My "major award"

(Because I can't resist an "A Christmas Story" reference)

That award I was up for ("Outstanding research and scholarly activity")?

I won it. I'm kind of shocked even though my chair stopped me in the hall the other day and said, "I got this e-mail telling me to specifically encourage you to be there." I'm enough of a pessimist to have thought "yeah, they just want a good crowd and want all the nominees there." And I suffer from enough of what is sometimes termed "impostor syndrome" (which is totally a thing and is supposedly something that's super common among women in science or academia) that I figured I wouldn't win.

Also, I was up against another person in my department, and someone in the physical-sciences department who does research, and I am assuming people in Math and Safety and Computer Sciences (who I don't know as well) because they are all in our division (They do four of these awards: one in the sciences, one in arts/humanities, one for the ed school, one for the business school).

So I was kinda shocked when they called my name. (And yes, I got my picture taken, multiple times, with the other winners). I'm guessing part of it is that I've striven to involve students in research, and I do have a recent publication (and another one that I am co-author on that's in press). And I've kept doing research even though I don't have any more promotions coming up, and I teach a pretty full schedule. And I expect my ecology students to do research (And in fact, one of the people who presented today did an EXCELLENT job on her project, and I'm going to recommend to her that if she's still here come fall, that she go and present at the OK Academy of Science technical meeting in November.)

I have a nice framed certificate (which contains a lot of identifying information I'd rather not casually put out there, even though many of you know who I am and where I teach). And I can put it on my CV.

It does feel a bit like Allie Brosh's "Adulthood Trophy" (warning, some strong language).

I dunno. I called my parents to tell them (they knew I had been nominated) and my dad asked me what I was going to do to celebrate and I was like "Uhhhhh...." Because right now I'm extremely tired (bad allergy day) and really all I want to do is eat something for dinner and then go to bed.

Maybe I'll figure something out later.