Guess blogging's a good way to vent (in a respectable and respectful way).
Well, I'm just feeling a little hurt now. Just a little surprised that I'm still a rather sensitive person, I had expected to have grown quite a thick skin by now.
I was set to give a presentation about my research work (as part of the entire lab's presentation) to a visiting professor but in the interest of time (because people before me ran overtime and people after me were expected to run overtime, hehehe), my talk was axed because he was not particularly interested in performance visualization and tools of parallel applications. This was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances and really should not have been a big deal. In fact, I hardly felt it at first. Still, ultimately, it stung. For several reasons, I think:
1) My pride was hurt.
2) It felt like my area of research bore no importance (this visiting prof was an eminent member of the our general research community, btw).
3) It felt unfair because others took more time than they should have earlier and that *maybe*, just *maybe* the visitor would have been interested were I given the chance to talk about my work.
There, I've said it ... now I feel slightly better. From a practical standpoint, it's no biggie. I know lots of other leading researchers out there who are interested in my research area. I just need to (and jolly well better) get used to other people thinking what I do is unimportant. It's just a fact of life, especially when I get around to seeking funding for projects in this area as a professor myself (if I bloody graduate!).
Back to the grind! :)
2 comments:
Guess it's common to feel snubbed when such things happen. Many times, a seemingly small incident could turn out to be a great de-motivation to the person involved. And the perpetuator doesn't even know it...
We need to pick ourselves up and go on to prove them wrong. Knowing you for so long, I'm sure you won't stay down forever so work hard at whatever you're doing (PS: I still do not understand exactly what you're researching after all these years ;-))
Most importantly, it's what you feel that matters. And if you feel your research is worthwhile and you put 100% into it, then I'm sure the results will prove it :-)
Hehehe, just a year back, I wouldn't be able to tell you very succinctly what my research is.
In one sentence:
"I develop tools and techniques to help others optimize parallel applications to run faster on Supercomputers."
It's all cool. I've gone quite a ways since the old days when I took things waaaay too seriously. It's important though, for me to have an avenue to vent (without others taking me seriously, otherwise my problems just becomes theirs and no one wins). This blog is perfect :)
Post a Comment