Here's the scoop. I applied for a postdoctoral research grant from the National Science Foundation back in early November. It was extremely last minute. Maddeningly so. I learned about the grant something like a week before the proposal was due. Thankfully two things had happened: I was already in the process of preparing a different grant proposal, so it wasn't too terribly hard to rewrite that one into a different version for NSF, and the government shutdown had backed things up at NSF so much that they ended up extending the deadline by a week or two, giving me a little extra time.
In any case, it was kind of miserable pulling everything together at the last minute, but I did it, and then I sat. And waited. For months. At the end of January, I learned that my proposal had been sent out for review, which means they sent it to some experts in my field to read what I had written and make comments on it for the big committee meeting. Then in early March, the committee met, and we heard nothing. Radio silence. And then - suddenly - in May, after months of no communication whatsoever from NSF, the status of my proposal magically changed from "pending" to "recommended".
What that means is this: the way NSF works is a big committee meets to discuss all the proposals that have been submitted. The committee members read the proposals themselves, and also the reviews written by the expert reviewers, and the program manager (the head of the committee) has to write up a summary of all of the discussions, and ultimately make a recommendation for which grants should be funded. Normally, when the program manager recommends that a grant be funded, it's funded. So for my grant status to change from "pending" to "recommended" is huge. The problem was, there has been discussion of a bill in congress called the FIRST act, which is the reauthorization for the NSF budget, and it's kind of a mess, from what I understand. They're trying to slash science funding, and they're also trying to implement some really damaging changes to the scientific review process. It's extremely disheartening, to say the least.
So in my case, there was the added issue of the timing of this legislation. I was really worried that even though my grant was recommended, depending on what was happening with the FIRST act, the program manager's recommendation might get shot down. And then I would be in the somewhat tragic position of being the only person anyone's ever heard of who had their grant get recommended and then not funded.
But. But! On June 1st, the status changed again: from "recommended" to "funded". That's it - "funded". And suddenly there's paperwork to fill out and plane tickets that I can buy on my very own grant and my salary is getting changed over to my very own grant as of July 1st.
So all of this time that I have been not blogging, I've been in kind of a precarious mind space, wondering where I would be next year. Hoping against hope that things would work out with this grant, and wanting to write an update here, but holding my breath because what if, what if it doesn't work out. In the meantime, I also had a job interview elsewhere (sort of... that's a subject for a different post), and also spent some time convincing myself that truly, the absolute worst case scenario would be for me to move back to Berkeley for a year, and come on, that's not exactly the end of the world.
But here I am, and it's summer in State College, and the weather has been truly lovely and I get to sit in my upstairs office in my apartment that I love, and work on things that I think are interesting, and go for long runs on Sunday mornings, and spend the day on Saturday brewing beer and pulling weeds in the garden plot I'm sharing with my neighbors. Things have gotten so cozy here. I'm really feeling at home, and at least part of that is because I now know I can stay here, so I can afford to get attached to it. I have some really great friends who live in the same apartment complex as me, and some nights we sit out on the porch together, or in the grass behind our houses, munching on snacks and shooting the breeze. It's a good life, and I'm glad I get to live it for a little while longer.
This summer is about to become a little bit crazy, though, so I'm trying to enjoy the lazy days of summer while I can. J will be here starting Tuesday (yay!!), and we will have a month of hanging out and probably alternately working from home and going out and exploring the environs. Then the craziness starts. I'll be in Geneva for a week (yes, just one week) in July, for a conference. Then I stop off in PA, do my laundry, and head back out to California almost immediately, where J and I are driving up north (basically on the border with Oregon) for his family reunion. I'll be back here at the beginning of August, and then I guess it's time for the semester, and it'll be time to start keeping my eyes peeled for faculty jobs.
And that is the story of what I've been up to for the past few months. Oh, also, I went to my Berkeley graduation and G & S's wedding in May, and it was really wonderful. I hope they don't mind if I post a picture here. (It's on the internet elsewhere, so I don't think it should matter.)
 |
| I think this is G's 1052nd picture of the day. I assure you he was quite happy in person. |
Tonight I think I'm going to Happy Valley Brewing Company to watch the World Cup, and tomorrow is long run day, and I also have some laundry to do and more weeds to pull. (Gardening is hard work. Especially when you only do it in extremely punctuated spurts. :-P ) I will try to make my next update not take quite so long as this one did (although no promises that I will be able to top the NSF news).
Happy Summer!
