Saturday, September 20, 2008

cutting my losses (unhappily)

i've too many things on my plate and not enough time, so i think i'll apply for the NSF resear¢h grants next year and not this year.

maybe it was the time i lost at the hospital, but more likely it was how i used up my summertime. if i had spent the month of august 2008 at pittsburgh, i might have spent more time working on a good application and have been ready by now.

might have,
could have,
should have
:

these are silly words. we do or we don't: those should be the only words that matter.

so instead i suppose i should really get down to writing papers and furthering my fledgling research. after all, you can't write a good application if you don't have anything to put on it.

there's that, and i have to prepare an exam to my calculus students, this coming wednesday. somehow i have a very bad feeling about this.



so yes: another year and i'm bowing out of the competition. last year it was the NSF postd0ctoral fe11owships; it was bad timing and i wouldn't have known who my mentor/supervisor would be.

still, it irks me. maybe i'll just remember how indignant i feel, and maybe i'll finally do it right, next year. everyone needs his motivations, so maybe i'll just hate myself for a while.

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