more iceland

So, I've just had a lovely 5 weeks or so back in Melbourne, and am heading back to Iceland today for another 6 months. Aaaand, I've just gotten another 12 month extension! My performance over my first year was called 'exemplary' :D Woo-hoo! But I've already gotten permission to do the second extension partly in Australia, so I'll be back in July before heading over again. So all those who haven't yet made it to Iceland, get your calendars out and see if you can't squeeze in a visit.

Update to First Contact

Have now sent off my updated CV to Iceland. Very pleased to note nearly 2 pages of publications :) Have also requested a start date of 23/11 instead of the 1/11. Oh goodness, it's starting to feel like I'm going to Iceland! Finally, I may be going over in August for a week, but I'm not sure if Iceland was offering to pay for me or not... Stay tuned!

I'm funded :)

Just received word from Norway that Iceland needs to prepare its letter of employment for me... It's getting realer! (It's more Germanic to use the morphological comparative form than the analytic French loan 'more real'.) Not yet sure how much I'll get paid, the maximum amount Norway has to give Iceland for me is 568,000 Nok (69,270 Euro), which includes "the university’s gross salary for a researcher in your country, social costs, overhead costs and general expenses". So I guess I'll be getting about half of that. Wonder what 35k Euro will buy in Iceland?

shout it to the world!

I've told just about everyone I can think of now! The guy who offered me the postdoc is happy that I can rework my original proposal, and is also happy if I start in November, and skip the August grand meeting. I can meet the other members of the project later on anyway - turns out it'd cost around $5,000 to fly to Iceland for the week in August, but prices drop to about $2,000 in November (thanks Justine at Flight Centre). What, no-one wants to have a holiday entirely in the dark?

L seems to be getting places with his investigations, S is happy to live in our lovely house while we're away (if not, A can). All that's missing is an email from the guy who's head of the Icelandic Linguistics department to acknowledge that I'm coming! Oh, and an official letter of offer, but I'm guessing that will have to include details about starting dates and salary and benefits and such like, which would involve this guy having emailed...