00:11
hello then hello asami how it goes things have happened a lot uh this this week um
and one of the things that happened was uh so i think i talked about this and like i don't know
when this episode uh published but several episodes ago i talked about uh coming up with
like research ideas in conjunction with this fellowship applications and um i uh have received
a notice from the said fellowship that i i was not selected for the final shortlist and um
um and well that's one disappointing uh but of course two like it was like it's i have been and
this is like very fresh right like it happened like a few days ago and i'm still kind of
processing but uh in this middle of uh relatively not so fun place to be um
i felt like it's worth documenting my thought process right now and um just generally
how i typically deal with rejections yeah um because somebody a fellow podcaster
recently like completely different context we were like talking and uh told me that
like i asami look like i've got my shit together most of the time and uh looks like you know
looks like like the exemplary successful case uh of a young researcher and i was like what
i was like genuinely shocked genuinely shocked because i never ever felt like an exemplary of
anything oh okay that's a that's a big statement yeah all right uh i always feel like
this worked out for her kind of i feel like i fall into this like very anomaly category
uh in many respects of my life okay because i had relatively unusual upbringing
maybe but also there are just many things that i cannot attribute
03:06
to myself like i can only attribute it to like a circumstantial luck like you know environment
that i happen to be in and like i i really feel like a lot of the things i've done
and this is not to discredit that i didn't work for it but uh a lot of the things that sort of
propelled my life uh to the next stages feels like it happened because i was in the right
space at the right time kind of situation as cheesy as it sounds and okay so so i was really
genuinely surprised to hear that she like at least from what i reveal on podcast i uh
seem to be sort of yeah like a model success case of some kind and uh and and this might be
kind of like a subconscious thing right like maybe you know because even though it's not like a giant
audience i am aware that i am publicizing this i get to sort of filter what i share and maybe
through that i have subconsciously cherry-picked a good version like a
successful sounding version of myself although i'd like to think that i'm pretty open book
yeah the audience can't see this i'm looking skeptically at asami just in case you know
the sound okay skepticism but please continue i don't want to cut you off in your flow so
oh no no no um anyway so so that's that's what's prompting me to share this this like
uh this not so fun um part about dealing with rejections and yeah it like initially i think
i was just like surprised because i thought i was really confident in this research idea
and i feel like i that i did my homework and put together things i it's not like i like whipped
this out in like a couple weeks like i put my thoughts and work and into it yeah yeah um so
so that was one and and given the nature of this fellowship i didn't feel like there are
that many people who are super qualified to do this and i knew that my application
would be at least unique um and if anything people would want to know a little bit more about
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what i'm proposing um or something so i thought i expected myself to go to at least like a second
round of you know this selection process or i don't know how many rounds i have passed but
like i i have expected to get onto this short list sure gotcha and i didn't so like that sucked
and um so like the surprise was there and then like it quickly turned into like a disappointment
and like ego being hurt right because like i still surprisingly i still felt like my research idea
was solid like that part yeah was not super shaken but uh i clearly did something wrong with
the either actual writing of the fellowship application or like packaging this uh in a way
that like is appealing to the selection committee right and something uh just to give a context i
didn't get any like there there was no guideline as to what to include in the the application so
like there was like they they wanted like a proposal and a research plan like like so like
like but no sort of like subheadings of what to include right so i kind of had to go off of
what i know and yeah i don't i only have a experience in submitting very
purely fundamental chemistry type of grants right like and and even those i've only really like
edited them with my pi rather than like writing from scratch so like that's the general format
that i'm going off of yep and and i think it's like sensible uh and there was also a strict
word limit a very pretty short proposal it had to be and i i did struggle with that i did struggle
with how to fit in enough information yeah uh but i looking at hindsight i think i was
way too carried away by like the excitement of this research idea and maybe didn't uh
research about who i'm presenting to like i could have easily sent an email to this you know grant
office or something uh saying like who's reviewing my proposal like you know are they scientists are
they uh you know different museum people at large because this is conservation science is very
