So, the day has come – after two years, it’s time for me to say goodbye to Dublin! I almost added the word “finally”, but decided against it, because it really feels like this came sooner than I thought it would. They say that time seems to pass more quickly when you’re older because relative to how long you’ve already lived, the years are getting shorter and shorter; I guess there may be something to that idea, but even so, five percent is an appreciable fraction and that’s roughly the portion of my life so far that I’ve spent in the Fair City.

My January, as I expected, has been anything but uneventful, with loads of wrapping-up to do before I can board the plane home with a clear conscience. Finishing the trial has been a big part of it, obviously – just a couple of weeks ago I had to spend a panicky afternoon fixing a bug that was seriously threatening to make a mess of the experiment in the most crucial phase of it. Admittedly, that bug was only there because of some shoddy design on my part and could easily have been avoided with a bit of forward thinking, but still, I take a certain amount of pride in how quickly and effectively I dealt with the problem once I realised that it was happening and couldn’t be eliminated or circumvented in any way other than developing and deploying a new version of the server.

To be honest, I almost welcomed the unforeseen coding job, since that at least was something that was entirely in my own power to do. What I found far more stressful was the waiting – waiting for the study participants to do their part, hoping that they won’t take too much time to do it when your time is running out, knowing that you can plead with them but you can’t actually make them do anything. It turns out that one of the many transferable skills you develop as a researcher is a form of diplomacy: composing emails that convey a definite sense of urgency while avoiding any overt attempts to make the recipients feel guilty.

I have to admit that finishing the trial came rather too close to the deadline for comfort; even as the last week of January arrived, I was still missing several responses to the feedback survey that I really needed everyone to complete because in a small-scale study like mine was, every participant’s contribution really counts. I also can’t say that the results were everything I hoped for, but then, if I’d known exactly what to do and how to do it right from the beginning, it wouldn’t have been research. Looking back at all the stuff I managed to get done over these past two years, I guess on the whole I can feel pretty good about myself.

Although the fact that I’m leaving DCU and going back to Finland set a hard deadline by which certain things needed to be finished, the project isn’t really coming to an end yet, not in the sense of me not doing any more work on it. The Commission will be expecting a final report within 60 days of the end of the project period, and I’m already working on a journal manuscript that will be largely based on the results of the trial and will hopefully become the capstone publication of the project. Another conference paper or two wouldn’t hurt either, but that’s going to require some research work that goes substantially beyond what I achieved in Dublin, and I don’t know yet how much time I’m going to have for that in Oulu.

Outside of work, my time has been mainly occupied by packing my bags and saying my farewells – to the people I met here, to the places I liked to go and to the things I enjoyed doing. I’ve had no more time to go travelling further afield, but I’ve done my best to tick a few more items off my list of things to see and do in the greater Dublin area, such as interesting walks I hadn’t done yet; I’m particularly glad that I had the chance to check out Dublin’s cool new tiki bar that opened just a couple of weeks before my departure. Last week I joined the DCU Campus Choir for one more session and brought with me a box Finnish chocolates, which seemed to go down very well. A new bass joined the choir and a new tenor as well, so I trust that the male voices will continue to hold their own without me.

Although I’m happy to return home, inevitably there’s some sadness as well, because it’s a good period of my life that I’m leaving behind. I’m fairly sure that Ireland hasn’t seen the last of me yet, but I’m not sure when my next visit will be, and I don’t know if all of the same people will still be here then. Even leaving my Dublin apartment makes me more wistful than I would have expected, considering that it’s barely big enough to even call an apartment, but it was my home for long enough for me to get settled and there are many good memories associated with it. May the next tenant be equally well served by it.

P.S. The Science with Arctic Attitude blog of the University of Oulu recently published a post I wrote about my time in Dublin. If you didn’t see it yet, you can check it out here.