The workshop I attended this afternoon (and will attend again tomorrow afternoon) turned out a little different than I expected:  it is actually useful!  The crucial factor, I think, is that the lady who is presenting it has about 20 years of experience in vetting grant applications.  In other words, she knows what the people with the money is looking for.  So, instead of discussing obtuse definitions and silly formalities, we (there are eight of us) are actually getting some practical advice on the do’s and dont’s.  Funding season is coming around soon and I’ll have to do something to get my hands on some research grants, so the workshop comes at the right time.  It has unfortunately also made me aware of how woefully inadequate my previous NRF proposal was, despite the fact that it was not rated too badly.

Woefully!  But despite this downer, I received some email today that cheered my up tremendously.  One of the…well this is tricky…Portugese students I taught in Finland last year has written to thank me for my lectures.  I really enjoyed teaching that course (Principles of Programming Languages) and it is nice to hear that someone else also got a little pleasure out of it.  I wish I could teach it in Stellenbosch, but our curriculum (and my schedule) is full as it is.

And now for some breaking news:  our submission to SPIN has been unsuccessful.  It is always easy to tell oneself not to be disappointed.  Many papers suffer this fate.  But the same thing always happens:  you look at the feedback and realize how incompetent the reviewers are!  They completely misunderstood every single aspect of the paper!  And then you realize that they are not incompetent after all and you yourself are to blame for the failure to communicate the ideas clearly.  Sigh.  Oh well, life goes on.

Tonight has not ended on such a happy note as I thought.  My one consolation is that earlier today in the workshop we played a little game and received a chocolate.  I packed mine in my backpack and I think it is called for now.