I came across this story a few days ago and thought I should start my me-year blog. One of the lines that struck me was “Taking a career sabbatical involves a significant leap from the relative comfort of structured, full-time work, to a world without routine or security. That thought alone is enough to ensure many drive, career-minded people avoid ever taking time out.”

While almost everyone I’ve told about my sabbatical year has been supportive, the reaction in general has been mixed. About a third of people think I’m completely crazy, such as my dad and Ian (what about income? What about your career?); about half say I’m brave to be doing what I’m doing because a lot of people say they want to do it but never actually do it (mostly contacts from work) and the rest think I’m crazy but jealous and want to do it too so they reply to my BBM statuses (“Officially on sabbatical, bitches!) with “I hate you!” (close friends and family). LOL. I love it all. Regardless of the comments, it hasn’t detracted me from going full steam ahead with this crazy adventure.

The feeling that I needed to take a break came when I turned 30, and cried, because I felt old and thought that I hadn’t done all I wanted to do in life up to this point. This included living abroad and volunteering to change the world. So, I started on a plan, that included Ian taking the year off with me. His two conditions were that we not go to a warzone (I really wanted to go somewhere like Afghanistan, or Sudan) and that we don’t sell the house. Easy enough to do… but then we decided to buy an investment property, and then spend thousands of dollars on a wedding, and that changed Ian’s drive to come with me. We then decided to go to Laos for a three-month honeymoon instead, but that didn’t work out either. So, Ian is staying home and I’m going to travel by myself (that’s all right with me, but he is seriously freaking out about my safety) for about three months, and then take the rest of the year to get some R&R.

One of the biggest sabbatical tips I’ve seen (other than saving enough money) is to have a plan for the year, so that you will have done it for a reason. I completely agree!

This is my plan:

Travel and volunteer
I was hoping to skip winter and head to warm and sunny India to volunteer in Jaipur for eight weeks, followed by an extra month of travelling in surrounding areas, but I’ve since come up with a snag. Although I am only there for tourist purposes, because I’m a journalist, I need to apply for a journalist visa. The tourist visa is valid for up to six months, and the journalist visa is only 30 days. So, my plans to volunteer for eight weeks have been cut to four (assuming I get a visa – it’s been more than a month!) and now I’m planning to go to Nepal and possibly Tibet. I think I will run into the same visa problem in Tibet, but we’ll see. I was booked to volunteer starting Feb. 3, but now have moved it to Feb. 17 in anticipation of the late visa. Luckily I haven’t bought a flight yet, but stay tuned!

In the travel category, I would also like to go to either France or deep in rural Quebec to actually become bilingual. I feel I have a strong grasp of French, and can communicate well, but I don’t consider myself bilingual which frustrates me, so I would like to take this time to actually develop and refine my French language skills.

In the volunteer category, I would like to start volunteering again locally as well for organizations and issues that I care about. I haven’t decided which ones I will look into yet, but they will likely be related to women (for example a shelter, or working with an organization that works on women’s rights abroad), human rights, and poverty. Also in this category, I am volunteering to help a friend run for Ottawa City Council this year as his media relations person. I know absolutely nothing about municipal politics or local media, so this will be an interesting learning curve that I’m excited to dive into.

Self-development
I’ve been listening to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s song Ten Thousand Hours lately, and it’s a reference to the note that Malcolm Gladwell made about how great people have spent 10,000 hours doing something they’re experts in. In an effort to get reinspired about my career and federal politics (I will always love both), I thought I would need to take a break and do something completely unrelated to what I’ve spent the last 11 years or so doing.

I would like to take this time to learn something new, other than in the world of politics. Becoming bilingual could fit into this category, but it’s not ‘new’ to me. Obviously, I’m not going to become an expert in a year (definitely not devoting 10,000 hours to one thing year), but I would like to tap into a lot my interests that I haven’t necessarily honed.

