Friday, April 9, 2010

Annual reporting

It's the time of year for annual reporting to NSF. For some reason, I am extremely stressed out by this process. They want to know all of the presentations, publications, internships, awards, patents, international trips, etc etc that have occurred in the past year. I think it stresses me out because it reminds me of all of the things I haven't accomplished in the past year. For example. I haven't published anything yet since that review paper is collecting virtual dust and I haven't even resubmitted the short note that got rejected in January. Now it's April? Yikes!

They ask for all kinds of information. My first impression was that it would be a relatively quick process, but I'm having to go look up all kinds of things (Did I do that this year or last? What was the title of that presentation? Was that technically supported by my GRF?). That in combination with my slow internet and general anxiety about answering the questions as best as I possibly can makes it a slooow process.

I think this is a kind of performance anxiety. I'm generally pleased with what I have been able to accomplish, but when I think about someone else judging my merits it makes me all self-conscious and filled with self-doubt that I won't meet their expectations of me based on whatever they've heard or seen on paper. Imposter syndrome. Gah.

3 comments:

Transient Theorist said...

Yikes, I didn't know they would ask for so much detail... I should probably start working on that sooner than I had planned.

Transient Theorist said...

Out of curiosity, are you including any mention of your blogging as part of your broader impacts in your report?

Karina said...

Hey Theo. I'm not planning to mention blogging in my reporting, but I'm about to write a post about it.