Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 February 2005 22:34:30
A month or two back I said, in regard to my PhD application, that I was praying I would be their second best candidate as that would guarantee me ESRC funding without having to go through a scary interview (whereas the best candidate goes forward for the ESRC competition and the 3rd best only gets the second ESRC quota place if the best is successful in the competition). Today I got feedback from the department that at the moment I am indeed their second place candidate, and whilst at the moment that's a bit meaningless as they're considering the uni scholarship and I'm being pitted against 40 candidates from the whole social sciences faculty, when it comes to the ESRC places that's just for the specific department so they can give it to who they like (don't worry if you didn't follow that, it makes sense to me). So, providing when the candidates have submitted their ESRC applications the position remains the same (ie my application isn't crap, or another weaker candidate's application remains weaker than mine) then that second place is looking good. I'm not sure if that takes the pressure off or adds more to be honest. What is adding pressure is that I'm trying to write the bit about my experience and qualifications and why they equip me to do the research and why funding me would be such a fantastic investment for them, I've got about 250 words to do that and have already written at least twice that. It's also difficult as, like the personal statement in any job application, what you're wanting to do is say "I'm fantastic, you'd be mad not to pay me to do this" without actually saying that. Blowing my own trumpet doesn't always come naturally, but when I do I find it an awful lot easier when I can be really wordy about it :D Oh well. I'll try and cut it down tomorrow - too tired now.
In other news, I forgot to mention that I finally finished my book (Paulo Coelho's "The Pilgrimage") the other day. I found myself getting more and more annoyed with him, and liking him less and less (not for anything terrible, I just thought he was ever so poncey and self-indulgent). My friend (whose judgment I trust on these things) says that "The Alchemist" - the other book of his I've got but never read - is very good and worth reading, but I think I'll save it for when I've forgotten quite how up himself he was. I must say though, irony of ironies, after getting so annoyed with him, I *really* liked his very last sentence of the book. It's no less pseudo-spiritual psychobabble than any of the rest of it, but it did strike a chord (probably because I've been a bit maudlin lately):
"And when I think about it, I guess it is true that people always arrive at the right moment at the place where someone awaits them."