It’s the most awful time of the year! In fact, it’s the most awful time of your entire degree! It’s grad job application season!

With every cover letter, behavioural response question and aptitude test comes the inevitable rejection letter. They are always thankful for your “time and interest” but “regret to inform” you that there have been an “overwhelming number of outstanding candidates” of which you are not one. Then they’ll “thank you again” and potentially “wish you the best for the future”. Tbh, I rarely get to the second “thanks” because I’ve already slammed my laptop shut.

Before crying/panicking/getting angry (or maybe afterwards if we’re being realistic) there are five failsafe activities to get your mind and hands busy long enough to forget about it, even if only momentarily.

#1 Take A Walk, Sans Phone 

“Scientists” claim that exercise is “good” for your health and “increases endorphins” even though exercise is awful. BUT there is something to be said for strutting down the street, wind behind you, without a care in the world.

If the walk itself isn’t enough to distract you, then turn to some simple mindfulness techniques — try to count five smells, sounds, sensations and sights. As you walk further, repeat the process over and over. Before you know it, you’re calm, distracted and burning calories.

#2 Eat Your Feelings

Of course it’s up to personal preference, but I am a firm believer there is nothing chocolate can’t fix. More specifically, warm, baked chocolate. But you don’t want to leave the house or put pants on or make dishes dirty. So how do you quench your chocolate thirst?

Chocolate Mud Cake is how. Take one tablespoon and one mug and the following ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons flour
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• a few drops of vanilla extract
• 4 tablespoons water

Mix all the dry ingredients. Then add the water, and microwave for a minute.

BOOM! Look at you being all productive.

#3 Donate Blood

So you’ve been rejected. Your spirits are low, you feel worthless and without hope for next year. At the minimum, you’ve still got your blood. So donate it!

Go onto the Australian Red Cross Blood Service’s website, check your eligibility, find your closest donation centre, and book an appointment. After you donate, you receive a text message when your blood has been used and it is 100 per cent guaranteed to be a better notification than a rejection email.

Even better, when you’ve finished donating there is a plethora of baked pastries, cookies, juice boxes, and crackers to gorge on to ensure you’re well fed and energised to go on with your day. That’s a win-win if I’ve ever seen one.

#4 Download A Danish Crime Drama

We’ve all done the guilty binge, the procrastination binge, and the break-up binge. But these are amateur hour compared to the distraction-from-the-terrible-emails-poisoning-our-inboxes binge. Enter: Danish Crime Dramas, free and accessible on SBS on Demand.

The beauty of foreign dramas is that you can’t passively watch them. Not even for a second. No bathroom breaks, Instagram scrolling, or email reading. If you miss one sentence of the English translation, you’re done for. So keep your eyes peeled and phone locked.

#5 Eat. Sleep. Reapply. Repeat.

I don’t believe that when one door closes, another one opens because it never actually feels like that. If anything, when one door closes it just makes your path to the end destination faster and more direct. So continue on, reapply and find that end destination. It’ll all be worth it.

(Lead image: Sex and the City/HBO)