interdisciplinary field and i don't always know you know who's in it right yeah sure and i think
09:06
i could have done that and then sort of tune my proposal in that way so the feedback i got from
you know non-selection committee person i just shared it with a professor and he said that the
idea was very solid very good but uh i packaged it for a wrong audience um and like i was overly
technical in some parts and not spending enough time in some other parts okay and in the thousand
words limit uh like i i the small sort of misjudgment in that balance was like enough to
probably um not interest the people who were reviewing sure my fellowship yeah um and yeah so
like that was a useful like requirement uh feedback that i got um because again like it's
relatively new field for me i don't know how to write fellowship for this field and or applications
grant application for this field um and i guess to a certain extent it's different every time like
you know depending on what where you're submitting your fellowships to and if you have
people who have previously submitted to these applications or something they might have
pointers on how to package this they might know who's reviewing them etc but uh i didn't have that
access and um nor did i sort of went out of my way to seek for it either
uh so i think those are sort of practical uh things that i could have done differently
um but i was just like more intrigued by like my emotional response to this i guess
um and i guess you know once in a while
especially if you are the type to take the risk um you are bound to have your you know
ego hurt you are bound to have i don't know what's like the english expression but like in
japanese i think of like which is like like get your nose broken like your nose bridge broken
basically oh it's a violent reference but it's just like a saying there's some english ones
that probably fit that give me a second i'll i'll come up with them so that's that's definitely
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visually very similar to the idea of yeah you know yeah yeah uh so yeah like it's it's bound
to happen especially if you're trying anything right yeah and um i guess it was like the first
one in a while um because in research i think in grad school i developed this mindset of like
appreciating the process more than the outcome which is i think generally speaking a very healthy
mindset to have yeah uh but this time for various reasons that i'm not going into
uh i really wanted this outcome and sure yeah um like i think there was more of the
attachment there than maybe i should have maybe i normally do and that was sort of another reason
that why it was like very painful to my ego and uh what did i so i have this like little
notebook of like i don't know i think it's like equivalent to catholic church's like confession
box all right those are not the words i expected you to say there but continue
but yeah like it's it's just like it's just thought dumping location right and ah okay
so like a journal which is way more reasonable than like a confession box in a religious sect
okay sure are you confessing to things or is it just like any thoughts and like any sort of i i am
confessing to myself like i'm like looking at like all right the most ugly thoughts um this is this
is journaling in like a very self-reflective fashion but okay yeah okay yeah but like except
i only is it still journaling if you only do that when you're upset yeah i mean i'm not gonna be one
to put bounds on the journal right um i did a lot of journaling when i was like having the most
intense emotional experiences which is you know upset is one of them right so yeah yeah yeah but
so um yeah i'm trying to remember what i thought and yeah it's it's uh i i sort of come around to
the idea that it hurt it because uh i think more so than usual because i really wanted
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this outcome and i attached a certain amount of certainty in future uh with that outcome of getting
this fellowship and um so you know i thought i have developed into this like more process-oriented
person who uh you know but there are still parts of me that are attaching to the results the outcome
um because if i refocus on the process of it all i think it was still fruitful and um
like the person who gave me the feedback said like it's still a solid idea as a research uh
and i it looks like there's a decent potential for me to recycle this uh to something else
in fact that was one of the suggestions that he gave like you know i have these other fellowships
in mind you could possibly package this to and apply to yep and uh whether i would do that or
not is i haven't i don't have an answer to that right now but uh so it sounds like it's just
you know it was an unfortunate like i didn't spend enough time in researching who i'm writing to
uh and just want just like blurted out whatever i wanted to talk about basically
sometimes i think everyone has moments like that and that's normal right you just what you wanted
to talk about it and it was attached to something you really wanted to do i'd still want to do it
right so yeah and then so and then there's a third stage of griefing which is um that's it for the
show today thanks for listening and find us on x at egode science that is e-i-g-o-d-e-s-c-e-n-t-i-n-g
s-c-i-e-n-c see you next time
