Laura's Super Fantabulous Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made this vlog on Sunday, April 23rd, but haven't had the chance to get to editing it (or really doing much else on this computer for that matter) because Amy, my sister has been spending most of the evenings on the machine. I don't have too much of a issue with this, because it is mostly homework that she has been working on, which is certainly acceptable.

Another reason why I have been away from the computer lately is that I started my summer job on Monday (Monday and Tuesday were a chance for me to be re-trained) at Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. Now, I worked this same position last summer as well, and so I am have not forgotten much from then, so I hopped right back today ready to go, and was actually somewhat busy. But, it is basically an hour drive to and from work in the morning, which means I have to leave the house by seven at the latest, and I don't normally get home until at least five. This makes for long days and early mornings. This should mean that I get to bed in good time at night so that I am not too tired to drive in the morning. So, I have little time to myself now that work is here. This means less vlogging, and less time to edit videos.

I'm sure you'll be hearing more about my Point Lepreau Nuclear Power Plant escapades in the near future, if only in blog form.

I cannot wait until I have my computer here from Sackville, if only because it is in need of a major reformatting. But my vlogging is also putting a lot of strain on the home computer. We have had it for about six years, and the video is filling up the C drive fairly rapidly. I'll need to burn them on some discs soon.

I have a few (two) ideas for future vlogs which I would love to get to sometime soon, but I don't know if I have the time to devote to it. One of them may just end up being an idea for a blog I guess, I just want to explore the issue, and I have no plans for images to go along with them. Maybe sometime this summer I'll get around to the big vlog idea I have. We'll see.

Anyway, on Sunday night, I had time to spare... This might have been the last time for the rest of the summer that I'll be in that boat, but you're definitely welcome to take a peek at my Sunday night:

Watch with Windows Media

Whats that? Another one?

For those of you who have ejoyed coming to my site to check out the vlogs, and to those of you who like checking out Dan's vlog a whole lot (because his are even better than my lousy vlogs)...

There is a NEW VLOG in the vloggosphere for you to check out!

That's right! It's THE ADVENTURES OF DAN AND LAURA and it has a real easy site name to remember... just http://lauradan.blogspot.com. That's right, just lauradan.

You can even subscribe to it!

Yesterday's Vlog Part 2

I started off yesterday's vlog with the explanation that since getting home for the summer, my days have not gotten any more relaxing, but perhaps slightly busier. This would be why I made a Part 1 and a Part 2 of my vlogs! So, here is Part 2!

When I got home yesterday afternoon after all the creepy Saint John sexual harassment, I took my other sister out for supper before her swimming lessons. She had wanted to try 'vlogging' too, so we decided to make one together! Here it is!...

Watch on Windows Media

Today's Vlog Part 1

**EDIT** Audio Fixed! But now it is just Windows Media Player available. Maybe later I'll add the flash version.

Well, today, I took quite a lot of video. It seemed to be that type of vlogging day. But, it worked out that the first half of the video and the second half didn't jive and so I made TWO (or am in the process of making two!)

And this is PART ONE!

BIG NEWS today though! It hopefully will solve a lot of my most recent problems! (See my vlog for the BIG NEWS).

Watch the Video

"Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!"

Happy Easter!

Well, it has been a busy Easter weekend, but a really special weekend as well. My little sister Molly got baptized today. I thought this would be an excellent beginning to the "Conversation God" challenge that Anthony created for his last Video Blog Week submition. What better way to start off my addition to the conversation with a video of one of the major symbols that is central to Christianity.

I also think that this is an interesting addition to my blog because when I was talking to some people about baptism, it seemed odd that a ten year old girl was getting baptized. "Isn't that a little old?" someone asked me. Some people only know about infant baptism, but there is also believers baptism. Here in this video is an incredible peak on one beautiful individual standing before her family and church and expressing her death and rebirth in Christ.

So, excuse the shaky hands and the brutal video quality that my digital point and shoot offers. I hope you can look past all of that.

Happy Easter.

