The Catch-22 of postgrad conference funding.

Given:

1) You may only apply for the university funding after your first year of PhD registration
2) You may only apply for departmental funding if you have applied to the university funding
3) External funding only pay out in the year after you applied for it
4) You normally only know about a conference about a few months beforehand (IN fact, a week before the extended submission deadline)
5) Oh, did I mention you're only on your 1st year of PhD registration?

How, oh HOW are you supposed to get funding? o_O The stupid departmental policy for only supporting student who's applied for the funding: you have any idea how hard it is to get funding like a few months before the conference? Especially when you're only on your 1st year?

Seriously I'm considering applying for another grant/scholarship just for the unexpected trips. I'm not going to sacrifice my saving to go overseas for conferences... o_O I want to move out dammit!