New Year, Same Blog

Happy New Year! 

First of all, happy new year everyone! I hope you all had lovely holidays and a splendid time with family. I was certainly busy with family and friends over the holidays, which is why I was not posting nearly as often as I had planned. 

But, now the holidays are over and I am back to school. I hope to resume posting to this blog as frequently as possible, but unfortunately I can't guarantee that. Since I'll be starting new classes in university, it's hard to know exactly how much free time I'll have to work on the blog. That being said, I hope to post at least some small updates - I'm not gone forever, I promise. 

So, that's all I have for you today, I'm afraid. I should be back soon with a fashion or beauty related post. 

Before I go, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has been reading my blog this year. When I started posting more back in October I had no idea it would take off as much as it has, so thank you for your support. I will be seeing you all soon. 

Buffer Festival

On the weekend of November 8-10th, Toronto hosted the first annual Buffer Festival, a Youtube film festival show casing content from creators hailing form San Fransico to London and back again. I had the privilege of attending this event on Saturday November 9th. I left for the conference around 7:10AM and use multiple means of public transit before finally arriving at the TIFF LightBox in downtown Toronto to receive my lanyard and tickets.

The first stop of the morning was a 9:00 showing of Youtube sensation Charlie McDonnell's work- including short films and comedy sketches. This event was hosted by Michael Aranda and Charlie himself, in which they discussed the production of the videos, as well as Charlie's experience as a "famous" Youtuber. Shortly after this screening, a meet and greet was held at the Toronto Metro Convention Centre, where fans of the British Youtube star could meet Charlie and have their photo taken with him. After waiting in line for just over an hour, I had the privilege of meeting Charlie and taking a photo with him. The experience wasn't exactly what I was expecting. After having been watching Charlie's videos loyally since about 2006, I was expecting to be a bit star struck when meeting him, but what I actually experienced was more similar to catching up with an old friend. Youtube is such a unique form of media. Unlike film or television, when one watches a Youtube video, there is a real sense of relationship and conversation, and with social media websites like Twitter and Tumblr, the relationship between creator and fans can become even more real.

After stopping for a short chat and a photo with Charlie, I moved on to the next screening of the day, which was a screening of short films and discussion on their production, with, once again, Charlie McDonnell, and Khyan Mansly, two prominent short film creators on Youtube.

Later on in the evening, I attended my final event for the day, which was a seminar called "Fandom Factor" with Alex Carpenter and Jimmy Wong, which discussed the effect that fandoms had on content creation on Youtube. (A note for those who aren't internet obsessed: fandom = fanbase, or the community that surrounds a certain book or film series, i.e. the Harry Potter fandom.) This was definitely my favourite event of the day as it was very intimate, being held in the small Maple Leaf Theatre in the basement of the CN Tower, and very informative. After the seminar was over, I had a chance to talk with and once again, get a picture with one of my favourite Youtubers, Alex Carpenter. I had a similar experience as I did with Charlie: I wasn't scared, or star struck, it didn't even feel like the first time I had met Alex, and I could tell from the excited conversations and the hugs and greetings from other fans, I wasn't alone in this feeling. Youtube content creators build such a special relationship with their audience, through their videos, through responding to comments and tweets and e-mails, so much so that the more appropriate term for fans and viewers might be rather, friends.

At the end of the day I found myself walking down the damp Toronto streets at dusk, toward the bus that would eventually take me home, reflecting on the amazing community that Youtube has become. Since the community's inception in early 2006 to how far it has come now, in 2013, the same values remain: creativity, and relationship building. Although Youtube continues to grow and become more of an industry than a community, my main hope is that next year, I can return to Buffer Festival and make the same comments about the events that I attended and the people that I met as I did this year... And I have a strange confidence that I will be.

Ottawa

My family just arrived home from our trip to Ottawa. Overall it was a very standard touristy trip, so I don't have much to say about it. But, I took a couple nice photos that I wanted to share with you. Enjoy!

One Direction

So, as previously stated many a time on this blog, I recently went to see One Direction in concert. It was a pretty good time.

The show started (after much waiting through commercials played on the jumbo-tron) with Five Seconds of Summer, a new boy band from Australia. They have a very Jonas Brothers circa A Little Bit Longer sound about them. They were decent enough, but honestly, I have enough bands to fan girl over, so I'm not in the market to pick up another one. But I appreciated them none the less.

Finally, after more and more waiting, the main attraction hit the stage and AHHH HARRY WAS SO CUTE and AAHH LOOK AT NIALL DID YOU SEE THAT but mostly just AHHHHH.

