more on challenges

So I claimed not to have ever felt challenged academically, pretty much, but I realised that’s a pretty simplistic and un-self-aware thing to say. For one thing, how frickin’ arrogant is it to be enrolled at Prestigious U, surrounded by people who are far more intelligent, articulate and motivated than me and claim that I’m not being challenged? Obviously, there are plenty of challenges here; I’m just not taking any of them. My scared little subconscious puffs itself up by claiming I could be all knowledgeable and creative and ask interesting questions, too, if I just put a bit of effort in, but just in case I try and still don’t have anything interesting to say, I’ll just slack off and look! I can do nothing much and not get kicked out! Woo! Great achievement…

I feel like a fraud when people give me credit for being here, because it really feels like a freak accident that I got in. When the head of the program said he expected great things of me, I’m pretty sure my conviction that he had me mixed up with someone else showed on my face. It didn’t help that my supervisor at home joked that his perjury in the letter of recommendation paid off when I told him I got accepted, either. In any case, I didn’t work hard enough, or do anything well enough to deserve to be here.

I had this conversation with my brother last time I was home, actually. He claimed that because most people would find it challenging to move a long way from home to go to a fancy school, that I should be proud of doing it. I argued that it’s more subjective than that and how much effort you put in should count more. My labmate who hadn’t taken biology since freshman year and taught herself enough to score in the 97^th percentile on the subject GRE, deserves her FPU acceptances far more than me. And my friend who is an awesome pre-school teacher and got her degree and post-grad diploma by starting assignments as soon as they were given and going to office hours and writing multiple drafts, is infinitely more admirable than myself.

That sounds more than a little patronising… but it works the other way, too. The things I find most challenging are ones most people probably don’t even think about. On a day when I manage to say goodbye to the labmate I’ve been sitting next to for over a year, I feel pretty great about my social skills (actually, no I don’t, but it does take a lot more effort than it should). I can’t even begin to imagine telling someone IRL, how I’m really feeling at any given time. I’m still hiding from those challenges, too, though.

This week my advisor asked me to present at two internal meetings and write abstracts for two conferences in the next month (one of them in a cool foreign country!). I would like to be able to do these things properly, instead of cobbling together something at the last minute and being terrified of my ignorance being exposed.

I’m going to leave my computer at the lab this weekend. Maybe I’ll be able to avoid distracting myself long enough to figure out how to face up to some of these challenges for a change.