Still pissed off about not getting into VFS, and currently plotting how I am going to make Simon’s life difficult.

It’s going to be tricky. I don’t want to end up alienating a lot of people and making a bad name for myself in the industry which I wish to join. But I also want to make the case for my rejection’s injustice and get some sympathy going for my cause. So I am going to need to tread carefully.

I am probably going to craft an email to send to various higher-ups at VFS. There doesn’t seem to be a single overall leader, but there’s some pretty high-status people acting as senior advisors and I imagine they have considerable pull at the VF of S.

I might even include a few people at CBC in the list of recipients of this email. You never know, they might like the “essentially rejecting me because of my disability” angle. That’s the sort of thing they can get behind.

And seeing them on the recipient list (no Bcc for me!) will send the message that I am willing to go to the media with my case and possibly bring down a whole heaping helping of bad PR down on the VFS brand.

I mean, what have I got to lose?

And I think I have a pretty good case. Simon’s sole reason for rejecting me was my lack of documented work or academic experience. That’s a direct result of my disability. It’s like rejecting a person in a wheelchair because you have never seen them jogging.

I have ample proof that I can write a hell of a lot. How many people who get accepted into the program write 7000 words a week just for fun? And have written novels, skits, short stories, and a play?

Simon tried to tell me he also though I had no viable financial plan, which was total bullshit. It said right on my application that my plan was to get a student loan and cover the rest with bursaries related to my disability. So when he said I didn’t have a clear financial plan, I said “Student loan and bursaries. That’s my plan. ”

That shut him the fuck down.

I kept him on the phone, arguing with him, for like 45 minutes, and I wish it had been longer. So I have the satisfaction of knowing that he didn’t get the neat little painless “bearer of bad news” interaction he no doubt expected. I bet he thought he would tell me I didn’t get in and I would just say “That’s too bad” and he’d express his no doubt very deep and sincere regrets, and that would be it.

But that is not my style. The only reason I was not as sharp an arguer as I might have been was that I was in a state of shock and surprise. If I hadn’t been, I would have hammered that twit but good.

If there is one thing I am a deadly ninja master with, it’s words.

He kept droning on about how “he has a responsibility to make sure that the school… ” blah blah bullshit about making sure the school runs smoothly.

If I had been on my game, I would have countered with “And just exactly do you think I would do to the school? You’ve admitted that my writing is not the issue. I am not arguing with your authority to do this. I am questioning your rationale. ” Or something like that.

But hey, who is on the top of their game when they just got a huge shock?

I will be going out with the guys tonight. Normally, we would do this on Friday night, but we moved it to Thursday night in case my dear sister Catherine was arriving on Friday.

Turns out, she’d not getting here till Saturday. But I still want to go out tonight. Honestly, I need it. I need to do something fun to counteract all the negativity I have been balancing.

I might even indulge in an alcoholic beverage, if they are available. I am not sure whether our usual Denny’s is licensed or not. That’s something I usually ignore, being practically a teetotaler. Never been a regular drinker, and the diabetes just gives me extra reason to not bother.

But what the heck. One pear cider or the like won’t kill me. It’s that OR dessert though, not both.

I swear I will crack this Simon thing. I am not sure I will actually get in, but I will at least make him rue the day he ever decided that I was someone he could shit on with impunity.

If I do somehow get in, and he or his friends are still there in admin, I will have to be extra careful, because I can see them wanting very much for me to screw up somehow so they can swoop in for the kill.

Not exactly the most relaxing educational environment, but fuck’em. By the time they get their traps set for me, I will (God willin’) have already gained plenty of allies by being talented and capable and a genuinely nice fellow.

I am a likable guy. It’s one of my best assets. And it’s no act. I am just being me. I like being nice to people, I love to make people laugh, it makes me feel good when others feel good.

Man, I really am Pinkie Pie. Also Fluttershy, though I am getting over the shy part. I have no reason to be so shy. I am a great guy. I should be proud to just put myself out there and deal with the consequences.

It won’t be ab easy path, this Coming Out (of my shell), but I will get there. I am stretching my comfort zone a little more every day. Sooner or later, it will become a tunnel out of this stillborn life of mine.

And when it does, watch the fuck out, world!

Talk to you again tomorrow, folks!

