SSHRC Aporia
By Jonathan Garfinkel
I am having the worst dreams lately where I'm failing at everything: riding my bicycle, late for class, humiliated by friends, yelled at by bus drivers and falafel sellers. So when my alarm does go off I feel like I haven't slept. I lie in bed thinking, I don't want to get up to the reality of it, but the truth is, sleeping isn't any better.
When I do get up, I try to avoid my computer for as long as possible. I give myself tasks in order to do so. I clean things three or four times more than I need to. I take three showers, drink several cups of coffee and eat 2 breakfasts. But there's no escaping it: the dreaded SSHRC aporia has me in its clutches.
There is something about a SSHRC grant that is, for me at least, soul-zapping. I say this, not without reluctance, as I understand the privilege of applying for such an enormous whack of money. Yet I will confess, in my second year of a PhD, there is nothing that gives me more anxiety than this labyrinthine grant. I go to sleep dreading it, I wake dreading it, I scan my transcripts dreading it, I take my fourth shower of the day dreading it, I get changed dreading it, I rewrite my proposal dreading it, and I take an imaginary cigarette break dreading it (I say imaginary because my lungs can't handle cigarettes; trust me, if I could smoke I would).
What is it about the SSHRC grant that is so soul-destroying? Why does it generate so much anxiety of a particular kind? Is it the list of instructions that require a Masters Degree to comprehend? Is it the 1990s, Matrix-like portal, totally out of date, completely incongruous and absolutely surreal? Project descriptions I can handle, and yet, there is something about a SSHRC project description that is unlike anything else. It's a grant that has no face, it seems, or any clear direction, even though there are plenty of instructions, where it feels like so much can go wrong.
Then again, maybe I'm the problem. Maybe SSHRC is a mirror, and it's telling me that I lack direction and focus. Or maybe I'm too sensitive. As I stand outside my apartment in the north end of our illustrious city, inhaling an imaginary cigarette, I say to myself, "Garfinkel, you need to not let this SSHRC get to you. It's ruining your life." I try to conjure images of great Edmonton heroes, like Wayne Gretzky. How would Gretzky write such a grant? How would he scan his PDFs? And what on earth would he write on his CV? I inhale through my fingers, flick my imaginary cigarette at yet another grey, rainy sky, and suddenly understand: to write a successful SSHRC grant, don't think like Gretzky. Think like Semenko.
Dave Semenko was a tough dude, a man who lived in the corners and ran with his fists. He did whatever it took to keep the star Gretzky alive. Convinced by this sound metaphor and sort of Albertan hero, I light up another imaginary cigarette and think, I need to conjure my inner Dave Semenko. I need to be tough, resilient, to not take any of this personally.
The problem is I take it all personally. And what's not personal about 35 K in the life of a student? I say this as a supposedly mature student, as someone who has spent much of his supposedly adult life as a writer, who knows the value of a dollar, or rather, how far a dollar can go. 35 thousand. That's a lot of imaginary cigarettes. It's also a lot of espressos. I like to measure my income in espressos.
When I return to my computer (having realized I've run out of coffee, not able to afford the good stuff), smoking yet another imaginary cigarette, I run into a real SSHRC related problem: my inner Dave Semenko wants to throw my computer against the wall. Throwing my computer against the wall, given my current income, would be a bad idea, though I do calculate that one year of SSHRC funding would be the equivalent of approximately 18 computers. So I quieten my inner Semenko and start to sing to my application, trying to give it the soul I so desperately want.
When this fails, I decide to do something wholly unoriginal: I cook myself an egg, toast some toast, boil tea, and put on very calming music. Something monk-like and slow. Then I get back to writing, and rewriting, until I think I have something half-decent. Sometimes an idea will strike me, and I'll make a note to come back to in the weeks and months to come. In the meantime, I will walk, work, swim, and sleep, and hope for quieter dreams.
