A Down and An Up

So... I applied for this part-time job on campus at the beginning of the month and found out today (after a month-long process where the app pool was narrowed from 60 to 10 to 5 to 2) that I didn't get the job. The other woman got it because she's done the work before and wants to continue it for the next five years. I wasn't smart enough to come up with a job-related 5-year-plan that sounded smart. No, I said some fru-fru about... well, I won't even repeat it here because it's in the past and in retrospect it was completely and utterly ridiculous. I have an interesting reaction time to things. I read the email and was like "eh, no biggie" and then after about fifteen minutes I started to feel numb. Not a great feeling. Its kinda... slushy and vibrate-y with a side dish of oh-my-god-I-can't-work-three-jobs-and-do-school-full-time panic.

I did a few things to get back into the swing of things:

1. Applied for another on campus job (this one WITH benefits) who knows... in the words of Kermit the Frog himself: "I hope that something better comes along!"
   
2. Spent 15 very serious minutes looking through my notes on agents and publishers for my stories, and then pulled out the first chapter of one of my novels to work on it;
3. Considered self publication, comforted by the fact that I'm pretty sure I could sell at least a dozen copies with the prospect of 500 more;
   
4. Went to see Ice Age III: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (I give it an "A");
5. Grabbed a slice of pizza from the mall food court; and
   
6. Came home to find a SASE waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.
   

I could just tell that it was a rejection waiting for me in that thin envelope--and it was. However, it was my first rejection with a little scribbled note telling me that the editor of the Missouri Review read my story "with interest." Good sign? Good sign. Waiting on three more journals: Tin House, McSweeny's and The Paris Review.

Update (as of 2 minutes after I posted this initially): Tin House rejected me by email. No nice little note. Sheesh. I should rename this post "two downs and an up."

As I move on to possible plan B's I've decided one thing: I've got to seriously get crackin on submitting my work. No more fear.