Well, my email yesterday must have worked because I got a reply last night saying they are going to publish my article! I am so thrilled! This is really huge for me. Like, really huge.
I feel like this is the first thing I've ever really achieved by myself, for myself. Yes, I've achieved lots of things in the past, but other people had a big effect on that. For example:
- Highschool scholarship to Uni - uni was giving at least two to all the schools and I was the only on to apply from my school. I didn't suck, so they gave it to me.
- Good grades at uni - always had assignment guidelines, so not hard.
- Honours and MA - always had my supervisor editing my work and helping me make it better.
- MA scholarship - I always felt like my supervisor got this for me because of her skills as a referee, not because I was the best.
- Jobs - again, I feel they had more to do with my wonderful referees' skills than mine
But this? This I did alone. I thought about it myself, researched it myself with no guidelines, wrote it, edited it, proofed it, and submitted it all on my own. The magazine doesn't know anything about me, or have references to look at, so my writing made it for it's own value, not the value someone else says it has. Other than getting an 'A' on my CELTA, this may be one of my proudest things. So, I'm super happy-dance happy.
The magazine editor asked me to submit a 40 word bio about myself to print along with my article. I didn't know what sort of thing to write, so I checked out the sample edition of the magazine online. Oh my. I am so glad I didn't read the author bios until after I submitted my work, otherwise I might have been too intimidated to send mine in. They are all like:
- Freelance writer, lecturer, and teacher.
Involved in teaching English for over 15 years. Has specialties. Has a DELTA, a
BA in Education and an MA in learning disabilities.
- Has publish widely, including article and
whole books. Author of the British Council's Learn English website.
- Associate professor at a University.
- Owns his own English school. Teaching for
20 years. Has published several articles.
- Series editor for major ESL publication,
taught for over 40 years in 9 countries. Published over 30 books.
- Teaching for eight years; teaching since
1993; teaching for 15 years; 20 years; University teacher for seven years; 18
years; six years...
Seriously - they are all so much more... everything than me. On the one hand, I'm sort of like 'Well, I'm going to look lame next to that!', and the other part of me is like 'Woohoo, I have so much less training and experience and I'm getting published in the same magazine!'.
So, yes. I am pretty happy right now.
As to WHEN the article will be published - I don't know yet. Not for a few months, at least. But, I'm happy to wait :)
This blog entry is realisation that whilst you may THINK you are helped by others to achieve scholastic merit, you proved you can do it on your own anyway. You're an intelligent person with loads of ideas to share with people and I really think you're well on your way to doing exactly that! Give yourself plenty more credit as its well deserved.
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