Complicated complications

Greetings one and all!

With all of the blogs I follow filling up my Google Reader with BEDA posts, I felt the need to update this old thing. Once again I’m not entirely sure what to update you ON, but you know subject matter really isn’t what’s important about writing a blog post.

Right?

Anyway. . .

As I move from day to day through VEDAug I find myself looking over my list of topics again and again and coming up against the age old issue of not feeling drawn to make any of them. As I said in my video yesterday, it’s not that I don’t want to make videos on those subjects, it’s just that when I get right down to it I don’t want to. Contradictions = win.

I’ve even been considering scripting some of the videos to make their actual production easier, but that feels so very much like, I’m not even sure how to describe it. It feels like going through the motions and having VEDAug become about just posting videos rather than using it as a diary for this very special month for me.

But on the other hand what exactly have the videos I have posted thus far--or any of the other proposed topics for that matter—done as a chronicle of August? The videos have either been crappy short clips because I needed to make a video that day, or they have been and/or will be primarily “scripted” subject matter that restricts me from just recording my life day to day.

And then there’s this issue that I really don’t know what my videos will be like if I stray from the security of a topics list and make videos more like the ones I made when I first started so long ago, where I would just talk about the weather (literally) and what I had done that day or would be doing that day or the next couple of days. To be honest, I really don’t much like those videos and don’t really want to fall back into that type of vlog style. Not to mention the fact that I have gotten such an amazing response from the videos that were drawn from the topics list or were just generally ABOUT something.

It’s just a complicated matter and I really don’t have any answers at this time. Maybe I’ll do a once and week check it about what I’ve done, what wedding related stuff has come up or been handled, general life stuff that I may want to talk about (maybe NOT the weather). What do you think? I know not that many people read this, but I would value any input you would like to give me.

Until next time,

xoxo

The VEDAug Squad (and then some!)

The VEDAug Squad!

(I apologize if you’re listed under your username and not your actual name, it just means I don’t know it yet!)

Comment or message me on YouTube and/or Twitter to be added!

Carmen – http://www.youtube.com/user/uberwren

Emily – http://www.youtube.com/user/Cophenalypse

Jessie – http://www.youtube.com/user/tallatstarbucks

Syd – http://www.youtube.com/user/LexicalTrap

FrogUmbrella – http://www.youtube.com/user/FrogUmbrella

Anneliworld – http://www.youtube.com/user/anneliworld

Bethan – http://www.youtube.com/user/Bethumps

Stevie – http://www.youtube.com/user/stevieisnotanoctopus

Quelbrie – http://www.youtube.com/user/quelbrie

Thomas – http://www.youtube.com/user/totoroovertherainbow

Amanda – http://www.youtube.com/user/skywriter11

Melanie – http://www.youtube.com/user/Gvf77x

Siling – http://www.youtube.com/user/OMGTHERERNONAMESAAGH

Alix – http://www.youtube.com/user/theteaproject

Alex – http://www.youtube.com/user/Alexhasgoneinsane

Donny – http://www.youtube.com/user/donnyhouse
Nsnick88 – http://www.youtube.com/user/Nsnick88

United Vloggers of VALA

(that’s right, I gave you a name, deal with it)

Sarah – http://www.youtube.com/user/imSarahSnitch2

Alex – http://www.youtube.com/user/AlexCarpenterTwo

Luke – http://www.youtube.com/user/lukeconard2

VEDAug I

Updated VEDAug Info

Welcome to the updated entry of everything you need to know about VEDAug!

Rules:

1. Videos must be posted between the hours of 3am and 2am (meaning 3am on day X and 2am on day Y, and thus 3am on day Y and then 2am on day Z, get it?).
2. Videos must be a minimum of 30 seconds, and a maximum of 4:00 minutes.
3. Exception to above rule is a video that is a review, tutorial, haul, challenge, or punishment, in which case it can be up to 8:00 minutes long.
4. Failure to comply with the above restrictions will result in a challenge randomly selected form a list of pre-determined challenges available on this blog (that means if you want to suggest a challenge I’ll add it to the list and randomly choose one when needed).
5. I reserve the right to post pre-filmed videos up to seven times during the month, whenever I feel like it.
6. I reserve the right to not post anything at all or have someone else post a video for me up to five times whenever I feel like it.

VEDAug Topics!

