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Wow I feel really drained this morning. Last night's editing was really intense and not fun. It was one of those instances where I thought I was basically done so I commenced worrying and occupying my brain with the conference paper I have to give on Tuesday. I had R do one last read through and he found a BUNCH of awkwardly phrased stuff that made me cry. Mostly because I'm scared I won't get funding. Also it dredges up all the issues of the fact that I am a BAD WRITER, and no matter how much I work on that, the spectre of my inability to write effectively keeps surfacing.

I had been praised for my writing since I could remember, then in my 3rd year of undergrad I took a graduate seminar and was told under no uncertain terms that my writing was horrible and that I needed tutoring and tons of work and maybe then it might be better, but really it was quite crap and probably going to stay that way. Ever since then, I have been going to writing centers, asking people for help, asking for lots of editing, and generally feeling like I am some how remedial and never going to catch up.

It all came to the fore last night, especially since I am worried that I am going to be a little fish in a big pond with this latest round of grant applications - all of the grants I've gotten before have involved language study or study abroad. That really narrows the playing field. Now I am going to be up against all the grad students working on Central Asia, Education, or Women's Studies, depending on the grant. I'm scared my work won't hold up against the heavier competition. I'm worried that I am doing mediocre work and not even writing it up well.

I know in my logical brain that if I don't get any of these grants, it is not a comment on the lack of quality in my work - it simply means that my work doesn't fit the grant, or the review comittee had heartburn when they read my application, or their funding got cut, or any number of factors. However, my non-rational brain is feeling frantic and worried that if I don't get this mark of approval it means that my work is not worth much to the academic community.

(no subject)

Wow, its been quite a day. My entire neighborhood had no power this morning - that meant that I couldn't print my last application out at either of the 2 local net cafes. I ended up calling Javat aka and asking if I could print things at his office and he agreed, but wasn't going to be in today, so one of his employees, Dilmrod, helped me out. He was great - he spoke english, Uzbek, russian, tajik, turkish and a little german and we had a very relaxed communication in all of the first three. He was impressed by the 3 page CV I printed out and counted up my conference papers. He finished his undergrad at the Diplomatic UNiversity here and is trying to get an IREX grant to go to grad school in the states. He also had his sister's undergrad IREX application on his computer and I took a look at it and gave him some pretty major suggestions as to how to improve it before handing it in tonight. All the instructions are in relatively complex english and I felt sorry for him when it was obvious that he didn't follow directions. I can't imagine trying to write any of my grants in Uzbek - I'm having a stressful enough time with Tues's conference paper.

After that I came home, was snuggled by my husband to within an inch of my life, and set out again, this time to go to the embassy to return a dvd and cash a check. I had the same taxi driver that I had this morning going to Javat aka's office, and we struck up a long conversation about how difficult life is in both of our countries. I always try to do my best to dispell the ideas that most people have about how easy life is in America. I mention our poor, our homeless, and jobless, and how broken our welfare system is. Apparently he is driving "taxi" (not an official one with a sign or anything) becuase he can't find good work anywhere since he doesn't have a college degree. Taxi driving apparently pays better than factory work. Going to the embassy we spoke all in Uzbek and it was quite good practice for me. He obviously took a like to me, or to my american $$, becuase he asked if I was returning and said that he would wait the half an hour for me to finish at the embassy. On the way back he mentioned that he lives in a village about 10 km from Tashkent and once again talked about how difficult life is and how bad the US president is for making war on everyone - oh and how sad he is for the palistinians that Arafat died. Anyway, I think I have a "voditel'" now, since he said to come back all the time and he will take me wherever I want to go. Nice man, harmless, and I suppose it isn't a bad thing to have a voditel'.

After coming home I went out to the market to get water, a celebratory beer, and a celebratory chocolate bar. On my walk back home I saw the most tricked out Zhiguli ever! (Zhigulis are old clunky soviet cars) It had a fresh fire engine red paint job, what rich calls a body kit, I think - it makes the whole car look lower down because it extends the bottom of it or something, and those silly double windshield wipers in shiny silver and red. I'm sure for the cost of tricking out his Zhiguli, this guy could have bought a nice new Nexia, but I guess that's not the point. It looked like something from that MTV show about tricking your ride with that basketball player who takes people's old cars and works them over with West Coast Customs and makes them into pimp mobiles. Yes indeed, I saw a Zhiguli pimp mobile.