Thoughts on Resolutions

Hi darlings,
 It's me again. I know, I haven't been keeping very good track of what I'm doing and I'm genuinely sorry for that. Now, I will try to update you guys at least once a week with the various comings and goings of my week.

I've realized very recently...like today recently, that I'm very nearly done with my new year's resolutions. I had three very specific ones and they're all very close to me. I wanted to read more, so I set myself the challenge of 15 books for the year. That way I wouldn't be too burdened during the school months and stress myself out more but I was actively seeking books to read and finding myself in a good place. I think I'm about three off that score. I'm about a fourth of the way through another book and have a couple rereads that I want to go through. So all in all, that should be done by the time I go back into school in the fall.

The next goal I set for myself is to write a novel this year. Well, that looks like it is rapidly approaching completion because I've started Camp NaNoWriMo. I'm now about 42K words into the whole thing and about 21K into my actual NaNoWriMo part of that. Which means I'm about half way done with nano part. This makes me super excited because seriously, it took me the first twenty years of my life to write a full length novel and now I've almost written two of them. That's a freaking craziness. By the time I reach twenty one, I could have written almost three novels. That just totally blows my mind away. It makes me so proud.

The other one I haven't really done is getting through all of the vlogbrothers videos and make Nerdfighter Challenge videos on it. Even then, I got through the first year which was probably a very good chunk of them. About 200 or so videos. So I'm pretty happy about all that.

The thing about all of these things is that I would have never gotten them done any other year. I never would have had the willpower. Being in college made me different yes, but more than that, meeting these people, these internet people, who inspire me everyday to do better has helped me so much. It makes me want to be a better person. It makes me want to achieve my dreams. And I'm so proud of that. People give the internet a pretty bad kind of name, but I love it so much. I love the people I get to see everyday because of this great technology.

So since it's June and it's the halfway point in the year, how do you think you are doing on your new year's resolutions? any outstanding progress? if so, what's it attributed to? and if not, why do you think that is? I mean it's a marathon, that's true but sometimes it feels so good just to get that sprint out of the way, that you don't know what it was like just going so slowly. You want to feel that floating sensation everyday.

DFTBA darlings,
Nina x

It's Been Awhile

It's been more than a week and I'm sorry for that.  I will try to keep a bit better tabs on this thing.  But let's talk about this week and why I've been a bit too busy to entertain you.  The main reason is that I contracted the tiny chickens disease.

For those of you who are not nerdfighters, that means I came down with a cold.  What happened was kind of like this.  Day one: Bad Headaches.  Day Two: Bad headaches and appetite kind of out of wonk. Day Three: Snot and Crap. Day Four: Oh my god, please let me die, because this is just horrible.  So yeah, I have been sick now for about a week and things are finally starting to turn up.  There's no headaches.  Finally, there's starting to be less snot and stuff, but the chickens seem to be evacuating my nasal cavity so that is all good.

The other things are that I like to be extremely loud when I type so on Sunday on the worst of me being sick, we (meaning me, my three younger siblings, and our five dogs) were relegated to the upstairs and had to be super effing quiet because my mother was filming in our downstairs which was more or less a nightmare for me.  So typing was basically, in my room, trying to be as quiet as I possibly could while being sick and kind of just hating life in general.

On monday, I went to go babysit some kids and just didn't think to blog.  Probably wouldn't have been that interesting anyway.

But I have also finished another book to add to the Books I've read collection page, so I'm glad to have done that.  I read Maureen Johnson's "13 Little Blue Envelopes" and it was FANTASTIC.  It was an easy read.  I started it on Monday and finished it today but I really only read in chunks of like one or two hours.   So that was nice.  It was really super quick and something I would recommend to a few people.   Because it was like being on an adventure without having to pay for it.

Oh, I've also written words.  I don't know if I told you last time how many words I was at, but currently I'm at 18K, almost 19K and so it's going along smoothly.  Once I finish it, I will tell you what it's about but the crazy thing about my brain is that I don't like to tell anyone.  I keep the goal inside or else I'll never do it.   And so I thank you guys for your patience, but it's gonna be here I promise.

