Tag Archives: school

TWUC 2011 Recap

Posted on by

On Friday, May 27 I was one of the lucky students from the Humber School for Writers to attend the Writers Union of Canada’s Annual General Meeting.

I live-Tweeted the panels I attended, so feel free to check those out on my Twitter account. Other than that, following is a brief recap of the day.

Having been under the weather most of the week and knowing absolutely no one at the conference, I woke up feeling sick and apprehensive to attend. Lucky for me, I expressed these feelings on Twitter and was met with welcoming tweets from others like Anita Daher and Nicole McGill.

I’m glad I didn’t let my shyness get the best of me. The day was fun and educational. Below is a recap of what I learned:

Continue reading→

CAPM Arrival

Posted on by

Look what I found in the mail today! I must admit, the thick paper and gold embossed seal make me feel a bit better about the past four months of school/work/business-juggling torture.

Project Management Progress

Posted on by

As previously mentioned, this January I started a course in Foundations of Project Management. The course proved to be extremely challenging. Though hard work gave me an 80% average for coursework, the course’s final exam left me feeling downcast. Meticulously applying knowledge to plans and charters was one thing, but rote memorization of processes, inputs, outputs, tools and techniques was something different.

My certification exam was scheduled shortly after my course’s final exam but, after leaving school, I knew I might not obtain my certification unless I really hit the books. What ensued was 12 hours straight of studying each day until my certification exam. And I’m happy to say that the studying paid off.

I am officially a Certified Associate of Project Management! Now, I just need about a year more of related work experience before I can write my PMP exam. Would anyone like to employ me in a project managing capacity? I need relevant work experience, please! : )

Back to School 2011: Humber School for Writers

Posted on by

As I mentioned earlier, I was rejected for the YRAC grant – the application for which I’d sent simultaneously along with my application to the Humber School for Writers. Shortly after receiving rejection to the YRAC grant, I received acceptance into Humber – an acceptance that was exhilarating in its affirmation that perhaps I wasn’t a tone-deaf writer after all, but also off-putting due to the program’s cost.

Initially, I’d only received preliminary word of my acceptance into the program via e-mail, which gave me time to sit on the offer and think. Sure, acceptance was great, but could I reasonably afford the entire cost of the program at this time? Christmas was coming up along with a slew of family birthdays and celebrations.

I began my vigil at the mailbox again, waiting for my hardcopy response from Humber. Within 2 weeks, I received my acceptance, along with a $1000 Writer’s Trust scholarship!

If acceptance into Humber was thrilling, the scholarship was beyond thrilling –  it was heady and intoxicating . On top of that, with the scholarship, the cost of the program didn’t seem so daunting.

So with all that said and done, I’m happy to say that I’m a January 2011 student of Humber College’s School for Writers – mentee of Sandra Birdsell, award-winning author of Children of the Day.

I’ve already ordered my recommended course books and have started in on some early reading. Even reading one of the recommended texts, Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, has me itching for more. I absolutely cannot wait to start this January!

PMPin!

Posted on by

As I previously mentioned, starting in January I’m taking courses in Project Management through the University of Toronto’s School for Continuing Education. In no way have I given up on writing, but as I mentioned earlier, rejection for the YRAC grant gave me a moment of clarity that made me realize that it would be pretty foolish of me to quit my day job in pursuit of art. Even if I were an amazing writer, I still need to eat and live. And I do have other interests beyond writing. I really love Excel, for example, and have fun spending hours creating budgeting sheets for this year, the next and, if it weren’t a little too obsessive, the next after that too. I also like calendars, agendas, and lists of all sorts. For Christmas one year, I asked for a filing cabinet from my family members. These are somewhat embarrassing confessions, I know, but I suppose you could say that I just like to keep organized.

Taking that into consideration, I made use of my alumni credit to UT’s School of Continuing Studies and enrolled in Foundations of Project Management. After I’m finished this course, I’d be qualified as a Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM). The plan is to work towards my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification and hopefully apply it to my current company to take it a step further and become a Certified Law Enforcement Planner (CLEP).

Of course, these plans are all relatively new, freshly sown seeds. I have no doubt that I can achieve my goals, it’ll just take time… time to complete my courses, pass my tests, and find the proper work placement and hours.

With that being said, I’m pretty pumped. Project Management is completely separate from writing, and I think that might be a good thing. Everyone needs some space and distance sometimes, I suppose, plus I’m pretty hyped about going back to school. I’ve been out of it for a little while and have been missing the grading atmosphere. Wish me luck!

Convocation, Writing, Film Fest Going

Posted on by

A lot has been going on and I just haven’t had the time to update. My apologies in advance for the long, long post.

Yesterday I attended my convocation ceremony and have officially graduated! The ceremony was early in the morning and, even if it was a nice day, I was extremely hot in the toga. I couldn’t help feeling sleepy, but I think the fact of graduating finally hit me when everyone began to clap for the final person to pass through and shake the Chancellor/Vice President’s hand. Only then was I suddenly struck with a wave of intense relief… I’m done!

I was unaware of this going into graduation, but apparently my grades ended me off on footing for an Honours Bachelor of Arts “with Distinction”. I guess that’s a good thing because only a handful of Trin students graduated without it. Nevertheless, it was a really nice surprise.

As I was walking up to the stage and shaking the Vice President’s hand, she congratulated me and asked me what I’m planning on doing now that I’ve finished my degree. I told her I’m going to write. She asked what I planned to write. I told her I’d like to write fiction – short stories or novels. So she congratulated me again and said she can’t wait to see my name in print. Neither can I!

 

In terms of writing, I recently registered for the Writers and Exile program at the Tatamagouche Centre. The program is a week-long intensive writing workshop focused on creative non-fiction, fiction, and culture’s role in these forms. The mentors for this retreat will be Shani Mootoo, author of Cereus Blooms at Night, Aaron Berhane from PEN Canada, and Gwen Davies, founder of Community of Writers. The only limitation I have with this program is its price ($620 for the program, accommodation, and food costs + approx. $450 in travel costs), but I received word that I’ve been approved for a $200 bursary from the Tatamagouche Centre and I applied for a scholarship there as well. I’m hoping all goes well. I used my published short story as part of my writing sample and received an awesome reference letter from Krishna. If everything goes through, I’ll be heading off to Nova Scotia for a week after I come back from my cruise this July!

In regards to scriptwriting, I’ve still been vigorously working on my script but am still in the plot revision stage. I’m not sure if I’m just really slow-going or if this is how long it takes to set the foundation down for a feature film. Although the last day of Krishna’s contract was June 15, I’ll be meeting with him tomorrow morning for our final go-over. Krishna has really been an awesome mentor – a little rough at times and blunt when things in our script have to go, but exactly what I needed – someone to tell me how things stand exactly as they are. After my time with Krishna is done, I’m taking a bit of a break from the screenwriting, only to return to my script with a vengeance later on to ready it for film fests and scriptwriting competitions.

On the side, my scripwriting friend, Maureen Holland, and I are volunteering for the ReelHeART International Film Festival. Founded in 2005, the ReelHeART Festival has grown to include the works of over a hundred different filmmakers from all around the world. The volunteer opportunity is a pretty awesome way to learn more about the industry, see new filmmaking faces, and view emergent films and screenplays for free! Maureen and I signed up for the Lunch n’ Learn morning shifts. Although the morning is a bit hectic, we get to see live reading performances of the winning screenplays selected for this year’s festival and meet with industry execs who discuss the art of screenwriting and the steps to discovery, distribution and filmmaking. Oh, we also get some free lunch – obviously the reason why I signed up for this shift. Haha, just kidding. But seriously, I signed up for this opportunity on a last minute whim upon request from Maureen, and have been wow-ed by the windows it’s opening up, providing excellent insight into the (still widely mysterious – to me at least-) film industry.

Last but definitely not least, as part of my graduation gift in celebration of yesterday’s event, my brother presented me with the following: https://miaherrera.com! Currently, the domain name redirects users to my blogspot, but soon I will have an up and running website of my own. I’ll update everyone when the website is in place. For now, feel free to continue following me here on blogspot or on my Twitter – a more informal place where I track what I’m doing, what I’m reading, what I’m seeing and what I’m listening to.

If you’ve made it thus far in my post, congratulations! I’ll be back soon!

Wake Up to Bad News

Posted on by

Dear Ms Mia Herrera:

Your application for graduate studies in the Department of English at Queen’s University has been given careful consideration and I regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission.

Thank you for the effort you have made in applying to Queen’s University. I trust you will find a graduate program elsewhere which appeals to you.

