Looking Back on 2011

I feel like it's some sort of requirement for everyone who blogs to post something on December 31st about the past year and everything that happened and what it all meant and blah blah blah.  And, I mean, I totally did that last year!  I just looked back at my post from December 31st 2010, and I totally talked all about the things that had happened during the year and how much my life had changed and all that stuff.

But I'm not really feeling it this year.  I mean, sure, a lot of great stuff happened this year: I did BEDApril again; I tried to do BEDAugust; I won NaNoWriMo again; I tried to do VALID and was actually doing pretty good until my computer crashed again (Have you checked out my new video yet?); I completed another year of university and living on my own; I went back to camp for another amazing summer that I loved.  But I feel like most of this is already old news, for two reasons.  I mean, there's the obvious fact that I've already you guys all this stuff already.  But the second reason is that, none of this is new stuff.  I mean, all my accomplishments this year were things that I did again.  They're things that I did for the first time last year and whenever, that I tried to do again this year.  2010 was the year my life changed; 2011 was just the year that I did it all again.

And there's nothing wrong with that!  I mean, not every year has to be a year that your whole life changes and you try all kinds of new things and all that stuff.  I think, for me, 2011 was less about experiences and new things and more about the people.

I am truly blessed to have my life filled with amazing people who love and support me.  I have my family, my close family friends who really should be family, my friends from school, from people I've known since the second day of university to people I just met a couple months ago, and my friends from camp.  Over the past year, I've gotten closer with people I've known for a while, reconnected with people that I had lost touch with, and met a whole ton of new people.

So I guess what I'm saying is 2011 wasn't a year for huge, new experiences, but it was a really good year.  Looking back, I have no complaints whatsoever about this past year... except maybe about the weather.  But alas, no use dwelling on the things I have no control over!

Flights taken in 2011: 21
Days left of break: 4

love <3

PS.  This week, my mom called me her sister's name, and my dad called me his brother's name.  Clearly both my parents know exactly who I am.

VALID and Anonymity

I'm procrastinating.  Get over it.

So, as I mentioned at the end of my last post, I made an announcement on my youtube channel on Thursday.  If you don't know what it is yet, you can click here to check it all out.

So, this month, I am doing something called VALID (Vlog A Lot In December).  I'm used to taking on ridiculous challenges, but this is something very new for me.  Although I love to talk, and I could probably talk for days, there's something so different about vlogging than blogging.  When I've done BEDA, if I didn't have anything to talk about, I would just write words and whatever happened would happen.  But when I vlog... I think it's that people can see me, and can see my face when I'm saying that I have nothing to talk about.  It just makes me so much more vulnerable, and like every video has to be excellent; there's pressure, pressure that I can't really explain.

This is definitely not going to be an easy challenge* but I'm really excited about it.  I feel like it's going to push me outside of my comfort zone, and hopefully I can learn and grow from it.

I also wanted to talk about anonymity.  I have been putting original content online for over a year and a half.  I have been writing this blog since April 2010 and I have been vlogging since october 2010.  I never get into the really personal parts of my life, because that isn't the business of the whole Internet, but I've still put quite a bit of my life online, a lot more than most people do.  And yet, I still feel like I have a veil of anonymity: for the most part, as far as I know, the people who read my blog and watch my videos are people I know in real life.  These people already know me and I have no problem being me around them.  The other, maybe 10% of the people who read and watch me, the people who don't know me... they really don't know me.  I don't feel accountable to them, they really don't know much about me.  I feel like I can do and say pretty much whatever I want online, because I have this anonymity.  I'm unsure as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, though.  I mean, I'm not going to pretend I haven't dreamed of being "youtube famous"; I've had fantasies about having millions of subscribers and everyone knowing who I am.  But at the same time, when everyone knows who I am, then they expect things from me.  I can't fully be myself online anymore, I have to be what these people want from me, and who they want me to be.

So I guess the question is, is it all worth the price of fame?  Which is better, being completely anonymous but being able to post whatever I want, or being semi-famous, but having to post what other people want, not what I want?  What do you guys think?

Flights taken: 20

Exams until Christmas break: 3

Days until Christmas break: 11

love <3

*That's why it's called a challenge, Seana.