Receiving the unsuccessful doctoral SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) letter in the mail yesterday felt like the first professional 200m race I ran after I just joined the track club. The memory came up instantly. I had been a sprinter for years and had placed top 3, if not 1st in almost every race up to that point. I was the star sprinter, and was “discovered” by a coach in grade 9 who insisted I train with him. I wish I could remember whether the excitement was to be distracted from the angst of teenage-hood or if I really cared about being on the track. Maybe both? I spent most of my days either training in Nike cleats or slitting my wrists in my bedroom listening to Hole and ripping my black pantyhose arm sleeves. Ugh. I had a couple of training sessions with the group before my once-lauded hubris quickly disappeared. The runners were straight-faced and had been trained privately for years. I was the new girl that didn’t fit into their sprinter mold. Although this was probably all in my head because I was just used to being the best without much thought. Running came so naturally to me. I didn’t have to fight my body to get ahead and now my body and its movements didn’t make sense anymore. The first race came upon us really quickly, and I ran my distance – the 200m. This was not a high school track meet, this was a real track meet, with runners and their coaches pouring water into their mouths just like they do on TV. I don’t think I even ran in cleats yet, I was probably one of the few that still ran in running shoes. How embarrassing. Of course, what happened? I came in last. I mean, dead last. Imagine 200 meters is not a lot of distance, and it was noticeable how dead last I stumbled past the finish line. So there I was – a loser. The girl who took her inept relay teams to regional school championships died. Although I did run the 100m and didn’t do too poorly, it didn’t even matter, my distance was the 200m. My coach was ecstatic that my time was so bad, because to him, this meant he had a clean slate to teach me how to be a champion – and as typical as stories go, he did manage quite well. I was ready to learn everything. I think that’s when I started understanding what running was about and what it was doing to me. It’s funny how few people know this about me (…other than those who point out my legs. I’m not trying to to be cocky, but legs get sculpted with sport, especially sprinting). It came up in my therapy session two weeks ago and my therapist was pleasantly surprised because she would have never guessed it knowing me. I don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean, considering I was also a lifeguard and swimming instructor for six years until I bleached my hair and had to give up.
I guess what I wanted to say is that the score I received on my appraisal, which I can’t even mention here or to anyone in hopes of forgetting it, felt like that race. I am a strong student but I was unprepared at that point to take on the race. Even if many say luck has a lot to do with it, because even within the categories you are never really sure how they’re tabulated, there’s still the past you have to learn how to negotiate for the present. It also doesn’t help that I frequent this obsessive-compulsive graduate student forum in which a disproportionate amount of posters got the SSHRC Grant that, by the way, is either $85,000 or $105,000 over a course of 3/4 years. My supervisor’s terse answer was, “You’ve been lucky enough this year,” which is perhaps akin to the answer my old running coach had. I did at least get passed onto the national competition, whereas some others I know didn’t even pass the university-wide competition to get carried forward to SSHRC. I also got accepted to the school of my choice with a fellowship even though I applied after the deadline and a guaranteed researcher position on an incredible mobile cinema project.
