"'M'a fuckin' doctor."
In 2003, my aunt, who hitherto had been my favourite aunty, pulled me aside to tell me about how my mother had complained about my choice of major (English). She said to me, "you cannot write." Not as in "I forbid you to write" but as in "you don't have the talent/knack/skill to write." My mother was very adamant against my discipline of choice. I went to Canada to start my English degree without her blessing--but you really only need the support of the parent with the pursestrings to help, which I had. I flew out of KLIA with my best friend, her parents, and my dad. In 2010, that supportive parent came to Canada to help me move from Nova Scotia to Ontario, on a three-day road-trip. This was a little after I received my first short story acceptance. My mother, by that time, was resigned to my career choice, and her only feedback was to get a PhD after the Masters since that just seems to be a natural course of action. (I hadn't actually consid