In Search of Supervision
The email from the professor arrived, a missile carrying news I’d braced myself for, yet still felt the sting of. She wouldn't be able to supervise me after all. A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me, a whisper of ‘I knew it’ mingling with the sharper pang of disappointment. Foolishly, perhaps, I’d held onto their encouraging words from October, a fragile anchor in a sea of uncertainty. It seems optimism was a dangerous current.
And then, a fragmented memory surfaced, unbidden: the partner’s almost imperceptible reaction to their name. A fleeting sneer? A stifled gasp? Something shifted in the air, a momentary withdrawal, as if a shadow had briefly passed over. It was a subtle cue, easily missed, but now, in retrospect, it resonated with a disquieting hum. Perhaps there was a dimension to the professor, a complexity hinted at in that fleeting expression, a side that suggested…difficulty? Could this rejection, then, be some strange form of providence, a detour onto a more navigable path? It’s a thought I could cling to amidst the swirling anxieties.
Immediately, a practical impulse took over. I found myself already navigating university websites, scrolling through faculty profiles. Seven days. That was the stark timeframe allotted to amend my supporting documents. And didn’t I include their name into the very fabric of my research proposal, my personal statement? The knot of anxiety tightens. Seven days to unravel and re-stitch everything. The ambiguity of the situation gnawed at me. It was a strange dance of expectation and reality. Because, in truth, a supervisor wasn’t a mandatory prerequisite at this stage. It was ‘encouraged’, yes, a gentle nudge rather than a firm directive. Encouraged, but not compulsory.
So where to now? Was there still a sliver of hope, a chance to salvage this application despite this unexpected setback? The weight of my niche research pressed down. It was the specificity, wasn't it, the very thing I believed in, that now feels like a scathing constraint. Finding a university receptive to such a particular focus felt like an uphill battle. They were right, weren’t they? It all hinged on the supervisor, that singular individual willing to open the door, to see the potential where others might see only the obscure.
Two more emails dispatched. One response arrived with surprising swiftness, a door closing as quickly as it had creaked open. Semi-retirement, the email explained. No wonder the listed research trailed off in 1999. The dates were very telling. Another became my focal point, the last name on my hastily compiled list. Hope, fragile yet persistent, rested on their reply. Because after this, I wasn’t sure where else to turn, who else might grasp the nuances of my research, who else might offer that crucial ‘yes, I’m interested’. And that, I realised, was the most unsettling prospect of all.