Diary of a College Senior

Nov 29 - Another Rejection to the List

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

This morning when I woke up, I checked my phone as usual. There was an email from the research funding office.

Heart pounding, I quickly skimmed through its contents. It was very brief. Three sentences, two lines. Words jumped out at me 'application unsuccessful', 'thank you for applying'.

I put my phone down and tried to go back to sleep.

A few years ago, I would have been devastated. But getting rejected for so many things this year has made me feel indifferent to this feeling of 'failure'. I have also realized these things are mere bumps in life so I no longer use my achievements, both academic and professional to define who I am.

So what's next? I decided that I will apply again for the next round until they get sick of seeing my application. If they do not think I am deserving enough, then I might as well annoy the judging panel by making them read my application again and again. Nothing like eating up precious time! Haha!

Okay, excuse me. That was my spite speaking. But in all seriousness, at least I don't have to spend so much time preparing for it again. All I have to do is fix what I already have and hand it in before the deadline next year.

**********

The hardest part of getting any rejection for me has always been telling the people around me. For the rest of the day, I had to tell the professor, Addie and Blair, and everyone else who helped me put the application together that it had been rejected.

There's a certain rawness to the feeling every time I had to tell someone I had failed. But I have also noticed that it gets easier each time.

Later in the afternoon, I headed to the elementary school for my weekly volunteer shift as usual. My little mentee, S, was excited for me as usual.

For a while, I forgot about the crappy start to my morning as I helped S with her homework. They are learning about the solar system now and she had to memorize definitions like the milky way and moon phases.

Afterwards, we played a board game with S's three other friends and their older mentors. It is a war game, and the kids wanted to play against the mentors so we did that. The little rascals would always win though, as they changed the rules of the game whenever they felt like it and none of us cared enough to tell them to stop.

At the end of the session, our coordinator, J, even handed out chocolate bars (much to the excitement of the kids). It made me feel like a kid myself, where my entire day can be fulfilled just be getting free candy.