Sabbatical Leave Proposal and Sabbatical 2011 (Blog)

I am an associate professor at Parkland College in Champaign IL USA. After teaching graphic design full-time for 10 years, I\u27m very pleased to be taking a semester off for sabbatical leave in spring 2011. My sabbatical application was approved on December 22, 2009 and we immediately starting making plans. With an extented period of time available for recuperation and renewal, my partner and I wanted to do some serious traveling. At first, we thought an around-the-world trip would be rather exciting, but both the cost and weather proved to be challenging. So we narrowed our choices down to destinations where the weather was good and our dollars could be stretched as much as possible. After consulting with a travel agent who specialized in multi-destination fares (www.justfares.com), we ended up with an itinerary that included Bangkok, Kolkata, Darjeeling, Singapore, Bali and Tokyo. Because we wanted flexibility in our dates, we booked only the first and last part of our itinerary. This way, we can stay longer if we liked one particular location and leave if we didn\u27t. We\u27ve never had the luxury to be able to travel this way, so this is particularly exciting. The best part: we leave on January 1, 2011. What a great way to start a new year