So, on this list, I would like to take a wine sommelier course (because we all know how much I love wine) and actually learn how to appreciate it, and what all the different regions mean and how they’re different from others. I’d also like to learn about food pairings! I plan to take one or two courses (they are expensive) at Algonquin College, but also taking a few courses here and there at the LCBO to heighten my knowledge of wine! Who knows, maybe after this year I will go on to complete the full sommelier certificate, but for now, I’d just like a better understanding.

In this category, I’d also like to hone my photography skills. Everyone knows I love my photos (yes, I still print pictures and label them all to put in hard copy photo albums!!) and I’ve been taking pictures to document life since I was about eight years old when I got my first (pink) camera. It was one of those long ones with 110mm film made of plastic, that my parents likely bought me for about $15. Kind of like this one!

I absolutely loved it, and have since had many several cameras, including a Polaroid Joycam and the super fun Polaroid iZone camera that spit out mini photos. I had a silver one, but don’t know where it went to anymore.

My parents used to have an old Canon film SLR that I played with in highschool, taking pictures of my crushes with the extra long zoom lens (haha), and they also had another Canon point and shoot that I kind of made my own. I was a purist for a long time and loved my film. I didn’t make the switch to digital until about six or seven years ago when Ian bought me my first digital camera, a Fuji Finepix. When my nephew broke it, my sister bought me a pink Canon Elph. I loved it all. This year I’ve decided to become an amateur pro photographer and actually learn to take awesome photos technically rather than just pointing and shooting. I invested in a Canon T3 digital SLR camera (I’m a Canon loyalist!), and have had fun playing with it so far. My awesome friends Jake and Will have given me two lenses, and a flash! I bought a Canon Rebel for Dummies book, and will be teaching myself the ins and outs of photography. I can’t wait to practice in India and around town!

I would also put rediscovering my city in this category. For someone who’s been in Ottawa for 15 and a half years now, and who absolutely loves this city, I don’t know too much about it, or get to many parts of it outside of Centretown and the Market. So, this year, I’m making it my mission to find cute places in this great city that I can rave about. This includes new restaurants, or cute landmarks. For instance, did you know there’s an intersection in Ottawa called Mulder and Scully?! Mulder and Scully! I so have to find it. 🙂

And lastly, I’d like to finally write that book I’ve been talking about for the last few years. I’ve been gathering anecdotes from my dad about his past, and life before immigrating to Canada and am learning so much. I am going to write about my family’s history so that there’s a record for us. I thought it would be a perfect first book for me, since I am always super curious about the past. I’ve thought about doing this since my mom died and now that my dad is retired and getting older, there may not be time left to ask questions. This was going to be part of the project in Laos when Ian and I were going to go, to talk to the family I’ve only met once there. I’m still hoping to talk to them and hope that with modern technology, I can make it work without going over. If I don’t do anything else this year, this is the one thing I’d like to accomplish. Wish me luck!!

Rest and Relaxation
And last but not least, the other major part of my sabbatical is just to take a break, regain perspective on life and doing things just because I love it, not because I have to. It’s funny that when I first told people I want to take a year off work, unpaid, they told me I should get pregnant and have babies so that I can take parental leave. Um, thanks, but that’s not the kind of year off I want right now. It’s called a sabbatical, and taking care of children is definitely not about R&R and taking a break.

So, on this break, I’m looking forward to sleeping in, catching up with celebrity gossip, reading books (I have a long reading list!), learning new recipes and cooking fresh pasta for Ian (he is afterall, supporting me financially in this project—I love him!), having the time to work out (still need to lose those 30 pounds!!), organizing the house and my files, writing letters on paper to send to friends like I used to do, doing more yoga and finding things to do for free! I’m super sad that while I’m off I don’t have cable because I would’ve loved to have caught up with my favourite soap as well… but I guess that’s what YouTube is for! 😉

And, that’s about it really. This year is all about living life, and discovering life, and being happy, because life is too damn short to do anything differently. It’s my me-year! I hope I get to do everything on my list, but I don’t know how it will go, I have no expectations and I am so ready for it all.

Bea