Video blogging is a thing I should get back to.  I haven't done it in awhile and that's something I want to do again.  I wasn't going to do it while I was sick and there was a couple of other things that were just affecting a lot of stuff.  But I'm back on being on the road to completing things.   Hopefully, you'll see me soon.

DFTBA Darlings,
Nina x

Beda: Day 28: Seeing Sissy.

I loved Today.   Today was a good day in so many ways.

The biggest being that I got to see my sister.   My sister who is in AIT and can't stay over for a weekend likes to hand out with us still and I'm just lucky to have her.   She likes to do things with me and it was just glorious.   Due to respect to her, I didn't  film anything in the day, but it was so cool.  

We got lunch, did some shopping, went to get coldstone, did some more shopping and then came back home and ate dinner and watched a bit of TV together.   Sounds like a freaking awesome day I know.   You wish you were living my life. 

But in all seriousness, that was probably one of the first times that I've been out of the house for something that wasn't school related in a long time.   and i'm just so stinking glad I got out of the house.   it was one of those things, like cleaning, that I had been putting off for a long time and finally did and realized how much easier life would have been if I had done that a whole lot sooner.   All reinvorgorated and stuff.

So yeah, that was my day and now after walking around so much my leg hurts and I'm tired but I wouldn't change it for the world.   Because it's what I wanted and what Needed.   Anyone telling me otherwise is wrong.

Beda: Day 17: Watching Stuff.

It's been an interesting day.  I'm trying not to like go to my instant start out for the blog which I notice I do quite a lot last night.   I was scrolling through and was like "Wow, I use the same phrase or a small deviation quite often."   So I'm trying to curb that thing, but yeah.  In the realm of Nina news, today was kind of a boring day.   You guys won't get much in the way of like super input on this one, but today I did watch a fantastic movie.  

I'd been meaning to see it for awhile and today I just had the time, so I did it.  I watched Closer.   This is a movie, I distinctly remember watching when I was younger than I am.   We've had it for several years.   And when I was younger and definitely more of an unfocused mind, I didn't find it that interesting.   I didn't really get the concept.  I was also too young to really understand like the severity of some of the things that happened in the movie.   I really enjoyed it though.  I mean it's a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks that there is the perfect romance out there, but it's good.  It raises some interesting questions about how humans especially now, with the internet, deal with love and sex.  

And then there is the wonderful beauty that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 3 because it makes me feel better.  I had kind of a shite day with the partner sitch and Faith in season three just makes me feel way more five by five.    I mean she just makes feel a lot less violent because I get to be violent through her.   Does that make any sense?   I don't really know.   But yeah, she's awesome and she's totally one of my favorite characters of all time.  She's also portrayed by Eliza Dushku and I'm pretty sure Eliza as Faith was the first person I'm pretty sure I ever had sexual feelings for.  Not weird, just a thing.  

So yes, I've pretty much had a really lazy day and you know what?  I'm kind of okay with that because tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.   I live for these kinds of weeks when I can alternate the crazy intense days with the lazy days because then I have a chance to relax.   I have a chance to regenerate.   Hopefully you'll forgive me for this kind of strange little blog today.   This was kind of an indulgent one for me, but I'm trying not to talk about the same things in the vlogs and I say a lot in the vlogs.

Beda: Day 14: Pottermore and Libraries.

Today had some exciting moments in it.   I mean I know it's Saturday and I stayed at home all day but no, it was actually really cool.   I had a really good time.   The main thing being I'm still on track for all of my April Challenges.  I'm still doing really well and that's great.  I get these feelings and it's good stuff.  It's high energy and it's the works.   And I want to finish.  Like it's seemed like even though I'm doing all of these projects at the same time that April has kind of stretched out and decided to lounge a little bit, which is nice, but also a little bit distressing.

But onto the first good thing that happened today, and that is that Pottermore opened.  I mean I've been excited about Pottermore ever since it was announced.  Then it took forever for it to be released to the general public and I was checking the Insider everyday to see what was happening.   But today was the day I could get in and get rolling with it and it was awesome.  I signed up and started getting into the first book which was pretty amazing.  The first book is the hardest to read even though it's on a very basic reading level because it has to set up so much stuff for the later books.  With Pottermore it was actively engaging and I could see where it might not be as boring to read anymore.   So that was definitely a great advantage.

