Does someone love me after all?!

Generally, a day of good things.

Firstly, there was excitement for me this morning when the community coroner's jobs that I have been keeping an eye on yielded three new vacancies in the Vancouver Metro area. Sadly, it quickly became obvious that even with the best of my speeding ability, there was no way that I lived within the mandatory 30 minutes of the areas to be covered, and therefore could not apply for the jobs. Cue much swearing at the road map of British Columbia, and at people who thought 40 minute ferries from Vancouver to Gibsons were better ideas than building bridges that got you there in 10 minutes.

However, on the plus side, I shall be writing a research proposal in the near future (which hopefully I shall be e-mailing to a few people to read over, if they don't mind and have the time) to try and get a grant from the MS Society of Canada. It will probably be a pilot grant, valid for a year of research, to the tune of quite a bit of money.

The background to this is that whilst an undergrad at Manchester, I did a third year project (under the supervision of Cliff, for Maria's info!) which involved evaluating the effectiveness of a yachting holiday that was set up for people with Multiple Sclerosis. The project was extremely successful, and the yachting holiday seemed to be even more so, so after I left the research was carried on by a DPhil student.

After reading the MS Society website here, I e-mailed them on a whim to tell them about my research and ask them whether they had any similar interventions in place here, and today they e-mailed me back to say no, but that if I would like to apply for funding from them they thought it was "a wonderful research idea." So, after getting excited about the fact that someone in Canada might actually want me to work for them, and after shirking the work that I actually had to do today to trawl through the websites of possible sponsors, I settled down to scribbling ideas on pieces of paper. And have to spend the weekend working out how to pitch for a shed load of money.

Other events today included getting a letter from my aunt chiding me for passing my driving test after six lessons when she has just passed hers on the fourth attempt, going out for Denise's friend Mel's birthday, trying sushi (undecided), and watching Casablanca.

Here's looking at you, kid.