Watch on Windows Media Player

(Song on video is How Deep The Father's Love by Joy Williams.)

(PS. Sorry, I tried desperately to convert this to anything other than .wmv. Unfortunately, this is the best I can do!)

Technorati Tag: conversationGod

Great Haligonian Smoothies

This vlog was filmed a few days ago, and has been on Dan's vlog since. Slightly different edits, though this time!

And Eric, Dan and I do a way better vlog than you and Dan! Don't kid yourself!




Watch with Quicktime

Passing Time

So, I'm sitting here trying to pass the time, listening to Tracy Chapman on my iPod and drinking hot chocolate. Its so hard to see this white box in front of me screaming for my fingers to add letters so that it says something interesting. But what does it matter if I add anything to this white void? I have a video to add, but I'm on the wrong computer for that right now. Video blogs are interesting, aren't they? They don't require any effort on the part of the viewer. As long as the video creators can entertain, the work stops there. But it takes effort to read the words I add to this blank space.

Once read however, it doesn't take any effort to assume.

I have been feeling so discouraged when it comes to writing lately. A professor told me I had no style. I have people who read what I write and tell me that it is too long. I have people who read what I write and give me hell about who or what is between the lines of each sentence I spell out.

Someday, I hope I can sit down and let my fingers dance along the keyboard so that somehow a story will come out that everyone will want to read. But, I fear that the psychosis that has given me my story will also be the psychosis that keeps me silent. It isn't until I sit with a pen in my hand or a blank screen and keyboard that I feel like I am finally looking into the clearest mirror ever. Everything else somehow clouds this person I know. Am I the girl in the photographs or the videos? I am always so surprised when I see myself in those mediums because I don't recognize the person there. I don't know what image I would recognize, maybe I don't even know the image of myself? I am an idea though. But the idea is never thought through. It is never realized.

I want to have memories. I was rereading a short story from my Canadian Literature class while preparing for my upcoming exam. It was about a writer who immigrated from India to Canada and wrote about his life in India more often than his life in Canada. The short story I was reading showed his parents commenting on his writing and being somewhat disappointed that it didn't speak more to his life in Canada. The father theorized however that it takes 10 years to really separate oneself from memory so much that you can write about it clearly. 10 years. That's half of my life. The past ten years are therefore still fraught with emotions so that I cannot quite understand them or their impact on my life. I have no memories I can write about, no memories I can turn into a story.

What would it take for you to enjoy what I say? Who likes literature anymore anyway? I am a part of such an attention deficit society that I even find the videos annoying and boring at times. Entertain me! Entertain me! I understand your point of view; I don't even like what I have to say.

But I'm just passing time, remember.

"They Say that I Can Move the Mountains"

(click on image to enlarge)

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the day which Christians celebrate the day Jesus entered into Jerusalem on a donkey to crowds who laid their coats and palm branches on the ground in for the donkey to tread on. Hosana means "save now".

Most of the crowd spread their coats on the road ahead of Jesus, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. He was in the center of the procession, and the crowds all around him were shouting,
"Praise God for the Son of David!
Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Praise God in highest heaven!"

Matthew 21:8-9

For as long as I can remember, the churches I have attended have had Palm branches available on the Sunday before Easter. Children usually did a procession into the church waving the green, leafy plants. Even the adults would get a branch.

But there was always a difference between the adults holding palm branches, and the children who held them. Kids can make anything fun, including pieces of tree. And so, they play with the palm branches in church. They wave them around. They use them to dance. They sing Hosana! Hosana! Loudly, as if they were really a part of the celebrations when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey.

The adults on the other hand, they try to quiet and calm down the children. The adults hold their branches at a modest level, not making a big deal about the whole situation. They are dignified and reverent. That's what church is all about, right?

They say that I can move the mountains
And send them falling to the sea
They say that I can walk on water
If I would follow and believe
With Faith Like a Child

"Like a Child", Jars of Clay

Maybe there is something we can learn from these children. Maybe we shouldn't be so dignified by holding our palm branches at our side. Maybe we should dance and sing and shout and wave or palms!

