Interesting Predicament

This week has been ridiculous. I had an interview for a prestigious award (which I didn't win), won a science fiction writing contest, sent out four new submissions, and got accepted into another grad school. Oh, and I've made some decent headway on my thesis.

Basically, everything in my life is going to converge on April 15th. That is THE day. And it is two weeks from now.

I have two awards ceremonies to attend that day, my thesis is due that day, and that is the day I have to accept or decline my invitation to UCF. I wanted to make my final decision by next week, but I got an email from SCAD stating that I am in the running for a full-tuition fellowship; my phone interview is on the 14th. So I'll have to wait. And today I got a call directly from the Graduate Director of FIU, stating I was unanimously accepted, and I was highly recommended for a teaching assistantship. I should know by the end of the day if I got it or not. All of the sudden, I have incredible opportunities. UCF is still the only one set in stone, but if FIU and SCAD go through, there's going to be some heavy competition. This is a good problem to have, but still, it is nerve-wracking.

I need to fill our all of the financial aid stuff for all three schools now. Soon. On top of all of the rest of the things I need to do... Homework, projects, extracurriculars... It just never ends. I am excited, but also mildly terrified. We'll have to wait and see how things go.

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

Good News and Bad News.

We'll start with the bad.

I found out this week that Vanderbilt rejected me. On top of that, I had to pull my first all-nighter of the semester. I went to sleep around 8am, and woke up at 11am, so I guess it wasn't a true all-nighter, but it could have totally been prevented. Deadlines just snuck up on me; it seems that on top of midterms, EVERYTHING IS DUE this week. Including submissions to awards that I've been putting off. I have almost everything I need for the award about being an outstanding graduate (just missing a recommendation letter I'm going to pick up tomorrow), and for the creative writing awards, I finally have a piece written, I just need to edit and expand on it. I'm behind on my thesis--I wanted to be pretty much done with drafting all of the pages by now--so if I'm lucky, I'll get all of my midterm and studying stuff done early in the weekend, so that I can spend the rest of next week creating formats. That way, when I meet with my thesis director next Thursday, he can tell me yea or nay before I commit the comic to detail and color over Spring Break. (so much work!! >_< ugh.)

And as for the good? I got accepted into UCF's Creative Writing MFA Program! Yay! I have choices (Now I just need to get an assistantship or something somewhere to help offset the cost...) I'll have to spend my Spring Break getting all of my financial aid work together to start submitting to the schools I got accepted to, so that they can start processing the fact that I absolutely need their aid or I won't be able to attend. :/ (So somehow, I turned the good news into bad news again.)

Next week I get to order my cap, gown, & tassel, along with my honors medallion (for attaining a 3.5+ GPA) and hopefully my honors society sash (for my participation in Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honors Society). I've registered for Commencement through the University and the Honors College, and I'm planning on signing up for membership at the Alumni Society soon, too. I wanted a class ring, but they're just too expensive, and since my Bachelor's degree isn't going to be my last degree, I figure I'll just wait until I finish my MFA (or even my PhD). Graduation is so close, I can almost taste it! I just need to survive the rest of this semester first!

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!)