rivka

My recent sparse, spasmodic posting style has left a ridiculous number of narrative threads dangling, hasn't it? My apologies to those of you who are reading for anything other than the cute Alex stories... such as, say, a sense of how my life is going.

Attempting to tie up loose ends in one big unmanageable knot:

My research assistants:
Steve's father is out of the ICU and into a private room, and his kidneys are working again. Steve's mother is still, understandably, flipping out. Steve came in to work at 1:30 in the afternoon to, as he put it, "at least make sure that you get to have lunch and catch your breath." Which was nice, because it was a crazy insane clinic day and I had research subjects up to my eyeballs. Except that he made a major "I am tired and my mind is elsewhere" error which may be a pain to correct, thus proving that I was right to tell him to stay home in the first place.

Awilda is going through a terribly rough place with her treatment. Twice in the last week she's had to go to the hospital for IV fluids because treatment-related vomiting has left her dehydrated. But she's done with the radiation and nearing the end of the chemo. Then they'll give her three weeks to build up her strength before they do the surgery. For a while, she was coming in to the office for a few hours a day, three days a week. Not anymore.

Alex:
Her illness just lasted the weekend. She missed story hour and church, but by Monday morning she was okay to be left with her nanny. We had a few rough nights that I'm still catching up from, though.

Speaking of the childcare situation: our new nanny Dorian is marvelous. She's just graduated from art college, and she and Alex do tons of painting and drawing together. I came home from work one day and there was a charming little pastel sketch of Alex just lying discarded on the floor among the crayon scribbles. They also spend hours exploring the neighborhood. She's the best.

In other news, Alex has stopped cussing.

Michael's job hunt:
He is possibly setting a new world record in second interviews. I really feel as though something is going to break soon, but I've felt that way several times before and nothing has materialized. On the other hand, the last time Michael was unemployed, there were many fewer interviews and pretty much no episodes of feeling as though something was going to break soon, so this is an improvement.

The direction of his search has sort of morphed over time; he's now primarily looking at administrative/financial jobs in the university and medical sector, and getting a very good rate of response to his inquiries. Interestingly, the thing on his resume that's garnering the most interest is his position as our church's treasurer. Because it's a volunteer position, conventional wisdom has it that it shouldn't be on his resume at all - but let's face it, being more or less singlehandedly responsible for creating and managing a $350K budget (not to mention a $1.25 million endowment) is an impressive job whether or not one is being paid for one's work.

My work:
I have decided to apply for a federal grant. NIH is looking to fund projects studying how people make medical decisions about life-threatening illnesses, and I happen to know quite a bit about how people with HIV (or at least, inner-city African-Americans with HIV) approach the decision to begin highly active anti-retroviral therapy (i.e., "the HIV cocktail"). It seems like a match made it heaven.

I've done this before, three years ago, with a proposal to a small-grants program for new investigators. At the time, I thought that proposal was pretty good. It got scored, which put it in the top half of applications, but it didn't hit the pay line. Now, to be honest? I see every one of the flaws the reviewers pointed out in my pink sheets, and agree with them. I have a much clearer idea of what will constitute a fundable proposal this time around. (Hint: for someone at my level, a fundable proposal is much more compact, limited, and clearly-defined than it is for someone at Lydia's level.)

It must be said that competition for federal grants is unbelievably fierce. I'm going to be applying under the R21 mechanism (about which, probably, more later), which is supposedly less competitive, but "less competitive than an R01" ain't really saying much. Still: if this grant is funded, it will pave the way towards scientific independence and a future in which I don't work for Lydia but am still doing the research I love.

SUUSI:
I'm about 95% sure we'll be able to go.

bosssio is about 96% sure that she'll go. Yay! We're going to sign up to be suitemates. Michael and I have worked out our SUUSI schedule. He's going to take a stewardship workshop (congregational fundraising), "yoga for better backs," and a flatwater kayaking trip, and he's going to enter the Texas Hold 'Em tournament. I'm going to take chocolate-making 101 and a crafting workshop, and I'm going on a hiking trip to Sinking Creek Mountain with my father. I will possibly also take a one-session photography class about composition. Alex is going to do youth programming for either three or four mornings, and she and I are going on two nature trips together: the Poverty Creek hike/splash/wade that we did last year, and a short early-evening trip that they're just calling "enjoy a pretty place."

Forthcoming LJ posts:
- Blathering about the grant proposal.
- Books for March: Taliaferro, Parker, Fine, Baker, Bear, Moore.
- SBM report, especially the master lecture on obesity that had me wishing I could liveblog it to my LJ.
- Cute Alex stories. (You know they're inevitable.)
- Um. I had other ones in mind when I started this post, but that was a long time ago and now I am tired. Maybe I'll do a Reader Request week, like Scalzi. Then, next, year, *I* can get nominated for the Best Fan Writer Hugo, and

akirlu can cast aspersions on me! That would be awesome.

The adorable YouTube video with otters swimming around holding hands:
Thank you to everyone who sent this to me.

Me being Brenchley:
I am currently 6 degrees C, and hazy.

Well, that was fun! If nothing else, it gave me a chance to use this icon, which I like but rarely have occasion to use.