The he said, "I assure you, unless you turn from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven."

Matthew 18:3-4

Please Stay tuned!

Wow guys! Thanks for all the comments! Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, there will be no more Video Bogging Week Vlogs ! But eventually more videos will ago up! So Stay tuned! Exams starting soon!

MtA's Last Class Bash

Watch on Windows Media

Technorati Tag: videobloggingweek2006.

Okay, it is SLIGHTLY late, I'll admit! It's been a fairly busy day, and I didn't even go out tonight with my roommates! I did spend time with them at the house until about 11:00pm though, and then got to editing this thing. It's a little long, but bite me! :) I like it!

Plus, she's a little dangerous today. I actually took the camera out and did something different than the talking head routine (which was also dangerous if only for the fact that I had never vlogged before!) So, here is vlog attempt two! Thank you for everyone who commented on attempt one! It really encouraged me to do this again! And I am kind of enjoying it!

For those who don't understand why I am trying to be dangerous, it is the theme of this year's Video Blogging Week; the challenge which challenged me to vlog in the first place!

Also, check out this REALLY GREAT VLOG!!!

Wanderlust

Sunday night, a night which was spent writing an exam while giving up my chance to go to the Junos, also was an opportunity for me to contemplate the act of writing. My philosophy prof gave us a "take home" exam which was to be completed and passed in online, and it required writing three essays. When you spend your night saturated in essay writing about philosophy, a mind is bound to wander. And wander mine did.

We had choices on the exam, but the fact of the matter was, no doubt at least fifty percent of the class were writing the same essay question that I was. This was interesting to me, because no doubt, we would all write something different. And then I though that even if I had sat down to write the essays at a different time, it would come out very differently than the essay that I was writing then. And that's what is interesting about writing. With simply 26 letters forming our English language, we form so many different words which in turn form so many different sentences and paragraphs and full works. Post Modernism claims that everything that can be done, has already been done. And maybe everything is a copy of everything else. But what I write, no one else will ever write that. The forming of my words are unlike anyone else's.

The ab-TH-urdity of Vlogging

Watch the video

videobloggingweek2006

How is this for a first attempt? I have never ever taken video with my camera before, I have never ever edited video, and I have never ever sat in front of a camera and talked to it for this long (except for one formal interview once for a promotional video someone was doing).

What is the deal with this? I really don't even understand vlogging yet. But you can't be critical until you try, right?

Red

Directional Confessional

Writing is an interesting tool.

Sometimes I find myself sitting down at a computer, and picking up a story or two which I have begun in the past. Fiction is the only way I know how to enter back into the fairy tale world that helped me escape from all my childhood perils. I could be a princess or a detective or a pioneer or a mermaid. Innocence soon loses its naivete, and it became easier and easier to see through the happily ever afters.

Other times, writing is used to keep up to date through e*mails or blog entries. The more interesting these blurbs are, the better. Hyperbole is used and only certain key points are emphasized. It must be short and sweet, or it will be too long for people to care enough to read. Our internet and television generation have such a dumbed down attention span that it no longer matters what is written, as long as it is interesting and short.

Similar to the e*mail and blog outcomes of writing is the letter. This can be hand written or typed, sent through the snail mail or electronically, and usually an attempt is made to be persuasive. Letters are edited much more carefully than the life updates. Content is closely monitored so that the point comes across, so that a specific side is heard.

Where is the truth? Writing used to be so much more personal to me. Whether it was abstract or simply an outlet, I used to pour out my heart. Maybe this could have been taken as being overly emotional, an emo, angsty teenager searching for the meaning of life. But growing up doesn't seem to equal finding meaning. Does becoming an adult mean finally finding our way after being lost for so long? Everyone still seems to be seeking. That part of us just doesn't seem important anymore. We don't write about it anymore. And instead, we give a damn about how short and sweet and entertaining we are.

