of weekend in it.

Yesterday I turned off most of the Slack channels with my team so that I won’t be bothered there, and I put an auto-responder on my business email saying I won’t be back for a year!!!

Today I did a bunch of errands, but I also got time at the pool.  I did a little swimming and spent a bit of time in the sun – it was a hot day here in London.  I only spent a tiny bit of time on my math prep, but that’s okay.  I went to see my professors about 10 days ago to get a sense of how I need to prepare for my classes, and basically, I don’t.  I’m still doing a bit of prep, and I bought the textbook for one of my classes (“How to Prove It” by Velleman), but basically, I’m looking forward to starting on Thursday.  Also today, I helped my daughter Verity clean her bird’s cage (gross), took care of my other daughter’s dog (a standard poodle puppy) for a little while, did some laundry, cooked dinner, and best of all, I ate Fruit Loops for breakfast 🙂  I also listened to the No Agenda podcast which is pretty much my favourite source of analysis of current events.

I also created a list of things I want to do during my sabbatical:

  1. Family Time
    1. Spend time with each of Melanie, Justice, Haifa, Verity and Ocean on a scheduled basis, one person per day of the week
    2. Start holding devotionals or firesides
    3. Help Haifa and Justice get their driver’s licenses
    4. Help Melanie with her household backlog
    5. Work on our family tree
  2. Personal Stuff
    1. Complete 6 courses in Mathematics at University of Western Ontario: 2 in the fall, 4 in the winter terms
    2. Lego projects including an architectural project, a Harry Potter project and updates to my workroom
    3. Coin sorting (mostly pennies) for my coin collection
    4. Study French – I would like to be able to teach in French by the fall of 2019
    5. Complete reading “Elliptic Tales”

I won’t get everything in that list done, but it would be nice to make progress on everything!

All-in-all, a quiet start to my sabbatical.

Sabbatical Planning: Email and Slack

Leave a reply

My sabbatical starts soon and before it starts, I have to make sure I have reasonable expectations and policies to handle my email and my engagement on Slack with my colleagues. I’ve had a few suggestions here and there, but I haven’t really finalized anything.  Currently, these two tools are used mostly as follows:

Email

Currently, I use email mostly for communication outside my business.  In particular, I use it for notifications of various sorts (e.g. LinkedIn messages, admin system messages, etc.), hearing from vendors and partners (e.g. newsletters, technical announcements), arranging logistics such as meetings with clients or partners, occasionally for sending proposals (although mostly this is done by other people than me now), and that’s about it.

Slack

Slack is huge for our business.  I have seven private groups, twenty-five public groups (about half really active), and lots of direct messages too.  I’m “on” constantly and usually reply in minutes to anything relevant.  Sometimes I go longer.  Current uses of Slack are around all sorts of information-sharing, decision-making, polling, arguing, concerns, FYIs, social things, etc.  As a dis-located group, with only occasional in-person meetings, Slack covers a lot of ground for us!

My Question

So, what would you recommend?  How should I get prepared to handle email and Slack during my year-long sabbatical?

In Other News

Next week I have brief interviews with the two professors at Western in whose classes I will be starting in September.  I’m looking forward to meeting them and discussing my concerns and abilities for starting back in school in a challenging field such as mathematics.

Sabbatical Countdown T-30 Days

Leave a reply

I recently finished catching myself up on my basic differential and integral calculus.  I actually think I understand it better now than I did when I took calculus in high school and in university.  I may be fooling myself 🙂  I finished reading and doing many exercises in Quick Calculus 2nd Ed. and I can highly recommend it for anyone who wants to brush up on their calculus.  It’s fast-paced, focuses on core concepts and techniques, covers both theory and application, and does it all in a slim easy-to-consume volume.  Of course, it doesn’t have the depth of something like Stewart’s Calculus which is a common textbook, and I’m peeking into that too, but it satisfies the requirements of getting back up to speed after a time away.  I’m also continuing to use Khan Academy for further practice and depth, and will continue to do so probably throughout at least my first term back in school.

