Psych!

This week’s School Me Saturday is not about any of the grants I have in the pipeline. However, it is about the grants that may never be.

Research is expensive. I mean the kind of research that is done correctly, not the diddle on your phone, and read some BS articles from BS sites that don’t know proper research from a hole in the ground.

Properly done research takes a principal investigator who has gone to further their education. They know how to search for research gaps, they know how to protect the people and things being researched, they know how to create a quality research protocol, and they know how to answer the question that prompted the research in the first place.

I am a nascent researcher. This means I have barely scraped the surface of how to do research, how to find gaps, how to answer the research question, and, most importantly, how to do all of this in a safe non-compromising way that keeps the data that is gleaned free from bias.

There are the hours the researcher puts in before a project can even begin, there is the research assistant who shoulders some of that work, there is the university that gives the researcher a place to do the research, there is the statistician who helps make sense of the gleaned data, there is the cost of doing the research, be it paying participants, feeding participants, and even FINDING participants. The point is there are a lot of moving parts to research. Don’t get me started on getting the research, when it is done, released to the public. This is called dissemination.

It is also of vital importance to have succession planning in place. After all, even the Wise Ones in Wicked knew they couldn’t live forever and they had to write down all their magic in a book. Students are also expensive, as is the cost of learning how to do university-level work. See also the con-man who came to Oz after a tornado in a balloon and bamboozled the Ozians into believing that he could read the book. That is a story for another time.

The US federal government cannot say the same. Which is why they disperse monies through the NIH. That is the National Institutes of Health.

Research is expensive. Without grants, research would be much, much, much, much, much smaller and the amount of research would drop. Precipitously. And it would have a subsequently diminished impact on the ones it should impact. Like Suzy, with childhood cancer, or Jen, with triple-negative breast cancer.

Bob with the male pattern baldness would probably be okay, there is always money to research white male problems.

Think to yourself why that is?

This week the newly inaugurated president wasted no time in freezing the review of grants at the NIH. Among all the other nonsense that took place. And there was a LOT of BS. The presidency, the revenge for small slights and maybe others know what they are doing, no wait, no they don’t, tour.

No review of grants, no grant approval. No grant approval, no research being done. Are you going to tell your child with cancer that sorry, the research wasn’t done? But you can ask them what color coffin they want.

But, sure, some ass in BFE US can claim they did their “research”.

No, no, you most assuredly did not.

How are you feeling? It is important that we check in with each other in this very uneasy time in our country.

Where it seems that every minute another more outrageous action is being undertaken and another right is on the verge of collapse. It is vital to pay attention to the fast-moving shocks. It is important to NOT look away.

Because that’s what they want you to do.

At this moment in history, their actions must not be done without witnesses.

I understand this is a high bar.

I also understand that people might not be feeling this.

I cannot stress how important it is to not let the actions that they are doing be unseen.

As the Washington Post’s official slogan says, “Democracy dies in darkness.”

To go back to the F prompt for this Friday, I am feeling determined, I am feeling overwhelmed, I am feeling for those who are under attack by this tantrum, and I am feeling tired.

But mostly I am feeling betrayed by the ones who didn’t know any better. The ones that were seduced by false promises of a brighter day where the cost of eggs was going to pre-pandemic levels and the cost of a house would suddenly be within reach.

Scratch that.

I am feeling a lot betrayed by people who “didn’t want to vote for a woman.” Or the ones who thought “We just had a black president.” The ones who thought the only immigrants that would be deported were the criminals. Yeah, every person who is here illegally is a criminal.

I am also feeling angry like a lot of other people.

To quote many, many people “how is the price of eggs? Are they cheaper yet?”

Don’t hold your breath.

There isn’t a post-it from today. Just a free-floating malaise and sense of doom that has been hanging over me since the general election.

The fact that it is the WORST time to be a hospital-based nurse with the 15 hip fractures this week alone, or the overfull emergency room, to the overfull hospital. But you’ve heard that from me before.

Two things have stood out to me in this general morass of gloom.

The first is that kindness still exists, even from the perceived other side. Last week, I was at Aldi to go grocery shopping. As I was walking in, I passed a woman who was just finishing unloading her cart. I held out my quarter and said, “Save you the trip?” She smiled, no, she beamed, and said take it. I tried to give her my quarter and she said no, just pass it on. And then she remarked that she couldn’t wait for the 20th. At my befuddled look, she added, you know when things can get back to normal.

It took me aback and I didn’t quite know what to say to her. I smiled, awkwardly, and said, with all the energy I could muster “I hope you get what you wanted.” I did not harangue, refuse the cart, or interrogate her as to why she felt that a day was gonna make all the difference in the world. I didn’t because I knew what kind of claptrap she was going to spew. The kind found on extreme right media or, worse, hate speech from Fox. Or the kind from the echo chamber she probably lives in. There is no changing her mind until she lives through the consequences of her action. Too bad she has to drag the rest of us down.

But I was nice. Through gently gritted teeth. I promised my dentist; that three broken teeth in the last six months is enough.

The second is that I am leaning into the little things that bring me joy. And I am leaning HARD.

I read a book in the last 24 hours that didn’t have anything to do with my dissertation and I started another one too.

I got up when the white whiskery wonder wanted me to, even if it was 0630.

The extra vehicle that I’ve been holding onto with clenched fists has been donated. I loved that car but it was time. The relief I felt after the flatbed picked it up. Well, after I cried a little I felt relief.

But the thing that has brought me the most joy this week?

A partial set of Corelle Lazy Daisy bowls and plates. This was a pattern that they released in conjunction with PYREX. I wasn’t looking for it, specifically, but it fell in my lap. 7 large plates, 6 salad plates, 3 saucers, and 5 bowls. For less than $20.

Yes, please.

For no other reason than it made me smile.

Of course, the Pollyanna Puke is attempting to pop her little misguided head up and reminds me that tomorrow starts the clock. Because the president-elect cannot run for office again.

This also makes me smile.