Same song, next verse. A little bit louder and a little bit worse.

I've been in academia for more than 20 years now and have never had a sabbatical. I just found out today that I've been turned down, yet again.

I have so very many feelings about this and I am honestly not sure what the morality of it is.

I know I am super salty about out it - so much so that I give you this minimal effort image to illustrate my trying to have enough fingers on which to count this. 

ON THE ONE HAND I am so fortunate to work in a profession that has access to things like sabbaticals. Very few people in the world have this kind of ability. I should seriously stop whining and be grateful for how good I have it. 

ON THE OTHER HAND I am so fracking tired. So. Tired. What good does access to sabbaticals do if I can't get one. For about two years now, I have been literally averaging six hours of sleep a night so that I can do more research. This is not sustainable. It is not. 

ON THE OTHER HAND Maybe I deserve it. I wrote a great proposal last year to get some training to allow me to actually have the knowledge to teach my classes in a field that is itself emerging and that didn't exist when I was trained. Denied. This year, I wrote a more research-focused proposal, but honestly, I tried to guess what type of proposal was more likely to get funded instead of what I want to do. Still denied. 

ON THE OTHER HAND The policies and timing for sabbaticals is fracking ridiculous. Like you have to propose something you are going to do 18 months from now. I don't work in a field where you can plan that far in advance. You can't. So maybe my proposals stink because they are too vague. I don't know if this is a tractable problem. 

ON THE OTHER HAND The silverbacks in the department get sabbaticals. My chair is getting his third since I came to NewU next year. He didn't produce anything from his first, did from his second. The third is an automatic kind of one that I will never get, as I can't go up for full professor. 

What I DO know is that despite a few expressions of "I'm shocked!" from some of the more powerful faculty in the department, no one will do anything about it. And this is not sustainable. And I don't know what I should do, beside feel upset and guilty about feeling upset.