Thursday, August 14, 2008

Money-grubbing so-and-so...

I'm trying to prepare the application paperwork for a fellowship (read: prestigious money). Is there anyone who loves doing this stuff? Does it exist to weed out the sissies?

Today, I suffered the indignity of writing the "narrative of my career." Isn't it too early for one to know how one's narrative goes? Isn't that why I want the fellowship: so as to produce enough further career-material to arrive at a narrative? And haven't we discussed (last post) how I feel about narrative?

Tomorrow's torture: to describe what I want the fellowship for. In under three pages. I wonder if "For the prestigious money" is too far under three pages to satisfy. I suppose I'll have to bulk it up with my spectacular, fellowship-quality rhetoric.

5 comments:

Lisa B. said...

Sometimes it seems to me that a good 75% of professional life is faking it. Good luck with the application, and inflate, exaggerate, and puff up like mad. You're worth it.

Flavia said...

I think "for the prestigious money" could definitely be expanded to three pages, if you were to enumerate, separately, on the importance of a) the money, and b) the prestige.

But don't forget the third reason (which was a big motivator when I applied for a few of my own last fall--a semester during which I think I did literally not a scrap of other scholarly work): the act of applying makes one feel that one is doing something something productive, work-wise, even though it's really just in the hope of doing something productive in the future.

Good luck~~

Flavia said...

Uh, for "enumerate," read "elaborate,"

Pamphilia said...

Good luck indeed- I'm applying this year as well. And I do agree with Flavia that the act of applying itself makes one feel productive. Even more importantly, sometimes the act of writing the narrative of your scholarship actually helps to reformulate the book proposal, which in a way is incredibly productive because it can give you a clearer sense of what your book itself is accomplishing not only in scholarship but in The World At Large. Basically any number of times you reiterate how your scholarship is important and useful.

That said, I hate hate hate writing them. But oddly I feel prouder when I'm finished with these bs narratives than when I've finished an article.

Leslie said...

good luck, good rhetoric!

When I have to answer why I want someting like this, I almost always want to answer, "duh."

Like is the whole point to answer an incredibly obvious question in an incredibly detailed way? How does that serve anyone? What, exactly, does this question test for?