This morning I woke up "knowing" that I would receive a paper rejection today. All day long, a stone sat heavy in my belly, made up of equal parts of 1) hopelessness, 2) weak hope, and 3) dread. Typically, my paper rejections involve a couple of days of crying, tearing hair from my head, and threatening to quit the PhD. To compound the emotional difficulty of rejections, my advisor has told me I cannot do my prelim until I have more publications, so another rejection would only prolong my time-to-degree.
All day long, little good things kept happening. The long-awaited book I requested from the library arrived. I didn't screw up too badly in Japanese class. I didn't crash my bike into a stupid undergrad. I ran into a friend that decided to stick with the PhD just a little longer. I had a quick coffee break with a friend. I watched a well-organized practice defense. And during all these good little things, the stone remained in my belly. I figured such good things were just a portent for the bad thing to come.
I waited at school this evening for the bad news I expected via e-mail. I didn't feel like putting both my boyfriend and my father (who is visiting for two months) through the torrent of tears that would come. I could rely on Friday night's empty building to give me the opportunity to cry privately in a bathroom stall.
Carrying that stone all day long in my belly, only to find out 10 minutes ago that the paper was accepted.
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14 comments:
Yay! Congrats. Hope the good luck streak continues. Have a great week-end!
Congratulations! (and de-lurking, perhaps)
congrats!
Yay! Congratulations. I'm glad you had a good day :)
Thank you everyone for the good wishes. It's nice to see so many "faces." I feel like I have a small army of supporters, and that's a great feeling.
congrats.
Congratulations! It is such a wonderful feeling when a paper is accepted. I hope you're able to have a truly wonderful weekend.
yay! :) hug i'm so happy for you!
Heartiest Congratulations !
Paper acceptances are the best. Way to go!!
Congrats!
I am pissed to whan I'm turned down, but my advisor never told me to publish more as in order to be allowed to graduate. In fact, there are people who graduate without any publications.
Great news on the publication. Congrats! I had a nagging feeling when I started reading the post that it would get accepted by the end of the post. And viola! it was accepted.
Sadly I know the feeling you describe so well. I start going into a depressive fit a week before the notification date.
congrats! And you probably should have known, all the other good signs you were getting all day. The stars were in alignment.
But, I gotta ask- Notification date??? What the hell is that? In my field, it's anybody's guess when you'll get your paper reviews back, regardless of the 'average response time' the journals all give you. It's usually when you least expect it.
Having said that, in my experience, you can sometimes tell by the day of the week they get back to you. Rejections are usually sent on Fridays; acceptances on Mondays.
I've gotten enough rejections to know.
I've had my share of rejections too - I expect them, though never on a specific day (and I'm grateful for small favors now). But I wanted to offer my congratulations! It's a very big deal to get something published and a delightful feeling to not shop for another journal. Yay for you!
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