I spoke with my adviser today and it seems that the general consensus is that I will get it next year. She has done more talks than me and that's the only reason. And then when I spoke with one of my lab mates he said that, bc she doesn't do as much as me, our adviser prob wrote her an AWESOME letter just so that his students get some kind of award y'know?

I'm calm now. I was just upset that it seems like politics rule the world and, if I would have to push students through that I didn't think have it...I couldn't be in academia. Our dept has several examples of this, not just her. And it's bc we are always under threat of being dissolved into another dept bc we don't have very many students. So people who, in a bigger dept, would have been kicked out or not gotten an award....will get one here bc they have to to keep the dept alive. One on hand I get it but I can't decide if the end justifies the means on this one. Someone getting the same degree as me while doing 1/10 of the work I did kind of negates my degree (IMO). I would rather work hard to be competitive in a different dept than work hard to not get what I deserve.