FMyLife

From my experience, one should always be most aware of impending bad news when things seem to be going smoothest. It's one of those laws of inaccurate perception-- Murphy's law, or the first corollary to Sod's law, or the unspeakable law (techincally, I think in this case it's a combination of the latter two).

See, I was doing just fine and dandy at work on the ranch, making enough money to support myself with just a tiny bit extra to sock away every month, enjoying my new horse-related hobbies, and having enough free time after work to pursue graduate adviser connections, trip planning, and literature review for fellowship applications and research proposals. And then, WHAM!, out of nowhere, "We're going to be making some changes around the barn, and we're going to need to let you go."

What?

Seriously?

Suddenly, inexplicably, my steady, dependable job on the ranch is gone, leaving me with just over four weeks to try and dig up a full-time employment opportunity elsewhere. Admittedly, this terrifies me, as I've been trying (without success) to get an ecology or environmental education-related field job since last November, and I know a couple other people who've been without work for nine months or more now, applying for tens of jobs a week in everything from stocking to retail to answering phones.

And, to add insult to injury, one of my friends at the barn overheard Debbie talking on the phone about me to Marlene, saying something along the lines of, "I don't understand why she just doesn't go to a local school, since it's obvious she's not good enough to get in anywhere else." This really shouldn't bother me much, and to be honest it's more irksome than anything, and I find myself laughing about it (albeit bitterly). It's just frustrating to realize how little the people around me understand about the difficulties of getting into graduate school, the time-intensive application process, and how "didn't get in" is far from synonymous with "can't. "

I was really upset yesterday when I got the news, and I'm still not very happy about it. But I'm trying to view this more as an opportunity to get away from narrow-minded individuals with more money than sense, as opposed to the loss of an entertaining, often fun job with the added benefit of working outside and with animals.

Still... what am I going to do now?