Waiting for Santa (who probably doesn't exist)

When I was younger (before email) I used to get really excited about the mail arriving every day because I hoped something would be for me. I had a lot of friends from summer camp who would send post cards, packages, or letters and every day I rushed to the mailbox hoping for something. Things didn't come very often, but every once and awhile there was something.

I find myself waiting with that same sense of longing and hope every day. Surely, I think, one of these jobs I've applied to will email me, asking for more materials, a phone interview, or even... GASP, an in person interview. I have worked so hard, for so long. I went to one of the top programs in the country. My recommenders are superstars in the field who other grad students ask me about working with as if I spent my days with Angelina Jolie. I am good at what I do. Surely one of these schools will see this and want me.

And yet... everyone has assured me this is not the case. You send the information out, the applications you carefully wrought, the recommendation letters and transcripts that cost you money to acquire. You send this out and then hear nothing. Ever again. And you have to expect to hear nothing, ever again, from almost everybody.

And now there is the extra wrinkle of hiring freezes. So some of these jobs may not even exist. Will they tell us they don't exist? Probably not. That is the crazy way my world works. There are so many of us applying that they don't need to treat us well.

Still. Every time I refresh my inbox I hope for that email. The email that says, "Please, tell us more about you. We like what you wrote. We are interested in you." It doesn't need to say, "We want you." It just has to tell me I'm on the right track. That I am desirable. That 30 years of work hasn't been for nothing. That I don't have a yawning abyss ahead of me with no idea what to do with my life.

So I sit here and continue to refresh my inbox.

Update on the weird world of job hunting:

Things I've learned since I started this job hunt. The average length of time it takes people in MLA fields to get a job is three years. I did not know that.

There is a whole wiki for each field where people update each other with information on schools that the schools will never tell you. Like, they've contacted the people they want to talk to on the phone and you are not one of them. So when you send a thick packet of information to a school and they never even bother to tell you it got there? You can find out that that happened to many people and that they've already flown people in for on campus interviews, and that you wasted your time.

As it turns out, you may secretly want a job you thought you didn't. You can discover this when you find out other people have gotten phone interviews and suddenly you feel like crap.

If you're me, you start obsessing over this shit. Because besides obsessing, you have a closet to clean. And it is possible to clean and obsess. Today I sewed Smudge a pair of Christmas overalls to wear tomorrow when he goes to the local news station taping of kids meeting Santa and hearing Santa read them a story. He'll be on our NBC affiliate on Christmas eve in the overalls his Mama made him to keep from going insane. They came out pretty cute, though like everything I make, if I made them again they would be better. I'm thinking about making my nephew a pair for Christmas.

We have a plan now. We decided today that if I don't get a job we will move back to our home city for a while. While we do not love our home city, at all, by any stretch, we have few friends left here. It will be nice to be around our family, and nice for Smudge to have the opportunity to live in the same place as his grandparents and uncle for awhile. Rent is cheap there, and my m-i-l can find us a good rental house. I know people I can contact about adjuncting and I can try to get involved in the local theatre scene to get more credits.

Having a plan makes me feel better. Of course, so does having this wine.