Monday, April 24, 2006

Funding is the most annoying thing in life

I said before that if my postdoc position at caltech was permanent, I would be happy to take it although it doesn't pay well.

My trip to IPSN was nice. It is just nice to see old friends and meet leo. I even think that it is really an appealling idea to go back to leo's group and re-do a Ph.D. Then Nikola started to joke about it and asked "how about you do one for me?"

Well, I wasn't really joking. I would be happy to just stay in a place surrounded with smart people and do things that I like. Read papers with cool results and learn stuff that I don't know before. That is inspiring and makes life worth living. Yes, learning something really cool is one of the major reasons that life is worth living. I would also be happy to talk to new students and advise them and so on. I don't hate teaching either.

The only thing that I hate about this job is the process of applying for grants and all the pressure and ugly things related to this. When everything boils down to money, it just turns ugly. Why can't someone give me a small piece of space, just one desk with a computer on top?! I don't ask for more. I will guarantee that I will work on good problems and produce something interesting.

So when sha called and asked whether I have dealt with the funding thing with Xxxx, I responded:

"No, and I don't want to think about it. And you ruined my day."

He asked again about whether I have talked to people in the university about green card application.

I answered: "You ruined my day twice."

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