getting money to study in Britain next summer and to go to kick-ass special collections in the US

Apparently, this goal isn’t quite over. Today I found out that, since one of my colleagues turned down her award, the FEC voted to split her award of 500.00 between me and another faculty member. So I have 250.00 more than I applied for (!)

got the rejection letter from the Women’s Travel Club. I knew it was coming but wondered what was taking so long, and today I saw that it had been misdirected.

I don’t know what happened with the Winterthur application; I’m not sure that they ever sent any confirmation, so maybe there was a problem with their receiving everything.

Ok. Now it is (almost) time to implement plan and to plan for next year. Starting almost right away, since the first deadline is July 31st!

So . . . I have decided to go to England after all, but just make it a shorter trip, mostly for “fact-finding,” i.e. to get oriented and registered and schmooze with curators. Never having done research at the BL before it will probably be good to do that. I’ll probably need to go again, but that is ok.

Dad is willing to give me frequent flyer miles to get me over there and another friend is willing to put me up for free in London. If I shorten the trip down to about 10 days and don’t go to Oxford I can probably do it.

But it sure does complicate my already complicated itinerary. I know that I am driving to Austin immediately after commencement, stopping in LA to visit a friend or two, seeing the Grand Canyon etc. Then I’ll be in Austin for the month of June and then I really need to go to NC to take care of things and visit. More complications: I need to drive the Salvi up to Virginia, but I’m sure that I’ll never get it in the van what with everything else in it, so that means I’ll have to drive it up and drive back to NC. Then on to Michigan, and I’ll probably need to fly to the UK from Detroit since the miles will be on Northwest. Probably, then, I’ll be going in August. I need to make sure that I don’t run into any bank holidays over there.

I like complications in general but there does come a point when they are too much, too.

Just reviewed the materials for the funding source I am still waiting on. It appears that they interview finalists in March (which is over, obviously) so if I haven’t heard anything it looks like curtains for this.

However, since I have this 1000.00 perhaps I should look into trying to go after Christmas? I might be able to figure out something financially by then . . .

So, just when I think I have this summer planned . . .

Today I got a letter from my dean. The faculty executive committee decided to give me 1000.00 towards a research trip to the UK. Great, only that plus the 500.00 I have from ASECS is the only money I have earmarked for such a thing. There is only one thing left that I could possibly get that would add up to a sum that could marginally support such a trip. I haven’t heard from that funding source yet.

If I don’t get that I suppose I will give the money back, since I won’t really be able to use it for anything else (whereas I think that I can use the ASECS money for general travel to Austin).

from four different money sources I applied to, although it is late enough in the spring I have to assume that I didn’t get them. I wish they’d let me know, though!

even though I haven’t heard from everything yet. Because I did get offered money to travel and do research this summer. And maybe I will get some more . . .

Either way though, I did it!

I just got offered 3000.00 to do research at the Harry S. Ransom Humanities Center for a month!!!

I’m thrilled, especially since I took my salary over nine months this year.

Thanks to all the wonderful people at 43things who cheered me on this goal (which has been the top of my list since day one)!

I got a narrative and budget into the faculty development fund at work yesterday. Who knows? The worst they can do is say no.

Unfortunately, I let one of my funks get to me such that I did not apply for any of the fellowships that I planned on applying for that were due March 1st. Among others was a 2000.00 travel grant from AMS. I should have applied for this because it is new and only open to members; ergo, I probably would have had a shot at it.

In the meantime, I have been turned down from several other professional organizations for funding in the range of 1500-2500 for my proposed trip to London/Oxford.

Yesterday, though, I found out that I did win one of the fellowships that I applied for for said trip: the one from ASECS that is worth 500.00. Hard to say what I should do with that.

I still have one out there for 2500.00 but I won’t hear from that for a little while yet. And I can apply for the faculty development fund. It might help that I already have a little bit of funding.

But you can’t get very far on 500.00 these days.