A kick in the guts

Wake up this morning to the sound of loud trucks dropping gravel on the street - its only 8am! The gas company are installing gas pipes outside my house - looks like we'll be getting gas hot water soon! Yvette will never be able to use up all of the hot water on me again!! My groin still hurts, although less than yesterday. I'm told to rest for 72 hours after the surgery, so I guess i'll be staying at home again today.

Check my email, and receive a kick in the guts. A big kick in the guts. A massive kick in the guts. I'd sent out a scientific manuscript to be reviewed by one of the top journals in the field, and this was their response:

"In this case, although we are in no way questioning the validity of your work or its interest to others in the field, I am afraid we are not persuaded that these results represent a sufficient conceptual advance over earlier work to justify publication in our Journal rather than a more specialized journal."

One word. Devastated. The culmination of more than two years of hard work, sweat and tears, and I'm basically told that it's not good enough. I want to hit something. Hard.

Some minutes later, and thankful that I haven't over-exerted myself and popped the stitch, I decide that i should write an email to the editor. Something along the lines of: "Frack it - i've just found out I need major heart surgery - so you should bloody well publish my manuscript!!"

Cooler heads prevail, and I resolve to write a nice polite email to ask the editor to reconsider their decision. I'm still trying to figure out how to get my heart surgery in there somehow - might as well play the sympathy card as much as I can!