I have many things that I want to do to improve my life. I have tried the goal planning before and I do not usually make monthly goal plans because life is very unpredictable. But I will make a bigger effort to make a monthly plan every month to help accomplish my goals and priorities. By the end of the month, I will cross out the goals I have completed. Here is what I aim to do for the rest of this month:
- Make sure I schedule and prepare for my BuzzFeed interview! (Yes, I got an email. Yay for me! ^_^)
- Blog at least three times a week (4.18.10) and write as concisely as possible. Make sure to create a sense of community and answer comments.
- Buy a camera so that I can take pictures of the Bamboozie Festival/concert on May 1st. (Finally getting out the house!)
- Watch the entire third season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer on Hulu.com.
- Study for the written portion of the Driver's License test. I want to get my permit by the end of the summer.
- Practice speaking and reviewing vocabulary and linguistics of the foreign languages that I have started learning in my lifetime: Spanish, French, and Japanese. I will start the reviewing process for 15-30 minutes a day. If it does not work, then 10 minutes each day or every other day. I do not want to feel like I am back at college or high-school. No more homework! I will start with French and Japanese first for now. I want to be fluent in these languages.
Belittle
Ok, so it was about 8:30pm EST last night. I was on Twitter of course. @ijustine tweeted that the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards was going live on its official website very soon. I was like cool, let me check it out. I had no clue with the show was about. So, I get on the website and read its About section and I was like excellent! There is actually an award shows devoted to celebrating the accomplishments of famous and upcoming vbloggers and geeks, YouTube stars, web TV shows, and web TV programming as a whole. For over three hours, I watched the show and tweeted away the best and worst moments of the night and oh what a night it was! Here are the main highlights of the show:
1. How can an award show that was shown via live stream on its official website and other sponsored outlets not only lagged on the Internet throughout the whole night, but was nearly ruined by technical difficulties in the middle of the show? Most of the "What It Takes to be Nominated" piece was not shown because the DVD that contained the video footage was damaged. Which begs the question? This was an awards show dedicated to Web TV and someone did not make sure the footage was properly working BEFORE the ceremony? Plus, you had the most tech-savvy people and producers in the world in one-room! How embarrassing?! I blame Blizzard Entertainment or someone's iPad.
2. The host Paul Scheer, was a lot funnier than this year's Oscars hosts, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Actually, I enjoyed this show more than this year's Oscars. Humorously awful at times, but not boring.
3. Was it just me or the whole VH1 "Best Week Ever" cast was on stage last night?
4. During the technical downtime, two naked male streamers ran across the stage. Their private parts were not censored at all, so I bare witnessed to penises and balls right before my eyes. Oh my! But remember, this was live-streamed, not on TV, so it made the experience more memorable!
5. I saw a young couple walked out of the room during a comic skit at the beginning of the show. How rude.
6. I heard more sexual jokes and innuendos and saw more sexual groping on one stage (sorry LisaNova and Chad Hardwick lmao!) than a hardcore porn video. The stereotype about geeks is true, I guess! We may be innocent and geeky on the outside, but we are sexual freaks behind...closed.... doors..... I also saw David Faustino from Married With Children in only white boxers presenting an award. He was pretty hot though. Yum.
8. Ironically, none of the winners were kicked off the stage for going beyond the time limit to present their speeches. I found it a great relief. I just wish CBS and ABC granted more time for winners at the Grammys and Oscars.
9. Felicia Day, creator of the hit Web TV series, The Guild, delivered the best speech of the night in my opinion. She devoted her Best Female Actor in a Comedy Series award to the geek girls out there in the world, who are still underrepresented in the tech world. In return, I promise to watch the third season of The Guild with pride!
10. The Gregory Brothers pretty much nailed the first segment of their skit. They took a auto-tune beat and the first seconds of several, popular YouTube videos to create a new song. It was creative. The other half of their segment was bland but they managed to bring it all together with a vocal "speech" for winning the Best News or Political Web Series Award for AutoTune for the News.
