I got a very nice rejection email today that really made me feel better about my scholarly skills. 

“Huh?” I hear you saying?  Let me explain.

Through my original adviser I got pulled into his pseudo-activist group.  They periodically release policy briefs, all of which go through blind peer review within the group before release.  Now, the group is ideologically homogeneous, so it isn’t quite as rigorous as it might otherwise be, but nonetheless these documents are peer reviewed.  They allow one grad student reviewer per brief.

This morning a new call for reviewers showed up on something that is REALLY interesting to me.  As soon as I saw it I volunteered.  I was rejected because there was already a graduate student reviewer for this brief.  However the coordinator made my day with the following:  “It’s a
bit silly because (between you and me) your reviews are stronger than
most of the prof. reviewers.”

*blush* Yay!  Stupid as it sounds, this made me feel really good.  I just might get the hang of this scholar-thing after all…