Life in a Day

After fighting with Adobe Premiere Elements 4 for a few hours, I finished my project.  More to come soon now that I've re-overcome my mild distaste for editing video (to be fair, I think I shot more than 80 video clips for this project.  I had a right to not want to deal with that).  I still haven't figured out why YouTube is lowering the quality of my video, but I'm going to work that out ASAP and re-upload when the problem is fixed.  Anyway, this is my life in a day.

I'm hoping to get less awkward on camera with time.  I think I'm on my way, though.  Just got to take myself a little less seriously, because it worked when I did.

I'm in love with vlogs and I feel fine

Okay, so you all are probably wondering why I've been radio silent so much recently after PROMISING that I would have videos up ASAP and after I had already filmed four like a week ago.  There are four primary reasons for this:

1) I have been busy.  This ranges from standard work hours through my entire Sunday (and I mean ENTIRE Sunday) being suddenly and completely unexpectedly taken up by the most awesome (well, only) session of D&D I've ever played (more tomorrow, yay!).  I'm so glad I've found an RPG setting that suits me.  Also, I've been plowing through books that were due back at the library today (I think I'm going to do a full video on The 4-Hour Workweek).  However, I was busy when I was doing daily blogs before, right?  What's different now?  Well...

2) Once something becomes a responsibility instead of a diversion, I start avoiding it like the plague, no matter what it is.  This, combined with my fear of success, fear of failure, and general tendencies toward procrastination make it nearly impossible for me to get anything done.  Fortunately, this is slightly countered by the fact that I now feel guilty about wasting time watching online videos because it reminds me that I have videos of my own to make, driving me back towards the work at hand.  

3) I hate my video editing software.  It's Adobe Premiere Elements 4, and it runs about as smoothly on my computer as Velcro on carpet.  

4) Life in a Day.  That is the big project going on right now (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/07/07/youtube-film-life-in-a-day-to-employ-user-generated-content/).  All Saturday I was running around with my camera trying to shoot interesting video of my life.  Unfortunately, my friend's cool event got delayed by a few days and my office was locked so I couldn't film my kissy-face crayfish interactions.  However, I got some footage and answered the Life in a Day questions, so now all I have to do is edit my video together by the end of this Saturday.  This video is really the wrench in the works.  Not only does it preempt my other videos, but it falls into the traps outlined in numbers 2 and 3 above.  

The good news is that Life in a Day has also convinced me that vlogging is the path I want to take.  Just a few minutes ago, I started reviewing the footage.  Even as I watched myself bungling lines, I found myself smiling, and I mean really smiling.  This statement comes from a girl who suffered a great deal of self-hatred during a bout of clinical depression which has left a rather significant scar, so please realize that this is something of a big deal.  I like watching my videos, even unedited.  I think I'm fun to watch, at least for me.  That's all that counts, really.  No matter who ends up watching my videos, whether it's 5 people or 5,000, I will always be able to look back on them, see myself as I am today, and smile.  Vlogging is my path, and I'm getting back on the bandwagon ASAP (well, after a full day of work and D&D tomorrow).  I'll have to have my Life in a Day video up by Saturday, anyway (well, that may go unlisted, but we'll see).  

DFTBA,

Julia

I'm back (and will be back more shortly)!

I've just gotten over myself and my self-consciousness to film four videos that will be making their way on to YouTube over the next fortnight or so.  My hair doesn't look up to snuff, but that's part of the point.  I can't wait for all of the stars to align to make a video; that kind of attitude is what's been keeping me from working on any so far.  It's time to make the leap into YouTube head on in HD, even if my head is covered with what are now highly-visible acne scars.  For anyone who cares, here are the topics of the videos I shot tonight:

1) General news about vlogging and VidCon
2) Indiana Jones
3) An analysis of the song "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast (this one may or may not make it to YouTube)
4) A personalized video for one of my blog readers (it could be YOU, but statistically probably not).

