F32

Well is this long over-due or what?!?! And to be honest, I’ll be damned if I can tell you what I’ve been doing that takes up so much time!

I did go on two wonderful runs over the weekend, and once this week.

On Tuesday night “one beer” with “a friend” turned into multiple beers and whiskey and Triumph and The Ivy and all the roommates from freshman and sophomore year … and then quite the hang over for a Wednesday. Ugh.

I wasn’t particularly prepared for work today (see above paragraph) so there was a lot of near eff-ups in the lab and frantic experiment slavaging.

Tomorrow will be a big-time experiment day. I mean, why not plan two experiments that you haven’t done before for the same day and make sure that their busiest times overlab? There was no heavy drinking today, or consequences of previous heavy drinking, so I have high hopes of making it through the experimental circus without ending up as the clown of the show.

In contrast to what is suggested in the above paragraphs, today was actually a pretty big-time day when it comes to a work-related item – my F32 study session met today! For everyone who isn’t a slave to the prospect of academic research, the “F32” is a class of post-doctoral fellowships funded by the NIH that (in combination with a hell of a lot of blood, sweat, and tears…and a bunch of luck and a little fairy dust…why not? it won’t hurt…) have the potential to MAKE YOUR CAREER.

There are three application dates for said fellowship each year. I submitted my application on Dec 9th — way to be prompt NIH — errr….I mean, take as much time as you need, oh gracious funding agency! Anyway, each “applicaion” is actually a monster of documents that includes a 7 pg research proposal, personal statemnt, biographical sketches from the applicant, mentor and all co-mentors (these are substantially more work than one would think), statements about your institution, your collaborations, your training opportunities, your research ethics, your teaching opportunities…the list goes on and on and on and on and it is all in the context of your long term goal of becoming the next great academic research hot-shot.

So, my big fat ass paper monster was turned in on December 8th and the study session that was assigned to review it met today to do just that. The top applicants (selected by the study session…typically ~10%) will then be awarded fellowships that fund 3 years of post-doc salary and $x000 for travel to conferences, meetings, etc…

Now, as you may imagine, it looks damn good to be in this top %10. It opens the doors to funding opportunities that come at the end of your post-doc career/ beginning of your junior faculty stint (think K99 territory my fellow nerds). Ultimately it then helps build your case for why one should consider entrusting you with said precious junior faculty honor.

So, yeah, today was a big day. I’m not sure when I’ll actually find out the decision of my session (if the time between the application deadline and today are any indication…never mind…) but I will most definitely keep everyone in the loop when I do (as I obviously haven’t anything of actual interest going on in my life right now)!

I hope everyone has had a nice week and will make it to the weekend also without donning the village clown costume. In the event that you do end up in said costume, make it count!! 🙂