And not in my direction.
So much for being fully funded next year. I am going to be officially looking for projects to work on next fiscal year. I have one proposal pending out there, but I am not sure that is enough IF it comes through. I was hoping that proposal would put me at the 110% committed level. I have one proposal to write and so apparently I need to kick that up a notch (bye bye amiable NM) and push Miss Pink Post-Doc aside to ensure I am the one that gets the go ahead. There is another proposal where I am listed as a key collaborator, but I don’t expect my expertise will be required immediately. I find it best to maintain myself slightly over committed because inevitably there is downtime on projects. Like right now for me, as I wait for contracts to come through and equipment to arrive. I hate downtime.
My one and only true surface science project, that I was really hoping would sweep me back in to the surface science world, was cancelled after one year. The lifecycle was scheduled to be three years. There is never a guarantee for funding the entire lifecycle of a project, but man it sucks when it is just cut. As usual with these kinds of projects I truly believe that it was an issue of the reviewers just not understanding the jist of what we were trying to do. They didn’t see it as integral to the project suite, but I do. I fear they have missed the point. Unfortunately I never read a copy of the final proposal. I submitted my section to the PI and he compiled and submitted it, never copying Wang and I (the task leads). I worry that he didn’t make a strong enough case.
I am keeping my mouth shut for now. I would like to meet with my mentor and see if he has suggestions on the best way to approach this situation. But I need to do this after next Monday… where I won’t appear to be whining to him to fund my proposal I submitted to him.
Gag. I am so not looking forward to trying to find work for next year, for a few reasons.
To be continued at a later date…
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