My Currrent Hobby

People ask why I enjoy hobbies like this. For most of my professional life, my work has been meaningful, but largely academic and abstract. In my efforts at teaching sudents, helping formulate policy, and providing visionary leadership, I often do not know how much of a difference I have really made. But after a few hours of intense work on a hitorical monument or a model ship at the end of a workday, I see the visible and specific progress I have made each time. The concrete sense of accomplishment balances my other work.