That concert was so unbelievably loud. I have been to many a boy band concert but I don't think I have ever attended one so loud. I mean, usually fans at least make an effort to listen instead of scream the entire time, but, whatever. It was a good show.

One of the most impressive parts of the concert was the set. They had these amazingly huge screen backdrops to the stage which played either live clips of the boys, or really nice typography of lyrics, or animated backgrounds. For example, the London sky line, or the boys as cartoon super heroes! It was really cool.

This was another really neat part of the show. The boys stood on a platform held by cables, moving along, soaring above the crowd. They ended at a square platform quite close to where we were sitting actually.

Overall, it was a really amazing concert and I'm really happy that I got to go, especially considering I didn't think I was going to be able to until my friend, Anna, offered me her extra ticket and we got to go together. It was a very fun experience, 10/10.

And that's all I have to say about that.

-Katie

Life is Busy

Real life is hard. Mostly because it's busy.

These past few weeks I haven't been able to blog at all, because I've been overwhelmed with work and church commitments, not to mention my bustling social life (haha) and I just, I've let you all down, I know. 

At the beginning of this month, I promised that I would blog every single day. Quickly that degraded to only week days, and then soon, never at all. I've done quite a few things since I've seen you last, such as see One Direction in concert, see the Jonas Brothers in concert and buy a few new nail polishes. Yes, those are the things of note that I've managed to do. Everything else has been either work, church or boyfriend related. Well, I did try roller derby, that's something. But anyway, the point is, I have been quite busy. 

I also have not been able to fulfill my Youtube duties that I assigned myself, missing two History Minute Mondays and one Fashion Friday. I plan to resume my Friday videos this week and hopefully get a Monday filmed for next week, the week I am away on vacation. Yeah, I know right? One more thing that gets in the way of getting things done. I think I might post a couple features on things that I've done in the past few days just to keep a nice record of my summer, but we'll see. I have a lot of other online catching up to do this evening. 

Tomorrow, after working in the morning, I'm spending the day with Dan, which I am quite excited about. Maybe I'll have something to say about that later. 

Anyway, I think that's all for now. Hopefully I will get back to you soon and hopefully you will forgive me for neglecting to fulfill my online duties as Youtuber and blogger.

Until then,

Katie

Camping

I believe the verdict is in. I am terrible at blogging everyday. In my defence, I have been quite busy. For example, this past weekend, I went camping.

So on Friday evening myself, my boyfriend and our five friends stuffed ourselves into a van and headed west, to the beach. We camped at Point Farms provincial park, on Lake Huron, and it was a grand old time.

We arrived, set up our tents and then went down to the beach to hang out for a while, we got there just in time for the tail end of a beautiful sunset. It was lovely, spending time with friends and singing the occasional camp song. Later, we went back to the camp site and played "Never Have I Ever" before going to sleep, or at least attempting to.

The next morning we woke up, and I made breakfast for the whole group, as I did the entire weekend. This trip, which I planned and facilitated, really made me appreciate my parents efforts more. All my life, each summer we've gone on a camping trip, and in my early years, we only ever had tents. I commend my mother for her amazing skill and patience for cooking out of a trunk of our car for an entire week. I had enough trouble with it for a single weekend.

Everybody hanging out, waiting for dinner to be ready. 

The cooking part isn't even the beginning of the difficulty. It's the not killing anyone part. Within my friend group, there are three people with life threatening allergies, as well two people with lactose intolerance. We have a vegan as well, but she couldn't make it this past weekend. Anyway, the point it, trying to cook for people with the risk of them going into anaphylactic shock is quite horrifying. The bright side is though, I made it through!

We spent the majority of the afternoon on Saturday at the beach, and then when we all got tired, as teenagers do, we went back to the campsite to have a nap.

Dan and me on the beach, one of us trying to hide from the UVA/B rays. 

After an afternoon nap and dinner, we headed back to the beach for a sunset stroll, and more camp songs. With the sun dipping bellow the horizon, and the fresh breeze in the air, it really felt like summer. Often, when school ends and the summer holiday begins, I put a whole lot of worry into whether or not I'll have adventures during my time off. I want to go places and do exciting things, because if I don't, I feel like I'm wasting my youth. But, I think on this trip I realized something about adventures, it's really not where you go, it's who you go with. Despite the fact that the campground we stayed at was less than an hour from home, and along a beach that I've been visiting my whole life, the trip was still as fulfilling as if I had gone to Hogwarts and returned (well...) because I got to spend the time with some of my best friends.

I think probably one of my favourite parts of the trip was when we all spent some time on the beach in the evening, and after the suggestion of Dan, we all put our hands in the middle of our huddle and cheered "friends!" The best part of it all was that some people walking by heard us and immediately burst out laughing, one of them yelling back to us, "that was cute!" Yes, yes it was cute. 

