Fortnight in Review

Events are occurring at a much faster pace than I have been able to keep up with on my blog. I hope to get into the details of these things later, but here is a quick recap:

Robert and I had a good birding trip to the Laredo area, and I picked up 3 new species, bringing my ABA life list to 455.

I decided to drop the late-afternoon T/Th econometrics class from my schedule because it was making the logistics of my life very, very difficult. (I am taking a stat class on M/W afternoons and continuing my job with the marketing professors.) At first, I was like, damn, I already purchased the book. But then I realized that I can learn some of this stuff from reading the book and also save about $800 on tuition. Cool.

My organic paper was accepted to the conference. I had initially received only one review, upon which they decided to accept the paper, because the second reviewer had not responded by the deadline. The first review was very supportive and offered some constructive criticism for improving a paper that they believed was decent as it stood. Then this afternoon, I received the second (belated) review, which was....pretty bad. The most positive part of it was the opening clause to the effect of, "While I commend the authors for trying to do X..." Actually, that was the only positive thing the reviewer had to say.

I was pretty much crushed by it at first (reacting at a purely emotional level) but after a good cry, and taking a nap, I came back to read it again. This time, it became apparent that the reviewer was from a very different subdiscipline, had his own ideas about what was and what was not interesting or valid to study, and ultimately did not believe that my approach (which is utterly standard) could "possibly" yield anything of value. The latter bit was actually a good thing to know, since it meant that the perceived flaw was not in my study, but in an entire methodology. He also obviously misunderstood several things that I think were very clear and obvious and then became sort of snarky and shitty about them, also perhaps confusing my own beliefs with the statements of my respondents. Robert summed it up best, saying: "He obviously thinks that if it's not Scottish, whatever his own definition of Scottish may be, it's crap."

I will need to revise my paper into a 12-page version for publication in the conference proceedings. I am meeting with my professor/co-author next week to discuss what I need to do now.

While I was telling Robert about this bad review, I opened my mail and found out that I have received my first admission to a graduate program, contingent on acceptance by the Graduate School itself (which is almost assuredly forthcoming, since the Graduate School usually wants to make sure you meet baseline criteria like minimum GPA and GRE scores). I will find out about funding in March. The letter went out on the application deadline, which suggests to me that they had already looked at my app and put it in the "No Brainer Admit" category. So: yay. (The program is not one of my top 2, but is a program I would be happy to attend and is in the Philadelphia area.)

In other news, my allergies have been super-bad the last week or so, and I am really freaking tired. So obviously, it's time to exercise. Blah.