Boom!

On the weekend I got a phone call from the dissertation director informing me that my committee members would not be providing me with recommendation letters for job applications.

Needless to say, it feels like my world has just imploded. I realize my world is more than just a job, or more than just a dissertation, but if I blogged a couple of weeks ago about having the wind knocked out of me by the work load, then this week it would be more appropriate to suggest the proverbial broadside-by-semi-truck.

My first reaction was to question the point of it all. It felt like my whole project, my whole degree was in question. It still feels that way.

I also felt humiliated that I had thought, and told people, that I was going on the market only to have the people who hold my fate in their hands pull their support. I still feel like a fool for having gotten excited about the prospect and for spending so much time over the last month preparing the things I needed, only to find that the thing I need the most - recommendation letters - I would not be getting.

Just to clarify. I had spoken to each of my committee members who had indicated they would be happy to write letters. Two of those committee members even discussed my list of postings within the past two weeks and helped me revise them. If that doesn't send the message that I should be expecting their support, I must be crazy... or dense... or both. And they have admitted that they "regret" that they told me yes and now are telling me no. Regret? That's not the word I would use for it.

I also feel despair. I mean, what the hell is the point of all this if my committee think I can't do it? Or worse, when I have a committee that jerks me around like this? I feel foolish for trusting their word, for thinking I was ready, for spending all this time and energy this month (and the months leading up to it) preparing, planning, drafting documents, all to have it pulled. Well, either foolish, or made a fool of. But being made to play the fool doesn't feel any better than having been a fool myself.

They tell that this doesn't mean the dissertation is the problem. But it is. Or if it isn't, I am. Either way, I'm pretty invested in both of them - the dissertation, and myself. Either way, it feels like a slap. Either way, it feels like I've been judged as lacking. That I've been told I'm not capable of this. That hurts in ways that I'm having real difficulty moving past. It's shaken my self-perception in very fundamental ways.

But mostly today I'm angry. I'm angry that I was told one thing, then another. I'm angry that I haven't gotten the support I need to be ready for this thing. I'm angry that the way I've had to work because of my committee's preferences in dealing with my long-distance work has delayed me, leading to this decision. I'm angry that I've gotten more email communication about this denial of help in the last three days than I have gotten email support of my work over the last three months.

I'm angry that I wasted the month of October and much of September doing work that is now utterly useless. The job letter will need to be re-drafted next year, and the hours and hours of researching schools is all a waste since the schools next year will all be different.

I'm angry that I spent hundreds of dollars on postage and non-refundable airline tickets to the conference where interviews would take place. I'm angry that I pushed the four other members of my family to book off specific dates for our Christmas celebration just so I could go to this conference that I now have no reason to attend. I'm angry that this messed with my family's plans, not just mine.


I feel betrayed. I feel like I can't trust any of these people anymore. If they're willing to change their mind at the last moment about something so critical (at least to me), what else are they willing to do? I understand that it's their prerogative to put their names to a recommendation letter or not, but I'm having problems with the way it unfolded. If they'd said this in July when I first asked, it would've been disappointing, but not nearly as earth-shattering as it feels right now.

I can't work. I've tried. I need to recover this lost time (I can't recover the lost money after all) but I can't write. I start crying or cursing when I try. The only thing that keeps me from obsessing over this setback is watching movies. I can't even read, which is my favorite mode of escape. Every time I read, I can't help but think that I'm a failure at even this, at the literature that I love. What good am I if I can't even do this thing that I love???

I know I'll get through this - I'm too damn stubborn to give up... even when it might actually be prudent to do so.... But right now, I'm just not able to move on.