Anyway, the videos may not be perfect, but I'm going in knowing that the only way to get better is to PRACTICE.  Stay tuned for the actual videos!

DFTBA,

Julia

The End of an Era

Okay, I came to a realization today.  A multi-part, rather verbose revelation.

1) Putting myself on a daily blogging schedule/midnight deadline is really cutting down my quality.
2) I'm involved enough in my blogging/vlogging now that removing the one-a-day limitation is NOT going to cause me to go into a slippery spiral of not posting anymore.
3) When I write blogs, I am now starting to see them as vlogs in my head.   This is because, as I have been told, I write like I talk.  I can't script, but I can blog.  I SEE A SOLUTION.

In combination, this tells me that many of the blog entries I write from now on are going to be turned into vlogs.  I'm not going to stop blogging - not by a long shot - but there's going to be a shift.  This shift includes no more one-a-day blogs, at least not in an enforced manner.  Midnight deadlines will be flouted.  Time will be spent planning and editing blogs and vlogs.  Quality will increase.  And everyone will be happier (honestly, how many of you wanted to read something by me EVERY SINGLE DAY?  It's a little overwhelming).

Thank you all for supporting me thus far.  I hope you'll all stick with me through the transition.  I really look forward to what comes next - I have been planning it since at least April, after all.

DFTBA,
Julia

VidCon Day One, Part One:

I'm not going to record every awesome moment here - that would just be mean.  Instead, I'm going to try to make this concise (the first paragraph after this fails - sorry) and keep the rest of this in a journal somewhere. You don't need all the gory details.  

So after staying up way too late watching Twilight: Eclipse, I woke up around 7:30 to shower, wash my hair, and pack my bag.  For the record, I got about 4.5 hours of sleep that night.  This will become more important as these posts go on, trust me.  Around 9:40 I picked up my carpool buddy and off we went to VidCon.  The drive was about an hour long, so we got to talk a little bit.  Apparently she's kind of a big deal with the higher-ups at http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/ and had friends who went to Disneyland with Charlie McDonnell the day before.  Yeah, she's kind of connected.  It was really cool listening to her talk about her experiences with the online community - she really inspired me to follow in her footsteps.

We arrived.  She had places to go - she got recruited to help out by her friends - so after registering, getting my badge, and picking up my VidCon bag with my shirt and various goodies, I was alone at VidCon.  At first, I was a little overwhelmed.  This wasn't helped by the fact that within about two minutes of arriving I saw this guy:

and this guy:

just standing out in the lobby area in real life and 3D.

Now I'll admit, I've never actually watched Chocolate Rain all the way through, but that was one of the early defining videos of YouTube.  That guy is legend.  The second video, though, that's one of my all-time favorites.  I used to have it memorized (probably still do).  I knew that video well enough that I remembered that the guy who made it is named Corey Vidal even though I hadn't seen it in months.  In fact, when my friend heard the video playing out of another friend's room back in winter, she knew instantly that I was responsible.  That's how much I love this video.  So when I saw a familiar-looking tall guy hanging out in the lobby area of the conference and then suddenly realized who he was, I may have goggled slightly.  When he looked over and caught me staring, I got supremely embarrassed and couldn't work up the courage to talk to him for the rest of the day.  

I did, however, see someone who I had not heard was going to be there.  One of the very first people I was ever exposed to on YouTube.  One of my original YouTube idols, you might say.  If you know me, you probably know him from this video:

Hell yeah.  Joe Bereta (the one with the beard in the video.  Sadly, I never found Luke, but apparently he was totally there.  Argh).  I walked up to him and told him how much I loved his videos and how big "Bible in a Minute" was at my high school.  He seemed genuinely happy to talk to me.  I even got his autograph.  And that, my friends, was when VidCon's awesome began to fully manifest.

I'm going to cut the story off here for now because it's already way too long.  To be continued tomorrow.

***

Now onto non-VidCon related items.

