The Life of a Video Major

Being a Journalism and Media Production major has a lot of perks. One of those perks is that instead of doing calculus or biology homework, we get to make videos. Being in a rather creative major, we’re quite the interesting bunch, which makes our videos just that much better. And having friends in the major means that we all get to help with the filmmaking process for each other’s projects. One of my friends made an “MVNU Cribs” video, of which I was the star, but it also featured some of our other friends. And another one of my friends made a video depicting the love story between a girl and her giant stuffed teddy bear. I was in this video, but barely seen, as I was the one who got the job of propping up the bear whenever it was supposed to be standing or moving. But this was still a learning experience, as I discovered just how heavy huge stuffed animals can be.

My video probably took the longest to make out of my friend group’s projects. This is most likely due to the fact that after 4-5 hours of editing and having almost my entire video completed, there was a saving error and I had to completely re-edit the entire thing. Despite the frustration that caused, I’m still really happy with how my video turned out. For my project, I chose to make a music video to the Nsync song, Tearin’ Up My Heart. The first 17.5 seconds of the video is a shot-for-shot remake of the original, but then it develops into a story about a creepy guy and all his weird shenanigans. Thankfully, I have friends who were nice enough to help me out and act in it. It was really cool to watch my storyboard come to life during the filmmaking process. I’m really proud of how the video turned out and I had a lot of fun making it.

If you want to watch my video, here's the link
:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81fOT0zu5dM

One Year Down, Three To Go

I'm officially done with my freshman year of college! It's crazy to think that this past year has gone by so quickly, which only means the next three are going to go by even faster. Move-out day was two days ago and it was bittersweet. For my first couple days at MVNU, I thought about transferring probably a hundred times. I didn't know a single person on campus, and I normally have to wait a few days to feel accepted by a group before I can comfortably become my crazy, outgoing self. And all of my friends could verify that statement. But once I started making friends, I knew I was supposed to be there.
This past year was so much fun and I am so thankful for all the friends and memories I've made so far. I've probably definitely eaten way more Taco Bell in the past 8 months than I have in my entire life. I've gone on so many late-night spontaneous trips to random places, with random people. My friends helped me campaign for class council (which included us making two awesome campaign videos) and then helped me celebrate my triumphant victory (the only way we know how to celebrate-with Taco Bell). I got to serve on class council as the Freshman Events Director and plan some sweet events for my class, including one where I got to run a non-alcoholic bar. I've laughed more this past year than I ever have, at things that I'll remember for a really long time. I've had some of the most awkward experiences with some of the most awkward people. One of my friends and I were cast members for the spring Friday Night Live (they obviously only let the funniest people in). I've done some of the weirdest and most random stuff, from hiding in the strangest places to filling a pool full of bean bag filling.
I've stayed up countless times having deep discussions with my friends in the laundry room. I've had some of the strangest conversations that don't even make sense with people who understood exactly what I was trying to say. I've wasted so much time doing nothing, but I've done it with some of the coolest people. I've ran around in circles for half an hour being crazy with my friends. I've started traditions with my friends that we'll hopefully continue the next three years. I've eaten soooooo much junk food and fast food, I'm surprised I'm not overweight. I've climbed onto the roof with one of my friends and just stargazed and talked. I got to be a part of the campus radio station (which is also where I'll be working this summer), which has already had a huge impact on me after only having been a part of it this past semester. I've made so many friends who I've gotten extremely close to in such a short period of time, and I've really enjoyed watching our friendships grow and I can't wait to see what God does in those relationships during my next three years at MVNU.
While I am excited to have three months of not doing schoolwork, I'm going to miss all of my friends. A lot. Luckily, some of us all live within 15 minutes of each other, so we'll hopefully get to hang out this summer. And even more luckily, one of my best friends and I are working together at the campus radio station this summer a few days a week, which means we'll have about an hour and a half of bonding time in the car every day that we work.
I've had such an amazing first year at college and I am so thankful for all the friends and memories I've made so far, and I can't wait for the new ones I make in the next three years.

