Under the wire again

Just submitted another NSF proposal. I kept asking the Sponsored REsearch office who I had to buy lunch for getting it in on time, because this one -- totally my fault, I admit it -- was late. Mainly because of the graduate class I was teaching in summer session I.

The sad thing is, I am reaching the point where I'm not writing these in hope of actually getting funded. The odds are just too long. But to paraphrase Robert Heinlein, "Of course the game is fixed, but don't let that stop you. If you don't play, you can't win."

At this point, I'm mainly writing research grant proposals because even an unsuccessful grant proposal counts towards my merit folder. In fact, writing three unsuccessful proposals is worth as many merit points as one successful one. Which rather does promote quantity of proposals -- maybe not more than quality, but volume definitely has advantages.