I didn't go far into it, I only finished through about chapter seven which I suppose is a little than half of book one, but still, it was so nice to see the dream finally coming to life.   I said I didn't really care about this part, but I lied.  I did care.    I cared a lot about this part and now that I have it, it's wonderful to see what good and new things are coming out of it. 

The only kind of bittersweet thing about this is that I couldn't tell my best friend about it the second I got into it because he's at some kind theatre boot camp thing.   But I guess that will make it even more exciting when he comes back.   It's one of those things I'm really excited to share with him.   Because Harry Potter formed a big part of our bond and it's exciting to have this new information to discuss and share with each other and gab about.  

And I went on a little bit of a Google Image Search for wallpapers and found plenty of amazing ones.  I don't tend to go with anything except really cool designs that are very futuristic, very sci-fi.   I know that I'll even go and put very specific video game titles in the search along with city scape to get the kind of wallpaper I'm looking for.  But today was cool libraries and futuristic libraries and boy did I find plenty?  I'm just super glad to find that kind of design element to put as my wallpaper because what could express more of my personality?  I don't really think anything could.   And so with that I bid good night.   I hope everyone is having a great weekend and I'll see you tomorrow.

Beda: Day 11: The Freaking Fire Alarm.

So today was an interesting day.  I didn't really have time to tell you guys about it earlier.    Well, technically that's not actually true.  I did have time.   I was just using that time to start writing a work of fictional lit.   Which is fine.  That's what I do.  You guys know I like doing that.   Because you have seen "Enigma" because I posted it here.   So you guys know about me being that kind of person.  But no, that wasn't even what it was all about.

So I went to Stage Makeup and we did eighteenth century ladies which always becomes this garish almost clown like makeup because these women were crazy.   And that was all good.   The results of that are in the vlog today and so it should be really good.  I think I'm going to unlist the clip of me taking all the makeup off.  I think that would be interesting for people to see.   I just don't know what's being discussed on the clip or what is possibly playing on my computer because it's quite possible that I'm playing music in the background. 

But yeah, I took the makeup off and got all of my stuff ready and I'm watching my bestie braid another friend's hair when THE FREAKING FIRE ALARM GOES OFF.  In the theatre building.  Last time that happened, I had like a whole cast of actors taking care of me and freaking out.   Because I'm epileptic and they love their stupid flashy lights for the fire alarm at school.   And my teacher was like oh, it's not a big deal and then we had to explain the whole thing which needless to say freaked her out a little bit.   But I got outside safely and without having any problems.   The strangest part was that they didn't know it was going on.   They had no clue what was going.   What happened?  Still not even sure. 

So I was a little bit anxious, but we were allowed to go back into the building and so me and my bestie went to dance class and it went off again right as I set down my stuff.   I headed out the doorway only for them to tell me it was a false alarm.   Now, needless to say, I'm like always accompanied when there is a fire alarm going off in the building because I pretty much have to stare straight down at the ground or close my eyes and need someone to guide me.   So this is a little insane.   But I got out of dance class because I didn't need to be around that and it was only that building that was going off.  Hopefully, they'll have fixed it by tomorrow.

But yeah, so I wrote for a long while.   Because I had wanted to do that for a couple of days and I just had a couple of things that I needed to that got in the way.  But today I got to write 1000 words.   So that was fun.   I really like getting into that zone where I can just type away.   It's a nice feeling.   And talking about that, I want to get back to it, so I'll see you soon.  

Beda: Day 10: Matt and Andrew.

So yeah, I almost forgot to do my blog and photo tonight but I'm doing it.  I'm doing this.   I'm not failing these challenges.   So now we talk about the day and stuff.   Because that's what people do on blogs and I'm like a legitimate person of letters.   Yes, ten o'clock and I forget these things but when there is still time.

So today was Matt Bomer day which to anyone who isn't me or one of my friends is the name I gave today because Glee was on and Matt Bomer was guest-starring.   He's just plain gorgeous.  I mean in my VEDA, I gave you my celebrity crush as Jack Davenport, but let's not be unreal, I have a lot of celebrity crushes and Matt is one of them.   I mean it's hard not to like him.   He just seems so damn nice and he acts well and he's gorgeous.   He's all the best qualities wrapped up into one man.

Today, I also got to really get in depth into the mind of Cecily Cardew who I thoroughly enjoy as a character.   She's quite unlike many of the other characters I have played who always kind of have these over the top emotions or feelings.   And Cecily is kind of wonderfully normal.   I adore her for that because it's so different to be.

And I watched all the monday shows which I didn't get to yesterday, there were many things that I could tell you about but most of that would bore you.   This blog after all is not about all the TV shows I watch but indeed about my life.   Keeping with that, there was not really much at all going on in my life.

Oh, wait a minute!  There is one thing.  While Browsing twitter today, I thought I had not been following Andrew Slack, the director of the Harry Potter alliance.   So I went to look for him and found that I was following him.   Naturally, of course, I tweeted about this funny story.   And he tweeted me back.  HE TWEETED ME BACK!  That was so freaking insane.   I feel like a prepubescent girl at a one direction concert.   And then he followed me which was just a great more deal of pleasure.   So yeah, that was the really interesting part of the day.

Beda: Day 8: The Little Moments Theory.

Okay, so I'm going to do this in segments because today has just been too awesome for words and I know that if I try to do it all in one take tonight, I will miss something important, so here we go.   I'm doing something for you guys and attempting this one earlier.   See already, on a good start with my beda challenges.   That's some good stuff.

I haven't talked about it here because I assume anyone who knows about me, knows me from my video blogs and that's something I take pride in.   I really like the video blogs and I remember to tell them everything.   One thing, I haven't told you guys around here who read this if you even do, is that my amazing sister who is going to AIT in the city but has not bee able to come home got to come to the house today.   And I couldn't be more excited.   We thought that she was only going to be here for the evening for the dinner and stuff but no, instead it was much more than that.   She came over at like 11 and cooked for us.

Now, I'm a sucker for food anyway but this was just amazing.   Really just delicious.  She wanted to cook and she did it and it was soooooo good.   I don't even care that in my editor I have a red squiggly under that so.   It was that good.   She made french toast and I was just in Heaven.   So far that's all that's happened but there will be more.   Right now, I'm just taking it easy, knowing she's here and knowing that very soon we will have my dad home for two weeks and it'll just be good.

And there was the inbetween lunch/dinner.   We do this kind of frequently at my house around the holidays mainly because all of us are hungry and it gives us more time to socialize and be together as a family/friends.   But yeah, that was Lasagna, my mom's homemade and it was freaking amazing.   It always is, but it was freaking amazing.   God, I love food so much.   And this just all around turned out to be such a wonderful day that I can't even really explain it all to you, but it was just delicious and succulent in a way that most of us can at least on some level understand.

Today was a reaffirmation of the little moments theory.   It's the little things that count.   Like sitting aorund a dinner table and making fun of each other or telling stories or ghoulish nightmares or even showing photos and sharing candy.   If someone told me I could go back and relive this day and go anywhere in the world to do it, I wouldn't.  I liked it just the way it was.  It was perfect even if it really wasn't.

Beda: Day 7: It's been a week.

It's been a week and what a week it has been.   I've talked about a lot of things on this blog, but not really how well the blog is going.   So I guess that's what I'll talk about today because that just seems kind of chill and whatnot.  And I'm always down for chill.   I hope you guys are too.   But since I can't see you and this is my blog, guess what?   Going on with it anyway.

One of the things I've noticed is that I've done these pretty much all late at night, making sure I have something interesting to say to you guys.   I mean I think I may have put my Team Youtube one up a little bit earlier, but not much.  It was still evening when that one went up if it went up earlier than the night because that's how I roll.   I mean I just want to make sure that I capture everything for you guys and this is something that I strive to do.   So I want to make it as good as possible.   But that also means a lot of other things.

