A hairy situation

I hate going to the hairdresser. When I was a little kid I refused to brush my hair so it always looked like a haystack. In order to prevent major knots in it, my mum forced me to either go to the hairdresser regularly, or let her brush it. I'm not sure if that's the reason, but to this day I don't really like people touching my head, and due to that I really dislike going to the hairdresser. Of course I don't wander around looking like a tramp. Like every decent human being I wash my hair, and I try to keep it tidy, but that was about it. I go to the hairdresser about every year, except last year when I went twice.

So why even bother talking about that? Well there are certain things I observed about hair. For example, whenever I actually go to the hairdresser, I decided to cut my hair rather short. Last year was special though. I wanted the hairdresser to cut my hair extra short because it meant something to me. Long hair is very feminine and girly, something I associate with well-being, whereas in my head short hair symbolizes strength, confidence and maybe a bit of 'I-don't-care-what-other-people-think' attitude. Yes, we live in modern times where one can wear their hair however they want, but still I had this in my head when I cut it short. After all, it helped me through a difficult time and reminded me that I only need to please myself, which I do.

There are a lot of women out there who care a lot about their long hair. They use a lot of products and are very proud of it. That's ok of course, and I would be shocked if some of my friends cut their hair, as they belong to that type of women. Another thing is men. I know that most of the guys I know prefer long haired girls. It's just something I seem to hear quite a lot. For me it was just another reason to become short haired, as I didn't want to feel dependant on a man's judging. At least that's what I tried to tell myself when my sub- consciousness proved me wrong.

I remember a dream I had about two weeks after I went to the hairdresser's. I was wearing very baggy clothes and as I said, was short haired, when a male friend of mine got up to me. I wanted to hug him as usually, but instead of hugging me, he punched me in the shoulder. After that he went on, poking me and hitting me and I just did not understand why he treated me like that. At some point I stepped away a bit and asked him what was wrong. He then told me that, if I wanted to be treated like a girl, then I should look like one too. I can't remember what happened next, but those words shocked me a lot. Why did I care so much about that deep down?

Another point where I realized how important it is to men is when I was at a friend's birthday party. At first there were many people but in the end just four people stayed for an all-nighter, namely her, her boyfriend, a male friend of them and me. At some point my friend's boyfriend said that he really liked long haired girls, and that for his taste mine was too short. He wasn't being rude, it's his opinion and taste, but it still kind of got to me, especially because I then thought back to that dream, and many conversations I had with my male friends about that topic. Of course I don't need to please my friend's boyfriend, but hearing that you don't look good from a guy is... well it isn't good for my pride.

Last but not least, even though it seems like I need to correct myself, meaning I do care what my hair looks like, I still can't stop myself from trying out new styles and colours, ignoring the fact that men might not like it. I am a redhead now, slightly purple in it, with a self cut fringe that is a bit crooked. To be honest the colour looks odd but I love it. Sadly guy feedback these days is rare, except for my father who told me it was ugly and a friend who once said that he disliked red hair. Oh well, I might one day find a guy who just accepts my hair choices anyway, or I'll die forever alone, whatever :P

Cheerio

My best friend, the green eyed monster

I try to be positive, but I do always find the fault in things, especially in my own life. Maybe I'm not the person to be content with it. I am very jealous, I've always have been. To keep it simple, I'm afraid to be disappointed with what I achieve and my fear manifests itself in jealousy. 

I remember back in school when I was friends with this one girl, I was told by a teacher what jealousy meant. I've always wanted to be part of people’s life, and that is a good thing I guess, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. At some point I remember getting angry at her because she preferred hanging out with another girl, not me. Of course I have changed since then, I understand that she wasn't offending me and all, but back then I could not understand why I felt sad when she didn't want to spend that afternoon with me, yet it was just this now well known emotion.

I'm happy when my friends are happy; I want and need them to be so. Jealousy or envy means that I want to have what another person has, meaning that the other person has that special somewhat. Today I found out again how dirty it feels. I bumped into a friend while I was in town. She told me about her new job, how she was earning a lot for the little time she did work and how all was good. She deserves to make a good living, as she will be attending Uni next year just like me, I don't grudge her that success, at least I don't want to, but inside I did.

I instantly started comparing what she was doing with what I will be doing in two weeks. I will work half a day more than her, per week. She earns a lot, more than anyone I know (when you count per hour). Don't get me wrong, I'm more than relieved to have found a job, but why do I feel like I always get less in the end? I'm going to be cleaning in a hospital for the next five months whereas she works in a shiny office, and as a second occupation looks after a little boy. Yes, I am more than definitely jealous, and that makes me angry with myself.

