Parenthood

A while back, prompted by Serious Bunny, I identified a possible direction for future research. I sat on it for a while, then discussed it with some colleagues, most of whom were hugely receptive and offered positive and constructive commentary, and one of whom actually wanted to get involved himself.

I got a little implementation done, but then, as usually happens, my idea was overshadowed by work and the usual distractions offered by life.

But after a while, empowered by GTD and a newfound identity at work, I started to get itchy again about implementing my idea. And over the course of the following couple of weeks, everything just seemed to fall into place.

I booked myself onto a workshop that told me how to apply for money, and the insubstantial mountain of unknown and threatening possibilities materialised into a surprisingly small molehill.

Then I had a conversation with a senior colleague who, to my enormous surprise, counselled me to apply for the next funding deadline.

The week of the deadline. I went to see a guy who knows about these things to discuss how I should pitch my bid. I ended up showing him my idea (not something I had planned to do), and he LOVED it. I mean, he loved it so much that he invited me to present it at a workshop next year, and he wanted to rope me into other stuff besides.

And then, the day before sitting down to write the bid, a student I didn't know (our classes are huge) came up to me and said "by the way, I just wanted to let you know that I really, really liked what you did" [the limited implementation of my idea, several weeks previously], and told me how much it had helped her.

So I sat down to write the bid. It took me four days, because for some reason I had a few thousand words that I needed to get off my chest first, about what I was going to do and why it was all going to be so brilliant. None of it even remotely fitted into the tiny 250 word summary spaces on the bidding form, but out it all came, anyway.

And then I did what all anxious would-be parents do: I waited.

A couple of months later, to my immense joy, my funding was confirmed :)

This had all happened within a really short space of time, and now, suddenly I had a baby, and it was all I could think about and just about the most exciting thing ever. My baby. I wrote it. Me.

Except that, once the initial endorphin-rush fades, it's terrifying! There's someone lurking around every corner, waiting to steal my baby. Don't look at me like that; you know they're out there. I live in fear that someone's going to gazump me before I can publish.

I'm a nervous wreck. Note to self: don't have kids.