Take me, Take me to the riot/ and let me stay

At the beginning of this year something happenned. I started on a long journey that's less like a forward motion and more like freefalling. This journey is called Applying to University.

Applying to University is a scary experience. It involves many parts, which include (but are not limited to) Googling Universities, Visiting University Fairs, Visiting Universities, Freaking Out About Grades, Hounding Teachers for Recommendation Letters, and, the best one, Applying for Scholarships.

Having tackled a bunch of these already, tonight I decided to start in on Applying for Scholarships. As any student might, I mosied on over to studentawards.com, filled out their extensive survey and pressed "go" to match me up with scholarships I might be interested in.

And I was confronted with a loooong list. There were a few that I was able to count out and there are about 5 that are the same "community involvment" thing, which means work once for many things. You know, your general, run of the mill "an essay of 500 words [how is that considered and essay? So short!] about community involvment(s)". And then there was one that was more exciting.

The CBC Literary Awards. Basically, you submit poetry (1000-2000 words) or a short story or piece of creative nonfiction (both 2000-2500 words) and you can win lots of money to put toward school. Sounds good yes? Maybe not. See, much as I enjoy reading, I have nothing to submit. Bummer. Until my mother suggests I try something from my blog.

This is an interesting idea. Something from my blog... but my blog is just a place where I write for fun about my day and my opinions and... hey wait, doesn't that fit into creative nonfiction? I guess so. So I'm going to beef up a piece I've already written (by adding about 1500 words) and submitting that. I think. I don't know if that's what they want though. Will it be good enough? Is it appropriate to submit a blog piece to a scholarship application? Most importantly, does anyone want to help me with this thing???

So, I'm a little stressed and alone. This thing is due Nov 1 (along with every other application, apparently) and I'm not sure I'll be ready by then. Plus, even if I am, is it worth it when I most likely won't win? So many questions running around my head.



Note: If anyone caught the Japanese Grand Prix last night/this morning, they were lucky. It was EPIC. And heartbreaking. Honestly the best F1 race I've ever seen.