Hooray! We Failed!

The news arrived today. After waiting for FIVE months, our little office finally heard:

We have NOT been awarded the National Science Foundation's IGERT Grant.

HOORAY!!!

I know. I know. I'm a terrible employee.

Besides being whole-heartedly dispassionate about the success of our Center, I've been hoping that this particular grant proposal does not get funded.

Why?

Well it would be a lot of work. Now generally I like work at work. (It's WAY better than being bored.) But this grant would have meant starting a brand new PhD program, for which I would have been the SOLE administrator, marketer, and website designer. IE THERE'S PRETTY MUCH NO WAY I COULD HAVE DONE IT AND BE A NEW MOM. Meaning, I probably would have had to quit. It would have been interesting and meaningful work that I would have enjoyed, but I just don't think I could have done it all.

Granted, quitting would have been an emotional ice-cream-sundae every day, but financially it would have been nine-day-old leftovers every day, if not outright starvation. So really it's a blessing.

Failure, THANK YOU!

PS I should clarify that I did NOT purposefully sabotage this proposal. In fact, during crunch time just before it's deadline I worked lots of extra hours and really did my part - I love the idea we proposed. And our proposal did make it through the first two rounds of rejection - we were very close to being selected. I did try. And we're submitting again this year. But I'm still glad now!