Finally, I would like to point out that I can't hold any of you responsible for not subscribing to my YouTube channel, as it was apparently on private.  However, I can hold you accountable for not figuring this out and telling me.  Now a stranger in the Nerdfighters chat room gets the privilege of being my first subscriber.  

My new camera arrived today and I know exactly what I want my first few videos to be.  Well, almost exactly.  It's going to require a bit of scripting, but I think I've laid the groundwork for a YouTube series, at least in the notes I've taken in the spare seconds I find during work.  I love the title I came up with, too.  I just hope it comes out as I envision it and that other people find it worth watching.  I really think it has potential, after I spend a few episodes ironing the wrinkles out.  I'll get to do two things I love - be informative and entertain people.  The only reasons I'm not filming right now is that my cold in combination with my slowly receding acne attack make me look like Rudolph after acupunture gone horribly wrong.  

Also, I haven't ordered the ukulele yet, but it still seems like a likely thing to happen.  Can't remember if I've already written this, but I figure the worst thing that happens is I can't songwrite/sing to save my life and I end up still knowing how to play ukulele.  

SHAMELESS PLUG http://www.youtube.com/tropegirl SHAMELESS PLUG

Sorry, VidCon posts are being delayed by a day.

I am currently ill/indisposed in two or three different mild but annoying ways plus my laptop is currently required for a viewing of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.  Ergo, no VidCon posts tonight.  But by tomorrow hopefully I'll have more video clips to add, so hooray for that.

DFTBA,
Julia

VidCon: The Aftermath

Best time of my life.  Maybe Disney World tied for best.  Maybe.

The next several days are all going to be about documentation.  Tomorrow I compile all my memories and post about the first half of day 1.  Then I'll post about the night of day 1.  And so on.

The most important thing you should know is that I'm serious about the YouTube/Nerdfighter community now.  As soon as I get my new camera, I'm going to start posting video.  Good quality, planned out, well-edited video.  I've been writing down ideas for ages.  I hope that you all will support me in my endeavors.  I really can't remember the last time I was this driven to do anything.  I may even buy a cheap ukulele off of Amazon and learn how to play it so I can try my hand at songwriting (Dear Mom and Dad: Yes, I have a guitar.  No, I never really learned to play it.  But it's at home and not very portable.  Also, right now I have time to learn ukulele and it's more conducive to the type of songs I'm thinking about.  And I'm going to practice the guitar when I get home in a few weeks).

I'm on Twitter now in a serious fashion at twitter.com/tropegirl.  Follow me there if you'd like, but don't feel you have to.  And I'm not going to lie, I'd feel a little better about myself if my YouTube channel had some subscriptions and/or comments (youtube.com/tropegirl).  BUT DON'T FEEL FORCED INTO ANYTHING.  The last thing I want is to pressure you guys.

DFTBA,
Julia

sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep

Day 2 of VidCon also amazing.  Got shirt signed by many amazing people.  Awesome concert.  More details later.  Sleep now.  Will sleep after get back from conference also.  Probably no new blog entry until Monday proper.  Continued bad luck in Callie's car - that will be a blog in and of itself.

*MIND BLOWN*

First day of VidCon was amazing, bizarre, and wonderful.  Best day of my life that I can think of.  Also most stressful.  Will write more when sleep less urgently critical.  Highlights:

• Hugging my favorite "celebrity"
• Moshing with some of my favorite YouTubers (mostly Hank Green and Tom Millson, with a few others sometimes in the mix
• Dancing to Numa Numa with people who were really excited about it
• Being in a crowd of people singing along to Charlie McDonnell singing "Exterminate, Regenerate"
• Having serious car troubles in LA at night.

Eclipse: A review.

It was actually quite entertaining, but probably not in the way it was supposed to be.  Warning, here there be minor spoilers.


***


Best line in the movie:
Jacob: "Well, I *am* hotter than you."


Also, I swear that Edward and Jacob were just shy of flirting in that scene.  It was ever so slightly awkward given the context.


