Funding Fieldwork

I feel as though all I am doing is writing grant proposal after grant proposal: 7 full proposals so far this year (and currently two in progress). Excitement and disappointment. Last night I fretted and waited, restarted and waited, retried and waited some more – over 45 minutes of attempting to download an attachment from Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) about the outcome of the very long grant proposal I submitted to them last year. I was taking classes when I prepared it and put a lot of time and effort into the writing. That didn’t matter. Rejection. Again. All of my grants thus far have been rejected. Ok – I could expect that as I waited for the slow internet connection in anticipation, but I had built up a positive aura around this one because the file size was large (too large for a 1 page “sorry, we regret to inform you..”). Instead, I thought it could maybe contain directions on next steps in the process. It turns out the large file was due to attached reviews and they were nasty. To the point of criticizing my spelling and using that to imply I am a sloppy writer who knows nothing of the subject matter, my questions are meaningless, and “the proposal goes downhill from there…” After reading the reviews I am embarrassed that I sent the proposal out there and there are now senior scientists working in my field who associate my name with sloppy grant writing. On first reading, I thought the reviews were demeaning. On second reading, I realized that they brought up good points that need to be addressed in my dissertation proposal.