Summer 2014 Bucket List

Move-out day (which I'll post all about later) was two days ago, which means summer break has officially started! The only things that I really have planned for the summer are 1) Working a few days a week at the on-campus radio station, 2) Driving to Nashville in August to see One Direction (go ahead and judge me), and 3) Taking as many trips to Kings Island as I can. So I decided to go ahead and make a summer bucket list of everything I want to try and do before I go back to school in the fall. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish most of, if not the entire list. Some of the things on the list are really cliché, but I tried to make some a little more creative. One of my personal favorites is number eight. I'll be sure to post updates on what I get accomplished.
1.Camping
2.Make a summer playlist/CD
3.Drive-in movie
4.Tie messages to balloons and let them go
5.Make a memory box/time capsule
6.Finish an entire coloring book
7.Water Balloon fight
8.Smash a watermelon
9.Go to the zoo
10.Play with sparklers
11.Burn dandelions
12.Build a blanket fort
13.All day movie marathon
14.Go to a concert
15.Catch fireflies
16.Bowling
17.Ice skating
18.Tie-dye something
19.Road trip
20.Leave a note in a library book
21.Play murder in the dark
22.Picnic
23.Make ice cream
24.Make popsicles
25.Glowing bubbles
26.Start a journal
27.Have a party at the camper
28.Read TFIOS
29.Read Looking For Alaska
30.Eyebombing
31.Make a 1000-square hopscotch
32.Write a letter to my future self
33.S’mores
34.Water gun fight
35.Stargaze
36.Make jolly rancher suckers
37.Roller Skating
38.Play in the rain
39.Homemade pizza
40.Water park
41.Shoot a gun
42.Watch a sunrise
43.Buy ice cream from an ice cream truck
44.Throw darts at paint-filled balloons
45.Glow stick swimming
46.Slip n’ slide
47.Geocaching
48.Mini golf
49.Ride Banshee 25 times (3 so far)
50.Ride Diamondback 100 times (6 so far)

College Shenanigans

I often pride myself on being an odd person who does really weird and random things. Two weeks ago, one of my friends and I did something really strange. She had a beanbag chair that had been ripped for quite some time and the little bean bag filling bead things had slowly started spilling out on to her floor. We decided that we were going to put the filling in pillow cases to be used to remake the pillow fight scene in Hard Knock Life from Annie for my friends video project. So we decided to try and pour the filling directly from the chair into a pillow case. This failed miserably, as 3/4 of the filling missed the pillow case and landed on the floor. Being the mature college students we are, we then rashly decided to pour all of the filling onto the floor in a giant pile and play in it. Did I mention how mature we are? Anyway, her roommate was PISSED when she discovered the mess on the floor, but we were able to convince her to let us keep all of it under the condition that we got something to put all of it in so it wasn't just all over the floor. So off to Walmart went and then returned with a blow up kiddie pool. After two hours of four of us scooping all the filling up, the pool was filled. And it was fantastic. It's probably one of the most relaxing things ever just laying in the pool or sitting near it playing with the filling. Now, you're probably thinking that we're a little insane, which was also the reaction of pretty much anyone that saw the pool - until we convinced them to lay in it. At least 30 of our friends have taken turns in the pool of Styrofoam and everyone agrees that it's one of the best things ever. The only downside is that whenever you're done, you'll find the little Styrofoam beads everywhere. Like, literally EVERYWHERE. If you walk anywhere throughout our dorm, there's a good chance you'll see a couple of them laying in the most random places (I cannot tell you how many of them I have found in the showers). Some of them have even made their way outside. We don't really know what we're going to do with the pool next week when we move out, but we really want to try and keep it if we can figure out a way to transport it. But even if we have to get rid of it, it will still be a great memory to have.

People weren't really surprised when they discovered that we poured beanbag filling into pool though, because we tend to do some weird stuff. A few weeks ago, it started pouring down rain when we were in class. Since I had neglected to bring an umbrella to class, I had to improvise. So I walked out in the hallway and found a large, empty box for a desk chair. I then cut a hole in the box for my face and proceeded to wear the box all they way form the building where our class was back to the dorms. Plus we're all video majors, so we tend to do some pretty strange stuff for the sake of our video projects. Or for random videos we make for fun. Even though some people think we're a little crazy, I'm happy that I get to be weird, and that I have friends who are willing to be just as weird as I am with me.

 

