BEDA 6: Buffy video project auditions.

There were so, so many wonderful comments on my blog from yesterday about meeting YouTubers. I want to thank everyone who took the time to leave a comment, because it really meant a lot seeing you guys leaving really meaningful stuff for me to read (not that you don't always leave meaningful stuff). Even though we're all from so many different backgrounds and and have different circles of friends and don't even really know each other, it's always amazing to me how similar of an experience we all share here online. :)

Some things people said that stuck out to me were:

alimarie_11: "Sometimes it stinks to be floating inbetween, and I know that I won't make many friends with people who I follow, but I just want you, Kristina, and other people I admire, to know what an impact you have on people who feel lonely or out of place. THANK YOU to people like you and the Green Brothers who Give me a place :)"

Sometimes it really bothers me that it's physically impossible for me to meet or talk to every single person out there who watches my videos or reads my blog and is probably a wonderful, inspiring person - but knowing I have any small part in making ANYONE feel like they have a place is an amazing feeling.

Another commenter was talking about her issues with wanting to hang out with more famous YouTubers who may not remember her at Playlist Live vs. spending time and cultivating real relationships with the friends she came with/met online who don't have a lot of subscribers or anything but enjoy a ton of the same stuff as her. She said:

Ruth E. Day: "The main way to get over that depression was to concentrate on the people I had attended the conference with. You guys had brought us all to one central location, but I eventually realized that I had been more excited to meet them in person than you guys all along."

I think that's great! And honestly, that doesn't hurt my feelings at all. I meet a ton of people, and I love making new friends and meeting fans and everything involved with that, but the most cherished memories are generally the ones with the people who I've made real friendships with rather than casual acquaintances. I'm pretty cool and all (haha), but I am only one person and can't be everyone's close friend. It makes me so much happier seeing nerdfighters building their own little fiveawesomgirl-style groups of friends. I love this community.

One person I would actually consider a new friend (Shannon/glitter_girl5678) commented and I just kind of wanted to call her out because she told me she's a big fan and didn't really talk to me much at Playlist because she felt intimidated. DUDE. And this goes for everyone -- don't be! I love meeting new people and I will never do or say anything that would make talking to me scary. Say hi! Let's talk! THAT GOES FOR EVERYONE.

Another really meaningful and important comment was:

Fandom Fashionista: "My Emboar fears your Oshawott."

Oh wait. How did that one get in there? xD

This weekend I am heading to Miami for the Miami Yule Ball which should be a good time. I mean, any trip where I primarily worry about how many swimsuits to pack is always bound to be a good time.

Yesterday Forest and I (along with our friends Michelle and Hope) held auditions for the Buffy video project we're all working on together. Like legit auditions. Like, us sitting behind a table, people coming in and doing a monologue style auditions. It was pretty wild.

I've only really ever been on the other side of the table for auditions, the "I'm really nervous and hope I get the part" side of the table. So to be watching hopefuls trying to impress us with their acting skillz, pouring over head-shots, musing over who would be good for which roles... it was a new, fun experience. I am so excited for this project. I think it's going to be greattttt!

Though I don't know how casting directors do it. We held auditions for a little over 3 hours and I was exhausted. I can't imagine watching auditions all day. I have so much more respect for the people who do that now.

Flights taken: 6
Gym badges in Pokemon: 5
Oshawott level: 32

BEDA 5: Meeting YouTubers.

Hello blog readers! I have spent the last few days scrambling to get my blogs done late at night while I have friends around/stuff going on, so I figured I would try something new today. I figured I would try my hand at writing my blog for the day at 10:23 in the morning. So here goes.

I have this problem where, when people write me or ask me things online, I have this innate need to answer everything. My inbox is full of emails from people I'm still desperately trying to reply to, my ask box on Tumblr is overflowing - there's a reason I never got a VYou. I just couldn't open myself up to any more mediums of being asked questions I would feel compelled to answer.

This is why I started doing "Questions Vlogs" on my second channel. I have been taking questions on the channel page of that YouTube account and making individual videos answering each question. There are a few reasons I like this format. First, the asker of the question gets a little shoutout and a link to them in the description of the video. Second, if anyone else ever asks me the question again, I can just link them to the video, haha. Third, is that it gives my second channel a purpose that sets it apart from the types of things I do on my main channel. (Feel free to go ask me questions there if you feel so compelled!)

Anyway, the whole point of this wasn't to pimp out my videos, it was so explain that I have a text file open on my computer with things that people have asked me in the past that I felt would be good things to address in my blog. Which I think is actually kind of weird. But I can't help it.

In yesterday's blog post, I was asked in the comments section how I make friends with other YouTubers so easily, and this is something I've been asked a lot and wanted to talk about here more in depth. The short answer is that most of the people I'm friends with now on YouTube (that have a lot of subscribers and might feel out of reach to fans) are people who were also just starting on YouTube when I started.

