Happy December!

This is my favorite season of the year by far. It's always full of surprises and excitement and hope. And something happened today that renewed my faith in myself and what I'm doing with Youtube.

I'm not embarassed to say that I occasionally Google myself. Usually I do so when I'm looking for jobs. I don't really have anything to hide but my anxiety always spurs me to Google myself and analyze the few results that come up. Normally those results just include my Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on.

But today I recieved a really cool surprise.

There's an Australian website called Rosie Respect and while I haven't gotten much of a chance to look into the website and the organizations behind it, it looks like a great site that's all about empowering women. I was flattered to see that I was mentioned in one of the articles they wrote up about Riot Grrrl.

A while ago, in my pink hair days, I wrote a term paper about Riot Grrl for one of my classes. Inspired by the ferocity of the movement, I filmed a Youtube version of that paper to make it more accessible for people because I truly believed the information was important and I wanted people to be as inspired as I was.

The video is currently my third most popular video on my Youtube channel and I'm so excited people have responded to it. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing anything important with my channel so it was really inspiring to see that the video I made was actually a valid educational tool. I may make more educational type videos in the future.

The post can be found here:

http://rosierespect.org.au/news/question-what-is-riot-grrrl/

It's pretty surreal to read about myself! They were really nice about the video too. The article isn't about me or my videos by any means but I feel validated now because of my most popular videos, I think this is the one that's doing some good. I feel good that someone noticed.

xoxo,
Sangeeta

Tomorrow I'm going to embark on a whole new challenge as far as my Youtube channel is concerned. I'm going to attempt Vlogmas.

I think I'll be able to handle it. I've recently discovered the joys of scheduled uploads and how beneficial it can be to film several videos at once and really take advantage of the times where I feel motivated. Back when I waited until the evening before the mornings I want to upload videos to film, my video quality wavered and you could tell that I was in rush and sometimes I just didn't bother uploading.

One of the major benefits of Vlogmas is the opportunity to film and upload a huge amount of videos in a short amount of time and experiment with various formats and subject matter. I'm looking forward to the chance to try and possibly even fail at this because I think I'm going to learn a lot about what content I want to make. I'm hopeful that in 2015 I'll know who I am as a Youtuber and I'll be able to produce content that my subscribers are excited to watch and that I'm excited to make.

Here is a list of some of the things I want to work on where my Youtube channel is concerned:

1. My background
• A big reason my current background is a white wall is that's literally all I have to offer. I'm living in Portland currently and when I moved into my apartment, I knew I'd be moving in December. I don't have much decoration and my room is currently a huge mess as I'm currently packing up my life to move across the country. Starting on the 18th of December, all videos will be filmed in my new room in Virginia and hopefully I'll soon figure out an interesting set up thats not too distracting.
2. Sound quality
• I have nothing to say for this one except that the audio cleaning feature in iMovie only goes so far. I have to eventually invest in a microphone of some kind. I'm looking at shotgun microphones but I'm open to any and all suggestions.
3. Shorter and More Concise Videos
• I tend to ramble and I know I tend to ramble. I can be repetitive and I have some speech issues that I've been working on with my diction and clarity and I really hope to continue working on them. I don't think I want to script my videos but I do want to make outlines, maybe say things outloud to myself before filming to see what sounds good. I want to work on sentences that are packed with information rather than just saying things to say them. My friend Emilie said that I should think of it as having a word count and I think she's right.
4. Variety of Content
• I think at this point it's pretty clear to all of my subscribers that I'm excited about Youtube, but I'm not sure what I'm doing with it. I'm driven and motivated but I'm not sure where I'm trying to go with it. As I proceed with Vlogmas, I hope to try making videos that I haven't tried before and to really learn what works for me. 
5. Better Lighting
• I currently have a light ring that fits on my camera lens that honestly does help and I feel like my lighting is getting better. I'm going to blame this one on my horrible Portland apartment again with the hopes that in Virginia I'll have a day of sunlight occasionally and hopefully a good window. I have a window in my apartment here but if I filmed in front of it, the background would be my bathroom. 

I also tend to make drastic changes ie switching channels when I have panic attacks and I need to never do that again. I think people lost faith in me when that happened and it will never happen again.

I hope to continue blogging about my Youtube experience in addition to other things. I hope to remain aware of my flaws and continue to work on them and I hope my susbcribers will tell me what they like and dislike about the videos I produce for Vlogmas.

Do any of you make Youtube videos? If you do, I'd love to know what your channel goals are. Are you a fan of Youtube videos? If so, what elements of your favorite channels make them your favorite? And finally, if you're subscribed to me, please never hesitate to let me know what you think I can improve on. I'd love to hear all of your thoughts in the comment section below.

If you do want to subscribe to my Youtube channel to follow my hopeful improvement and rise to Youtube fame (ha!), you can find my channel here: www.youtube.com/Sangeeta

Thanks for reading!

xoxo,
Sangeeta

Thanksgiving is a holiday that I never think about right until it's happening. It's in between my two favorite holidays, Halloween and New Years Eve and it's always seemed like something to get through rather than something to savor.