Be Prepared to Be Surprised

The thing about blogging is that it’s just predictable enough to make you think you can understand it, but unpredictable enough to regularly take you by surprise. You can generally count on other bloggers being supportive and awesome, assuming you’ve made friends with the best of them, but you never know what people will respond to. I’ve written posts I thought people would care more about, but then I was surprised that anyone was interested to hear about me and my Dad.

Nothing has taken me by surprise more than VEDA (Vlog Every Day in August). I wanted to do it just because I like vlogging and I like challenges. I thought it would be cool if maybe I could get a couple people to vlog for the first time, because it’s such a good way to get to know someone. If I expected more than one or two people to take me up on it, I wouldn’t have promised drinks to first time vloggers!

Vlogging is kind of scary at first and technical and every day is such a big commitment, but without me even pushing, people started signing on. I don’t know what got people started. Most of their reasoning was along the lines of, “Eh, it sounded cool and I’m up for a challenge.” From there, the crack-nature of vlogging took over. As everyone quickly realized, it’s addictive.

More than people just agreeing to do it, I’m surprised by the community we developed almost instantly. From the beginning, we’ve been out to support each other. I think that has to do in part with the medium of video. It’s so, I don’t know, personal in a way and real. It makes a difference seeing people speak. I had to blog about it, because something is going on over here.

I’m sure there are people annoyed by our endless #VEDA talk, so I tried to get a little quieter about it, but then I remembered that I can’t please everyone as much as I always try. We have an awesome group of people doing something awesome and that’s too cool to be quiet about. But, it’s not too late to jump in and even just make one vlog in August. Trust the 25+ of us participating, vlogging is addictive and too much fun. And, remember, there’s a drink in it for you–Coke, a screwdriver, Blue Moon, whatever you’ll have.

Thanks to my fellow VEDAers for making August awesome. I start class again on the very last day of VEDA and I can’t think of a better way to have spent my last month of Summer.

Below is my vlog from yesterday.  It features my friend Elyse who I’ve know since, well, you’ll find out if you watch.  Me laughing like an idiot is something I never realized was completely missing from my blog up to this point.  Yeah, that’s how I do it.