I got to know John and Hank Green when they were in the 20-30,000 subscriber area, I found Hayley when she only had 26 fans; even the UK YouTubers I know like Alex and Charlie were sort of just starting out when I joined YouTube and met them, and so on and so forth. For many of the people in my sort of Internet social circle, we rose up on YouTube together. When you build a foundation like that, those friendships last, and a community is formed rather than a handful of "famous YouTubers". From there, more and more people are just added to that community as you get to know each other from various collaborations and meet-ups and gatherings.

Not to mention, starting fiveawesomegirls, and then bonding with the fiveawesomeguys, and all the five person collab channels that followed suite - even if you weren't on the same collab channel, we all had a shared experience there. 5AG and 5awesomegays and VlogCandy and Vlogvetica etc., we all were accomplishing similar things, so the friendships just expanded.

Which brings me to the fact that being a YouTuber is a pretty weird way of life. It's easy to make friends with other people who live their lives online, who film everything they do, who spend hours and hours in front of a computer. We just understand each other, in a way that most of the world can't. It's nice. It's a sort of instant click, generally.

Anyway, I'm not sure if the person asking me this wanted advice on how to meet famous YouTubers or was just curious how I did it, but my answer/advice of the day is to not seek people out AS "famous people you want to be friends with". Just do what you love and look for people with common interests/motivations, and the rest will follow. I have plenty of friends on YouTube who barely have any subscribers, and some with hundreds of thousands. The number means nothing; the important thing is how much I like that person. :)

And this has been 'Kristina preaches on YouTube, BEDA Day 5'.

Flights taken: 6
Gym badges on Pokémon: 5
Oshawott level: 31

BEDA 4: Final day of Playlist.

I had the type of day today where a whole lot of things go wrong when I would have very much preferred they go right - so I'm not going to talk about my day. Instead, I am going to talk about the last day of Playlist Live. :)

That final Sunday Luke and I had to get up early (again) to sound check for our show, which took a long time to sort out all the microphone and set-up issues. That's generally Luke's domain so I tend to do a lot of tapping on the mics and "test test one two three"-ing.

The moment that was through, I won't lie, meant nap time. Despite the plethora of friends and YouTubers I would have loved to spend a bit more time with, I was definitely in bed until about 1 pm catching up on missed sleep so I'd have some semblance of energy for our show that afternoon.

After a quick lunch, we headed out to the courtyard area for the acoustic show Alex, Jason and Jimmy were playing. There were a ton of people there and it was super fun, not to mention wholly reminiscent of fall tour. Then a bit later it was time for Luke and I to go onstage, and it was a pretty standard ALL CAPS show. The set went well, Luke and I were goofballs, people danced and sang along, and then of course for 'Don't Unplug Me' we had over twenty of our friends run up and storm the stage for an all out dance party finish. It never gets old watching that many people fall down on the last note of the song. I love performing with this band. :)

The rest of Sunday consisted of night-time hottub partying, getting kicked out of said hottub by security, hanging in hotel rooms and rearranging them because two beds pushed together is far superior to separate beds, and making new friends. I got to chat with the entirety of VlogCandy, which was lovely (I'm hard-pressed to think of a sweeter group of people) as well as talking to some of the guys from the band HeyHiHello (also great people).

While the partying ended around 3am, I don't think Luke or I managed to get to bed until about 5, so I suppose you can only imagine how miserable flying from Orlando back home to Seattle was the next day. Let's just say I utilized my skills in airplane-sleeping that day. Not to mention played a lot more Pokemon.

The details start to get fuzzy when I wait this long to blog about certain events, but I'm glad I got it all down. Playlist Live was a really great weekend, and I can only hope there will be more. :D


Flights takes: 6
Gym badges in Pokemon: 5
Oshawott level: 31

BEDA 3: Pump It Up Party!

It's Sunday night, I'm exhausted, but I've had such a creatively inspiring weekend. :D Yesterday the 'Delete You' shoot was just amazing. I know I talked about it a little already, but my muscles are super sore today from all those hours of dancing so I can't help but mention it again. I have all these photos from the course of the day that I desperately want to put on Facebook to show everyone, but I don't want to ruin the surprise of the video (as it's not going up for awhile).

But since you, lovely blog readers, are some of my favorite people on the Internet, I'll give you a little sneak peek. :)

I'm trying really hard right now to blog about things that are important, but my friends are all sitting around me screaming about bouncy castle obstacle course fun land worlds. I believe Ariana just shouted "OMG OMG WHAT'S IT CALLED. BOUNCY TOWN. CASTLE LAND. OMGGG." How does one blog under these circumstances!

Anyway, before my friends drag me into a car with my laptop in tow in search of a giant trampoline house club kingdom a la a quest akin to Harold and Kumar looking for White Castle, I'm going to quickly sum up the rest of my weekend. After we wrapped the shoot yesterday, my evening consisted of Mexican food from Azteca, lots of champange and guava juice, and spending a good hour or two looking at a website with a collection of pictures of the world's worst tattoos.

