When I was in my 30's and just out of graduate school with my new PhD, there was no question that flying to remote observatories and spending a week getting data that I had planned to get the year before, was the most exciting part...that plus going to professional conferences to present papers about my research. I even traveled to Holland and Italy a couple of times. The experience of discovery was pretty neat, but I never really made any world- famous discoveries, so I never had the thrill of getting that type of recognition.
Now, in 2001, I am in my late 40's and have two daughters ages 7 and 9. I detest traveling and avoid flying as much as possible to avoid checking out of life in an accident. Still, I am scheduled for 3 trips this year to conferences on education that I am trying to get out of. As for research, there is no travel involved in this anymore because the data is all in a web-based archive and I haven't traveled to an observatory to do research since 1996. I think that phase in my career is now over, and I really don't miss it that much.
The bottom line is that when I am teaching, I am always at my happiest and in a state of the greatest professional pleasure. Research itself can be tedious and at times unrewarding for the effort made. Teaching for me, on the other hand, has never been tedious or frustrating or a task to be dreaded.
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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