Six more weeks.

In typical procrastination fashion, I am posting when I should be doing something else. In this case, writing a take-home essay I've had about 2 weeks to complete.

I am still waiting on five more schools to get back to me, so at the advice of my thesis advisor, I sent the directors of the writing programs emails asking for updates on my applications. They were very short, polite emails, stating that although I got a good offer somewhere else, I want to hear from them before I accept/decline. Hopefully I'll get responses within the next week or two; if not, I still plan on making my final decision by April 8 (a week before the April 15 deadline).

I've been talking to my top school choice, and I am very excited about the opportunities presented to me. I've already been briefed on my choices for my assistantship, and everyone I have talked to has been really friendly. :)

I still have a lot of work that I need to do for (undergraduate) school, and there are two big submissions due at the end of this week that I haven't really started on. Coupling that with job fairs and award interviews and getting headshots taken and all of this... I'm getting rather stressed out. There is so much to do, and I just don't have enough time for it all. :/ Hopefully my headshots turn out nice (I have a lot of faith in my super awesome photographer, Toivo) and my interview goes well and I finish everything I want to do this week.

I've paid for almost everything for graduation (just waiting to get my honors medallion, which I won't get until the end of next month), and I'm excited because my parents are both chipping in to get me a class ring. :) My mom and her fiancee were also nice enough to get me an awesome outfit for my graduation. I have two ceremonies on two separate days, but I'm wearing the same outfit to both of them. I like it that much. (And it was crazy expensive, even on sale.)

Battling seniouritus is such a pain; but I am still trying to get everything done and keep my grades up high. I know all of my acceptances are conditional, and I don't want them revoked because I got lazy in the last six weeks. So far so good, though. :]

Spring Break

So my last undergraduate spring break was not nearly as awesome or productive as I would have liked. I wanted to get at least 6 more pages of my thesis done (to total 10) and I got like 2 pages done. Sorta. And by that, I mean I've been working on it mostly just all day today. I am rather pleased at how it is turning out. it has taken forever but I think I'm finally getting back into the hang of drawing on a regular basis. the only issue is that coloring things in, too, it making the process a million times longer. :/ When I think I've got a good scene to show what I'm doing, I'll be sure to post it here so you all can sneak peek. :)

Ama and I have been keeping dream journals as a part of an extra-credit assignment for a class we are both a part of. The results, on my part, have been... interesting, to say the least. At worst, the dreams are just strange. At best, they're awesome story ideas. I woke up one particular morning and I thought--finally. This is it. This is what I'm waiting for. I've been struggling with how to balance a character-driven story in a science fictional plot... and my subconscious gave it to me in the form of a post-apocalyptic dream. :) I look forward to pursuing it more once I graduate and have more free time.

Speaking of writing more, I didn't really get to work on any of my upcoming submissions, and I was once again rejected by the undergraduate literary magazine run by my university. Ugh. And I still haven't gotten any new acceptances, in terms of MFA programs. I decided not to go to Denver this year, and got the good news that I can defer my enrollment to next year. (Yay!) And as for more good news, I was just notified that I will get to present two works (one being literary criticism on Shakespeare, the other being magical realism flash fiction) for an Undergraduate Symposium held this Friday by my chapter of Sigma Tau Delta. :) I wish I had a little more time to prepare (I need to figure out how to correctly pronounce some stuff in the lit crit paper) but I'm still rather excited. :)

As one more down side, my spring break is over, and I haven't started any of my homework for this upcoming week. I am also missing a book that I need for a paper. :/ Hopefully I find it soon; the paper is due next week. Getting back into the swing of the semester isn't going to be easy (I'm definitely suffering from senioritus) but the semester is already half up. :] There's less than 2 months between me and my degree, and then onto bigger and better things. :D

Submit! Submit! Submit!

That exactly what I haven't been doing lately. I've been so caught up in working on graduate school applications and my thesis and schoolwork for my last semester of college, that I haven't been working on any other creative writing, and therefore haven't been submitting any new work! I need to submiiiiiit. (And so do you!)

I just submitted an old piece of flash fiction to the annual Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest (due tomorrow), and I am totally planning on submitting to the New York Times Modern Love Essay Contest (due at the end of next month). There are also two (three?) awards from the university I want to submit to due this Friday... so that's an extra essay, and a story or two... and then I have a project due this week, and I have to finish three novels (that I am waaaay behind on) and drawing my thesis takes like a million years for just a few frames and asdkfjsldkfskjflsd. Have I mentioned that I am also suffering from senioritus? :( I can't lose steam now! Almost done, almost done...

[sorry about the rambling. speaking of rambling, apparently that's a valid modern/contemporary technique... which embitters me because I would have loved to read my stream-of-consciousness journal posts from middle school (back when i was an original angsty emo/goth kid... ha) but I had to delete them so they're all gone... :( owell.]

I still haven't heard from any more graduate schools or submissions, but I did get a phone call on Friday from someone who found my resume on the university's Career Connections website (I totally forgot I uploaded my resume there) and wanted to interview me for a position as an intern editing and publishing biweekly & monthly newsletters. Pretty awesome, right? Except I looked up the company, and it appears to be a totally sketch pyramid scheme. :/ Even if it was a paid internship... I don't think I'm interested. (Not that I have time, anyways.)

But, back to work. (Oh, and I'm absolutely loving the weather in Florida. I did my homework on the beach today. In a bikini. With SPF 15. And didn't get burnt. Yay!)