Bring it.

The semester is finally over! The magazine was a semi-success (I am really hard on myself...but more on that later) and all my stories are completed!
I feel this semester has been a whirlwind. I feel I've grown so much as person with the completion of this semester. Only three weeks ago, I was sitting at home freaking out about stories and reflection pieces, a magazine, photos for Paul, and video voicer assignment, etc. etc. etc. I thought I was never going to make it to the end of the semester, and I was beginning to think how easy it could be to drop out of the program. Especially with all the assignments that were due, and three more stories that needed to be written for Shauna's class (she continued to nail it into me that, if I didn't finish my stories, I would fail the program!), I started stressing to the point that I wasn't able to function anymore. It feels so good to know that I succeeded without giving up hope, and that all my stories were completed in the fashion that I wanted.
The past few weeks have been the most stressful for me as a student, and I've been a student for over five years, so it's crazy how I felt this semester to be the hardest over all.

When I finished my last two stories, I began celebrating: I wasn't celebrating because I was done (this was part of it though) but because I was creating two stories that meant a lot more to me than just completion: my story on perfumes as a stress reliever meant that I was now able to write about a topic that interested me, one that did not necessarily conform to the typical rules of the journal, but let me use my creativity to full advantage. My last story on BestBuy was my biggest accomplishment: after experiencing so much stress with my other stories, spending much time concentrating on what I was going to say, how I was going to say it, what needed to be said, who I was writing for ETC. my BestBuy article was done in two days flat. After finding the topic, I set out to get everything done in one standing. In one Sunday, I was on the phone with the communications manager for BestBuy Canada; next, I was at the University searching for an old marketing professor; lastly, I was inside BestBuy looking for comments from customers. It was done. Though that night was tremendous, the day after I had completed an entire article ready for print... and it only took me two days! I felt like a real Journalist. Scratch that: like a superstar.

Moving forward, I could not be any more happy about the final product for COMM1707: Flash Magazine: Premiere Edition. So much hard work, effort and time (at the cost of sleep!) went into producing that magazine, and I could not be any more proud of myself for accomplishing such a feat (!). As I have previously said though, I still believe there were some faults that could have been corrected before it was published online. Had I more time to finish the magazine, I would have put more effort into creating more visually-appealing layouts, and I would have spent the majority of my time searching for faults in the text. There were definitely some pages that looked a lot better constructed than others, and if I had it my way, I would have tailored the magazine to my own style, incorporating not only the stories we worked so hard on during the semester, but also some of the photos that highlighted our creativity throughout the semester, and maybe some more fashion-related things (as I believe this is what I am interested in).

Enough about this though. I can be hard on myself. Too hard, sometimes. My perfection gets to the best of me, and this is a weakness (strength!) that can get the best of me sometimes. I need to learn how to take control of my surroundings, without penalizing my creativity or my hard work...

With this being said, I feel this semester was just a taste of what to expect for next semester. I cannot wait for next semester and a better, more thorough magazine issue. Same name, different format. Bring it on, Cert. program!

Georges is ready.