No, YelloCello
"Dear Dr. Cello....
your application...
Unfortunately....
not to pursue your candidacy...
best of luck in your future endeavors.."
I'm philosophical at first. Well, then. This seals it. Having received nothing but rejection letters, I'm definitely going to be following Adam again. Okay. Okay. That's a positive thing, right?
Ten minutes later—the delayed reaction, the detonating bomb. Triple shock waves of panic, fury, and grief. I want to tear my skin off. I'm going to tear my skin off. Just seven weeks of crappy academic work remain. It's over.
I sometimes struggle with math. But let me see... Eight years of graduate school, plus one failed marriage, plus eight years of teaching (five of them full-time), plus four different university affiliations, plus ten years of financial hardship, plus two years of humiliating adjunct work as a "trailing" = ZERO.
Seriously — what am I going to do now?
12 Comments:
I think that whatever you do will be fabulous and ... well-written :)
I'm sure that when you take a break from being angry and upset and disappointed (all normal feelings, of course), you'll discover plenty of plus signs and beautiful, meaningful things you can be proud of at the end of those chronological additions.
Good luck, and don't forget that for of the people in your life, including your (semi)anonymous readers, you rock!
I wish I had an answer for you.
I think I'm just starting to adjust to the idea that I may never have a permanent position. Maybe denial and grief are exactly the right emotions for awhile. I must admit that not applying (again, that is, for the 4th time) at my current job is giving me some sense of control that is so lacking when immersed in the job market.
Doing other things is helping me immensely -- maybe it's distracting, but I suspect there's also healing involved.
best of luck.
I have a bulletin board in the basement with all sorts of job related papers attached to it. In the lower right corner I attached a mailbox labeled "Employer Correspondence." It is bursting at the seams with rejection letters accumulated over just the past year. Others I have known took to wallpapering with rejections.
How to apply? We know we have the skills for these positions, what right combination of words will lift ours higher than the rest of the qualified packets?
I never figured that out, and I wish I had, because I'm going back into the maelstrom that by all rights you should have ridden like Pecos Bill. They don't appreciate Cello the way they should. This is not any consolation, but the kind people here and elsewhere who recognize your value might be.
You'll have good days and bad days. You'll move on. You'll bear the scars -- proudly sometimes and other times trying to cover them up. You'll ponder the question of whether some other position would make you happier than adjunct teaching. You'll keep on keeping on.
And we'll keep reading, and wishing you well.
'Exactly what cristina said.
I'm really sorry to read this. This is probably no consolation whatsoever, but do remember that this is NO REFLECTION on your abilities at all, just the vagaries of an f-ed up market. Good luck, best wishes, let us (your readers) know if we can help.
Damn, this just sucks so much--I am so sorry. I've been in my current job for almost four years now, and the scars of repeated years on the job market are still almost as fresh now as when the wounds were first inflicted. I know it's almost impossible to believe this when you're being fucked over by the market, but really, really, really, you are a worthwhile person who has done valuable things in her life and will continue to contribute meaningfully to the world. And happiness will come again, I swear.
Yep, those rejection letters and emails have just been pouring in. It's that time of year when they decide that those of us who have been pretty sure we're out of the running for 2-3 months deserve an actual letter telling us so. Apparently we've gone through an appropriate period of ever-increasing dejection, and now they just want to thwonk us with the rejection letter.
Today I was driving around by myself and I thought I might make up a song about being a loser. "Loser, you're such a big/Loser" is as far as I got, but I might work on it some more. Writing songs often cheers me up; you might try it.
Oh. Sigh. I'm so sorry. This totally sucks. It really isn't about you, though. Take time to mourn what has happened, and then reasses things. And try to look beyond the path that you've been following (see if there are branches that you've not been looking for before). You're clearly intelligent and talented. You're just waiting for a good match to come along.
Good luck to you!
It really isn't you. It is really a lousy market. Hang in there, and remember that you are good at what you do. The best thing for me in some ways was working outside academe for a while, but that was at a point where it was a bit easier to come back. Keep plugging (there are still ads for jobs in my field coming out -- most of them are CC jobs, but they're still real, tenure-track jobs) -- something will turn up.
ditto to what everyone above has already said. I can certainly sympathize. My own one-year position happily has turned into something longer term, but I was on the market again this year, too, and would have my own pile of rejections building up if I didn't shred them as they came in.
As the others said, this isn't about you. You have an intelligence and kind energy that will direct you into a calmer space, whatever the path. My very best wishes for you.
Post a Comment
<< Home