27.5.05

It's the Little Things

I've received so many rejection letters lately that I'm able to stop noticing the fact that they're saying "you're kind of mediocre" and notice the details. I also open all official correspondence near the recycling bin for easy disposal. Last night, I received a letter that underlined the "not," i.e. "Your application was not one of the ones selected." Ptichka thought the underlining was mean. I thought that it was better than receiving a rejection e-mail on Friday at 16.30.

I will say this, no one tells you what a pain in the arse it is to look impressive while being an international student. Grant organizations back home are wondering where's the FLAS and the Fulbright and the Mellon. Then they look at my list of conference presentations and wonder why I've participated in so many Canadian conferences but only one American conference (and that was being held here). Because money shouldn't be an issue, right? I should be able to hop on a plane mid-term and pay 150 USD a night to attend a conference. Um, yeah. My ass. And then grant organizations here are asking themselves where's the OGS and SSHRC. I can't win.

I'm still also fairly bitter that a former mentor figure who has been nailing down large grants, has agreed to look at my proposals on a couple of occasions, and then? Nothing. I send him the proposals and never hear from him. He's done this to me twice. Looked me in the face and lied. But that's residual ill-will. I just want to graduate and have two incomes and no kids for a while and buy cheese whenever I want to eat cheese. Maybe my graduation party should be a cheese tasting or a fondue.

It's almost over. And then I can start being rejected by a whole other part of the world.

Anywho, speaking of Canadian conferences, I have to finish up my presentation for Sunday and have an overhead printed. And then I will wake up far too early, climb into a car and ride for two hours to give a paper that no one will be around to hear. Sometimes, I love my field. Like the time I was paired with a Russianist. After her paper, I started reading mine. Once the audience realized that Mácha isn't Russian, they began noisily packing up during my paper and then they galumphed out the door, letting it slam behind them. During my paper.

I could go on about how I think that I've done this all wrong and I'd like a do-over, please but that's just not feasible.

I don't know where all this bitterness came from. I need to finish.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home