Proposal Deadlines

Life always gets hectic for Astronomers around proposal deadline time. Somehow many major facilities have their deadlines all at similar times... Oh well. I grew up the kind of person who likes to do things well in advance of deadlines. I was one of those annoying kids at school who always finished their homework ahead of time. However my collaborators are not all like this, and since becoming a postdoc I have had to adjust to a more last minute, up to the wire kind of approach to deadlines. Yesterday this all seemed to go very wrong. My working day is now set by a very real deadline of when I have to pick little one up from daycare. Sure I could get my husband to do it (normally he drops off, and I pick up so I can nurse little one and have so quality time), but that would require advance notice too. All afternoon yesterday I waited for some updates from a collaborator to include in our proposal. Actually this was already after the proposal deadline, but I had asked for an extension. Of course the updates came just as I needed to leave! After a quick minutes soul searching I figured it wouldn't make much difference so I would let it slide this time - and I needed to leave. Do you have any idea what daycare's charge if you pick up late. Ours changes $1 a minute. More to the point little one was expecting me (and the milk bar). This morning I updated the proposal out of interest and looked at how small the changes would be anyway. So that cheered me up. Then I got an email saying I could still submit the updated version if I needed to. So no crisis afterall.