Man. Well, today’s grant panel was a completely different experience than yesterday’s. The response was yikes-level negative. I’m the writer in the family, so I feel the failure was on me. Actually, I’d say it’s about half a failure in the application, about a quarter a disconnect between the application instructions and the way the panelists scored (so, really, we can call that three quarters application overall), and about a quarter just the personal tastes and dynamic of the panel.
My panel yesterday was a much more pleasant introduction to the process. The panelists were no less thorough and considered, but they were so much more positive, open, diverse in opinion, and certainly were much more humble. The sense was more that the were selecting versus dismissing. They also kept to the clock, which impressed me, both because I’ve got a crap sense of time, and because it just seemed so fair. I don’t know if that matters in the big picture, but I think I would have had a much more positive experience today if all the candidates had gotten equal time. When there are rules, I like them to be followed (hence my love of board games). I have a Liz Lemon-y devotion to rules, especially in a forein situation. I like strong perception of fairness. Otherwise, I feel fatalistic. And I’m just not a fatalist, so that makes me peevish. I’m much more comfortable in a situation that forces me enthusiastically to blame myself. Me fucking up, that I can work with. That I can fix–or abandon, if that’s the better option. Everything else, all those little quibbling elements you can’t control, well… what the hell are you supposed to do with that?
But don’t worry, I can still totally blame myself here. Ultimately, my writing wasn’t up to snuff–too many of their questions, I thought we’d covered in the narrative, but obviously I did a shit job editing it.
And maybe my grousing really just boils down to a matter of the types of personality I find attractive or disagreeable, And it’s impossible to know whether what I initially found off-putting would have been magically transformed to charming if they had liked the project. Ultimately, who cares?
Meh. I’m going to go dye some fiber. I need to sweep out my brain.
That sucks…but hopefully getting your hands in some fiber and seeing beautiful colors emerge will calm you…always works for me !! I love hearing about your adventures and animals and am saving up money to attend Yarn School soon….in short, you ROCK…and I can’t wait to see pics of the new dyed fiber =)