April Update

Things are going great. I'm starting my PhD in May. I have some great part-time job prospects on the horizon. I will most likely be working in French again - which I love. My students are terrific! I was just doing some marking today and the things they come up with are excellent. I'm so proud of them. I especially love it when they come to class. I'm taking on an intern from Seneca College's Journalism program. He will be working with Donna Magazine for a month at least. He's a very promising writer named Chris Temelkos and expect to see great stuff from him on the mag.

I'm coming up with a strong idea for my dissertation at the University of Toronto that will follow in the tradition of Salon Utopia and Afro Forever. Afro Forever was the original title of my thesis at Concordia University that I did more than 10 years ago. I'm loving the Macbook Pro I'm typing on now and I know it is going to come in very hand for the work I will doing over a few years.

One my former interns with Donna Magazine, Rachel Muenz, looks as though she is on the verge of making a huge career breakthrough. I'm so excited for her. Another one of my former students at Centennial College, Thandiwe Vela, will be reporting for the Edmonton Journal this summer. She is an extremely promising young journalist. Another one of my former students from Centennial College, La-Ttoya Comrie, just had a beautiful baby boy. I'm so happy for her and her partner.

One of my students, Michael Albertini who is now at Seneca College is promising material to be a MuchMusic of MTV Canada VJ. Anyone reading this who could give him a job, hire him now! He is absolutely brilliant.

I was in the Toronto Public Library doing research on my advisor at the OISE/University of Toronto, Dr. Stephanie Springgay, and I bumped into another one of my former students, Abbas Somji. Abbas is doing his master's degree in communication and culture through a joint program with Ryerson University and York University. He also recently contributed to a spoken word project.

The list can go on and on about all of the terrific things the students in my life are doing. I'm really looking forward to this summer and things are looking as though they will be really exciting. I'm learning a lot and enjoying every second of it.

Going Back to School

Well...after more than 10 years of being out of school to formally study - I'm going back. I received today my official letter of acceptance from OISE/University of Toronto to do my PhD in curriculum, teaching and learning development.

I feel lucky. It's even raining in Toronto today. The thing is, and the great thing is, I did not get into the University of Toronto's PhD programs on first try. This year marks about four years of applications, every time a round came up just to the University of Toronto. This does not even include my years of applications to York University and Ryerson University.

Bothering all of my bosses, former teachers and colleagues over so many years as I applied from one program to the next - sometimes throwing that dart at the same program over and over to get rejected just the same. Thank you to those of you who were so patient, supportive and encouraging.

All this to say that perseverance pays off. I am so happy with where I have landed and it is a good fit for me. I may get comments about this comment I am about to make - but hey, there is a God if you just believe.

Love at a Distance Published

It's here! My new book is called Love at a Distance. I published it this morning and I must say I love the ease and facility of the self-publishing platform on both Lulu.com and Amazon Kindle that can make your works of art come alive so fast.

The book started its creation at the end of February, and you will enjoy the script-like nature of the book. It is compiled from chats that took place with one person over Datehookup.com, as well as Gmail. You can buy it today at:http://stores.lulu.com/kakonged. You can also find it available on Amazon Kindle and Amazon in a few days.

New Book Coming Out

I have a confession to make. I have been in a long distance relationship over the past month. I've just decided today to write a book about it tomorrow that will be called Love at a Distance. The good thing is the publisher will be Lulu.com and it will also be available shortly afterwards on Amazon, as well as Amazon Kindle. Look out for it in the next day or so.

It's Been A Long Time

Hello everyone out there!

It's been a long time since I have posted to this blog site. I am fortunate that blogspot has forgiven me and not relinquished my membership. Things have been busy.

Last semester I had seven classes to teach. Three of them were at Seneca College's Markham campus and three of them were at Seneca College's York campus. I also taught a beat reporting class with the University of Toronto Scarborough campus (UTSC) and Centennial College's Journalism program. I co-taught that class with Ellin Bessner who is excellent to work with. I had a lot of fun and the semester was great. Of course there was some anxiety working on the front lines as a teacher with H1N1 being such a huge deal for many people. It was an interesting experience to navigate through the health issues of some of the students, plus dealing with my own bout of flu, that was not H1N1.

This semester has been extremely interesting. I am teaching two news announcing courses at Seneca College's York campus. Plus, I am teaching a magazine journalism course with UTSC-Centennial. This year, the magazine journalism students have a chance to get their stories published on my magazine Donna Magazine. As well, I started working at George Brown College teaching skills for college English. It is in the continuing education program and this is my first time teaching in the continuing education. I must say the students are great and I am truly enjoying the experience. Many years ago, I used to be a student taking an acting course at George Brown College. I have also taken French courses in continuing education at Concordia University - so I am not a stranger to continuing education.

There are many exciting things I have been up to. I have now written 35 books. My latest one is called Smoking. Even though I have not stopped smoking, I wanted to write something that would still help those people see how they could quit by including stories from people who have successfully quit. In my mind - I have set my quit date - and it will happen. I will write it down when I have a calendar that goes that far to make sure it is the exact date I would want.

I have also started a new online portal called Donna Magazine's Salon Utopia. It's a place for me to showcase some of the files I was able to salvage from the master's research I did at Concordia University that ended in part with my graduation in 1999. It's been fun to set up that site and I did it all myself. I did receive some excellent technical guidance from Register.com, HostPapa, my hosting company, and motivation from Kent James who I also did a story on for Suite101.com.

I have some writing work I am doing for an NGO, plus some other plans in the works. I am working on publishing another book soon and have been busy promoting my efforts. Having your own business is a lot of work - however, I would not call what I do completely a one-woman show. Many people do help in their own way.

Well...there's the update from me on how things have been going. Thanks to my student Jennifer Winters at George Brown College who helped to inspire me to update this blog. I will certainly make more of an effort to do so. For daily content, please do check out Donna Magazine.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

If you would like to share in the magic of the season, please visit http://stores.lulu.com/kakonged to purchase one of my 30 books.

Faith and the Media Symposium

I attended a Faith and the Media Symposium on Thursday night that went quite well. Along with myself, there was another media representative there who is the managing editor of the Brampton Guardian.

The event was organized by some Muslim community members and they were kind enough to arrange to have me driven to the event, as well as dropping me off at home after the event. I brought my books to sell, however there really was not enough time for me to sell any.

The focus of my presentation was pointing out that there really are not any journalism and religion courses at many schools and this is not preparing young reporters to go out in the field to cover the issues. Some of things I am hoping to do are to rectify this situation by perhaps proposing a journalism and religion course at one of the schools I teach at.

The night was overall a success and I had a terrific time. Went to bed way past my bedtime, however it was well worth it.