KellysIrishRed: Grant Rejection # Who the Hell Knows

Another year, another grant rejection. This one is an odd one as I was not the primary academic on the grant. It was to the NEH for a Summer Seminar in World History with a senior faculty at Hippie U who had had the course funded twice previously. It was a competitive year, blah blah blah (is it ever NOT a competitive year for academic funding?!), thanks for applying. Oddly, I don't feel that shaken in terms of my self-esteem. Partially b/c he was the primary director and partially because I'm really getting used to rejection after 5 years of it. Also, it's not my research or my baby, it's a world history project I'm excited about, but still somewhat of a side project. What hit me really, really hard is the loss of potential income. I have't been able to find any academic employment here short of teaching one class on Jewish Woman's History at my Temple, which may bring me a honorarium of a few hundred dollars. Between the lack of work and now the pending birth of our spawn, I was really banking on this grant as my main employment for this year. I'll apply on the academic market, which would mean work starting in fall 2013, and would fantastic, but let's be realistic about my odds at a TT position. Yes, I'm smart, my project is interesting, and gosh darn it, people like me... but the market is extremely competitive and banking on actually getting a FT position really is akin to banking on winning the lottery. Not because I'm not a wonderful person, good scholar, etc... but b/c there are several hundred other wonderful people and great scholars out there that I'm competing with.

The positive is that my feelings about myself as an academic while weathering rejection are still strong and pretty unshaken. The negative is that, though I feel fine about myself and my work, self esteem doesn't count for much when it comes to paying the bills. Being confident in my work isn't going to help pay for car repairs. And though I understand the well-meaning comments from faculty that I just need to "hang in there", and "something will come along, someday"... that completely neglects the reality that I'm in my mid 30s, I have a dependent on the way, and the financial obligations we face now and will face in the future (medical care, retirement, putting aside money for our kids to go to college, helping our parents if they need care, replacing one of our 12+ year old cars with something newer, like a 7 year old car...) are very real and require two income-earners. It's much easier to "hang in there" when you already have full time employment and any grant money you bring in is just extra. Though I'm sure you, gentle readers, are well aware of this reality - I seem to have the hardest time getting the faculty I work with to understand ("well, your husband has a job, right?" Yes, because being financially dependent on my husband to fund my life as an independent scholar is the reasonable solution to the underemployment crisis in academia. Yeah, there's nothing f*$&ed up and gendered about that comment.)

Anyway... I can't drink because of the parasite, and really getting good and properly drunk IS the appropriate response to things like grant rejections, job market rejections, and the Republican National Convention (having to face that sober is seriously a form of torture). So what does your IrishRed resort to in her period of imposed sobriety? Torturing her cat. Because my cat is ridiculous and it makes me laugh.

So here's Oona modeling a baby vest I finished (Baby Owl Vest from a Caffeinated yarn in Spud and Chloe Sweater, spice, 1 skein). She also looks smashing in a onsie I embroidered for L with a flying-V on it - though I think she fits the newborn size better than the 3 month size. She has no idea what's in store for her on Halloween.