Thank you…. and…. just a second, it seems to be stuck to the…. okay, here we go…. and the winner is…. ME!

I did it! I won! I will be going to VFS starting May 2! I DID IT!

I was even able to pay the deposit right away because of the money I had left over from my student loan. And I still have like $800 of it left! Plus $400 on VISA card.

I got the call (ten minutes early) from Patrick, and at first, he was saying stuff like “I want you to know how impressed we are with your perseverance…” and “the writing panel was really impressed with your writing samples…. ” and my heart was sinking because I was sure there was a very big “But…. ” coming my way.

But no, I got in. I am totally starting school there three weeks from last Monday. And needless to say, I am super fucking stoked.

According to Patrick, despite what I thought, there is still a shortfall of about $4000 between tuition and the maximum student loan in a year. And what bugs me is, I can’t confirm or disprove it, because I can’t find any mention of a yearly limit online. There’s a weekly limit (for those not living on social assistance, I guess) and a lifetime limit ($50K, which is about right for a Canadian student), but as far as I can tell, no yearly limit.

So IDK WTF. I will inquire further.

Assume that this shortfall is a real thing, and I have no reason to think it isn’t, I will have to come up with that money somehow. But I am not worried, there’s lots of avenues towards getting my paws on that kind of scratch. I could take out a personal loan, I could maybe find some of it in scholarships and bursaries and shit. I could arrange some sort of payment program with VFS (Patrick says that’s what they often do). I could sell my body on the streets.

Well, you don’t so much sell as rent.

I got a PDF of the student handbook, and three weeks (less two days) to read it, so I should be pretty down with it by the time May 2 rolls around. I can’t imagine it’s going to contain anything surprising, like “The dress code is leather pinafores and soccer cleats” or “every morning we renew our dedication to Molok, the Goat of a Thousand Testicles” or so on.

Damn I am a funny writer.

And I am not the only one to say it. The best thing included with the email telling me I am accepted was the letter from the writing department about what they thought of my writing samples.

Here’s the good stuff :

I have reviewed your feature film synopsis for Rising Light, your essay on the Acadian
Expulsion and your short story A Day at the Pond. First and foremost, may I say, I enjoyed
reading your material.(Emphasis mine. – Ed. ) It is clear you have the ability to explore the world around you through the
written word with a creativity to your work which, when properly focused, will go a long way to
help you in your career as a screenwriter.

After reading your synopsis for Rising Light, it is clear you have a passion to tell unconventional
stories and to shine the lens on people and characters often relegated to the sidelines in film and
television. Rising Light reads as Die Hard with gay leads and a romantic subplot – a compelling
and entertaining premise. Your research essay gives a solid account of events surrounding an
historical occurrence. This is not dissimilar to the skills required to build a plot for a screenplay.
Finally, A Day at the Pond is an imaginative and fantastical story with an intriguing band of
characters that you could certainly mine for further storytelling opportunities

He liked it! He really liked it!

A Day At The Pond you already know, of course. I am so glad they liked it. It’s quite literary, so I was not sure if they would “get it”. And the thing on the Acadian Expulsion you know too, more or less. The version I wrote for this blog is about the same as the one I wrote for class, the class version is just more academic in language and tone.

Not academic enough, though, ’cause I still got a C- on it. It’s a fair cop. I got so wrapped up in the storytelling that I forgot it was supposed to be a history essay and so… it wasn’t. I didn’t have a theses, or arguments, or claims, or anything.

Meh. Somehow, my grades at KPU don’t seem very important to me right now. In fact, that voice in my head I call “The Jagoff” is whispering into my ear that I should blow off those two exams I have left because hey… I’m in! KPU has served its purpose, and now it can fuck off and leave me alone!

But I won’t do that. For one thing, there’s my academic pride at stake. It would bug the hell out of me to know that I could have gotten a higher mark. Plus, at least for the History of Popular Music one, I want to see the prof again and would hate for her to think I ditched her or didn’t value her or anything like that.

Seriously, Jodi Proznick, it would kill me to make you sad. You are so awesome.

And with the Ethics one, well, it’s a group exam, and so if I skipped it, I would be letting down Luka (I’ve used all the lyrics to that song now) and Tuan, and really, what more does any Canadian need than the fear of letting the team down in order to goad them into proper action?

And honestly, I have three weeks worth of time to fill. WTF else am I going to do?

So I will do my last 2 exams like a good boy.

And I am a good boy. Really, I am.

Most of the time.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow!