strong, but not enough
Got the email today – "we regret to inform you that"… and that's despite my application being "strong". This is the grant where I had to try redact DEI language. Maybe that was always going to be impossible. Or maybe, realistically, I just never stood a chance.

Meanwhile, someone in my department has made digs and subtle microaggressions towards me that bystanders have witnessed (and reported). I walk into rooms and feel myself shrink because I don't belong here and I'm trying to force it to work.

I just want to go home. I have no great takeaway today, nothing profound, just that I need to keep putting one step in front of the other. I just want to be somewhere where stepping outside doesn’t make me feel like folding in on myself.



playing: rental

zenshu and burnout
Despite taking off the previous week for my birthday, burnout has hit me extremely hard. Part of that is because of trying to redact DEI language from a grant (and feeling my actual soul crumbling), but as my friend said, maybe I didn’t take enough time off. And that scares me.

Like Natsuko, I’m slowly trying to find myself back to the place where creating is not a battle against perfectionism. I want to write for the little girl who loved to read.



watching: zenshu

studying away from home
So instead of working on my PhD, I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of HTML and CSS. There’s still a lot to do on this site, and I’m not going to rush it. Maybe I need to find more joy in the process.

I wonder what the younger version of me must think of who I am now. She’d be proud I’m doing a PhD and getting married. But I don’t know if I’d have the heart to tell her the whole story.



listening to: twilight zone – ariana grande