There are always people who have it better, always people who have it worse. I just can't get over the whole comparing-people thing. I want more for myself, and eventually I might get there, but right now I'm just annoyed how close-mined I happen to be. Right now, I live with jealousy, but it's my goal to get rid of it, step by step, until it is reduced to an absolute minimum. I will just have to fight my own thoughts.

Cheerio

the "joys" of being a youtuber

So yes, this is about me making a YouTube video. If you are not interested in these things at all, you might skip this post. Also it might become quite long as I spent the last two weeks working at this project. You'll find the video at the end of this post if you are interested, feel free to watch it.

First I want to explain why I did it. Usually to start something I need to be challenged, as having a goal is essentially to me. When kickthepj uploaded his draw my life an announced that he'd be giving away his notebook he drew in I knew that I should at least give it a try. This decision was followed by many second thoughts about my accent, and especially the fact that I don't enjoy drawing a lot. In the end I thought I might as well give it a go, as I still wanted to do it somehow.

I then started planning. First I watched various videos of other youtuber, until I felt comfortable enough by the fact that most of them weren't very well drawn either. I figured that the best way to get a video in the end was to record my voice first, edit that and then draw whatever I thought suited the text. In the end I'd cut the filmed drawings that they matched the voiceover.

I can't tell you how difficult it was to reduce my life to a vlog length video. Six minutes may appear long for a YouTube video, but it is really short for nineteen years worth of content. I wrote various attempts, some were really funny, others were just terrible, but in the end they all didn't work out. I somehow couldn't fit it all in chronologically and still make sense, so I decided to divide my life into segments. I wasn't pefectly happy with the final result, but it was ok.

The next thing I had to do was recording it. I wanted to use a little microphone I own, but when I tried it out it didn't work, so I had to record it with the intern microphone of my laptop. I'm therefore sorry for the quality. When I listened to my own voice my disappointment was big . I could hear all the background noises and my accent just sounded terrible, and eventually I found mistakes in the voiceover I worked on for about six hours. I was about to delete it all, but I already told my friend about it and she wanted to help me do the drawings the next day, so I just had to work on. Another thing I had to do was finding music I was allowed to use for the background, as I didn't want my voice to stand alone. Check the video description if you are interested in the side I used, it's really good and of course, it's free. Another thing I can recomend is the audacity for sound editing. I've used it before when I tried to sing a cover of a song and it's quite easy to understand. Have a picture :D

 Looking for a free audio program? Audacity I'd say

Filming the next day was chaotic. At first the lightning was terrible (it's still not great, but we improved, trust me). We had to move my friends’ family dining table in order to fix that problem. Then we had to set up the whiteboard somehow, and place the camera somewhere so that I could still draw on the board. We decided that it was best to put the tripod in front of me, between my legs in order to get the best possible shot.  I used her dad's camera which is really good one, but at some point it run out of battery and we had to recharge it. Of course that delayed our work even more. At the end it took us about 7,5 hours to film those six minutes. Oh and yes, if you wonder why the camera is so shaky, even though we used a tripod? I kept hitting this thing with my arms whenever I grabbed a new marker, because that's how I roll.

look, it's a work space

In the evening of the same day I got home and thought to myself that  could just start editing. I had checked the internet for a free program and basically all I found was that windows movie maker was the best solution. Of course when I tried to open the videos with it, it didn't work due to it not recognizing the .mov files. Once again I was really frustrated. I downloaded another free program, which I didn't understand at all. Then I tried another one, but my laptop, which isn't the youngest anymore, could not use it. In the end I spent solid three hours from midnight to 3 am, downloading a free thirty days trial of software called Pinnacle Studio 16. I decided to use the time it took my computer to download the program to make a little Logo, which you might glance at the end of the video. It's really simple but I felt like I wanted to have one that really rempresents me, so it's all fine.

I started editing the next day. At first I felt like a monkey in front of a keyboard, I had no idea how to speed up the single parts, how to shorten the clips and how to edit at all. With the help of the manual and online tutorials I found out what I was supposed to do and eventually I started to really enjoy it. Of course my laptop rebelled against it and decided to become a heater, it even kept freezing every half an hour, but luckily it never crushed.

How video editing looks like (for me)

I was fascinated how each single part got together, I even felt a little proud on myself. It didn't fit perfect everywhere, but now I can watch a video I made more or less all by myself. Of course the quality is still not the best, but at least I tried, and trust me, I tried hard. I've spent about 25 h of work into this little thing, and looking back I'm glad I did it, challenge accepted and fulfilled.
Why do I even care to share this on my blog? I've once checked the entries to this little competition and I've seen several people having "this is my first video" in their title. At first I wanted to do that too, to get attenuating circumstances, but eventually I decided against that. Yes, this was my first ever attempt to make a video, I've never really been involved with such things, but I don't want anybody's pity. Nobody forced me to try it, nobody told me to upload anything, it was my decision and as I said, I'm still proud of it, so I shouldn't try to be overly humble about it. I was proud enough to upload it on YouTube and to enter in a competition, so I should stand behind my work.