Yours sincerely,

Monica Corbett
Director, Admissions and Student Services
School of Graduate Studies and Research

———

Checking my e-mail is the first thing I do when I wake up. Literally. Checking my inbox this morning was brutal. I haven’t been out of bed since.

Is it possible that Queens found my blogs, which adamantly stated that going to Grad School was a back up plan for me? For the past few months I’ve been envisioning the moments when I receive word from the school’s I’d applied to, but who would have thought I’d hear back from them so soon? Part of me truly wished that I wouldn’t get in so that it would clear a path for me to do what I really wanted to do. Another part of me truly wished that I would get in because, although I’d probably be faced with the tough decision of having to reject one option over the other, at least it’d be on my own terms and not because I’m just not good enough.

Oddly enough, I was always functioning under the impression that I would be rejected from UofT but accepted into my other two choices. I know that this sounds pretentious and is sorely underestimating the graduate faculty of other universities, but my Registrar had even told me as much. Now that I’ve actually been rejected from Queens, I feel as though it’s a sign that I’m just not going to be accepted everywhere. And this bad news is accompanied by mixed emotions.

First and foremost, no one likes the feel of rejection and I am no exception. Despite the fact that (I suspect) the rejection was first received with relief – as though I can now finally stop tipping on my toes and focus on my writing ithout having to split my mind between getting stellar grades and working on my passion – the rest of the moment was just flooded with… embarrassment.

Seriously, most of me is just embarrassed that I will have to tell people I was rejected. Not only from Queens, but most probably from all the other universities I applied to. I don’t want to go downstairs because I don’t want to face my parents.
…

& now that I’ve written it all out… I suppose a little bit of me actually feels happy for this outcome. For the next two months of school I no longer have to stress about assignments, tests, grades – I just have to worry about getting that fifty and breezing out of here : ) Adios to a lifetime of education! Aloha shady and unknown future!

Two E-mails Received Feb. 23, 2009

Posted on by

My First Rejection

Hello Mia,

Thank you for submitting your essay to IDIOM: English Undergraduate Academic Journal. Unfortunately we are unable to include your essay inthis year’s edition of our journal. The number and caliber of contributions greatly surpassed our expectations. However, projectslike ours depend entirely on the willingness of students to participate in a lateral literary critical discourse: we thank you for supporting IDIOM with your submission and highly encourage you to submit again next year! We also hope you will pick up a free copy ofthe new volume of our journal in April: please write back if you would like to receive an update when it becomes available.

Sincerely,

IDIOM Editiorial Board


My First Acceptance
Dear Mia,
We are happy to inform you that your short story “Mahal Kita” has been accepted for publication in our upcoming issue of the *Hart House Review*.C ongratulations! However, we have condensed your work to help intensify the complex and heartfelt story you are conveying, as well as to make the division between the past and the present clearer to readers. We have attached your work to this email and the changes are indicated by TrackC hanges. Please let us know if these changes are acceptable to you; if so, please confirm by the end of the next week since we are working on the production stages of the *Review*.
Once again, congratulations! We will be sending out information about the launch in the coming months.
Regards,
The *Hart House Review* Editorial Board
———–
Just for the record, the first letter was from an academic journal, to which I sent an old essay about the duplicity between duty and derogation in Richardson’s Pamela. The second is from a literary journal, to which I sent a short story I wrote about the Philippines.
Another note for the record is the fact that I applied for Grad School – to Queens, Western, and UofT for their Masters in English programs. I felt like it was a good back up plan at the time – my second greatest passion to writing being reading. The irksome thing about it all, though, is that, not only did I spend $500+ on applications, but I also feel, increasingly, like school isn’t where I belong. Despite the fact that I’ve fast-tracked university and am not doing horribly bad in school, I still feel sub-par in my program – as though I’m just not smart enough and I’m somehow magicking my way through classes. I fear this same feeling will follow me through Grad School, and I have nightmares about finding myself in a PhD program and having to admit to everyone that my mind just doesn’t work analytically in that way.
In a way, these letters have solidified the dichotomy between school and writing in my mind. One, I was born to do, and another, I learned to do.
Despite the fact that my mid-terms and finals are quickly approaching, I can’t seem to make myself focus on getting those Grad School grades. I spend more time researching writing techniques, reading for fun, and hammering out scenes for my screenplay.
But perhaps, everything happens for a reason. At least I will know that I’ve kept all doors open and tried my best.