I was not accepted into the VFS Writing for Film and Television program.

They rejected me.

All my plans just crumbled into dust and I feel like three and a half kinds of crap in a crap shaped box.

Mostly, I am filled with rage. I was positive that I would get in because I knew my writing is very strong, I am talented as hell, and my application kicked ass. I am super fucking talented and I would have been a major asset to their program, and the people I talked to seemed to agree.

But no, this Simon twit who is in charge of admissions and his two cohorts decided that my lack of recent job or academic experience meant they were not “comfortable” with my ability to do the course, and so they rejected me.

Well fuck THEM. They made a huge mistake in not accepting me. That Simon twit told me that if I took some writing courses and did well in them, maybe they would reconsider later on.

And I might do that. I don’t know. I am too fucking angry about the whole thing to even think about it right now. Honestly, right now I feel a lot more like storming the VFS campus and demanding they let me into the course than anything else now.

I mean, what a stupid reason to reject me. They knew I am psychologically disabled. They know I have been sick for a while. So obviously I would have a big gap in my work and academic history.

In a way, then, they rejected me because of the direct results of my disability. I might just have a case against them on that basis. When I am more calm, I may look into that. Motherfuckers may not have heard the last of me.

Thje other half of the trauma besides anger is, of course, disappointment, which has never been an emotion I handle well. Since I was a little kid, the news that I am not going to get something good that I was totally sure I would get has completely devastated me.

No wonder this whole depression thing started when I was taken out of school by my parents. That was one whopper of a disappointment. Arguably, I still haven’t gotten over that one and it was over twenty years ago.

Turns out, if you interrupt the development of a fragile organism at a crucial state, it will never ever recover.

I had everything going my way for once. I was going to take a course that was perfect for me, have a chance to really show off how outrageously talented I am, meet all the right sorts of people, and take the television industry by storm. My life was finally going to go somewhere and I was finally going to escape the doldrums of my depression and sail to the sunny shores of success.

I might even have met Mister Right there, who knows. Lots of fags in the art world.

But no, now that all lies in ruins and I am back to being the same pathetic schmuck with no direction in his life that I was before I dared to get my hopes up.

The one thing I am not feeling, though, is down on myself. I don’t take this rejection as meaning I am not as talented or brilliant as I thought I was. Far from it. This twit Simon made it really clear that this was not about my talent at all, it was just some petty requirement that they have some piece of paper that proves that I can handle taking writing.

You know, other than the fact that I wrote a million words in 11 months, I have been writing 1000 words a day for five years, I wrote three novels, I have produced dozens of little videos, did a webcomic for around a year, and oh, I produced directed starred in and WROTE a play in college that everybody loved.

Oh, and I wrote a couple dozen skits for SMD, one of which is a twenty minute long short movie script.

I have probably done a hell of a lot more writing than most of the people who apply for the course, but because there is no diploma attached, it doesn’t count.

So I have no doubts about how much I deserve to be in that program. This is entirely that twit Simon’s mistake.

I wonder what the real reason he is rejecting me is. Maybe he is not getting along with Patrick Quigley, the guy handling my enrollment process and the person who has actually met me. He really went to bat for me promoting my being admitted, and that is something I will be grateful for till my dying day.

Because really, there must be something else going on. Most of their students would be coming right from high school or college, and would not necessarily have any more of a job history than I do.

So there must be some reason I was singled out. My age? My size? My disability? I could sue their asses for all three of those.

Did Simon just get his back up because everyone who met me or read my application wanted me in the program and he had to prove HE was the boss by rejecting me?

I am not done fighting yet. There are ways and there are ways of attacking this problem. I can make this twit Simon’s life a living hell.

And oh look, the twit has a name, Simon Custodinho. And that name has a Facebook profile and a LinkedIn profile and phone number (604-507-4395) and everything.

He’s remarkably accessible for someone who makes such important decisions that have a huge impact on people’s lives.

Now I am definitely not telling you to flood the guy with messages from you and all your friends on every possible platform.

Yes, if there is one thing I am definitely not telling you to do, it’s flood the guy with messages from you and all your friends about what a massive mistake he has made in not admitting me.

But I am not telling you not to do it either.

I will talk to you again tomorrow, folks.