Second best line in the movie: 
Edward: "Isabella Swan, I promise to love you every moment of forever."


Wow, Edward, what are you, twelve?  (I think I may be quoting the Buffy crossover video now, but I'm too tired to look that up).


Also, I don't get why so many girls love Edward so much.  He's boring.  And awkward.  And kind of ugly.  I also don't get why everyone in the Twilight universe loves Bella.  She's also really, really boring.  I guess they're perfect for each other.  


Oh goodness, time to sleep now.  I have a long weekend ahead of me.  

How do I get myself into these situations?

I'm going to Twilight: Eclipse tonight.  I wouldn't go because I have work and it costs money and I have PRINCIPLES, but there's a whole group of people going who are going to make it totally awesome.  We're going to have an amazing Parody!Edward and Parody!Jacob and several Parody!Fangirls.  To let you all know that I'm still pure of heart, here is the Buffy vs. Edward video that made Twilight even more hilarious.

P.S.  I learned from my friend who was drawing Jacob abs on another friend that apparently you can blend Sharpie on skin.  *The More You Know*

A Vid Before Vidcon

In which I discuss Toy Story 3 and how VidCon is going to be the best thing since YouTube.

My most sincere apologies for the drunken sailor nature of the camera. Apparently video stabilizing can only do so much when both the camera and the rather bouncy subject are sitting on a springy bed.  Never.  Again. 

Yet another placeholder

Hey all, I know I promised that I would post a vlog today, but I realized that I really wanted a second try at recording it (the footage yesterday was, in retrospect, more rushed than I would like).  So I'm about to try recording again at a slower pace with more time for editing.  This means that the video probably won't be loaded until after midnight.  Ergo, placeholder post!

Losing my memory already

So apparently when I linked to Minesweeper the Movie yesterday, it was not the first time I had done so on this blog.  Next thing you know, I'll be forgetting what I ate for breakfast.  Wait...oh right, a bagel.  Anyway, today I'll make up the repeated video with another old classic video suggested to me by Lizzle: The Mantage.

In other news, I've recorded a vlog that I'm not going to be able to post until tomorrow.  I may or may not be going to Toy Story 3 tonight, so time is slightly crunchy right now.  But the good news is that this may be one of the last vlogs I film on my webcam.  I've decided on a camera that I'm going to get from Amazon which should make the video product much better in both audio and video quality.  Not only that, but once I get the camera I'll feel more urgency toward actually getting my video projects done.  Productivity!

Finally, I'm going to link you over to today's Hyperbole and a Half at http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/07/dog.html.   I found it particularly hilarious today for some reason.

All right, time to get things done in the real world now.  GERONIMO!

Change is coming

Some of you may have noticed that this blog has slowed down a bit.  It's not just laziness on my part.  You see,  I've started to set aside some of my better material for my vlog.  I have long intended to start up vlogging again, but life has gotten crazy busy recently, and I just got a roommate a week ago.  As you might guess, having a roommate makes filming a lot harder.  But now, I'm deciding on a camera to buy.  A real camera, not just a webcam.  And I'm going to make things with it.  I've had plans since a month before the school year ended, and they are not going to waste.  The videos are probably going to be much more structured than the blog has been thus far and probably more time consuming.  Therefore the next few weeks before the camera arrives and I fully adjust to it are probably going to be the tail end of the daily posting era.  Quality over quantity, right?

Anyway, boring post is boring.  So to make it a little less sleep-inducing, here's one of my all-time favorite YouTube videos.  Most of you have probably already seen it, but it's still brilliant.

Who are you? What do you want?

Okay, here's the thing.  This post is important to me.  I've spent more time trying to figure out how to best present it than I have with any other blog post.  But I've come up with nothing so far, so I'm just going to be as straightforward as possible.  

Babylon 5 is a damn good show and you should watch it.  

