Finished with My MFA

I can't believe it, i'm all done with everything. go aji go!!!

After:

my mfa thesis reading
my japanese oral exam
my written japanese final
my mfa thesis
a gazillion quizzes and tests
a 100 kanji later

I'm all done with everything. i'm gonna graduate and everything. i'm so stoked about this. i can't possibly tell some of you how excited i am to have closure on grad school after having to leave yale when i was too poor to finish, this really means alot to me. and i had to work so damn hard to get here, to get accepted into a mfa program when i was a americorps volunteer living on 700 bucks a month and foodstamps in chicago, and to graduate, and it's been worth every moment and i'm so grateful. in two to three weeks, i'm gonna sit down, look at my diploma that came in the mail, and say, yo, i have a masters degree now. and that's so fucking rad for me. it means the world to me. and if there's truly a spirit world, it means everything to my obaasama too.

Now, i just have to pack, and work on my novel. i have 2 weeks to pack, 2 weeks to finish my book, and around a month or so--give or take, well, another month or so--to revise before i send lynn nesbit my finished draft. i think this summer is gonna be rad. i can barely contain my joy.

Paperwork + Soba Noodles

Today i drudged through hours and hours of formatting hell with my book after i decided to add my photoshop cover to my novel in progress, which, for some inexplicable reason, changed the columns in my dual narrative chapters and created random space in one chapter. i wondered why i suddenly had an extra 10 pages. anyway, this final assis chapter is coming along, but not even close to done yet. i'm looking foward to finishing this and writing my 3rd and final split screen chapter this week, and next week i'll hopefully start the final chapter.

I got an email from lynn nesbit's office a few days ago that said, sorry, we had a misunderstanding. the consensus here--in the new publishing world, god i wish--is that you're a very good writer (chin up kiddo) but we need a complete manuscript before we can decide whether to take you on as a client. in a way, though, this was the perfect impetus to finish my novel cuz now i have someone to write for again now that i'm 3 weeks from graduating and ditching this school cafeteria.

My rejection from 9th letter was depressing. even after i became friends with the cnf editor, Juan Sanchez, who's a cool dude, i still couldn't publish my piece. no luv from the cnf putos.

My consolation? Yakitate japan anime (i'm sad that i only have 6 episodes left--a sure sign of my addiction). Also, I bought these great frozen soba noodles, and with a good miso base and some okonomi sauce, it's really quite something.

Lucky Charms

Today feels very lucky charms if you know what i mean. i turned in my thesis--all 220 pages of it, but it's missing section 3 and the concluding chapter that i'm gonna be working on in the next 2 months before i turn the entire novel in in late april. it's such an amazing weight off my shoulders. it's magically delicious.

And i got a copy of ink collective in the mail today, and i most def. love it. it's small, tight, beautifully produced, the art and the cartoons are great. and there's something so satisfying about seeing your name in print. sweeter than purple horse shoes and green pots of gold and sweet gray milk.