Sabbatical Diary: Every End Had a Start

Having set off with a song in my heart I finish with a rather different song playing. No matter. Variety is the spice of life after all.

It was, in the end, more productive than I initially thought while also leaving me feeling like I didn’t get more than about 10% of what I set out to do, done. Pretty average for me really.

Notwithstanding that, it was certainly necessary: the few years leading up to it had been hard for a range of reasons. A year’s sabbatical was a very welcome reset.

I’d started out with three main targets, to whit,

1. Actually get on with a substantial piece of writing I’ve been meaning to do for a while.
2. Write research proposal #1 about Idea #1.
3. Write research proposal #2 about Idea #2.

How far did I get? Well, in addition to making very considerable progress resolving a personal situation that I’ve alluded to a few times but don’t feel like going into more detail about here,^[1]

1. I wrote one big chunk of it, and sketched several others. The chunk that’s been written has already proved useful. Hopefully I’ll get to the rest of it in the coming months.
2. I did nothing at all other than have a couple of conversations while at the UK Systems workshop. C’est la vie. On the backburner for now.
3. I wrote a talk which has now been given three times, the last of which has resulted in starting to look at relevant funding calls. Watch this space.

So nothing completed, one thing not even started, but progress on the other two that I can hopefully take forwards.

In addition to the other background work (a pile of sysadmin-y things, fiddling with some scripts and code and stuff^[2], supervising Ph.D. students, participating in a handful of workshops, University Council^[3], two other unanticipated research things came up:

1. With Rupen Mitra and Theo Aslanidis we’ve started trying to work out how to realise the “AI-RAN” vision, whereby AI workloads can be run using spare capacity in the 5G/6G RAN. This builds on Amjad’s excellent work, and seems quite promising.
2. With colleagues from Queens’ College I’ve started looking into the challenges of trying to make the William Gates Building simultaneously more energy efficient and more comfortable, building on work already done at Queens’ College. Still at the discussion stage so far, but one funding proposal is 85% written and I’ve started exploring with the University what might be possible to push the work forward.

Still, onwards and upwards as they say. New academic year, new term, new students, new roles: I remain on University Council until the end of my term coinciding with the end of the calendar year, and now I’m back from sabbatical I pick up my positions on the General Board of the Faculties^[4] and Information Services Committee. In the Department I also pick up a new role for me, Director of Undergraduate Education. I have no doubt that, in the fullness of time, we shall all learn a lot.