1. Fire Dragon Challenge (unless I have already done that by the time 8/1 rolls around)
2. On contacting representatives: Do’s and Do Not’s
3. Why I hate English Classes (Part I)
4. Why I love The Wizard of Oz (Part 2)
5. Advice on University
6. What’s a Quaker? (SPICE)
7. What’s a Quaker Wedding?
8. Number one piece of advice on planning a wedding
9. Why Cicadas?
10. My Three (books I refuse to travel without)
11. Five of my favorite movies
12. On Being a Nerd: Own who you are
13. Response: Nerd History (owlssayhooot)
14. Response: Growing Up (owlssayhooot)
15. All About Greyhounds
16. Five of my favorite animes
17. My internet history; why I know HTML
18. Why I hate “It gets better”
19. Why you ACTUALLY shouldn’t like Twilight
20. My tattoo experience
21. Domesticity Woman!
22. What on earth is my major?
23. Simple Knitting Lessons: Casting on
24. Simple Knitting Lessons: Knit and Purl
25. 10 Things that make me Happy meme
26. Music
27. Vlad Tepas
28. Rob Zombie
29. A day in the life
30. Coloring
31. Questions Video
32. Oddities about me: Primitive mindset
33. Inception: You’re doing it WRONG!!!
34. I think I might be a hipster
35. Otakon haul

But why are there so many topics if there are only 31 days in August? Because dear reader I hereby agree to post a video about EACH of the aforementioned topics, even if I don't get around to it during VEDAug. Meaning if there was something on the list you really wanted to see, but didn't make the cut during the month of August, I will STILL make a video about that topic sometime after VEDAug has ended.

Updated VEDAug Topics!

Not an exciting post, just an updated list of potential VEDAug topics for anyone interested to see. Expect a video about this in the next day or two because there are questions I need to answer, there's information I need to share, and points I need to clarify.

1. Fire Dragon Challenge (unless I have already done that by the time 8/1 rolls around)
2. On contacting representatives: Do’s and Do Not’s
3. Why I hate English Classes (Part I)
4. Why I love The Wizard of Oz (Part 2)
5. Advice on University
6. What’s a Quaker? (SPICE)
7. What’s a Quaker Wedding?
8. Number one piece of advice on planning a wedding
9. Why Cicadas?
10. My Three (books I refuse to travel without)
11. Five of my favorite movies
12. On Being a Nerd: Own who you are
13. Response: Nerd History (owlssayhooot)
14. Response: Growing Up (owlssayhooot)
15. All About Greyhounds
16. Five of my favorite animes
17. My internet history; why I know HTML
18. Why I hate “It gets better”
19. Why you ACTUALLY shouldn’t like Twilight
20. My tattoo experience
21. Domesticity Woman!
22. What on earth is my major?
23. Simple Knitting Lessons: Casting on
24. Simple Knitting Lessons: Knit and Purl
25. 10 Things that make me Happy meme
26. Music
27. Vlad Tepas
28. Rob Zombie
29. A day in the life
30. Coloring
31. Questions Video (only if I have enough viewers)
32. Oddities about me: Primitive mindset
33. Inception: You’re doing it WRONG!!!
34. I think I might be a hipster

VEDA: Planning block

Evening world (7:06pm EST).

Remember when I talked about my plan for doing VEDAug*? And remember how part of that plan was to make a list of vlog topics that I could choose from every day? Yeah, I’m having trouble with that part. I’ve been working on that list today and yesterday and I only have sixteen items, but I have no more ideas.

Items thus far are:

1. Fire Dragon Challenge (unless I have already done that by the time 8/1 rolls around)
2. On contacting representatives: Do’s and Do Not’s
3. Why I hate English Classes (Part I)
4. Why I love The Wizard of Oz (Part 2)
5. Advice on University
6. What’s a Quaker? (SPICE)
7. What’s a Quaker Wedding?
8. My Three (books I refuse to travel without)
9. Five of my favorite movies
10. On Being a Nerd: Own who you are
11. Response: Nerd History (owlssayhooot)
12. Response: Growing Up (owlssayhooot)
13. All About Greyhounds
14. Five of my favorite animes
15. My internet history; why I know HTML
16. Why I hate “It gets better”

But my brain refuses to give me any more ideas! Help me!

