Submission Stress

So after two months of writing and editing and banging my ahead against the wall (both literally and metapohrically, i should add), this week was finally the week where i had to bite the bullet and submit the grant proposal i have been working on to the American Heart Association. Of course, as you can imagine, this wasn't without it's stresses. The first main problem to be encountered was the fact that i had downloaded the forms but was unable to save them in an edited form (this was largely cause i was using the wrong program to do this and din't realise it). Solution - find a computer with this program on (except this involved telling lots of people to move as the one in question was in the common computer room!). The next was trying to get the university to sign off on the proposal - basically say, yes, it's fine. Now, all of us know exactly how much fun it is trying to get any administration anywhere to speed up the paperwork - and you can easily imagine why i was gnawing my fingernails to the bone over this. Anyway, this was out of my hands and a higher up person in the department managed to give them a rocket up the arse to get it signed.

Then came the submission itself - the double checking, the triple checking, the realising-some-sections-are-a-page-too-long-and-having-to-shorten-and-renumber-and-recreate-PDF files and all. Of course, because i wasn't on my laptop, i had to get all the right files to this computer too - which i did by e-mailing to myself until i realised that i actually had a memory stick and might be quicker doing it this way (It's amazing how dumb you can be when you REALLY put your mind to it). Anyway, long story cut short, the proposal was e-mailed and received ok. Thank God. Now all i have to do is make sure the paper copies (an original and 3 duplicates) get sent off to arrive before Thursday. Now where did i put those stamps?