Nay/ "Neguei"

(only my BIL/SIL and maybe some Brazilian readers will understand the second part of the title, it's a slangy expression that means "negative" or "[I've been] denied something" or "something went wrong")

In fact, I would be shocked (if thrilled) if it were a "yay" instead of a nay, but it was only predictable that I wouldn't get in. The email I received states that there were over 300 applications for the postdoctoral fellowship I applied to. It's only natural I wasn't one of the 5 "lucky" ones. Whatever. Hopefully this doesn't reflect on the quality and value of the work of 295 of us. It only means that graduate schools HAVE GOT TO STOP ACCEPTING PHD CANDIDATES ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or, obviously, misguided souls like myself have to stop applying or, get the degree and go back to our home countries already (it is true that I would have an academic job there, although I hearsay that most higher education institutions that can are firing all their PhDs and hiring people with Master's degrees instead -- in Brazil the salary for the various levels of teaching jobs are regulated by a national teacher's union, so people with doctorates have to earn more, so they become undesirable).

I think that slowly but surely I am giving up any and all sliver of hope of ever becoming an academic. I will always be in the margins, if anywhere near the ever more disgusting "Ivory tower." I actually feel like really giving up for good this time and never even thinking about my dissertation and submitting any other papers for publication or presentation... Not going to the conference at Harvard in May (I will, though, since I was the one who had the idea to invite my friend to co-chair a panel). What a WASTE of ten years of my life, in a sense... good thing at least I had a splendid excuse to just stay home with my boys and have my parents come and help us for 24 months...

What a nice Xmas present, no? I'm glad last year we really had a live-saving gift, right on our anniversary (that we celebrated last week, but it's the subject for another post! :-).

OK, enough of ranting.

On other news, my grandma's funeral will be this afternoon at 5 pm. I hope to talk to my parents on the phone later today. My uncle (the one who lives in D.C.) just called me. It was nice talking to him.

I have to go back to cleaning the house. K just picked up his parents at the airport and is coming home. I have to prepare lunch too. Hopefully I'll have more time to blog later. There is another post about some "blunders" that was ready to be published when I heard about Grandma's passing. She was lucid to the very end and only her daughter (the one who's lived with her since 1979) was with her, my uncle told me.