All in all, the weekend was really an amazing time, and I'm so glad to have spent it with these great people. If any of you are reading this, which is sort of unlikely, you're all super cool, and I'm so glad that we're friends, for most of you, I've only known you for less than a year, but I still feel so welcome in our little group of friends, and I'm so excited for all the future adventures we'll have together. 

Here's to a great summer, and many more, 

-Katie

Cute Preschoolers

Hello again, blogosphere. It has been a crazy busy week. It's only the fourth day of BEDJ, and I'm already struggling to find time to write. For instance, right now I'm typing this on the Blogger app on my phone, while on the way to vacation bible school.

All week long, I've been leading music and skits with the kids, which has been pretty fun. My appreciation for parents has definitely grown anyway. 

Some of the preschoolers though are just the cutest things I've ever seen. One boy in particular, named Samuel, is very energetic and when I first met him, he said, "Hi! I'm Samuel! S-A-M-U-E-L!" He was just so proud to be able to spell his name. It was adorable. Another girl, during craft time, told me that she wanted to be an artist when she grew up, upon me telling her that her drawing was beautiful. She said that she did lots of painting and that once, she made a painting of her kitties and the sunset. Another time, during games after a crawling race, she acknowledged that she came in last, but she "never gived up" the entire time. I almost cried it was so cute. 

So, all in all, the week has been pretty busy, between VBS, meetings for work and family and church events, I haven't been home much. Thankfully, though, the time I have been at home has been relatively productive. I've managed to release three videos this week on YouTube, which is my goal for every week this summer. We'll see if I can keep it up. 

So I think that's all I have time for today. DFTBA and I'll see you tomorrow. 

-Katie

Collapsible Lung

So, yesterday, 2nd July, Relient K released their newest album Collapsible Lung, and to say that I'm happy with it would be an understatement. It's everything that I love about Relient K and more.

If I had any critique for this album it would be that I wish Matt Theissen would have done more writing. He is a brilliant lyricist and I think we're really missing out on some great lyrics because he wasn't the main writer on a lot of the songs.

A lot of people are upset about the lack of Christian themes in this album. They're right, we don't get any songs like "Getting Into You" or even "Hope For Every Fallen Man" but, just as many bloggers before me have already pointed out; everyone goes through seasons in their Christian walk. No one is in perfect communion with Jesus all of the time, let's be real. I think this album really represents a time in their lives that they fell short of that relationship. Lost Boy is a perfect example of this, "wandering, wondering" and being a 'stray." These words are very representative of that whole feeling of being lost or far from God. And I would argue that Relient K displaying their real relationships and not some unreal fabricated models of perfection is far more "Christian" than trying to be the perfect role models. Because that's not what their job is, as artists. They're not supposed to show everyone what a perfect relationship with God is, they're role is to express their own feelings that others might relate to. And I think they're done that perfectly.

So, overall, I'd say this album deserves an 8/10. The lyrics could be better, and the style isn't exactly classic RK, but it's great none the less. Buy the album, is what I'm saying.

Or, if you only want a couple songs, my initial recommendations are the title track, Lost Boy, and PTL- Don't Blink is pretty great too.

Those are my only thoughts for today, kids. Don't forget to be awesome.
-Katie

~summer stats~
nail colour: turquoise & caicos (esse)
money spent: 0
subscribers: 28

The Apple Store & Film Premieres

So I've been feeling lately like I should write another blog post. So, that I shall do.

You know, I really appreciate the service the Apple store has to offer; they sell very expensive products, but the service they offer (at least to people with a warranty) is great. Not only have I received a full replacement in the past, but they have also fixed hardware problems on site. Like they did today. My USB ports weren't working (some internal hardware error) and Mr Apple Genius took it back through the tall aluminum doors and fixed it right up for me- in less than 20 minutes no less, for the entire trip. I was pleased.

Also today, other than my trip to the Apple store, I attended a film premiere, which was very exciting. So, my school has a film class, which a couple of my friends were in, and for an end of year project, the entire class worked together to create a half-hourish film. And it was pretty great. Especially for the class having completed it within a very short time. I was impressed anyway.

Soo, it's summer now. School is over. Despite having two jobs and multiple volunteer commitments this summer, I still feel obligated to try to post on my blog more often, and also to make more Youtube videos. I have a couple ideas for new series and such, so I'd really like to start that. I just need some motivation (and time).

I suppose that's all I have to write about. No social justice issue or current event this time. Just my boring old life. I hope you enjoyed it anyway.

Best Wishes,
Katie