Day 566: Botherations
Oct. 5th, 2021 12:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primePicture my Winnie the Pooh "Bother" icon, please. Today had two big bothers.
First, I checked the score on my pending grant proposal. This is the one to do groundwork for making a program that would help people who want to quit e-cigarettes. The previous three times we got respectable but not quite fundable scores in the mid-30s. Fundable would be a much lower number, like, say, 12. This time we addressed everything they'd criticized before, even the things they weren't technically supposed to mark us down on but did anyway. And the score? 52. Urgh. It would have been nice to have funding again, starting in April. Now we have to wait for a month to read the feedback, then try again, and if they like it maybe we'd get funding 14 months from now?
It is a very good thing that I'm focusing on my writing projects and not the NIH-funding side of my career! Alas, I still need one more grant to qualify for "senior scientist" status, which I'd like. Plus, of course, some income.
The other bother is my apple tree. It's a Liberty apple, planted about 12 years ago, and this year it was absolutely laden with fruit. A couple of branches had drooped onto the ground because there were so many apples on them. I mean, most years it makes about 70 apples; this year I wouldn't be surprised if there were 700. Unfortunately, the tree is not exactly symmetrical, which is relevant for gravity, and today I noticed that shockingly the trunk is now leaning at a 45-degree angle. I bet the roots are all torn up underground. Poor tree! I guess we'll learn in the spring whether it can survive.
Otherwise the day was fine. J. had a day off work (he has to take lots of random vacation days before the end of the year) and relaxed in his chair with the internet. I got some yardwork and writing done. We bought groceries, and I made spaghetti. D. and S. watched that Squid Game show and are up to episode 6 out of 8.
First, I checked the score on my pending grant proposal. This is the one to do groundwork for making a program that would help people who want to quit e-cigarettes. The previous three times we got respectable but not quite fundable scores in the mid-30s. Fundable would be a much lower number, like, say, 12. This time we addressed everything they'd criticized before, even the things they weren't technically supposed to mark us down on but did anyway. And the score? 52. Urgh. It would have been nice to have funding again, starting in April. Now we have to wait for a month to read the feedback, then try again, and if they like it maybe we'd get funding 14 months from now?
It is a very good thing that I'm focusing on my writing projects and not the NIH-funding side of my career! Alas, I still need one more grant to qualify for "senior scientist" status, which I'd like. Plus, of course, some income.
The other bother is my apple tree. It's a Liberty apple, planted about 12 years ago, and this year it was absolutely laden with fruit. A couple of branches had drooped onto the ground because there were so many apples on them. I mean, most years it makes about 70 apples; this year I wouldn't be surprised if there were 700. Unfortunately, the tree is not exactly symmetrical, which is relevant for gravity, and today I noticed that shockingly the trunk is now leaning at a 45-degree angle. I bet the roots are all torn up underground. Poor tree! I guess we'll learn in the spring whether it can survive.
Otherwise the day was fine. J. had a day off work (he has to take lots of random vacation days before the end of the year) and relaxed in his chair with the internet. I got some yardwork and writing done. We bought groceries, and I made spaghetti. D. and S. watched that Squid Game show and are up to episode 6 out of 8.