So this was it, my experience in doing a little filmmaking. I'm sorry if I was ever annoyed towards any youtubers for not finishing a video in time. I've learned my lesson. If you are interested in more details, or if you have a question, my comment section is open. Who knows, this might not have been my last video after all. Thanks for reading

Cheerio.

V for vulnerable world

So yes, this post was inspired by the fact that I watched 'V for Vendetta' yesterday and yes, I pretty much loved it.

If you are not familiar with the film, it's about a dystopian England, I guess about twenty years from now, where they have curfews, censorship and even some kind of dictator. One guy, he calls himself V, is trying to start a revolution within one year, as the plot starts at the 5th of November and ends a year later on the same date. You never see V's his face as he got burned terribly and hides behind a Guy Fawkes mask*. V is all about ideas, and ideology, which he thinks are more important than a single human being. I guess his mask serves not only to prevent people from his scarred face, but also to make him less human less of an individual, and therefore more accessible to the public. Everybody can look like V, if they just put on that mask. By doing this, he encourages other people to step in his role, to try to change the world too, as they can identify with him. 

Ok, this is my own theory and I tried not to spoil too much, so if you want to know more about the plot, watch the movie. But trigger alert, it can be a little gory sometimes.

The thing I really wanted to talk about was the whole dystopian theme of the story. I've seen a lot of those movies and books lately, and to be honest I'm fascinated. Our world is in a bad condition, but sometimes I seem to forget how bad it really is. For example, the part of Switzerland where I live witnessed something terrible about two weeks ago. We had our first massacre that I can remember. It was a really surreal experience, I mean I always feel the pain of America when something there goes wrong, but when it happens near you, you suddenly understand what it means. I didn't even know anyone who was connected to the incident, but still it touched me a lot. That, and many other things that are happening, are the reason why I'm into dystopian stuff. It is possible after all. Honestly, what happened to our world that such things are possible? How can we make the world a better place, so that the ones coming after us do not have to carry the burden of our mistakes?

In the film England was having a war with the USA. England talked a lot about God and that they won because it was God's will. If you know the 4th commandment, then you know that you should not misuse the name of the Lord. I think it's wrong to do harm to anyone, in the name of God. In the end, he is our judge, not we judge others. I have gay friends, I have Muslim friends, and I have Atheist friends, because frankly, I do believe in God, I do believe that he is the only one, but I do not believe that I know it all. I might as well be wrong, maybe my Muslim friend is right, but that's simply not what I believe. My faith does make me a better person, a more loving and caring one, so I can't see a bad thing about that, but I'd never dare to say that everybody else is living their lives the wrong way. Faith won't let me.

On the other hand I'm not a fan of forced religion. Faith is as personal as it can get and I'd rather have it that way. When you force people to think something, all you will earn is rebellion, and that's simply not how it should work. 

To answer the second question, all we can do is open up our eyes. One person alone will not be able to shake it all up, but if one person can collaborate with some others, and they can reach even more people, then we can make things better. Maybe it starts with little things, like open up your eyes to the beauty that lies around you instead of observing only the bad. Just remember; always look on the bright side of life, to quote a famous song.

*And yes, the internet phenomenon Anonymous seemed to be so inspired by that film that they use those masks as well. The ideology of non-individuals changing the world seems to be spreading.

I messed up a little, so let's give up

As the title says, I just found out that my first commandment wasn't really one; it was just a phrase kind of introducing the commandments. I didn't know that, I thought it belonged to them, but then there would be eleven. Of course now I could just go back and delete that post, but I put some work into it and I'd rather edit in the fact that I misunderstood it, than to delete it completely. 

The thing is I don't see much point in continuing the series proper anyway. I'm bored by it and my brain is filled with ideas for other topics and I kind of go nowhere by writing about those bible texts, as I have little knowledge of them all. I'd much rather not finish the project, though I said I wanted to stay committed towards it.

When I read the next verse, on which I should be commenting today, I decided that it wasn't worth it anymore. 


⁸Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (genesis 20, 8-


I don't respect neither the Sabbath (which starts on Friday evening to Saturday evening), nor Sunday. Yes I go to church on Sundays, but I do not rest, I do the stuff I usually do, I enjoy my life, and when I used to go to school I did my homework then, which is work, and thus should not be done on a holy day. That kind of was the final straw. 

I initially made the series for the commandment that said "honor your parents" but I had some fun with the first ones, and the topic is now over. 

Await a post on a different matter in some days, hopefully tomorrow or the day after

Sorry for not being committed, but barely anyone has read those so...