Wednesday, September 17, 2008

It's that time again

For a number of reasons, fall is always a time of frantic activity for me. In addition to the usual school and home obligations additional factors add to fuel to the fire. I've recently returned from the field with mounds of unanalyzed data. I have a partner, pet and home that I've been away from for months. The weather is perfect to work on the house/yard. And... it's proposal season.
Many of the major grants & fellowships me and my kind can apply for to fund our research have deadlines during the fall months. As a result, the already hectic schedule is thrown into overdrive as we try to shove another pot on the already crowded stove.
It's about trade-offs, as are many things. You need the data to tweak and support your proposal but if your running the assays and such to get the data you can't work on the proposal. So one must decide whether to do both things shoddily, or one thing well.
And as my sister always reminds me, remember to breathe....