Trouble on the horizon

I did not see this one coming… or maybe I did and just wanted to pretend it wasn’t going to be an issue. There’s been a difference of opinion to put it lightly. I received an email this morning from my main-PI asking if we could meet to discuss my funding options and he also casually mentioned that the R21 might not get submitted.

Welcome to another day in the drama, ‘As the PhD turns’ it’s me, I’m the drama. Since I’m trying to be better about this, this is the daily blog about my PhD journey. There’s been highs, lows, and everything in between. I’ve been busy lately working on my second grant proposal, an R21 and that has consumed a lot of my time. In between that, I have two journal papers I’ve been working on, three undergraduates I’m mentoring, four days to finish, and five golden rings!! Sorry, got carried away. My two PI’s, a TV show I really want to produce, but also my situation right now, have been throwing grants for me to write for the past three or four months, next is a K99/R00 fellowship application and I’m sure there will be something after that.

I’ve been working day and night getting this grant written and as I mentioned yesterday, I have some pretty pictures to make in order to tell the story correctly. I really bit off more than I could chew with that one since I’m still working on the first figure, it’s close(ish) but not nearly as far along as I wanted. I’ve been up for 5 hours now trying to get it done, but decided to take a break to say hi to all of you. *waves*

My main-PI hasn’t responded to my email letting him know when I can meet, so we haven’t discussed what I’m doing for funding or what happens should I run out. Thankfully I have until the end of summer to solve this problem. I also have the NDSEG fellowship that I threw my hat into, so I’ve got hope, but a lot of this stuff is super competitive so I need to submit a LOT of applications to even get a single ‘yes’ back. Which is why I’m surprised my main-PI is upset about the R21.

The issue from what I’ve been told is how the funds will be allocated. I need money, I don’t get paid a lot to live on as it is, but if that was taken away I would not be able to afford life. I also rely on the funding to pay for my schooling expenses, which are a lot. My main-PI has a difference of opinion on how the funds should be allocated for me to be paid, he wants it to go to the school, then to me. My Co-PI doesn’t understand why that should be the case, the funds should go from the hospital to me. I suspect that there is some underlying benefit to both for the funds to be allocated the ways they are advocating for. Maybe some fringe benefit or something they can claim. Frankly I’m not 100% sure what it is and my Co-PI offered to explain the situation in detail when I see him next, but that won’t be for a while.

In any case, I was specifically told to continue working, so that’s what I’m doing. It’s going to be close as it is, so I’m hopeful that they can work out the details before we hit the deadline in just a few short days for the internal review. We can’t afford to miss that deadline or we won’t be able to submit it prior to the ACTUAL grant deadline of the 15th. So much to do, so little time to do it in.

Now that I’ve got my thoughts out for the day, I have a figure to finish creating. I’m not an artist by any means, but I find that I really should’ve taken a drawing class or something along the way, it probably would’ve been super useful to help in the creation of all these figures. Not that I’m horribly unartistic, just that my skills are nowhere near professional. With that, it’s back to work I go.