Today I found out that a paper I submitted a few weeks ago has been rejected. It was the weakest of my thesis chapters, but we aimed low journal-wise so I'm surprised the reviews were as bad as they were and the rejection was as solid as it was. So far I have only skimmed the review comments and they struck me as comprehensively negative but polite. Research Advisor thinks they were mostly constructive--some complaints were refutable, some were founded and can help us revise, and some were flaws were knew were there--and that we can reframe the story for another journal. I'm less disappointed about the rejection itself than I am bummed that it's going to take that much longer to shore up my weak publishing record.
In other news, today I learned a lab technique that is very new to me. The technician who trained me is just as fantastic as Awesome Technician so it was a pleasant enough experience, and I am thrilled to be learning new skills. Furthermore, this is the first lab work I've done as a postdoc and it felt great to be away from my desk for a spell. However, I was awkward and uncertain about the choreography of the protocol and it is always exhausting to learn brand new stuff. On top of that, by the end of the day I was so frustrated with the scale of everything. I had to stand on a step stool to do several different tasks, and some critical tools didn't fit in my hands very well which contributed to my lack of coordination. So irritating.
To avoid going home and wallowing, I went shopping after work. On the bright side, I found bargains. I got some low-heeled, moderately dressy shoes that I've been looking for for a while ($13), socks to wear with them ($5 for 6 pairs), jeans ($33 for two pairs), and a big splurge, perfume ($25). I'm disappointed with the jeans though and bought them because they were on clearance and I was pissed off; I had tried on some cool designer ones at another store and there were comically long, reinforcing my disdain of being a short person in a tall-person world. Phooey.
3 comments:
I'm not excessively short but I totally know what you mean about the jeans. Sometimes I think it is just another trick to make us feel horrible. "If your legs are not this much longer, you're not worthy of our jeans".
Good luck with the paper!
Yeah, it's frustrating when everything seems to be built for other people. Particularly when "other people" is "tall, skinny and/or men".
Also, the publication thing - I suspect that if you give it a few days, you'll realize the reviews are not as bad as you thought, and probably pretty fair.
Yes, it's disappointing and slow, but guess what? This is just another major reason why so many people drop out of science. You're just at the beginning. It never really gets better. It just drags on and on and it's always really heartbreaking how much time is being wasted.
Fair reviews, even rejections, are about as good as it gets. Just wait until you get ones that are totally unfair, unprofessional, misinformed, and wrong. You'll look back fondly on this moment as "really not that bad".
Funny... I always think of myself as a tall person in a short person's world. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
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