Taking a leave of absence

My contract is up at the end of April -- as are most of 'em, for the group that started when I did -- so the big bosses are having performance appraisal meetings. Mine was this morning.

As usual with this place, it was pretty low-key. The consensus among us, however, is that it would be a good thing for me to take a few months off to just sit down and finish my [stinkin'] Ph.D. Dissertation.

I had mentioned this last week to two of the ''big three'' (there's two co-directors of our Centre, plus the guy who does most of the day-to-day running of things): that I'd like to take maybe 1.5 two months off to work on my Dissertation. I'd said that if it worked better for the Centre, that I could break it up into two-week blocks.

However, it works out better for them if I take the leave of absense at the end of my contract -- being sure to ''cash out'' my accrued vacation pay, of course -- and then I'll just get re-hired (i.e. a new contract) when I've finished my Dissertation.

Part of why this would work out better for them is that once I receive my Ph.D., they'd feel obligated to change my status and pay (for the better, I presume), and that's awkward to do mid-contract.


Realistically, there will still be some loose ends: Once I finsh my ''Good, Real, Actually Final'' draft, my Dissertation Chair needs to verify it's sufficiently polished to share with the rest of my committee; it'll take him a few weeks to look at it. And once he give me permission to share it with my committee, I gotta allow them about two months to look at it. And then, once I defend it, they may have a few changes (ideally, minor ones), which will take some additional time.

The result of all this ''handling'' is that even once I get a ''Quasi-Final'' draft to my Chair, it could be that I'll need to take a week off, here and there, to make some changes. But it still makes sense for me to just wrap up that stage of my life, once and for all: recording, woodworking, and etcetera await!!!


--GG