update

Goodish meeting with supervisor this morning.  He said (again) that he was very sorry the news had come as such a shock to me -- we talked some about all our previous communication and agreed that he thought he'd been giving signals but I, apparently, had missed them.  But the reason for that -- and this does make sense, it's not just post hoc rationalization -- is that the MPhil result and the DPhil recommendation are two different things, and going 'danger, danger' would have been inappropriate for what was really a pretty good MPhil, which was after all the main point.  Results breakdown:

Paper A (general theory):  72
Syntax:  70
Thesis:  67
Phonology:  66
Morphology:  65

That's an average of 68, a good out-of-my-way 2:1 (read: B+/A-), overall, which is -- as he kept. on. emphasizing -- absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, but, at the same time, doesn't indicate that further independent research is necessarily a good plan.  And the more we talked about it, combined with having talked to my mother and continued thinking about it last night, the more I saw that it's true, you know, independent research is not so much my main strength.  Guided and/or supervised research, no problem, and I can write very well, but I've never yet had a topic to research that I felt passionate about researching for itself.  Because it's been assigned:  sure.  Because research is nifty:  also sure.  (Meta, but sure.)  But because I care so much about that topic that I can't do anything else:  NSM.

In short:  my MPhil is good, and there will be no hesitation from anyone in the department to provide references (for jobs or further study) on the strength of it -- and such references will never make any mention of anything along lines like 'we didn't want her for the DPhil'.  Chiefly because it's not true that they didn't want me; more that they saw it was unlikely to be the best fit.

I'm exhausted, but feeling a little better.

loves company

I hear from the crazy woman who was stalking me last November (of whom I saw neither hide nor hair for months and months, and who now seems to have calmed down quite a lot [eta: and has formally -- or, as formally as one can over e-mail -- apologized for that whole episode, huzzah]) that her housemate had the same result as I had, i.e. passed but advised not to stay on.

I admit I suspected this, because his meeting with the committee was right before mine and he was in there forever, which, it doesn't take more than about fifteen seconds to say 'congratulations, you've achieved distinction', but it takes rather longer to have a conversation about whether there's any hope of redemption.  So, as I say, I had my suspicions, and now it turns out I was right.

But let me tell you, I hate -- and I mean, am now in floods of tears over -- the fact that I'm glad I wasn't the only one.

addendum

Of course, day 5 of The Week With The Sugar Pills In It was, hormonally speaking, also not the most convenient time for all this to happen.  Do they say if you take the Pill straight through and never have a week off you also don't get the mood swings?  Because, I mean, for real, yesterday I was stunned and then upset and then fine; this morning I was kind of brave when I went to see my supervisor, and then I was fine, but for the past hour and a half or so I'm just, like, I cry for about two out of every five minutes.  Then I pull myself together and then I burst into tears again.  It's giving me a sinus headache that is frankly pissing me off.

forward

So okay.  DCfolk.  Here I come.  I'll be in Cleveland for a bit at first, of course; my mother made a special point of reminding me that she'd been looking forward to having me at home for a while and thus she hoped I wouldn't go haring off the minute I landed.  However -- I will need a job and also a place to live.  With this in mind, please do me the great favor of letting me know if you know anyone who's hiring for a job you think I'd like.  (Everyone on my flist who's in the DC area knows me well enough to know what that sort of job is, I think.)  Also, if you happen to hear of an apartment you think I could stand living in.  I've got craigslist on the speed-dial, but it never hurts to have more people paying attention.