shuette

WHOOO!!!!! HM! YES!!!!!

My money is on tonight, shot in the dark. Also, tower defense games rule, I highly recommend springing $20 for Plants vs. Zombies from popcap. If you don't believe how awesome it is, check out the music video / credits: Awesome.

I would like to offer this to everybody - what's meant to be will be. I'm a determinist, and I assume many of you are. If you're on a course better pursued by a tv gig, cool. If not, sweet. If no nsf, also okay. Maybe many of you obsessives identify with me when I say this isn't just a career, this is my life. Makes it emotionally investing, huh? However, honorable mention is highly regarded, and to make it even sweeter, we'll all kick ass in subsequent years and show them how they really really should have funded us in the early years. I just 'defended' my first year project and they all said "You did this in one year!?" etc. All I did was work my pants off and hope for the best, and apparently it was impressive. I'm still not satisfied though, and I won't be satisfied even if I do get the fellowship. If anything, I'll work harder after I hear either way. Whether that's to prove them wrong or do them proud is the only thing in my mind that's uncertain. But money always makes the process more comfortable

Whoa. Maybe diffusion of chemicals inside cells scales up to diffusion of something like a perceptual category from incoming exemplars. E.g. learning. That would rock my pants off. Math is fun.

I'm no biologist, but there's a postdoc here who is doing work on how eye-movement patterns and how one searches their memory during recall is characterized by the same equation as animal foraging. Foraging rules.

If additional awards are coming from ARRA money, that's going to be weird. Maybe they're trying to find a way around this being from the ARRA money? Does anyone know if it has to come from there or no? Cause it wouldn't really create jobs for others... just us. Some of the stipulations on that money seem like they don't fit the grfp goals, so I'm confused. Maybe they're confused too.

I know something about crazy, and so it's not unlikely that they've established next years budget before this years. I am just now getting around to emailing them about my status, I'll let you guys know if they tell me anything useful, though I kind of just asked a yes/no question. I hope someone is pushing for an increase in the pool of awardees and the battling is why this is taking so long. There must be some degree of disagreement at various stages, otherwise I think they'd just push it through. Not only do we have no idea, but I think different levels may have different ideas about how important it is to increase the awardee pool THIS year, and not just for next. Hence why no one has any idea about anything. Go team LotsAwards! Fight fight fight!

I know - where the hell is Merced? It's in the heartland of california, 2 hours from everything awesome. Yosemite, santa cruz, san francisco, carmel, and any number of nice places are close by. Some of the top scientists in the country and being tempted away from their home universities by UC Merced. As one of the very few grad students here, I thought I'd open up the discussion for questions like... Where is Merced? What is campus like? and Are you crazy?

That just looks like a form letter they've probably been sending out for weeks now. I think we've all kind of given up - it's strange. I've been half celebrating in my head for weeks now. We know we at least got HM, which is party-worthy. But don't quite know how much to celebrate in case we got the fellowship. So party half of the brain is going "WHOOO!!!" and common sense part of the brain has been going "SHHHHH! not yet..." and so the excitement has been half as intense and twice as long. But then when the notice comes I'll already be partied out - I've already celebrated. So it's kind of a thrill rip off, huh? Like that roller coaster that looks more fun in line than the 5 seconds of it actually is. When I find out either way, I've already gone through all the simulations, so the magic will be gone. Maybe that's a good thing though...

Hehehehe. Of course. I work obsessively cause I love it, it'll have some good work in it. I just want to know how cocky I get to be at my first committee meeting That's too bad for you guys who won't be able to continue - even with an HM though, I would think you should be able to find another program that wants you and will hand you fistfuls of money, it's a huge honor that very few grad students ever get to have bestowed upon them. And yes, this is the best reason to procrastinate EVER. I'm a huge suck-up, but I'm buddies with my advisors - I get them x-mas presents and new baby gifts and stuff like that, but I like giving presents anyway so it's not out of character it doesn't seem like. Anyway, that's my justification for brown-nosing, plus I have enormous respect for what they've been through and where they are now, right? They deserve students who bake them cookies.

So it's been two weeks... I've been telling everybody I'm one or the other for two weeks now, and I would really like to find out. Doesn't anyone out there have a connection? I'd love to know so I know if I need to write a really good 1st year project, or I can just be like "Screw you, I RULE!" Huh, anyone with me?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a cigar is a penis. You just never know Neuronerd, you never know.

...but they're doing maintainance on a sunday morning. Yeah, you're probably right though. I'm new at this nsf stalking thing.

Does this mean that's when they're going to send out emails? I sent them an email finally to ask about my status about 3 hours ago and they haven't gotten back to me... how long have other people waited?

Oh the fantasies -- get back to work! Just kidding. I've been overly distractable lately. Managed to concentrate and buckle down a little, but half of my mind is working on preparing for celebration of either HM or a fellowship, going through multiple scenarios of how this affects my career down the line, etc. Ah, to be human. I feel fortunate I have the privilege of being able to experience this though, as we are a very select few who no doubt got here with much help and a spark of luck. I say just go with it - keep the dream alive, but expect the HM. Don't be depressed Higgins, you obviously kicked some ass if you're still waiting. Be optimistic, but don't have expectations, that's the key here.