Ominous Start

I couldn't get to sleep very easily last night. I couldn't forgive myself for what happened. Thankfully, I do feel better now, so I'm glad I didn't get up to post on the blog as I felt like doing. I had even felt better earlier, when I originally found out the bad news yesterday afternoon.

Last year, after I applied to one lone job, I aptly described myself as an "accidental applicant." Well, who knew that a year later I'd be even worse off! First, I had (and I'm still having) a hard time to finally decide to go ahead and apply for the first job. The late decision meant a very short notice request or my committee member to write recommendation letters. The postmark deadline was yesterday. My former advisor was traveling and thought he wouldn't make it, but I practically begged him to try and mail a letter and he did. I got his email in the afternoon and I gave a sigh of relief.

I forgot one small detail though, checking with the third reference, the committee member who was so enthusiastic with my work last October that she seemed to be eager to write letters recommending me. My initial mistake was sending two emails in sequence. The first with the request for the said letter (including the job posting and an attached CV), the second, shortly after, with the deadline for the next applications -- since I wanted to get ahead with those and not give them such a short notice. She responded to the second, and I thought she'd meant that OK, she'd write the letter. I didn't find out until it was almost evening yesterday, and too late to mail a letter, that she in fact hadn't mailed the letter. The university in question won't even look at my application if all materials aren't postmarked by Nov. 6. How disappointing! We exchanged 13 emails (about other topics too) last night, and I took it in stride, I told her it was OK, and she agreed with me that it was a very long shot anyway...

But all that doesn't take away from the pain that I won't even have tried, and it's only partly my fault. It doesn't take away my shame because my former advisor had to go through so much trouble to mail a letter. I feel very discouraged to send the next handful of applications. This is not the only reason, though. I won't have time to get an "official" dossier together through the university's career center. I didn't even know about this until last week when my advisor told me I shouldn't be asking them for letters, but should put together a dossier. I haven't been on campus for the past two years and I haven't attended any workshops on the job search, etc, I'm blaming that for my situation. My only references are what I can find online, particularly in the Chronicle Careers site. I feel I'm even worse off than the "accidental applicant" I was last year, I'm actually a clueless and proably "undeserving" one. All this makes me hate academia with a vengeance. If I'm ill prepared to apply, what does that say to my preparedness to even be considered for a position?

Oh, who cares? I don't think I do, really. When it gets to a point like this I start to see all of this like a game, it's just a very artificial and set up game, only those who know the rules can have any part on it. I think of all the things Articulate Dad has written about his fruitless searches. I think of the negative thoughts I have at each academic conference (I need to post about that sometime), and I just feel very sad and even disgusted. I do not fit in, that's clear enough. I may be talented, but I'm not really a player, I haven't been properly trained, I did take the "dissertation seminar" from my dept, which does prepare us for the market in a way, twice (second time I just audited), but that wasn't enough, and not being there doesn't help me much. I mean, if I could meet with my committee members, it would be much easier.

Well, in retrospect, I felt very flattered that the lone application I sent last year yielded an email saying that they might do a phone interview (it never happened because I went to Brazil in December-January and they found a match at the MLA), so I was kind of confident in my ability to write good letters and stuff. Two of the postings do ask for dossiers, though, and it will be so time consuming to put something together. I don't know what I'll do at this point. I'll try, I guess, but my heart is not really on it. Particularly because of one key point: even if I had an offer, my husband's offers will probably come only a few weeks later, and I wouldn't even be able to make a decision. I want to check whether any of those "first person" essays in the Chronicle about dual career couples addressed this issue -- the one experienced by couples from different fields. Well, that said, I just wanted to get all that off my chest. It probably won't stay at the top for long. I'm going to write a parenting post, since those are more fun and uplifting anyway! :)