Jan's short(listed)!!

I think I've fallen in love with the Journals thread, I keep making so many. WHEN DO I GET MY OWN SUBFORUM THING, MODZ/ADMIN?

Anyway.

This is me cheating. Midterms start next Monday, and I am supposed to be studying, but, uh. Yeah. I have a good reason for coming online, though; really, I do. Has anyone here heard of the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award?

My self-ban started last Monday. Thursday afternoon, I got a phone call while I was forcing myself to read about proteins and lipids and enzymes for Bio. Maybe it was the subject I was studying, but the voice on the phone sounded a whole lot like that of my Bio teacher's. I can't remember how the conversation went, exactly, but it was something like this:

Voice: Hellooo, may I speak to Hui Jan, please?
Me: Um, yes? *wonders why the heck my Bio teacher would be calling me*
Voice: Hui Jan!! Hi, I'm calling from IMPAC! You took part in the Dublin IMPAC Literary Writing Challenge (A/N: OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, IT WAS LONG.) recently, am I right?
Me: Um, yeah?
Voice: Congratulations, you've been shortlisted in the top twenty!!
Me: Omigosh! Really? Thankyou so much!
Voice: Yeees! *laughs* I sent you an email! On Monday! And then you didn't reply, so I was starting to get a bit worried.
Me: I'm so sorry! I'm not allowed on the computer till after my midterms!
Voice: Ohhh! *laughs* It's okay. I was just wondering if you received it. Anyway, there will be an award presentation dinner next Friday, can you attend?
Me: Um, yeah! *laughs* Yeah, I think I can!
Voice: Well, the details are all in the email, can you check it out and get back to me?
Me: Yeah, I'll ask my-- Yeah, I should be able to go online. *giddy laugh*
Voice: All right, be sure to reply me. Congratulations again!
Me: Thankyou!!
Voice: Bye bye!
Me: Bye!

*dashes downstairs, screeching for my mother*

I wouldn't have taken part in this thing if it weren't for my mother's nagging. She knows writing is my 'thing', and this year's theme was 'The Best Things in Life', which she thought was 'right up [my] alley', so she nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged. I was really busy (and, admittedly, lazy), so I actually missed the deadline for it. Then it appeared in the papers that the deadline had been extended for a week, so I had time to act on the idea I'd been toying with. Which I did, because I was like, Wow, it's like God wants me to take part in this or something, the deadline's been EXTENDED .

Honestly, I thought it was a rather shit entry. The idea was good, I thought, but I didn't...fully expand it. Like I didn't do it justice or something. My entry was written bit by bit, during those last ten minutes while I was on the computer with my father screaming at me to get to bed because it was past midnight and I had school the next day. So you can imagine how awful my entry was. In fact, you can probably smell the fail from where you are right now, be it Australia or America or Europe or Asia.

The first thing I thought once I'd finally wrapped my head around it was, Man, the entries this year must've really sucked!

So anyway, the award presentation dinner's this Friday, and it's going to be this ~formal thing, and my mother's freaking out trying to find me something to wear. I'm sort of dreading it, and don't even want to think about what I'll have to wear. My mother wants me to wear a pair of her old heels, and I told her that if there's some stage thing that we have to walk up on to collect certificates or whatever (which there probably will be), I will trip and fall walking up the steps. Honestly, I can't even walk on level ground in those things, and my mother claims it's easy because it has a thick heel.

Now that I know that I'm somewhere in Malaysia, I hope I got into the top ten. It'd be a bit of a bummer to get all dressed-up for this formal-formal thing to come home with just a certificate. We won't know who stands where until the night itself. Fingers gently crossed, I guess.

Tbh, I still think this is a bit of a joke. My entry was made of utter epic fail, I tell you. Even now I'm laughing.

So. Just an update. Which is not a repost from my blog. Idk if I'm even supposed to be blogging about this yet, but I figured here would be fairly safe, soyeah.

Wish me luck for the dinner. NO, NOT TO WIN SOMETHING.

So that I won't trip and fall flat on my face in front of everybody in those heels.

OMG JAN IAY.

And I'd like to read this story, jsyk.

YAY!

Congratulations janjan!!

(one more journal soon and that subforum is as good as yours)

Im so happy for you! You are a fucking amazing writer, and even when you think something is terrible, you get top twenty

I always knew you were amazing.

Thankyou, Rita. If you want, I can email it to you or something when I'm officially back online. It's embarrassing. Really.


Aww, JackJack, thankyou!! I can't tell you how much your comment made me beam. Brighter than the fluorescent light above my head, I bet.

Let's do that.

I'm so proud of you Jan!

Rita, you can rip into it all you want when you read it, I'm perfectly aware of how awful it is.

Thankyou, Mikey! Ohush. I wasn't even going to take part.

Lizzy!! Thankyou! IAY2!

Tbh, I think this page made me happier than the actual news. Iay all sfm.

Yeah, I am. My mother is seriously rubbing it in now.

Your mother sounds like my mother...

All mothers are the same from that aspect, I think.