"But Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he he always wanted."

For those of you who haven't been kept apprised of the details of my fortunes at UMass, here's a very pleasant update. The European Field Studies Program is the primary reason I came here for grad school; it gives students the opportunity to write a research proposal and at the end of the semester present it to a committee that decides whether it's good enough and if it is, they receive funding to do fieldwork in the European country of their choosing. Mine is on immigrant integration in Sweden. I want to study how Swedes perceive the large number of foreign born living in their country as well as see how immigrant populations are being assimilated into society. We gave our oral presentations to the anthropology faculty last Monday and we were all told how good they were, one of my professors said they thought that mine was the best in terms of calmness and pace of the presentation itself (being a theatre major turned out to be applicable after all!).

On Friday, after the committee met and looked over all our written proposals, we found out that all five of our projects had been approved for funding. We got written feedback from the committee, who had suggested changes for all of our proposals, and they said that my design needed to be changed because it was too ambitious. I'm not bothered by that at all; it's far better to be told you're too ambitious than not ambitious enough, plus that means that I will have to do less work than I originally planned. My professor said that because my proposal had tried to cover too much too quickly, I should focus on one aspect of it (they said it was up to me but they're strongly hinting at working the Swedish perspective) and the other half shelf until I write my dissertation. She also said that because there was very little research being done in Sweden I may have found a niche that I can work with for the rest of my life. That's really good. Especially considering that that's what I told UMass in my application but once I started this project I found that it wasn't exactly completely untrodden territory and thought perhaps I had spoken out of ignorance. Turns out here are still some rather big unanswered questions concerning Swedes and immigrants.

But wait, there's more! The EFS committee managed to scrounge up some additional funds for each of us and we are now all guaranteed $4000 for our trip. I was also told yesterday that the grant that we all applied for, Sigma Xi, was being awarded to two of us: myself and a physical anthropologist going to London. I had completely written off getting that grant; we wrote up the proposals back in October and they were rushed, vague and effectively the first draft of what is now an 18 page research proposal. I kept saying that I have every confidence I'll get the thing where it needs to be by December, but not a chance by October. Not only did I get it in spite of the normal fierce competition, but the economic crisis meant that Sigma Xi had even less money to give out than usual. I don't know yet how much money they will award me, but it may be up to $1000. I also was told that the retreat planned for next semester where we would all meet in France to discuss the progress of our respective projects is almost certain to be cancelled. Though disappointing in one sense, it means I can shave about $330 off my budget. This, combined with the dropping value of the Swedish krona, means that my expenses keep going down, my funding keeps going up and the money I have will take me even further than normal.

Going to Sweden to do my first real fieldwork has been my dream for nearly a year now, and to have it come to fruition, and have everything fall into place in ways that have exceeded my expectations... yeah, it's a good feeling.