Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Dear NSF

Just me, checking in to see how things are going. I know we haven't talked much lately, but I've been thinking about you. Remember all of the fun we had in January, when I submitted that grant? Well, I saw on your website that you sent it out for external review in mid-March, and well, I thought it might be nice for me to write you and see how things are going and whether two months is enough time for you to pick it over? You know the summer submission deadline is looming and that I am already working on two grants for July. Do you think you could make a decision before the last possible second so I'll know whether I'm going to be submitting three grants? I know it's a lot to ask and all, but it really would be nice to hear one way or another. See, this summer is already jamming up and I stupidly just agreed to write a book chapter that I now know needs to be about 20,000 words long. I'm just curious if I'm going to get to see my family this summer or if I should fully commit to going feral and convert my office window into a urinal. Once the pizza guy has my credit card on the rolodex and I move a cot in, I should be pretty set. So, drop me a line to let me know if I need to head to Home Depot. Hugs.
-PLS

12 comments:

  1. Cute :) On a more serious note, perhaps this advice could help a bit. Good luck!

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  2. You can do 3 grants and 20,000 words, no problem! They didn't specify it had to be 20,000 good words, right?

    BTW, forget the cot. You should just install a hammock in your office!

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  3. Easy there Successful Researcher. MsPhD holds the title for "Most Condescending" and "Most Projecting One's Situation on to Others" around here. I don't want to see you two in a blood feud to the death over who can be the bigger blog downer.

    I've been thinking about the hammock in a big way. I have a 5 foot wide floor to ceiling window that is just begging for a hammock. Now if only I can convince the few construction guys still around here to sink eye-hooks into the studs....

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  4. Put the hammock in a lab bay, anchored to the stanchions that hold up the shelves above the benches.

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  5. We once thought about putting hammocks in our lab, but I'm pretty sure that would've made us fail lab safety inspections. Besides, having the PI sleeping in a hammock in the lab, perhaps with empty pizza boxes piled on the floor underneath, may not be the best example to set for trainees! :-)

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  6. The lab is too loud anyway. I can close my office door and leave some music on...
    It would be better if my window wasn't in full view of the courtyard, but whatever.

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  7. Hey, perhaps my wording wasn't the best one, but I didn't want to sound condescending (or a downer, come to speak of it) at all!

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  8. SR - Generally people try and leave comments that are germane to the discussion. Suggesting that I go read some thing on how to write a grant when the post is about waiting for the results from a grant submitted in January, is not really advancing the discussion. The fact that most of your comments are self-serving (here and elsewhere) in that they almost always include links back to your blog, is also not helpful.

    If you have an opinion, some advice based on your experience, an observation or a question, comment all you want. It's why everyone is here. However, if you are here to "sell" a blog of organized links, I ain't buying.

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  9. SR, I have to agree - I've seen your short (often just one word) comments in a lot of places now, and clicked through, but if you're looking for links or whatever, well, most people only blogroll sites with original content. I'm sure your kind of site has its place as a useful resource, but you'll notice that very few of us link to them...

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  10. Cath, at the risk of inviting more "nice" words about my blog, may I ask why, in your opinion, people don't link to the sites like mine? And I don't mean putting them into the blogroll, one may have a separate "links" panel or whatever...
    P.S. Congratulations on your Canadian citizenship!

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  11. I only just caught up to this discussion. SR, you'll find that most of the blogs that are blogrolled by people like PLS, Cath and myself are written by people with whom we have had conversations either through emails, comments on various blogs or reciprocal posts about what someone else has posted about. This is a community of science bloggers where we can discuss issues in our science and careers (and often in our personal lives) among like-minded people who can offer help, support, commiseration or a critical eye. This is not a newspaper where we offer advertising.

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