spiderbraids

^ subject (Original context: wannabe inventor Phil finds out from Lil that there isn't anything that hasn't been invented)

Details to come later.

ETA: Okay, it's later. So I was all excited about going to the Czech Republic to make a presentation at a CG conference, and I had submitted my request for funding money so I could afford the trip. I made my submission on Dec 20. Plenty of time before the conference starts in late Jan, I thought.

Jan 13. I call the Grad School (they allocate funding for these kind of trips). They tell me that they haven't received my submissions yet. I was all, "That can't be right. I sent mine in almost a month ago." I checked with the faculty, and it turns out that they were still discussing it, and they would send it on the 16th. Which is still much later than I would have expected.

Long story short, Grad doesn't actually receive it until the 19th. This past Tuesday, I had to correct a few figures. Yesterday (Thursday), I phoned the Grad School again, and I was told that my funding had finally been approved.

Sounds like a hooray, right? Well, then I called the Czech embassy, and the cold hard truth came down on me... they would need a week to process a visa application. Meaning even if I were to apply today, I wouldn't get my visa until AFTER I was scheduled to make my presentation. So my teacher is going to be making the presentation instead, after I had been all excited for more than a month about finally getting to go abroad.

This really bites, doesn't it?

To add insult to injury, two of my friends who also have papers to present are actually going, because they had asked for visas before approval, something that never came to mind for me (mostly because a) I thought a month should have been more than enough time to get my funding so I could then get a visa, and b) for the visa you need "a confirmed arrangement of the accommodation", which I take to mean a hotel reservation, which would require money, which would require [cue dramatic music] funding). I'm not the only person who isn't going, which takes a bit of the sting off, but still... I haven't gone to Europe in my life, and for something like this to happen to me sucks.