For those of you who have never heard of it, it's a science fiction show from the mid-nineties about a space station which acts as an intergalactic United Nations in the middle of the 23rd century.  WAIT, DON'T STOP READING YET.  I know that for most of you, this probably sounds about as interesting as watching paint dry.  But it's not.  Babylon 5 is a truly epic story.  It is about love, war, telepaths, betrayal, redemption, and many other things that I want to say but can't because it would ruin the show for you.  Best of all, the story was written as a television novel, or five-year miniseries.  The creator, J. Michael Straczynski, had been planning the story for years.  Every apparent loose end and unanswered question created in the first season is resolved and woven back into the story by the end.  In other words, this is a show for those of you who loved Lost or Battlestar Galactica but felt let down by the finales or the general sense that the creators had been making it up as they went along (Note: I love BSG AND the most of the finale, but it was slightly disappointing that the creators had clearly not planned some things out in advance).  

Now, the show isn’t perfect.  I’ll be the first to admit that.  The acting is sometimes questionable and the first season is not that gripping.  The fifth season was also weakened by the un-cancellation of the show.  But don’t let that turn you away.  The first season may be slow, but it is critical to setting up the rest of the series.  The sometimes shoddy acting is compensated for by the lead actors.  And the story is worth all of it.  Seasons 3 and 4 in particular kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time in a way that nothing else ever has.  The finale, which I had high expectations for, didn’t disappoint me.  I sobbed for the last twenty minutes or so at the understated beauty of it.  I can’t remember crying that much for any other work of fiction in my life.  And the character development in the show is subtle but powerful – some of the best I’ve ever seen. 

Like I said, the show has its flaws.  Don’t go in expecting greatness - you will be sorely disappointed.  Let yourself get immersed in the world and then slowly, over time, the greatness will become apparent.  The story unfolds gracefully, the characters evolve, and the ending is beautiful.  

The show in its entirety can be viewed legally at http://www.slashcontrol.com/free-tv-shows/babylon-5.  Alternatively, the first two seasons are available on Hulu.  I find Hulu slightly less frustrating.

If this post has not convinced you to watch Babylon 5, you should think about viewing the write-up about the show at http://aria.dreamwidth.org/82959.html.  Though I love what she has written, I would actually recommend not reading it except as a last resort.  There are some minor spoilers there which I would rather keep new viewers pure of.  You might also notice that my post title and her entry title are almost the same.  That’s because if you want to write about Babylon 5, that’s pretty much the best title there is. 

Now the only thing left for me to do is decide whether to re-watch it now or later.  

Classes for the Masses Part 2: Religious Studies

I'm not a religious person, but I went to a Catholic high school.  I was drawn there by the fantastic general academics the school offered, but I was initially slightly wary of the four-year sequence of required religious classes.  In retrospect, two of those classes have been some of the most important courses I've ever taken, at least in terms of being a member of society.

The class I took in freshman year was an overview of the major modern world religions.  This included, but was not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.  That class really opened my eyes.  Understanding the major religions of the world is key to understanding the dynamics of the world as a whole.  That may sound hyperbolic, but it really isn't.  Religion can act as a path to peace or to war, and misunderstandings between religious groups tip the balance toward the latter.  This is why I think that everyone should have a basic understanding of world religions.  I firmly believe that if everyone took a class like this, these misunderstandings and their consequences would drop drastically.  The problems wouldn't go away entirely - people are people, after all - but there would be a difference.

The class I took in sophomore year was an in-depth study of the Old Testament.  This is another area of knowledge that I believe everyone should have some experience in.  The Old Testament is a key document for three major world religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  Because these three religions also happen to have millennia of history of members warring with each other over religious disputes, it is especially important to understand the text that they hold as relatively common ground.  The Old Testament helps to give perspective on many things that happen throughout history up through today because it is so crucial to three religions that have shaped the modern world.

