Weekend Stuff

1. It was really hot today, like 88 degrees. Awesome! Still cool enough in the morning for a nice 4-mile run, barefoot, no pain!

2. Jake's parents have returned from FL and are here this weekend on their way back to their home up north. I spent the whole afternoon cooking. I forgot how they drink cocktails every evening at 5. It is definitely a fun tradition! But not one I could indulge in regularly.

3. Milo is getting a weird sort of attitude and makes these come backs now. Like, say he's racing somewhere and trips, and we'll say, "Whoa, slow down dude." And he'll say, "YOU slow down." Um, aren't you a little young for that kind of thing? And also, that doesn't make any sense. You're doing it wrong.

4. Nora is totally starting to read stuff on her own now. Today she was looking at a book title and sounded out "Babar". She's pretty psyched about this whole thing and regularly asks me, "Am I starting to learn how to read? Am I figuring out how to read words?"

5. A long time ago Mentor and I applied for a grant. I was pretty hopeless about our chances of getting it for two reasons. One, there were 900 letters of intent and they are going to fund about 30. I think in the end the real number of applications was a little over 500, but still, the odds are lousy. Two, Mentor applied for 3 grants, and I know he's going to get one of them because it's one that NSF asked him to submit because they want to fund a continuation of a project he's currently doing. (That's not the one I'm involved in). So would they really want to fund 2 out of 30 to the same PI? I highly doubt it.

But, when I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked if I'd heard back yet on the grant. I said no. He said, "Well, we didn't get ours. And so-and-so from xyz heard back too that they didn't get it, and so did so-and-so from abc, and..." As I chatted with people I found out that a number of people have heard back already. The fact that we haven't probably means it made it through the 1st round of review, so now I have the tiniest modicum of hope. We keep thinking we'll hear soon, and then each day passes and we hear nothing, and my hope grows a little. This is hard because I don't want to get my hopes too high. I really want this grant but need to stay realistic.

6. Nora wants to be Superman when she grows up. Then she corrects herself and says, "I want to be Supergirl."