disenheartened

Things are going really well at the conference, despite the title of this post. My talk, for instance, seemed to be a great success. I wasn't nearly as anxious as I thought I'd be leading up to the talk - although I was counting down the hours from the time I woke up. But overall, it was a pretty fantastic experience. Biggest crowd I've spoken in front of - a little under 1000 people. And my phD advisor, who was also in attendance (PA was not at this conference), had the nicest and most rewarding words for me afterwards. He was very proud.

And there have been plenty of really fascinating symposia topics so far (that has helped to keep me from obsessing before my talk - too interested in the other talks).

So with all these interesting symposia, and my talk going as well as I could have hoped, why am I feeling so disenheartened? I think it is because this is the first conference where I've noticed "the club."

I used to get almost star-struck when I finally caught a glimpse of any big name scientist in person. But now I guess I've been around the block enough to finally notice the subtle snubbing during talks, and the political ego boosting that goes on too. I understand that science is full of some very peculiar personalities, but I just wish success didn't have to depend on who likes who and other silly ego dependent games.

Maybe I would feel differently if I was in "the club" with all the other big names. But seeing as how the work of my former labmate (from my phD lab) was completely snubbed during some talks, despite the speakers having cited his work in their publications (which means they are award of it!), if my friends/academic siblings are not in the club, I doubt that I am either.

It's all just very disenheartening to think you can work so hard, and produce great work, but still not be recognized as successful because you're not best friends with the big names. That is also why I generally think less of PNAS as a journal - I've seen some people crap on paper and get it published simply because they were a member or close with a member of the academy. But that is a subject better left for a post of its own.

Ah well. I don't want to sound whiny. I'm just sad that this conference hasn't made me feel pumped about science like they usually do. I hope they're not all going to have this effect from now on.