Despite the technical problems and excessively vulgar language, I enjoyed watching the show. I learned that there are a ton of popular Web TV shows out there that I am missing out on and now I have the opportunity to check them out on the Internet and possibly write about on my blog in the near future. Inspiration is all around us. I also learned that all the nominees worked very hard days and nights to produce new content, find the best actors and directors, and promote their brands online, similar to what I am doing right now with my blog. I look forward to viewing this awards ceremony next year without the delays and excessive amount of sexual jokes. Keep it short, smart, and entertaining. Winning formula right there!
Congratulations to all the nominees and winners!
Wow. A lot has happened this week:
Shoutouts: I want to thank my new followers, Johana, Stacy, Cynthia and Randomista, and to everyone else that has read my blog and posted comments. I greatly appreciated it and keep them coming!
Facebook Page: I just launched this blog's Facebook page. Check it out! :) I want to make it as low-key as possible.
Blog Work: I think I have produced some of my best ideas this week. With my new blog layout, my new blogging resolution, and followers, I think I can conquer the world right now.
Job Hunting: This week, I was lucky enough to apply to two great internships I found on ed2010.com and craiglist.org. The first one is the NYMag.com summer online editorial internship and the other is the BuzzFeed.com summer editorial internship. It would be nice to hear from both companies soon. I submitted some of my innovative blog posts as clips. It would be a dream to work for either organization. They certainly need my talents! Wish me good luck on those opportunities.
What Do You Want to Read?: I am giving you the opportunity to choose which topics that I should write more about for next week. Do you want to read more posts that are geared towards celebrity gossip, music, TV, and movies or towards technology? Want to guest post on my blog? If you are not sure, browse through my old posts and then comment on this blog post your ideas. I truly want to hear with what you have to say. I am always up for new challenges. I will take your ideas and try to balance them out with my own blog ideas. This would be a learning experience worth wild! So comment below and tell me what you think!
Other than that, have a wonderful spring weekend!
This guide is two specific things. First, it is my New Year's Blogging Resolution. When I was writing my Declaration of Independence piece last December, I was also planning on writing a blogging resolution as well, but I thought writing one was quite trivial. Was I wrong?! Secondly, after writing my response to John Kownacksi's "Before You Start Being Relevant" article, I wanted to write a follow-up guide of the things I have learned about making it as a blogger and social media participant these days. It is not all peaches and cream like many bloggers seems to live through everyday. I want you to learn from my mistakes. So this is my New Year's blogging resolution and your guide to becoming a better blogger. So, what have I have experienced through this ordeal?
1. Be humble with what you already have. Be grateful with how much traffic you receive and the number of followers and comments you get daily. I am now grateful that 27 people think that my blog is worth their time to read and comment. I may not have the influence and a big fan base like many other popular bloggers have right now, but my brand will only become bigger and successful if I put the time and effort in the long run.
3. Have a strong, healthy ego. Do not try to become a shameless self-promoter all the time. There are times to do it, but not everyday. Link your blog posts to a couple of social media outlets at a time. If you promote on Twitter, late afternoons and evenings are the best times to get more retweets and publicity. Do not spam Twitter or forums like I have because people will not take you and your brand seriously. I've learned the hard way and I will never do that ever again. Shameless self-promotion makes you appear desperate and ignorant of the proper way of social marketing and personal branding. Patience is a virtue.
4. Be Yourself. When you write your blog posts, be yourself. When you reply to your follower's comments, be yourself. When you go on social media outlets to promote your brand, be yourself. Do not try to be anyone else other than yourself. As I was watching the first season of Glee all this week, I realized that the characters on the hit TV show discovered that they could finally be themselves and appreciate their own musical talents as a part of their high-school's glee club. High-school is ground-zero for social pressures and conformity already as teenagers are pressured to become images they are not. The glee's club win at the sectional competition only proves that with talent, determination, and through adversity, you can be victorious. If you can be yourself, your passions, your influence, your integrity, and your blogging leverage will follow through.
What have you learned as a blogger?
