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Grant writing status report

Status report: I’m in the home stretch of writing my grant. It will be finished by 8 AM, when I have to be at work again, in tip top mental condition for the meetings I’ll have to endure all morning. (What the heck happened to not doing anything substantive the day before a holiday weekend? At least I don’t have to operate or see patients.) Whether it will take an all nighter to do it I am not yet sure. Whatever the case, here is the perfect mood music for late night science and grant writing.

“We’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death.”

Yeah, that about sums it up:

I’m going to crash so hard tonight…

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

10 replies on “Grant writing status report”

Stay strong homes! Alternate considerations-Schmalternate considerations! ..and damn the power analyses.

I hope you get some sleep tonight.

Tomorrow I take a probability midterm for a double-fast summmer class (it is a ten week class squeezed into four weeks, with a chance to take the next in a series during the next four weeks… which I will not do). For some reason I cannot do probability problems. Fourier transforms and eigenfunctions are fun… but doing properly laid out conditional probabilities elude me. AAAGH!

At least you’ve got some GYBE going, perfect insomnia/overwork music!

Grant writing…ugh.

its worse when you get back responses like I just did (dept of energy grand challenge) to paraphrase:

stengths:
This proposal has strong scientific merit
this proposal has a large commercial prospects
this proposal can be completed in the specified amount of time

weaknesses:
The proposal is completely applicable in one small market mentioned
The proposal didnt properly address some formatting issues

DENIED

ugh

Alternate considerations-Schmalternate considerations! ..and damn the power analyses.

But what if I’ve already done the alternate considerations and had my biostatistician done the power analyses? Last night I was doing the Vertebrate Animals section and trying to decide what preliminary data to keep and what preliminary data to leave.

Of course, even getting the grant in and approved doesn’t matter…I’ve got my score but am waiting for the interim budget decisions based on the continuing resolution funding.
Could take months…

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