A Letter to November - 2014

Dear November,

You have been a complicated month for me, do you know that? You started off so slow going and then you were gone in a blink of an eye. How does that even happen? I started off November on a mission, determined to do a number of things: I wanted to write 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, I wanted to hear word about my application to Humber College, I didn't want to get behind with my blogging and I wanted to craziness of school to finally calm down once and for all. Now I can absolutely say that even if it wasn't in the ways that I expected, I accomplished everything I wanted to this month and still managed to maintain my sanity.

I've already written a post about my experiences with NaNoWriMo this year, and if you'd like to learn more about what I learned my first year participating I suggest you check that out. Overall I found it to be a worthwhile and liberating experience, even if I wasn't a winner this time around. Now I know that I am in fact capable of reaching one of my lifetime goals of being a published novelist, and I even recently picked up on a new idea that I might try and pursue in my spare time. Whether it's working on a future novel or writing for all of you guys to read on here, the writing is not going to stop anytime soon, I can assure you all of that :)

This image is some brainstorming from a super-weird assignment we had to do in my creative writing class, where we had to come up with ridiculous and flawed solutions to a problem. Ours was "When Graves Are Overcrowded . . ."

I am so, so, SO happy that this school term is coming to an end. It's not that it's been a bad one, but it has been long and I am in dire need of a break. November in particular was quite hectic, with a number of assignments getting handed back and other assignments that needed to be written. The final week of November was probably packed the most with assignments, and I am now into the home stretch of trying to get everything done so that I can enjoy my time off.

In case you weren't on Twitter or looking at your Facebook homepage on the 12th of November, you might have missed my big announcement. I've been accepted to the Creative Book Publishing Program at Humber College :D I've been over the moon about it since I got the news, and I'll tell you guys the story about where I was and what I was doing when I found out about my acceptance.

I was at my school actually, in a study room in the library hosting a write-in for the Niagara chapter of NaNoWriMo. I was there with one of our ML's and fellow iggle Christine, along with another nice lady who happens to work in Brock's library. I was behind on my word count at the time and decided that I would procrastinate a little bit - checking my email, reading comments on my lovely blog, scrolling through Twitter and finally checking out my application status on the Humber site, a new addition to my online routine. I was expecting to see the usual "In Progress" on the status page, or whatever it used to say as I kept waiting for a notification of my acceptance. Since I received an email about when I needed to schedule an interview, I figured that I would get an email when the decision had been made about me as well. That's why I was surprised when I saw the word "Approved" there instead, and I froze. I clicked on it, and it brought me to a page that said my application to Humber has been approved, and I needed to confirm my acceptance on the Ontario Colleges site before December 3rd. I'm pretty sure I was in shock because I was just sitting there with my mouth open for a good minute or so.

When I was finally able to speak again, breaking the silence that had been in the room aside from the sound of two women typing away at their key boards, all I could say was, "I think I'm gonna need to take a break from my writing." I had their attention, and they looked confused or worried that something was wrong. Then I said, "I think I just got in to the program at Humber that I applied to." There came the first "Congratulations!" that I would receive upon sharing my great news. I knew I needed to step out and call my mother before anybody else. She was on the road when I called and the car phone wasn't working properly so she told me to call her back when she made it to my brother's house. Impatient to share my news, I kept texting her to get an ETA. "Are you there yet?" "How about now?" "Now?" Finally she called me, telling me she had pulled into a parking lot because I wouldn't stop messaging her and she was worried that something bad at happened. Now that I knew she wasn't in danger of swerving her car, I finally told her that I got into Humber. The scream that came from her was downright hilarious XD I then proceeded to tell her, "Now you're the crazy lady who's screaming and cheering in her car in the middle of a parking lot!" which just made us both laugh even more.

After that came other phone calls, texts, and a couple Facebook updates about my news. It felt great to share in my joy with everyone, and others seemed happy for me as well. I should thank everyone that has congratulated me for getting into my post-grad program, and to you, the month of November. I was told I would hear by the end of the month and I ended up receiving the news much earlier than I had originally intended. Truth be told, the notice of my acceptance had been posted on the site since the 5th XD Serves me right for not checking it frequently enough.

Of all the things coming up in the month of December, one of the biggest ones I'm looking forward to is Christmas :) This year I am much more excited for the holiday than I have been in previous years where I've been too bogged down with exams and final papers to properly celebrate. Granted, I'm still bogged down with assignments, but I'm working my way through them pretty quickly and I am looking forward to enjoying what could possibly be the last Christmas where I'll be living at home with my mom.

I also hope to get a lot of blogging done throughout the month of December, and to participate in my own version of Blogmas :) Granted, I've already missed posting for a couple days this month, but I figure a couple of days with more than one post might very well make up for it! I also have a lot of crafting I want to get done, and I have plenty of gifts that I intend to send out this year, which I need to get cracking on since the deadlines to send stuff are hastily approaching.

I hope that my readers, and you, will wish me the best of luck with the last month of 2014, and all of the months that will be preceding it until we meed again.

Yours Affectionately,

Kacie