The areas of religious studies are not the only ones that are interesting or useful.  For example, I took a class just last semester which examined the role of bodies in early Christianity which gave me a totally different perspective on the early Church than my high school had.  However, I believe that some basic religious studies knowledge, particularly in the areas outlined above, is important for everyone to have so that communication between members of different religions is effective and so that mutual respect and tolerance is maximized.

Okay, I just looked back on what I wrote and I realized something a little creepy.  This four-paragraph blog post shares some striking similarities with the highly structured four paragraph essays I wrote back in high school.  STOP HAUNTING ME, JANE SCHAFFER AND YOUR BLASTED ESSAY FORMAT.

Classes for the Masses Part 1: Computer Science

I am a student of the sciences, so I could have gone to a science-oriented college and just generally avoided the humanities.  However, I chose a liberal-arts college for a reason.  I believe that the tools for a happy and successful life are scattered throughout many disciplines and subject areas.  Because of this, I'm starting a series of posts on subject that everyone should have some experience in.

First up is computer science.  Admittedly, computer science might seem like a bit of a cop-out for my first post.  I am a scientist, after all, so computer science is something I should be taking anyway.  My major (Molecular Biology, in case you don't read the blurb at the top of the page) doesn't require it, though, which is slightly baffling to me.  Just a few days ago I found my coding skills suddenly necessary for a summer job doing biology research.  What shocked me was that a semester of intro computer science a year ago was sufficient to problem-solve a real data-interpretation problem.

Computer science can be useful in ways other than just sciences, though.  Want to make your own digital Connect Four game?  It's really not that complicated (okay, three hours of coding with some guidance.  But still!).  Need to do a lot of repetitive calculations for something in your everyday life?  Write a simple code and save yourself a lot of time.  Python is a simple, friendly programming language and it's free for download on the internet.  Free.  There is a lot of power just sitting there waiting for you to use it.  Seize the opportunity!  Whether you want to code something useful or something fun, computer science is an invaluable tool in today's world, and you never know when it will suddenly save your butt in a tight situation.  If you're still in college, take a computer science class.  You won't regret it.

How to watch The Last Airbender

1) Check Rotten Tomatoes.  See that the movie has a 7% fresh rating.  Rapidly readjust expectations from Twilight ha-ha bad to Manos the Hands of Fate horrible.  Feel better knowing that you can't be disappointed now.
2) Realize that the whole group of people you're going with is dressing up for the event.  Get a Facebook message telling you which characters have already been taken.  Tear apart your room and Google Images looking  for a way to create a non-taken costume.  Fail miserably.  Figure that if you can't go in character, geek it out.  Put on your science-y M.I.T. shirt and Triforce belt buckle.
3) Watch seven episodes of Avatar: The Abridged Series while you're waiting.
4) Meet up with the group and tell them that you wanted to be Zuko, but couldn't quite pull it off.  Get attacked with eye-scar make-up and put your ponytail a little higher on your head.  Instant costume.  Zuko is now a nerd, but you realize that The Legend of Zelda probably doesn't exist in the Avatar universe.  Remove the belt buckle.
5) Drive to the theater.  Plot with the group about how to kidnap an Aang - a surprising omission in a group of nine costumes.
6) Arrive at the theater.  Get stared at a lot.
7) Watch as the movie begins.  Realize exactly how bad it is when it starts with a badly-written text scroll paired with a badly-acted narration.  Settle in for a bumpy ride.
8) Cringe every time they mispronounce a word or name, which happens at least once a minute.  Console yourself with the fact that you had enough foresight to watch Avatar: The Abridged Series first so that you can transfer some of the mocking humor from that to the horribly dull and unfunny movie in front of you.
9) Continue cringing.
10) Resist throwing things at Katara.  The theater might kick you out.  Actually, that might not be a bad plan...
11) Exit the theater and make fun of the movie with friends.  Discuss how it was a miracle that the movie got a whole 7% on Rotten Tomatoes.
12) Continue complaining and mocking during the car ride home.
13) Fall asleep feeling contented.  You had a good bonding experience over a bad movie.  Victory.