First Day on the Sabbatical Job :)

Well, as you can see from the picture I managed to successfully get myself to the first day of my sabbatical "work." I chose to have a work/play sabbatical so that 1) my family could experience living abroad -not just the two-week highlight tour, 2) and so I could use my skills in a different setting in order to 3) help me to return to my "day job" refreshed and with new insights gained from collaborating with folks from outside of my industry.

So today was the first day. Lots of the usual stuff--working out how to get on campus (I had to surrender my passport), find my building (the campus is like a mini university campus, with each of the main sets of buildings/pavilions bearing a "continental" name--mine is "Asia." It's pretty interesting that my arrangement is new for this organization too, so we are learning together where and how I fit in amongst the others administratively.

I've met all of the members of the small team with whom I will be working and the projects sound interesting and challenging. I found myself calling on various eras of my career--not-for-profit work in the museum sector, quasi-government administration from my early Smithsonian work, development-related things I did in Indonesia, and of course the work I've been doing at Intel. The pace of work seems relatively calm and slow by tech industry standards, which is just perfect for sabbatical :). The overall campus is very international. According to my team, my presence ups the American population on campus by 20%!

I have a pleasant office all to myself with large windows (in the building directly behind the sign above). The campus is wedged between the River Po and the major artery --Corso Unita D'Italia--is out the other side. Once I get a bike (hopefully I can find a cheap used one), I'll be able to ride literally along a park-like path beside the river almost the whole way from our flat to work. I'm looking forward to that.

Being here makes me realize just how spoiled I've become working in a technology company. Seldom is my equipment more than two years old (or at least it will have been refreshed somehow if it is)...and Wi-Fi is indeed taken for granted! Also, I never thought about the keyboard actually being different here! I kept wondering why things weren't typing as I had expected--no alert to caps lock, extra buttons thrown in in that region too, strange tri-purpose buttons too! take a look:

At any rate, I got a thorough briefing on one of the projects I'll be working on today and had a nice trip home on the Metro with one of my new colleagues. Even picked up some gelato for the family from Grom:).

Tomorrow looks to be an interesting day too. More introduction to work projects, the arrival of one of Gretchen's childhood friends, and our first dinner in an Italian home :).

Another time I'll have to write about the blown circuit experience of the evening!

That's it for now...time to wind down...perhaps read something...and head off to sleep.

Ciao!