I do not know when I became lost. I do not know when I lost the ability to dream and to wish. I do not know when I stopped being a princess with the world at my fingertips. I do not know who I am now. I just see act after act, intermingled between this agonizing search process. I end up exhausted. I stand here, not knowing where to turn next.

To you, I am a fictional tale.
To you, I am a quick and entertaining.
To you, I am a persuasive letter that you read without knowing the author.

To me, I seem to have lost all the words.

BAM!

In response to my blog on The Bachelor, I just want to relate a hardy "I told you so"!

Maybe This Would Have Helped...

Losing Trust

Last night was the final show of this season's The Bachelor. I must admit, I never watched more reality TV than I have this year. With five girls living in one house, you tend to sit down and watch whatever someone else has on the TV. So this season was my introduction to The Bachelor, and I only watched about two episodes in total (one full episode plus bits and pieces of others).

Last night, bachelor Travis, whose medical career was the only thing going for him, gave a ring to down home, kindergarten teacher cutie, Sarah, while California surfer hottie Moana went home heartbroken and embarrassed after spending weeks in Paris falling in love along with twenty-five other women - to the same man.

Episode six, second to last, Travis takes the three women to the most romantic places around the world and completes each date with an invitation to his hotel bed. After sleeping with three beautiful women, the bachelor complains about how difficult this whole ordeal is.

Although Travis did not officially propose to Sarah, as he gave her the ring on the chain; he is clearly intending for a further relationship. How, after spending weeks competing for the heart of one man, after he has given away so much of himself in such a short period, can she trust him? Around the same time that she first slept with him, so did two other women!

The Bachelor is all about competition and jealousy and heartbreak and a deterioration of trust. Reality TV doesn't just make mulch of entertainment, it makes a mulch of Love too. And we sit, and watch it, and love it.

Keep your hands and feet in the ride at all time

Birthdays are a lot like roller coasters. You have huge expectations each time you step into the car; you want the excitement and the rush that the really big loop-the-loop Roller Coasters offer; you want the speed and the thrills. Expectations are huge.

Birthdays have all those same expectations. No other day do we expect all our cards to line up just right (except perhaps the day of our prom and our wedding). Every other day, we have Murphy's Law and sayings such as "Nobody ever said life is fair" floating around the back of our heads, smudging our outlook; but my birthday is "MY Day". It is all about me, when we celebrate the day I was born, and we eat my favorite kind of cake, we give birthday presents to me, ... Basically, not to mention all our selfishness, on our birthday, we have an innermost desire to feel extremely special by those who are special to us.

But every Roller Coaster is dangerous. There are safety harnesses which must be secure, there are operators who know when to start and stop the machine, there are warnings to keep those people with high blood pressure and weak hearts at bay, there are directions to keep hands and feet and other appendages in the ride at all times.

Birthdays have none of these safety harnesses accompanying them.

My birthday was just over a week ago, on a day which all other people despise! It seems that more people are alone on Valentine's day and the Valentine's-haters despise those who have a Valentine (even if their Valentine is miles away and they're alone too). Valentine's Day offers even higher expectations and attracts even weaker hearts.

I suggest that birthdays come mandatory with safety harnesses, warnings, operators, and directions.

Enjoy the ride!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Everything is alright.

"I just want to warn you," Alicia told me as we walked to her birthday supper, "that you're going to cry on your birthday." Big tears. Twenty year old tears.

It's all going to be alright. Everything is alright. You're okay. Everything is going to be okay. Either God is a woman and she's talking to me, or the loudspeaker outside of Bridgestreet Cafe was blasting some strange self-help CD. I wonder who listens to that stuff. I wonder if that CD is in someone's stereo playing over and over every night, just so that the listener can be convinced by some electronic device that the world really isn't all that bad.

I wonder what went through each pedestrian's mind as they walked up and down Bridge Street, as the dim glow came from the closed storefront windows; Walking either to and from bars or pizza joints, expecting to drink away some repressed emotion or to eat away drunken heartbreak.

Everything is alright.

Twenty Year Old Tears.

Loudspeakers don't lie.