Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

Well, I ended up so depressed today I came home early. I've been excited about something for a while: As my only chance at having a postdoc for next year (DOE cuts across the board....see posts by JoAnne about that), I put forward an excellent candidate for an internal competition for a privately funded USC postdoc award which gives half of what one needs, and I managed to get a commitment of funds from the office of the Dean to make up the rest.... ...And she was chosen! I've been all excited about the research projects I've been planning to do in collaboration with her, which would explore some new directions and maybe play out some novel scenarios... and now it could all come to fruition! But due to administrative sluggishness here, we got the offer out to her a week later than scheduled. In the meantime she got another offer this week which she's going to accept, more than likely. Drat! There was nothing I could say to convince her otherwise (including a tour of the fun stuff you can do physics-wise and otherwise at USC and surrounding groups, and in LA and Southern California in general - lots of it documented on this very blog!) Basically, it works better for her geographically (personal stuff) to go to the other place, which of course I understand. So all that work down the drain, since the money I found was tied to her only, so that's gone. (So please don't bombard me with more applications folks! I can't redirect those funds....!) That happens, and I'm telling you because I promised to give you a view of the things that we do in our academic world, and so you should know that things sometimes come crashing down about our ears, just like they do elsewhere. You apply for grants you don't get, computations have errors, offers are rejected, referees with axes to grind are sent your papers (again and again), potentials don't get realized, etc. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on...... But it still is depressing for a while, especially when it was working just so well this time. So I happened not to have any meetings in the late afternoon so I just set off home. Got to the busstop just as the bus was leaving. Drat! Then realised I forgot my jacket in my office. Went back and got that. Came back to the busstop.... Missed another bus. Drat Drat! Funny how the day gets misaligned at several points when something starts to go wrong... Well, I'm home now, and I'm supposed to be writing on a paper, but I find that I'm looking at this bottle that I have of the 12 year old Glendronach, and thinking of waiving my six o'clock rule to allow me to have a stiff drink, quoting my Department of Special Circumstances clause..... -cvj