Like the potential that I could forget one of these and then lose my challenges, which I don't think so.  Not going to happen.   So yeah, next week my challenge is to get at least two blogs up earlier than evening no later than Day 14.   Maybe we'll make that a habit.   These little challenges keep me motivated to do better and to find more time to write and stuff in my daily life.   Because I'm here for you guys but I'm also here for me.   And what I need is to find some greater confidence about these blogs.

I know not many people, if any people at all read my blogs.   They would much rather watch me on the vlogs, but still this is who I am.  I want to do this so that maybe someone stumbles across this blog and for one second I make their life better.  If that happens, I will have done my job.   So anything to keep it new and fresh and entertaining because entertaining is a whole new ball game for me but something I want to enjoy. 

These have been fairly long though and that's something I'm proud of.   I'm writing because I want to write and that's who I am.   Not because I just thought it would be fun to do a challenge.   No, I really did want to challenge myself and make new content across several fields that weren't getting as much content.   And it's a full job running all of these things but I'm glad I'm doing it.   I'm glad I'm having a good time and doing as much as I can. 

Ulitmately, I'm feeling strong about how little time it takes if you just plan some stuff out and have the confidence to go through with it.  I never thought I would be doing a week's worth of vlogs consecutively but here I am.  I'm growing stronger.   And I hope to keep it going for the next three weeks and three days.

Beda: Day 5: Team YouTube

Today for me has been all about Team YouTube.  

I'm aware that some of you might not be aware of what that is.   It's the first season of the new series, Escape Routes, which is a reality show on NBC.   It's all about social media in the modern world and uses that to actually affect the outcomes of the show.

Now, as you guys know, I'm a YouTuber.   I'm a vlogger.   And I very much stand behind the people who christened themselves from the start "Team YouTube," Brett and Ross.   They are so awesome.  Literally there are not enough words in our language for me to espouse their greatness.  It's just awesome.   And it helps that they are so nice and try to answer as much as possible.

Today, I woke up thinking about Team YouTube because it's just great, it finds so much freedom.   It has things that are literally just blowing my mind.   But the biggest thing about Team YouTube is how quickly they got people to rally and how quickly we are to form the community.   That's the great thing about this.   It takes our great community aspect and throws it into making the best team it possibly can and see how they measure up.

It shows that YouTube isn't just that crazy corporate thing that it is portrayed as.  It's still us.   We're still in it to win it.   We love it and we are the ones who define it with our community.   They didn't win the challenge and so the prize did not go to our community but they did get the fastest times on the social media bit and it was just phenomenal.   I couldn't believe it.   Being part of this is being part of a family.

It's challenging to love people so quickly, but facillitating the exchange of thoughts and ideas makes it so much easier, especially when you can see people's faces.   It provides so much in this digital age to connect to.   If Brett and Ross don't personify that I don't know what does.

Beda: Day 3: Compliments and Hard Work

With my latest blog post about how i've been horribly procrastinating on my assignment which is do tomorrow, I've become a little more confident in things.   I've done some beautiful work in the past twenty four hours, typing reviews and printing articles like a boss. 

Honestly, I think I needed someone to be responsible to.   I know it seems weird, but since I posted that blog I've had that feeling of "someone will be disappointed in me if I don't do this." and so I've done it.  I knew I needed to do it before and I even knew that the deadline was tomorrow, I just didn't do it.   Not until I really set myself up to do it.  Which meant telling the entire world about what I haven't done yet.   And yes, I'm a little bit ashamed of myself for having to stoop to that level, but it gave me the encouragement I needed.  

Now, I've got twenty-five articles done with just five more to go to review.   Compared to the fact that none were done before this week, I put that in the plus column.   I can do things that I don't like to do, I just have to work harder at them and have the inspiration to do them.   Which is why I love the internet sooo much.   I pretty much live here and you guys are my roommates ready to call me out on not doing my shit.   Because you won't take it.  People want to see the best for me.   And that's what I get just from writing these little BEDA blogs on the internet.

