When it rains, it pours....

I think I used that title last year, but I was in a negative mood then. Right now, I'm feeling overwhelmed but upbeat.

I have this project I LOVE at work. I started working on it almost 10 years ago (10 years in July). It's a very important, and meaningful project, I feel. I've gotten to do some great work on it. It's not finding the cure for cancer or anything, but I feel that it's a project that has made a difference in the world. For the last 6 of the 10 years I've been working on the project, we've had to really scramble to find funding.

The reason why we have to scramble to find funding is that we're doing something that is important, but that people take forgranted. As I said, it's not finding the cure for cancer, or even rocket science therefore it's not sexy or glamorous. But it does help people on a day-to-day basis and make a small difference in the long term.

It's much easier to find funding for projects that are sexy and glamorous. This one is not high-risk with a potential high pay-off. It's every day and mundane support (that will help people in little ways and that little bit of help is almost guaranteed). Most funders don't like to fund that sort of work.

Anyway, in the last couple of months we've found 3 new opportunities for 3 new projects that would help my favorite project(TM). I'll describe them below...

1. Fairly sexy with NEW things involved. I will contribute to this effort fairly significantly, but not lead.

2. Not really sexy, but maybe pushing new efforts with some people I've already worked with a bit. I would like to lead this project, but I think it will need my supervisor's name on it as a bigger name at the helm because it would be funded by someone who requires more credentials than I have yet.

3. Something not sexy at all but with people I've been working with for 5 years, I think I might try to lead a new effort to make some new stuff happen....

None of these potentials are "funded" yet. All will require significant work to get funded. These things are the things I WANT to work on in 2007.

And then there is the class I'm teaching...
And then there is the effort with my colleague that has NO funding...

Ai-yi-yi! I want to do all of this in 30 hours or less per week.

Wish me luck.