Wednesday, November 25, 2009

How To Be A Little Less Lonely

Big Name Researcher turned out to be doing research that is not quite like mine. And so I'm not sure partnering up the research would work.

At Important Regional Gathering last week, I met and talked to Big Name Editor who was the guest plenary speaker for the Gathering. I shared with hir my loneliness at doing research back in Home Country.

BNE: "Just send me anything you're writing on. I'll read it and give you feedback. Send it anytime."

Me: "You don't need to have some kind of an official role? Like... be on my committee or something?"

BNE: "Nope." And then s/he added, "you're the only one who is asking intelligent questions in this Gathering."

Me: Mouth-wide open... "thanks."

For the rest of the gathering, I went around introducing hirm as my new research mentor.

Lonely dissertator is starting to feel a little less lonely.

:big smile:



4 comments:

Scholar Wannabe said...

I just returned from my own conference.

Isn't it wonderful to discover big-name scholars/editors who are also decent human beings?

RC said...

wau lau i like hir comment "you are the only one asking intelligent question" wat a compliment :)

sonic said...

"you're the only one who is asking intelligent questions in this Gathering.

Sigh...

Lonely Dissertator-No-More said...

I should qualify that this was not an academic meeting, so it wasn't easy to sound "intelligent" (or "learned").