So anyway, about this research proposal. That I was talking about… rather a long time ago now. I e-mailed it to Wellington on Monday morning, and got a prompt reply from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, saying that they couldn’t take submissions in PDF. Thus we learnt not to assume. Because it makes an ASS out of U and the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Just because all of the documentation on their website is in PDF format, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a small note tucked away in an obscure corner of a web page saying that they require four printed copies. I did mention that the deadline was 5pm that day, didn’t I? I’m sure I did.
Fortunately, Bruce was at work at TeeColl… I mean, the Christchurch College of Education… and was able to print four copies and courier them up to Wellington. They didn’t arrive on the same day, but Bruce noted that the courier was carrying a lot of other Expression of Interest documents bound for the same address, so we figured everything was OK. And sure enough, I got an e-mail the other day confirming that they had received our submission.
Now we play The Waiting Game, which is the same as The Game of Life except that you don’t get a plastic car at the beginning, and instead of ending in a well-earned rest it ends (hopefully) in a request for a bigger, more detailed research proposal.
Actually now that I think about it, it might be a good idea to have a research proposal for life. You could set out what you hoped to find out, and how it would be of benefit to society, and who you were going to be working with, and why you thought you were qualified to have a go at it. And at the other end you could write it all up and add a section at the end about directions for further research.
So that was part of what I did in my holidays. I shall continue in another post, which will go up soon after this one, and you will almost certainly read it first and become confused and perplexed. And while you are befuddled I shall sneak up behind you and steal your fob watch and monocle. Ha! Excuse me, I’m a little tired.
A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-aaaaaaaa!
Queen of the Night Aria, Florence Foster Jenkins