Random (Irit+Observ)Ations

Aaah, it's good to be back home, here in the Jungle...

I am so busy and so tired that I want to scream. I have a proposal with internal deadline on Tuesday of next week, and I know I won't make it because I spent the better part of this week at home with a fussy baby who has gotten a new virus (seems like RSV, it's been going around the daycare, with wheezing and prodigious snot) plus an ear infection (his ear is leaking yellow goo, courtesy of his new blue ear tubes).  He's miserable... My poor baby. :-(

In the light of the goo-and-snot-a-palooza it is totally shallow of me to be worried that the evil Sponsored Programs Office person will  shake her index finger at me with words "Bad PI, bad PI! Sit! How dare you submit after the sacred internal deadline? So what if it's a single-PI NSF proposal, the simplest thing under the sun, and I will submit it as usual within 2 hours of you hitting "Allow SPO to view, edit, and submit" button in Fastlane? Naughty, naughty PI! Shame on you!" I don't want to bring up the sick baby excuse, because -- honestly -- I always seem to have that excuse. (Cue those people without kids who really can't stand people with kids: this is where you tell me that it's not anybody else's job to accommodate my personal choice to have kids, and that if I am not able to fulfill my work obligations like any person without a family then I should not have had a family to begin with, and that my job should have been occupied by someone who can -- presumably someone without a family or (a dude) with a partner holding down the home fort... So all the ridiculous internal grant submission deadlines could be met without a glitch).

Which reminds me of a comic strip the Hub just helped me discover -- Cyanide and Happiness
Here's a fitting example:
http://www.explosm.net/comics/2382/

On the upside, I have finished week 3 of my kickboxing regimen and it's been awesome! I credit it for my much improved mood (you wouldn't have guessed based on the previous paragraph, huh?) and more energy than before (have been off coffee yet functional the entire time). I have also lost 7 lbs, but that's almost a bonus. I sooooo love kicking the crap out of that punching bag. And I love that I am reconnecting with my body, I feel like it can do things again. My body and I had become estranged over the years of my descent  into couch-potatoedness. But now, I am remembering that I in fact possess muscles and bones, and that I can run, jump, punch, and kick. My abs and arms are already much stronger than when I started (we're doing a lot of sit-up, crunches, and various other ab exercises, as well as lots and lots of push-ups). It's a really awesome program, and seeing the same people every day gives me the feeling like I belong to a team even though it's not a  team sport... And have I mentioned how much I loooove punching and kicking the crap out of that bag? Jab, cross punch, hook, uppercut, body shot, front and back kicks... Aaah, that's the stuff.

Oh yeah, I heard a grant of mine will be funded so that's good news. Now everyone in the group is covered in the foreseeable future. I actually have money for one more student, and I have been emailing with a prospective candidate. He's probably too good for this place which means someone else will snatch him... But a prof can dream, can't s/he? I am conservative with money, don't commit to students until I know there will be a grant for them, but often money comes in and then you don't have an adequate student and you end up hiring someone who is not a good fit for the project... One of the professorial curses is that good students never come along right after you received a grant, they come when you are struggling to renew and keep getting rejections. *sigh*

And my favorite of the week: in a federal agency that shall remain nameless, a decision has been made that there will be no more no cost extensions, effective immediately. Just like that -- poof! They supposedly want to reduce the burden on their grants/contracts staff. Huh? What about all those students who can't just miraculously graduate at the drop of a hat, where the PIs were stretching each dollar to last till graduation? Shouldn't some transition time be allowed?

Getting to punch that bag on a daily basis is really, really important these days...