Unfortunately, my suitcase did not make it to Hamburg on time. But the next day, Monday morning at 08.30 am it arrived. Lucky me!
After a trip like this the usual schedule is to arrive, means: laundry, get used to the time zone, supermarket shopping, figure out what I missed while not in town. But it means also to send follow up emails, get in touch with people who´s names were mentioned, making sure that people I spoke to, would not forget about me and our conversation.
This time I also launched the website, which was very exciting. I got lots of lovely notes and I really want to thank all of you who checked out the blog and site.
After my return I also started to write again some articles about different historical topics and reviewed tests my authors wrote. I also verified video scripts for planned new learning videos.
Also, these kinds of trips often lead to more energy and ambitions. Therefore, I used the rest of my week to check out the relevant websites to get new projects going. Most important: new opportunities to get financial support. This hidden work is very time consuming and needs a lot of efforts. I found some call for papers for different conferences might be interesting and some calls for proposals for fellowships and grants.
I then checked if there is any kind of fee I would have to pay and/ or if there is any kind of financial support I can ask for. Most of the announcements do not mention these things. That is why I have to figure out who is charge for the announcement or call, who is the organizer or the treasurer. Then I send emails and ask for the procedure and terms. If there is a fee, I usually do not apply. If there is not travel grant, I do not apply either.
I simply do not accept to pay for work if the rest of the world gets paid for work!
Once I know which conference is without fees and offers travel money for the speakers I apply. As for the calls of fellowships and grants: I need to prepare the details and my proposal very carefully. Responding to a call is time consuming and demands my entire attention. That´s why I do it usually on weekends, also this time.
It is great that one can send the applications most of time in one pdf to a certain person and do not need to send copies and papers anymore. A little bit more efforts are websites to upload the application in a certain form. I am not a fan of, because I need to set up an account, think about a password and break down the size of the documents etc. It is simply way more work and needs more time. But what can I do about? Nothing. I want to apply so I need to follow their rules.
Still working on applications while writing this. I hope at least one application will be successful in the end.