There are a lot of items on my metaphorical 'list' (as in not on paper) of things that I would like to accomplish. Last July I crossed off 'sky-diving'. Today, I cross off 'getting a piece published'.

!!!!

I submitted a piece to the Poetry Institute of Canada on July 29 close to 9pm, with the deadline being July 30, 12am. Today, I arrived home after a tiring bicycle charade peddling into the wind, wondering why my legs were burning and my breath was so heavy (couldn't possibly be 'not in shape', right?). After carrying Green up four flights of stairs, I changed out of my now-sweaty school attire and sat down at the computer. Daniel told me I had received a letter. I turned it over to reveal "Poetry Institute of Canada", and was initially confused, because I forgot about my submission, or even who I had submitted to.

I opened it expecting the same kind of letter I got from the magazine I sent work to much earlier this year. Thank you for submitting, but it's not you. Instead, this letter had wonderful words paired together such as: "it is with great pleasure", "selected to be published","congratulations", "great accomplishment", and perhaps the best: "thousands of poems and publish only the best".

So, dear friends, plan to purchase the anthology Fire and Light coming January 2012. I got a special price and it still cost fifty dollars.

I don't actually expect you to buy it.

I also decided to download a free app that eliminates the need for me to stick 500 sticky-notes on the wall, colour-coded, to show me what I need to do before December 6th.

Who knew.