I’m also just at the start of brushing up on linear algebra, which I have very little interest in.  I kinda have to force myself.  I’ve got an old textbook called Linear Algebra with Applications.  I also downloaded two linear algebra texts onto my iPhone, and I’ve still got a bunch of Khan Academy units to do… but I have to push myself harder because of my lack of interest.  It’s not that I don’t see the applications… I do… it’s just that linear algebra has so many numbers!!!

That’s not a contradiction: I love mathematics, but I’m not a big fan of numerical manipulation (calculation).  The difference is that mathematics is about seeing relationships, structures and concepts whereas calculation is simply about getting formulaic answers from numerical data.  Calculation is boring to me (usually) because it doesn’t represent an intellectual challenge.  As a result, I hate doing bookkeeping.  On the other hand, I love designing complicated spreadsheets.  And, back to mathematics, I like doing proofs and other activities that represent problem-solving and discovery.  I love learning about cool relationships between mathematical structures and concepts.  And the numbers don’t matter except incidentally.

Preparing for School

Leave a reply

I’m working on getting ready for school. I will be taking two classes starting in September: Mathematics 2155 “Mathematical Structures” and Mathematics 3020 “Introduction to Abstract Algebra”. Both of these cover material I am broadly familiar with, but… My calculus and my linear algebra are very rusty. So, I’ve been using Khan Academy and a couple of old textbooks to try to catch up enough so that I’m not out of my depth when I start. I’m comfortable with basic differential calculus now, but I do need to memorize a few more standard derivatives. I’ve just started on integral calculus and linear algebra.

I’m really tempted to also start a few more “projects”… I’ve got a hankering to study French (again), do some electronics fiddling, and even try my hand at some sculpture (inspired by our recent family trip to Paris).  But, I need to be realistic about my capacity.  I’ve still got lots of work to do before my sabbatical starts including training, client consultations, and handing off more things to my colleagues.  Then, when September comes, I’m going to have to make sure that I’m completely focused on family and school.  After that has settled in, then maybe I can bring on another project or two 🙂

Sabbatical Countdown T-53 Days

Leave a reply

I have been approved for a sabbatical by my business partners (Melanie and Travis) and I have most of the needed things in place in our business (www.berteig.com) so that it will thrive while I am away, and I begin a full year sabbatical starting September 4th, 2018!

This has been a long time coming.  I started thinking about a sabbatical at least 6 years ago.  I’ve been over-stressed, over-worked, and going through a lot of both business and personal challenges.  With Melanie, I started the business in 2004.  We had a number of up and down cycles in the business with the latest down cycle ending in 2014.  It’s been solid growth and maturation of the business since then.  We have grown from 5 employees (including partners) to our current 15 employees.  We have established a solid reputation in public training, private training and coaching/consulting work. Our employees know how to run things.

I have also been considering going back to school for many years.  Both my father and my mother went to get Masters degrees in their late 30’s.  I’m in my 40’s and I’m ready to do the same.  I’ve considered an MBA or EMBA, but they don’t appeal to me.  I’ve considered other possibilities related to business such as leadership.  But really what I want to do is Mathematics.  Several months ago, in anticipation of the possibility of a sabbatical, I applied to University of Western Ontario (“Western”) and after a bit of back and forth on my first degree, I was accepted.  Just in the past  two weeks, I have received confirmation that many of my mathematics courses from my first degree will be allowed as alternatives to the normal prerequisites.  So, starting in September, I will be taking two math courses.  One is a second year course and the other is a third year course.  I’m super excited.

I also, and more importantly, will be spending a lot of time with my family.  I’ve been so busy with work that my four kids know me mostly as a worker.  Travelling, late nights in the home office, weekend interruptions, etc.  The cost of running a small, struggling business.  My kids, being that they are human, have various challenges they are facing and I hope to be more involved in helping them face their challenges and overcome them.  Better late than never.  I’m not the dad that I thought I would be (i’ll probably expand on that more later).

So, as I count down towards my sabbatical, I will start documenting here my interests and my passions and my experiences.  Stay tuned for mathematics, family, philosophy, religion, fiction, and all the other things that make up my life as I experience much less work for a year.