Here in England, is the one week holidays, which is amazing after having to push through all three science exams during the last two weeks of term, but there are going so fast! I hope that you are having a nice time, regardless of whether or not you are on holiday right now or not :)
One thing I have been telling myself throughout these holidays is: This is it. After all the revision and the stress and the exams, this is your chance to finally make all the YouTube videos you've been planning. This is yet another reason why I have been looking forward to the holidays so much - I love making YouTube videos and recently I have been given next to no time to do that, and that has upset me. I just really feel like I should do something for me, and not because the education system tells me I have to do it.
There was one video that I was particularly looking forward to making: my braces video. I got my braces off around four weeks ago now and have been desperate to talk about my two-year experience with braces ever since, but revision just kept getting in the way. I was trying to balance revision, other homework, and socialising (because without free time with friends I think I would have gone actually insane!), and YouTube just didn't fit in.
I finally filmed my braces video two days ago, which made me very happy as I have missed making videos so much recently, and felt like I had a lot to say. To be honest, I wasn't really sure exactly how the video was going to turn out on the whole, but I was quite proud of it at the same time!
Aaaand then came the editing. What a lot of people don't understand when they think of how much effort YouTubers put into their videos is just how much time is spent editing after the camera stops running. If I want to upload a video on the same day as filming it, I have to dedicate an entire day to that specific video and focus on barely anything else. In my videos, I use Windows Movie Maker - it's definitely not the greatest software ever, but it is free, I can just about get my head around it, and it hadn't ever failed me... yet.
I had just finished editing my video, and was happy with the results. It tried saving it to my computer, which is never usually problematic, and it didn't look like it was going to be. It was saving at the same rate as usual, until....
98%
BAM.
An error message appeared on the screen and all of my progress disappeared, turning each section of the video into tiny yellow triangles with exclamation marks inside.
Okaaay, that's weird. I've uploaded videos much longer than this before..., I thought, googling the error message, but nothing useful came up. People were experiencing the same problem, but no one had a solution. I tried and tried to save the video, but the same error message kept appearing. I asked my dad for help, because he is good with computers and basically all of the stuff that I am bad at, but he just kinda came to the conclusion that my software sucks and I wouldn't be able to upload my video unless I got some new software.
The problem is that all other software (and I mean the good software, not the kind of software that is free, glitchy and leaves a watermark on your video - trust me, I have used many types of software in the past!) is really bloody expensive. Like, seriously, I discovered that the software that we use in media studies at school is actually hundreds of pounds. The problem is that I do not have any money, because the kind of people who buy this software have money and jobs of their own. I, however, am an unemployed 15-year-old schoolgirl, therefore I do not own any money of my own.
For now, I don't know what I'm really going to do about the whole I-can't-edit-any-YouTube-videos-from-now-on-thing. My dad has suggested another piece of editing software, but it would require a lot of time and effort to get onto my laptop, so I'm not sure just yet.
So I guess this blog post is my way of apologising for my serious lack of YouTube videos. I don't like to feel like I don't put a lot of effort into my YouTube videos, because I do - I put a hell of a lot of time and effort in, and I really enjoy it! It's just that sometimes I struggle.
Other than this, I have really enjoyed the holidays, however short they may be. I haven't had a chance to see many of my friends yet, because quite a few of them have been on holiday, but we have arranged a massive sleepover on Saturday due to a deal we made at my old primary school's summer fete - two of my friends entered the movie-themed collection box about a bazillion times, and we decided that if they won, then we would have a proper movie night ...and they did! It was literally the most amazing moment as our old head teacher called out my friend's name and we all screamed simultaneously, my friend practically skipped as he went to pick up his winnings! We were most definitely the most excited people there - even more excited than any of the children who won anything.
That was a good day :) I'm really looking forward to seeing them.
I feel like this break has been great for my health too. As I would, I was ill during the last two weeks of term - the weeks in which we had exams. It was literally the most inconvenient thing ever, I felt like hell. Do you know what it's like to sniffle in an exam hall filled with the majority of your year group and half of the year above and have the sound echo? I do.
Two of my friends also had the same illness, and we couldn't afford to take time off school. On the Saturday after school ended, my friends tried to arrange a trip to go swimming, but me and another friend pulled out because:
1) Hanging out in town and buying weirdly flavoured drinks while ill is a lot better than swimming while ill
2) We didn't have to worry about diseasing each other because we were both equally as gross!
Hmm... what else have I done in the holidays? Let's see...
1) I've stayed up until 3am (not because I think it's cool or anything - because I have trouble getting to sleep!)
2) I've slept in until midday (see number 1)
3) I've eaten tons and tons of junk food (examples include rocky road and oreos)
4) I've started writing a story about dragons (don't ask unless you want me to start screaming in capslock about dragons - you have been warned!)
Honestly, I think that's just about it. Tell me what the past week has been like for you down in the comments :)
Speak to you soon,
Lucy xx
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