Plan VEDA Mark II

About this business with Vlog Every Day in August (VEDA Mark II from here on out). I’ve had a lot of people asking me if I’m really sure about this or if I really think I’ll have time to it, and won’t it be so stressful. The reason for all of this is that I’m getting married in August, so yes my time will be at a premium and I will be stressed but that is exactly WHY I want to do VEDA MII! I want to chronicle this stage in my life and I want something that is fun that I do for me and that is something I can escape into when I’m feeling overwhelmed with the weight of adult responsibilities.

Trust me, I’ve thought long and hard about this and I really do want to do it. And the reason I’m not as worried as the proverbial YOU seems to have been? I have a PLAN.

My plan is two fold, the first part of which is a list of rules and guidelines to keep my sanity. The second is to compile a list of roughly 50 topics that I can choose from to talk about such that I don’t have any (or at least many) videos of me going “Hey guys, I don’t know what to talk about, blahblahblah crap vlog is crap.” This list is something I’ll be working on from now until August first, and the former list is one that I already have some ideas for and that I wanted to share with anyone else who might be thinking about doing VEDA MII.

1. Videos must be posted between the hours of 3am and 2am (meaning 3am on day X and 2am on day Y, and thus 3am on day Y and then 2am on day Z, get it?).
2. Videos must be a minimum of 30 seconds, and a maximum of 4:00 minutes.
3. Exception to above rule is a video that is a review of something, in which case it can be up to 8:00 minutes long.
4. Failure to comply with the above restrictions will result in a challenge randomly selected form a list of pre-determined challenges available on this blog (that means if you want to suggest a challenge I’ll add it to the list and randomly choose one when needed).
5. I reserve the right to post pre-filmed videos during the 5 days surrounding the day of my wedding.
6. I reserve the right to not post anything at all or have someone else post a video for the day of my wedding and the two days following my wedding.

That’s all I have for now, if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them and if you’re planning to do VEDA MII please please tell me! VEDA Original had an awesome Team VEDA where people participating helped each other out, watch each others videos, and were generally supportive and awesome so a Team VEDA II is definitely required (in my opinion at least).

Anyway, until next time.

Cheers!

An introduction

Greetings one and all.

So. . . this is interesting. I should start by just mentioning that I’m really terrible at keeping a blog. Like, obscenely terrible at it. I go in with good intentions, but the ability to write and update regularly is just not something I posses.

However it still remains one of those things that I WANT to be able to do and WANT to try and do (again, and again, and again). And because of this we are here now, at yet another person blog this time with fewer pre-existing expectations about content or my own ability to write/upload that content.

Mostly I’m here because, for one thing I just like the idea of having a blog that I update and nurture, but also because I have a plan. My plan is to participate in VEDA Mark II, otherwise known as Vlog Every Day in August.

Oh, I guess I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. See, I have a video blog over on YouTube, which can be found here. I’ve been making videos of various sorts since April 2010. During that time I’ve made some amazing friends (who also have blogs as it would happen, and you can check those out by looking over the links on the left side of this blog, right over there *points left*) and grown very attached to this community called Nerdfighteria. Nerdfighteria is an amazing internet community of awesome started by the vlogbrothers John and Hank Green. The members of this community refer to themselves as Nerdfighters, and are nerdy people that fight to increase World Awesome (like art, and equality, and beauty) and decrease World Suck (like war, and poverty, and hunger).

Many members of this community keep video blogs (known by those in the know as “vlogs) and there’s this thing that some of them do called VEDA (Vlog Every Day in April) where they post a video every day in April. Another thing some of these Nerdfighters do is VEDA Mark II, which is my special name for the August version of VEDA Original.

All of this is going to be completely redundant if you’ve found your way here from anywhere else I exist on the internet (like YouTube or Twitter), and I do apologize for that. But I just feel like starting out with plenty of exposition is never a bad idea (can you tell I’ve been watching Lost, the most infamous “No exposition for you” show EVER?).

And what all of that was meant to tell you is that I am planning to do VEDA Mark II and that I want to use this blog as a way to connect with other people doing it and to keep track of the rules and guidelines that I plan to set for myself. Also to compile topics for the videos, because going into a month of vlogging without a plan is just about the easiest way to make crap ass videos that no one (including you) will want to watch.

I’m going to end this entry here and make a separate one for the actual nitty gritty of VEDA Mark II, but I hope you will join me in this journey.

Cheers!