Jetlagged in Oslo

I find myself lying in bed at 5am in an Oslo hotel room, having been irretrievably awake for the past 4 hours. Normally when I travel (which isn't to suggest that I travel particularly often), I am fairly good with managing my body clock, but the last two nights have been less than optimal. So, I guess I'll blog.

This is a work trip, basically, and I'm really torn about whether I like the idea of it. On one hand, I get to catch up with lots of really good friends - Franck here in Oslo, Jacques in Potsdam, hopefully various people in Rennes, and Meg in London - but on the other hand, it comes at a fairly inconvenient time.

On a personal note, I finally finished the at-times tortuous process of buying an apartment, and moved my things in on Friday. By leaving so quickly, I'm deferring, and in some ways losing, the process of discovery that comes with moving to a new suburb - finding out where the good places are to eat, which spaces in the apartment I want to hang out in, what I like about it and what I don't. It was with some longing that I read reports from my family members who are doing some of this discovery on my behalf.

From a work point of view, its a mixed blessing. The 4 weeks preceding my departure had been truly insane, with my teaching, research and service commitments all ramping up at the same time, and I had been running around trying desperately to keep my head above water, in a way that really wasn't sustainable. I needed a break of some sort. Heading overseas allows some of those commitments - service, for example - to subside a little, but others, teaching in particular, are deceptive. Although I'm free of lecturing, lecturing really isn't the draining or stressful part of teaching, and I still have course coordination duties which are probably slightly harder in absentia.

This kind of equivocation about travel is new to me, and I'm not sure what to think of it.