Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

I have come to Chicago on October 25, 2008. While my original assigment was just for one year, I have made an effort to acquire some funding for an extension of my time here. Fortunately, it turned out successful: the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) has granted me a fellowship from 09/01/2009 thru 31/08/2010. Yay! This is actually a bit surprising, because I specifically indicated in the application that I have no intentions of pursuing a life-long academic career, which I thought had been the knock-out criterion for my other application with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
The only drawback I see in this is that I will have to watch the 2010 soccer World Cup (held in South Africa) while being in the US. It's not that soccer isn't any popular here, it is actually the fastest growing sport around - in the group phase at the beginning the matches usually start at around 3pm local time, which is in the morning in Chicago. Hence, it will be harder to keep track of the events than the last time (in 2006, when it was held in Germany).
But of course I can cope with that, as long as I can continue my work. In fact, just last week we had a breakthrough with the experiments, which demonstrated that the work I am being paid for now is actually possible ...