On a more positive note of schoolworthy things, I got my critique back from my professor in acting for my shakespeare monologue.   Let me first preface this whole paragraph with the fact that I've known this man for three semesters and he makes me want to be better.   I've always taken what he says to heart.   I like his feedback, I think it's insightful.   Most of all, I just respect him so much.   He gave me the best review he's given me.   And anything else just vanished.   All the crap I dealt with during the day, it just went out into the universe because he cared about my work and liked it.   And he's a teacher that I know wouldn't just blow smoke at me because he thinks it would make me feel better.   He really is committed to seeing all of his actors do their best work.

School is one of those things I find so enamouring.   I find the idea that I can learn so many new skill sets just a wonder.   I want to learn as much as I possibly can and it makes me feel like the absolute best to be in a class with people who care.   So far, I've been very lucky in that I've met people and had classes that I really truly cared about.   There was one class that was hard and I didn't really care about, but it was the exception to the rule.  I find that I might be the only person I know who shares that opinion of school.   There is so much to explore and learn out there, why wouldn't you want to have that knowledge?  With so many things to do, why not try them all?

I'm attempting it: BEDA, VEDA, and PADA.

So yeah, I knew for a long time I was going to do VEDA (Vlog everday in April) but really decide to BEDA (Blog Everday in April) or PADA (Photo A Day in April) until well today.   Because I feel like I don't really have a lot going on and I want to spend as much time being creative as freaking possible, I'm doing all three.   I don't really know why.   But here it goes.   The journey begins.

Now I've already done my vlog for today and that was quite curious and kind of funny which I wil embed in this post at the end, and I've already done my picture which can be found at (The Photo Life Nina) , but now it's time for my blog post and rather than introducing for the entire post, I wondered what to write about and then it hit me.   I need to write about those things that really matter to me.   I really want to talk about being creative.

I've never not wanted to be a creative person.   The first job I can ever remember wanting as a kid was a professional writer.  I knew back then that making something, creating, was in my bones.   And I don't really approach that in any kind of special way.  When I want to create something, I do.   I've written excellent stories on this mentality and leaves me unfettered by that pesky writer's block or creativity block most of the time.   I'm not saying that it's not a monster in my life because as a creative person I don't think you can get away from it, but I think that sometimes it's easier to misdirect than it is sometimes portrayed.

That being said that sometimes it's not always the most efficient way to get things done and sometimes I need that schedule because I live for the routine even though that kills me a little bit inside.  So maybe doing this will do some good.  I already know that from filming, making a habit of doing something everyday makes it feel weird when I don't do it.   So let's carry that on into the rest of my creative processes.    Hopefully it won't suck and hopefully some of the gems that come out of this whole mess of creativity, I will be happy with because god knows what will happen if I'm not happy with at least some of it.   Actually nothing will actually happen.   I'm just being dramatic, like I do.

Still, this is a good thing and I'm excited even if it seems all very stressful right now.  Wish me luck! I love you guys and I hope you like this content that will coming at your faces in the next month.

A Day, Understood

So yesterday was really good and then it was a clusterfuck.   Now, I'm going to start with the bad news because I believe that I should leave this with a good taste in my mouth and I'm pretty sure you guys don't want to remember me being a downer, because I know how this works. 

Bad news was our power went off for several hours.   Gah, like seriously.   No Beuno at all.   It's not easy to relax when there's absolutely nothing going on.   Also the video that I started to post apparently shut off the the visual part of the video about a third of the way into it.   Just was not good.  There was some other stuff, but that's for another day.    Still, those were the two main points of the badness.  Did not like it one bit as you might imagine.

The good news is though that the video I was trying to record, I was recording it on my new camera.  Now I don't have to webcam videos anymore and I'm not strictly limited to inside the house now.  Yay!   That's always fun.   In a couple of days, I will be anxiously posting another video in which I pimp out for votes.   I would really like to go to Vidcon especially now that I have my awesome camera.  But there was also Hagen Daans Ice Cream last night which was delicious.    And I read two chapters out of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

So everything was about even.   All in all, not a fantastic day, but not a horrible one where everything went wrong.   And I even got the video fixed.    And we got the power back as is obvious because I'm writing a blog post about, but whatever.    You know, I still couldn't live on a desert island because I could leave my modern comforts.