Post-doc Diaries #11: I didn't get the job.

The story's in the title. I haven't written for the last couple of weeks as the run up to the interview took all my time and attention and since then I've been in waiting mode. Like an airplane circling waiting for permission to land, it's been difficult to do anything at all. I have written up material for the catalogue essay and picked at Amnar here and there, but haven't had the nerve to write anything lengthy for public consumption.

After the aftermath conversation with T, who hasn't left for his Welsh beer train adventure this weekend yet, I sent out a couple of follow-up emails to people who haven't replied to previous communications, and to the two academics who'd agreed to consider acting as mentors for a fellowship application toward the end of the year.

As I write this, I'm struggling to come up with something to say for a full entry worthy of a newsletter. It's about a year since I applied for the lectureship, but it's a full eighteen months of applications, occasional interviews, and then rejections. Teaching, research, admin, support staff roles, all with the same kind of outcome. And I'm one of the lucky ones, with a partner and parents to provide support, shelter and food security.

I suppose I'm taking Galen's advice here, at least somewhat. In Avoiding Distress, only recently rediscovered, he explains to an anonymous friend in exhaustive detail how he managed his emotions after losing so many books in the Palatine fire of 192CE. Thinking of it in terms of "It could be worse" feels almost Stoic, but I understand from the introduction he had issues with them and didn't entirely agree with their philosophy.

I've even signed up to a local council programme of individual employment support, and now have an Access to Work grant that subsidises taxis to and from the work that I do have in place for the next academic year. Otherwise, I'm very relieved that, despite the heatwave, I'm spending this weekend at a running event in the local area and will be out all day, doing something away from a screen and interacting with other people. As hard as that is for me from an autistic perspective, it does at least mean I won't be sitting in a hot house stewing.

Otherwise, it's back to writing.