Finally

Way back in December, I wrote about a project that I couldn't talk about and some of the excitement I felt about it.

Now I can finally talk about what all that was about.

The National Science Foundation gave us a Research Experiences for Undergraduate grant. This is getting funded in portions, but over $156,000 is set and ready. If the funding to the NSF doesn't collapse, we'll get another year and a bit and the total will be over $284,000.

Hooray.

I've been sitting on that since December. Waiting and watching, hoping that the U.S. Congress will pass a good budget for the NSF. Congress was supposed to pass the NSF budget before Christmas, but didn't. They waited until the last possible second, which was the last day the continuing resolution ran out on 15 February. Much was written about this wait in the pages of Science and elsewhere. The delay was so bad that many funding agencies had to scale back planned projects. Reading those articles was highly nerve-wracking.

But in the end, NSF got a bit of a budget increase, fortunately, when many other federal research agencies got no increase. Whew.

And another thing I mentioned cryptically: an upcoming conference? It's actually a workshop for people running NSF sponsored undergraduate research programs. My flight leaves verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry early tomorrow morning.

It's just a relief to go to a conference knowing that I actually have the award. I would have sucked to go to this workshop not knowing if we were getting it or not.

Playlist for the day: Finally by CeCe Peniston, New Man by Sonic Hub, Food For Songs by Del Amitri, and especially Won More Time by God Made Me Funky.