Funding!

Sweet, wonderful, stress-relieving funding! That's right kids, yours truly is now the very grateful recipient of a NIH training grant. This was the scenario I've been hoping for but was afraid to jinx by talking about it (since I still haven't signed the paperwork, there's still a small paranoid part of me that's worried something may yet go wrong). But, for now, it looks like all systems are go. I'll be funded for two years (maybe more, though I'm hoping not to need that) and it'll cover my health insurance and I'll need to take a few extra classes and do some additional research projects and write-ups and whatnot. Wow. I feel like my shoulders have receded back away from my ears for the first time in months. And, as a special added bonus, I got to see the boy for the first time in over a month for a little celebratory dinner. Hooray!

ps - thank you, of course, to everyone who so patiently listened to me bitch and moan and stress and worry.

pps - it's really kind of amusing just how much pleasure I'm deriving from receiving federal money. Even though I know the reality is quite different, in my head I'm enjoying the idea of controlling a teeny, tiny, miniscule patch of government money. I feel like writing the president a letter everyday to tell him how I'm spending my paycheck, giving away as much as possible to all those things his administration has abandoned, either through apathy or intentional neglect. And sticking my tongue out and saying nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah! (like I said, I know the reality is totally different, but when it's so easy to get burned out and overwhelmed, one has to look for rejuvenation where it comes. plus, I'm happy! I'm going to run with it)