Funding

Agghh, I guess nobody likes it, but I hate it. Asking for money. Which involves filling in applications, writing research proposals, polishing the CV, asking people to be your referees and then printing, copying and mailing everything somewhere, in X copies.

The most awkward part is the asking for referees -bit. This means asking for professors, supervisors and other very busy people to write a couple of pages of praise of you and your work for some other busy people who are not likely to read it anyway. Putting overworked and underpaid people under even more stress so that you can also get to be an underpaid and overworked person for a while.

It's that time of the year, the new academic year starting and deadlines for every possible source of funding coinciding with this nerve-wracking season (great planning, whoever is responsible for this...). I'm only trying to find someone to pay for my last months as a PhD now, but soon I'll need to become a professional beggar to secure a post-doc somewhere. Not looking forward to that process at all.

(Pic: www.lonelyplanet.com)