Tag: sabbatical

Maine, Summer 2016

Naoko Takano2 Comments

I think we picked the perfect timing for visiting my husband’s family this summer, avoiding the heat wave in Tokyo while getting only a couple of cloudy/rainy days.

Lake sunset
Alpaca at a county fair
Portland Children’s Museum
Fireworks
Sunrise at 5:30 am
Lake view
Lego time
Boston Logan Airport
Sparkler

Two of my favorite Instagram captures: at Sebago Lake and Popham Beach.

 


Our daughter loves playing in water – not just pools but lake and ocean too. She also had fun playing the piano, sitting in a car seat (for most of the time!), pretending to drive a fire truck at Portland Children’s Museum 🙂

Taking a Sabbatical

Naoko Takano2 Comments

For the next three month, I’m taking the first sabbatical in my life.

When I first heard that I can take a fully paid sabbatical every five years at Automattic, it was about a half year after coming back from my 3-month maternity leave. My sixth year started a couple month before then, but I didn’t feel like going away for an extended time again – even though the fact is that the company encourages us to take one.

Even when I seriously started thinking about the time off for this summer, I wasn’t 100% sure if this is going to be a good idea for me. 

I like my work, and there are so many things I want to get done!

One of my teammates who shared some of the tasks with me is no longer around, maybe I should wait.

Won’t this create too much extra work for others in my team?

But now that I have passed over my work to Andrew who will be backing me up, I feel both relieved and ready. 

From today, I’m taking a 10-day trip with my husband and daughter to Vienna. I will be speaking & volunteering at WCEU (that may sound like work but I’m doing that as just someone involved in the WordPress community 🙂 )

I plan on taking some more trips, reading books, organizing WordCamp Tokyo, and working on some other projects I have in mind.