Life without You Tube?! No thanks.

Need to learn to cast on to impress your knitting-saavy friends? To tie a tie in 5 minutes? Or perhaps you want to jump higher than Michael Jordan? Or maybe you want to learn how to play 'We Shall Overcome' on the recorder? Well don't worry, whichever of the above predicaments ails you, whether it is ridiculous or practical, there is a simple answer. All you need is a working computer, a decent internet connection, and the ability to type the following: www.youtube.com.

Oh, some of you have heard of this? Cool. Well for those who haven't, let me tell you a bit about it. After about 9 minutes of searching on google (Oh, and do you know about google?! Well, more on that another time, lets not get carried away tonight), here are some basic facts I learned about YouTube. (Source: The History of You Tube Video).

Started by: Three dudes who worked for Pay Pal

First video posted on: April 3rd, 2005

By 2007, just 2 years lately, You Tube was the 4th most used site in the world - craaazy.

This topic has interested me more and more lately, as myself and some of my friends search for hobbies to entertain our easily bored selves, especially in this frigid weather (Michigan people, don't yell at me, I know you still have it worse). Over break in December, mostly via You Tube instructional videos and tabbed songs on the internet, I was able to teach myself to play guitar.

The other day my friends were discussing knitting, which a lot of people I know are getting into lately. They said they mostly learned online as well, which at this point really shouldn't be surprising but still kind of was. A search of the word knitting comes up with about 23K videos of knitting. Not sure how helpful all of them are, but apparently they are enough to teach beginners how to cast on (I don't know what that is, but it sounds important).

To further explore the How To world of You Tube, I typed in "how to" on You Tube and the drop down menu pulled up the following: How to... be a ninja, make a smoke bomb, save a life (okay probably the song, but you never know), be a gangster, be a nerd, and my personal favorite... how to be emo (I actually watched this one, and it was quite humorous).

Additionally, You Tube also has a ton of videos of people talking about their experiences with psychological disorders. While this clearly has implications for the mental health community, that is also a topic for another day. As a person in the field of psychology, these videos can provide helpful tools for future classes I might teach (e.g., needing an example of OCD hoarding for an abnormal psych course) but also for me to watch and learn about various disorders of which I have little knowledge. I actually watched several videos about social anxiety today and gained a little bit better understanding of it, since I have relatively little training in that area.

How people lived without this amazing technological tool is beyond me. Alright so I may have done it for 20 or so years of my life, but still, its harder to imagine now that I utilize it so much on a daily basis. The only problem is the vast amount of choices, and trying not to spread yourself too thin. I mean, it probably isn't realistic to learn to be a ninja, a gangster, and a nerd all in one night, so I'm going to have to pick one. It's a tough choice, I know, and a tough life, but I am pretty sure its better than life without You Tube.

Forward progress

Writing on here is becoming more and more difficult for several reasons. I'm busier with school (although that doesn't explain my 12 day break in Michigan where hung around each night playing on the computer and hanging with my brother), I'm becoming more a perfectionist when it comes to this blog and the longer I wait to post the more insurmountable the task of posting something worthwhile becomes, and finally, things are going well. I'm definitely making some forward progress... with life, that is.

In general, I'm feeling pretty good about how things are going. This progress probably shouldn't stop me from writing, but it kinda does. Things I think about tend to be fairly positive and when I think about trying to express them coherently, I'm afraid it will come across all sugarcoated and fairy-tale-dream like, and the idea itself will be lost in a sugary coma. Then all my good messages and life lessons (you know, like 'do unto others...' and 'you can only love another once you love yourself') might be considered unoriginal, mainstream, and perhaps fake. So until I find some hard core way to write all of that, those ideas just aren't getting posted. Sorry folks.

So if I can't post those thoughts, what should go on here? To answer this question, I went back to my first entry in this blog for help. Why the heck did I start writing this anyhow? The entry reads: In this blog, I hope to try to document these types of events and the impact they have on me, in hope of gaining more clarity and perspective in my life.

Thank you me from March 2008, I remember now. And even as I look back on my old posts I remember not only the events themselves but how it felt at that time in my life. The picture of the tree with changing leaves helps me recall the March 2008 me, and really feel and re-experience the confused, somewhat naive, younger me, which is pretty cool. Note: That is not to imply that being confused or naive is bad or that I am no longer naive or confused, but that's a topic for another day.

So the blog does serve its purpose, even if its only for myself. In effort to continue this forward progress, I pledge to continue to write and document, even if it isn't a profound and moving message. And perhaps through all of that, some sparkly and optimistic ones will slip in as well, so sue me.

In keeping with my idea back in March 2008 of posting a random picture that describes my thoughts, I head to google images. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? (ugh... cliché) After an extensive search of 'beautiful scenery,' 'mountains,' and related terms, I finally found a non-copyrighted picture to post here. I chose this mountainy one because I'm obsessed with mountains and these ones really do look peaceful, content, and thoughtful, all of which I am feeling right now. Luckily, all of these things (i.e., documented honesty about the candy-coated nature of some of my thoughts and my continued naiveté, pledge to continue to document, and even just looking at the above picture) are all good for my continued forward progress.