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Tired & Grumpy

Yesterday I received the news that I was not awarded the Fimera Award for Teaching Excellence at my university. I feel sad, tired, and grumpy about this notification.

The Fimera Award is given out once each year by a selection committee and recipients are considered to be extraordinary professors of excellence. Basically, it is our University's "Teacher of the Year" award. Yes, I realize that being one of the four finalists for this award is an honor in itself, and yes, I realize that being selected as a finalist in a pool of over 600 faculty is also in itself an honor, and yes, I also realize that an award should not shape my own feelings of worth. Yet, it has affected me more than I had anticipated.

I am sad. I feel cruddy as hell. In some ways at the moment, I wish I had not been selected as a finalist for I knew that there was only a 1 in 4 chance of being the selected individual. Yet, at the same time, I am glad I became a finalist. But it still hurts.

I am not trying to be like a pouting infant, I truly am not. I know at some level it very likely appears that way, but my intention here is simply to express my sorrow for this loss. I am not sure why it has affected me so. I know in my mind that I should shrug it off like the finalists, but non-winners do at the Oscars, etc. But my heart is heavy and sad. It is stupid of me to feel this way. Yet I do.

I know it should not matter. What matters is the effect I have on students. I do a good job at guiding students into being thoughtful scientists. I know deep inside that I am successful at helping them. To have been nominated and to have been selected as a finalist was a very nice feeling. I was caught off guard, though, on how sad the "runner-up" status has made me feel. It is enormously stupid to feel this way, I know, but none-the-less I feel like weeping. I shall not weep, and I shall figure out a way to pull myself back up by my bootstraps, and I shall struggle through these emotions. But, all I can say now is that I am sad. Tired and sad.

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