Oct 2024 | The halfway point

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My name is Saachi and today is October 31st; I’m halfway into a 12-month sabbatical. If you’re new here, I’m taking a break from work - data viz analytics for a financial institution - to focus on a research and communication design project. The aim of this project is to: 

1. Understand the current sustainability of urban waterfronts and their future potential to address food insecurity at a community level
2. Upskill in communication, data visualization, coding, and 3D modelling
3. Combine points 1 and 2 into a visual portfolio that doubles as speculative fiction about sustainability on an urban lakefront and four shared meals

Important Disclaimer: The reference page isn't fully prepared. However, the main references for the apps above are as follows

Data for food emissions: Michael Clark et al (2022). Estimating the environmental impacts of 57,000 food products. PNAS. – processed by Our World in Data. “Emissions per kilogram” [dataset]. Michael Clark et al (2022). Estimating the environmental impacts of 57,000 food products. PNAS. [original data].

Music Credit:  Rainy Afternoon by Snoozy Beats https://soundcloud.com/snoozybeats

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0

Free Download / Stream: https://www.audiolibrary.com.co/snoozybeats/rainy-afternoon

Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/L-LTO4nWpcI

As you can see, there’s lots to fix, test…and refix…and retest. But November 2nd (this Saturday) marks the halfway point in this 1-year sabbatical. And that dredges up memories of how I decided to go on sabbatical after six years of full-time, happy employment.  

Image Credit:  Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash 

I assess my finances every week. It’s a self-soothing activity I’ve done since 2012 when I lived alone for the first time. A moment with a cup of coffee every Saturday morning to note that I am in fact “fine” and “doing well”. It also means that, after 12 years of regular assessment, I know exactly how much money I need to live on in an average week, and what financial shocks to typically expect. 

In October 2022, I looked at my savings and realized I would be “fine” for a year if I couldn’t work. That’s when the idea of taking a year off on purpose to do…whatever I wanted, really…took hold. The word “sabbatical” floated up in the back of my brain. That thing academics did sometimes. And another idea that I had pushed way down and far away also started to bubble up. A project, or the shade of one, about urban waterfront sustainability, that I put away when I decided not to pursue academia after my PhD seven years ago. 

But the idea of a sabbatical - a year without working - felt selfish. Especially during a cost-of-living crisis. Even without committing to the idea, I felt guilty. 

I’m glad I spoke with friends and family about a potential sabbatical in those early days. The support was immediate and hearty, and they gave me important financial advice that I’m so glad I followed. I’d already decided to save up enough for two years off - in case, post-sabbatical, it took a year to find a new job - but they added that I should consider saving up an extra 15% interest, in case of inflation. Something which had derailed some of their own, similar, plans in the past. 

So with a new “goal number” in mind, I forecasted how long it would take me to save this number and realized that, if I were really careful, I could potentially go on sabbatical starting May 2024. 

My friends and family didn’t just give me important financial advice. They also chased away the guilt I felt from even thinking about going on a sabbatical. This meant I could contemplate going one step further, and approach my company about my idea.

I’ve always been blessed with supportive, empathetic supervisors and managers who have gone out of their way to support and protect me. Even in the odd moments when the job wasn’t great, they were amazing. But even amongst this group, my current boss is top tier. 

Yes, I still think of her as my boss. 

Before I spoke to her about my plans, I created a demo of the type of project I wanted to make and presented it to her a full year before I intended to take any time off. As always, she was fully supportive (and still is). She looked into the best way for me to take time off and got me all the resources I needed to make my plans real. 

For an entire year and a half, my friends and family, my boss and colleagues were fully supportive and conveyed great excitement. And I am grateful to them.

I had a lot of thoughts about what life would be like once I started the sabbatical. Although I was eager to start, and felt I needed a break from corporate life, I was scared. It would be the first time I ever tackled a project without a full squad of supervisors or a full team of colleagues to lean on. I fully expected to be lonely without my team and not motivated to work on this project once I started the sabbatical. 

But for the last 6 months, I haven’t been that lonely at all. Thank you, husband and cat for keeping me company. 

And I’ve been so motivated to work that I’ve had to limit my work hours. I work every day, including weekends, but I force myself to stop at 4 pm, 5 pm latest, no matter what. 

Image Credit: The images are sourced from Pinterest, and are not mine.

The Summer 2024 apps are about 70% where I wish they were. Not only are they missing a proper reference page, but they’ll need a lot of aesthetic restyling before I’m happy. I’m using ChatGPT 4 to help with React and CSS coding, but I find there’s a limit to what AI can help with. So in November, and likely December, I’ll follow this CSS course: https://www.slayingthedragon.io/. 

Instead of continuing to fix the Summer 2024 apps, I’ll put them aside and build the apps that take place in the fall of 2029. They’ll feature a community garden, life with augmented reality, artificial intelligence, soft-body robotics, and a cozy Halloween-themed lunch. See my Milanote mood board above.

Thank you kindly, 

Saachi Sadcha