Imposter Syndrome

Height of imposter syndrome is when you win an college-wide new shiny award and think that they gave it to you by mistake.

and then stand on the stage and think why did they give it to me?

this is funny and sad at the same time.

NSF Pending Grants and Grey Area -2

So I ended up calling the PO. He told me that I did not get it and it didn't go well in the panel.

I am so relieved ! like I am feeling light. Yes, I didn't get the grant so will see what is in the reviews and resubmit.

But rejection is far better than anticipation and anxiety !

NSF Pending Grants and Grey Area

I have an NSF grant that is pending and it has been (almost) 6 months. This is a source of anxiety as well as some hope for me. From what I have read on other blogs it seems that the particular grant probably would have fallen in the "grey" area.

I know there is not much I can do except for wait but in a given day I pendulum from joy to anxiety and back like 9 times. Let me try to explain my emotional roller coaster to you.

1) Most of my peers have received a decline email by now. So this is probably a good news for me since the grant must have fallen in the grey area AND the PO wants to fund it (hopefully).

2) The particular program that I have submitted my grant has not given away any of the awards yet. At least this is what I have been able to get from google searches. This indicates that may be the particular program is lagging in its review process. This can go either way.

I am probably some where in the middle and would get/not get a grant based on the monies the particular PO has. This middle is where the hope is and there also hides the anxiety that I do not know what to do about.

I also feel kind of alone in this as well since I don't know who to talk to. My family is not academic and do not understand the underlying anxieties of being a scholar. I do not have any close academic friends here in this small city. I had very close 2 academic/personal friends but 1 of them has chosen to join industry (couldn't get a TT position) and another has joined a university abroad (so doesn't have similar funding situation as me). So I feel I am alone in this TT position (which I am very grateful for don't get me wrong) but I wish I had some one who I could talk to about my grants and the anxieties without worrying about being judged. We all know if I can talk to my colleagues they are gonna judge me.

I plan to send PO an email once 6 months are complete but that is still 2 weeks away.

Student writing woes

A student of mine is technically good i.e. he has reasonable results that are publishable.

But man do he suck at writing !

I dont mean the usual grad_student_just_starting_to_write_technical_papers suck. I mean gosh_what_in_the_name_of_fuck_are_you_trying_to_say suck.

I have multiple rounds of revision with him and the colloborator but he doesn't seem to get it. Atleast he acknoweldges that he knows that he write terrible english and paper.

I am not sure what more can I do to improve his writing skills. After 3 rounds of back and forth I have taken over the writing part now and am going to do a overhaul of the paper.

I dont know if this is good or bad but deadline needs to be met and I need to get this done.

Atleast he is producing results; I am not sure how he is going to write his dissertation though.

Funds and Book keeping

The higher echelons of my university has decided that the person who use to keep our accounting books (for grants) is no longer needed. This means that the faculty has to keep all the book keeping which include how much money is there to spend and what is already spent, where it is spent and who spent it. It also includes keeping track of all the reciepts and other documentation.

This sounds very weird to me that we as faculty have to do this kind of book keeping. But I am a newbie and I might be wrong.

Do you have a person who does this kind of book keeping for you and makes sure that all the expenses incurred are backed by documentation? If not, what is your strategy for keeping records and number straight?

I am officially a Tweep :D

I have decided to join twitter verse to have yet another distraction and waste more of my time. But a lot of academics seem to be on the twitter verse so it might be worthwhile. We will see.
You can follow me at https://twitter.com/funnyresearcher

Request for assistance or pretext for applying

I recently got an email from a colleague (who is the head of the search committee) from my previous institute. The email is as follows:

The awesome_institute has created a new position viz. Director of XYZ.  I am attaching the advertisement.  We will start reviewing the applications by xx 20xx, and hope to fill the position by xx, 20xx.   Could you forward this to anyone in your institutes who might be interested in applying?

I know that in academia if some one (read: search committee member) asks you 

"Are you happy in your institute/department etc." 

 that is a pretext for 

"If you apply we will consider you and hopefully hire you" 

Do you think the above email has such a pretext? I am just curious because I don't think I would like to go in that institute back. Not that there is something wrong with the science and the people there ( both are awesome) but because I feel that I have more freedom in my research endeavors in my current position.

But I am curious; I used to be after this director position before I got my tenure-track :D