Highlight of Lifeline 2014

This past week was much busier than normal, which was all due to our school radio station's annual fundraiser, Lifeline. Since my journalism involves radio, I was required to work for 8 hours between Wednesday, March 5th and Monday, March 10th. I ended up volunteering to work extra hours just because I enjoyed it. We also got to know the upperclassmen that work in the station better and it was just a really fun experience. Plus, there was free food...
One of the most interesting experiences I had during Lifeline was on Saturday. Myself, along with three of my friends volunteered to be part of Lifeline On The Road, where different teams of the radio staff went and did various community projects around Mount Vernon. Our group was sent to a local church, and my friends and I had been assigned to work concessions at 8:30 am until our whole group showed up at 10 am, which is when we were given a list of several things that needed to be done throughout the building. One of the items on the list simply read "finish mosaic". Reluctantly, I volunteered to do this job. As soon as I was shown the project I was supposed to finish, I immediately began to regret my decision. I stared, overwhelmed, at a huge wooden board with thousands and thousands of little boxes drawn on it. On the table next to the board was a little paper with a picture of a dove and a grid over it with thousands of boxes as well, only these boxes were numbered. One of my friends decided to help me and we got to work transferring the numbers on the paper to the corresponding boxes on the wall, constructing a huge paint-by-numbers. This process took almost two hours. After a short break for lunch, my other two friends joined us and the four of us began painting each square with the color that each number represented. But the thing about painting them, is that you have to leave a little bit of space left around the border of each square so the finished product looks like a bunch of mosaic tiles put together. Around 2 pm, the rest of our group had completed the other tasks on the list and had already left. My friends and I, on the other hand, were nowhere close to being done. Around 4, we sent a really sad video of us requesting Starbucks to all the people we knew were working in the station. About half an hour later, one of them showed up with our order. After our caffeine boost, we started working as quickly as we could to get the mosaic finished. Finally, around 6pm, we painted the last box and stepped back to admire our work. Instead of seeing a majestic dove soaring over clouds like we in the picture we were supposed to be imitating, our mosaic just looked like a large, multicolor blob. We fell to the ground in a heap of disappointment, anger, depression, and laughter. There were so many mixed emotions and we didn't really know how to react. A few minutes later, we took a couple more steps back and were relieved when we could actually see what was meant to be there. All in all, it was a very interesting day and ended up being a great bonding experience, as well as a memory we'll carry with us for a long time.  

My Obsession With Ellen

For anyone who knows me, you probably know that I absolutely adore Ellen DeGeneres. I watch her show whenever I can because it's so funny and positive, which is a hard combination to find in a show these days. My favorite book is her "Seriously... I'm Kidding", which I think everyone should read because it's absolutely hilarious. This may not seem that exciting, but my love for Ellen gets a little more interesting. In October of 2012, I spent more than 4 hours over a period of 2 days standing on the side of a busy street in my hometown of Columbus holding a sign that read "Ellen DeGeneres for President". About 10,000 people passed me while I was doing this, and about 200 of those people parked in the Walgreen's parking lot behind me to come talk to me and take my picture. Many more people took my picture while they were passing as well. A majority of the people who passed me honked and gave me a thumbs-up, or rolled down their car windows and cheered. There were a couple people who weren't as happy with my endeavor, as I was given the middle finger a couple of times and someone even yelled at me to "get a life". The positive reactions far outnumbered the negative, as I was able to make almost everyone who passed me smile or laugh, just by simply holding a sign that voiced my opinion. To this day, I count this as the coolest experience I've ever had.
This isn't the only thing I've done to creatively show my love for Ellen. Last year, I got some of my senior pictures taken of me wearing my Ellen shirt and holding her book. Also, my mom got me a pair of the famous Ellen underwear two Christmases ago and I have yet to take them out of the bag. My dream is to meet Ellen and have her sign the underwear and then I'll have them framed.

A lot of people think that I should've been on the Ellen show for all the stuff I've done, but I still haven't. She has a place on her website where you can say why you think you're her biggest fan and she might have you on the show, and I've filled this out probably 1,000 times and still haven't made it on the show. If you don't think I'm completely insane after having read this post and want to shoot Ellen an email telling her why you think I should be on the show, follow this link http://www.ellentv.com/be-on-the-show/10/ Thanks!

Spring (Not Really) Semester

I've now finished two full weeks of my second semester of college. Supposedly, it's spring semester, but with the amount of snow we've gotten the past couple of weeks, I'd beg to differ. I don't know what's more annoying about the snow- the fact that it keeps coming, or all the cliche jokes and complaints about having to go to class when it snows.
I'm pretty excited about most of my classes this semester because I have less general courses and more that are geared toward my major. The only classes I'm taking that aren't communications courses are my three honors courses, one of which is an independent study and another that I only have once every other week. All in all, I'm really looking forward to the rest of this semester.
This past week has been extremely busy. I spent 10-12 hours between Tuesday and Friday working with some of my friends to make jars for a Valentines Banquet radio fundraiser that we had to work Friday night. Then, I spent over 4 hours Thursday night making flowers and bouquets out of Hershey's Kisses that we sold as a fundraiser for class council. On top of all this, I had my normal homework, including three 1-hour radio shifts throughout the week, plus a speech Friday. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of the end of the week, which is probably why I didn't fully wake up and get out of bed until 1:30 in the afternoon today.
Thankfully, my mother is a saint and sent me a few random surprises, which really helped to make me a little less stressed. On Thursday, I got a small package from her that I thought was just going to have a couple pieces of clothing that I forgot at home over January break, but she had also put in a box of Peeps and some dark chocolate covered raisins. Then on Friday, I got a large iced chocolate chip cookie that she had ordered to be delivered to me, as well as a poster of Rob Lowe (she supports my obsession). Even though I've been extremely busy, I'm still really thankful that I have the opportunity to do the things I get to do.