Today I had a meeting with my friends Forest and Oliver to work on writing a song for this big project we've been planning for a few weeks. I'm pretty excited about it, and all I will say is that it's about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And it'll be going on my YouTube channel in a month or so.

I've been really enjoying doing these side projects with people up here in Seattle. So often I feel like I have to fly to LA to work on creative projects with friends, but I've been pleasantly surprised with how many opportunities and collaborative efforts I've been able to have up here right near home. :)

Oh god. Now everyone is looking at the website "pumpitupparty.com" (which I can only assume is an obstacle course type place for elementary school kids based on the name "Pump It Up" and the conversation that's been going on in here while I'm trying to type) and are saying it in a bunch of different stupid ways, like "pum-pittup-arty" "pump-it-upperty" and are scheming ways to make a place like this for adults. Or something. My friends are cool. And distracting.

Okay. I promise the I'll try to make the rest of the month much less chaotic than this weekend has been, writing-wise. I'm very excited about blogging every day, and can't help that all my friends decided to live at my house this weekend. I think it makes it more exciting to blog during a crazy month. Something to keep me grounded.

Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow. :)

Flights taken: 6
Gym badges on Pokémon: 4
Oshawott level: 29

BEDA 2: Delete You video filming!

Welcome to Day 2 of BEDA!

Right now I am sitting in my living room with Ariana, Liz and Justin; in our footy pajamas, listening to Chris Brown. We have a whole bunch of champange and guava juice and a multi-colored rubber ball that was $1.19 at the grocery store. As you can probably guess, conditions are more geared toward Saturday night partying than they are toward blogging... but HERE I AM.

Today was out of control fun. I had to get up at 6 AM to prepare for a 7 AM start for a big video I was filming with a bunch of friends of mine that I met through Liz. We were filming a video for "Delete You", finally, and it's definitely the biggest video project I've taken on yet. We had a pretty intense lighting setup, white backdrops, costumes, makeup, choreography -- and I had BACKUP DANCERS. IT WAS SO COOL.

We spent about 6-7 hours filming everything, and coming from some who is not a dancer at all... there were a LOT of dance moves to remember. We had such a good time though, and after seeing some of the footage played back after we were finished, I can say right now it's going to be one of the best videos I've ever had a part in. Unfortunately the video won't be going up for a month or two because the guy editing it has a real job and it's kind of a huge editing undertaking, but I promise you guys will get to see it in due time. I posted some twitpics today, but here's what the setup/costume and everything looked like:


Anyway, I don't know how long of a popstar dancing career I can really have (haha), as my legs are killing me right now, but I had a blast today. Now I am going to go have fun with my friends and I'll be back tomorrow for more blogging. :)

Also, I know I need to finish my Playlist Live recap, but I will finish that tomorrow!

Flights: 6
Gym badges on Pokémon: 4
Oshawott level: 27

BEDA 1: Playlist Day 2!

Today is the first day of BEDA! Instead of getting emotional and talking about what BEDA means to me or something cheesy like that, I'm going to just right in to the next day of Playlist Live. So here goes!

Saturday ----

Luke and I had to get up really early to sound check, which was fine, except that they didn't have a certain cable that we needed -- so they
told us to come back Sunday morning (even earlier ew) to do it then. It was too late to try to go back to sleep though, so we splurged at
the buffet and had a nice ALL CAPS breakfast before meeting up with any of our other friends. I had a lot of bacon. :D

I'm losing track of everything we did that day, but I think the next thing on the agenda was a little Partner meet up where we watched
YouTube friends of ours (such as Freddie Wong and Corey Vidal) talk about things we already knew from them, but wanted to support them
anyway. Then Luke and I had an appointment to film our part of an official Playlist Live music video, which is absolutely ridiculous and
I can't wait to see it. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I will tell you we did our part hanging out of the sunroof of a swanky car.

Then we had a bit of free time so it was TIME FOR THE POOL. We headed down with Brittany and Joey and then once we were down there, we met up with Hayley. The weather was beautiful, the pool was amazing, and remembering what the weather is like back home in Seattle, well, I really appreciated the time we had there. :) Hayley and I got to have a nice little heart to heart as well, which is always nice.

After pool time we went back to the main convention room to watch Mike Lombardo play (Alex and Jason were his backup band). He was great, as always. Luke and I trolled a little right in the front row (when we weren't playing in the bouncy castle). I don't remember the time frame on this, but at some point in the night I also battled DaveDays on this giant inflatable jousting arena thing and totally owned him. Feeling pretty good about that. Wheezywaiter's band Driftless Pony Club played that night as well, which was awesome to see. I love Craig, and we are on the same label, but I'd never actually heard his band before surprisingly.

That night there was an official dance party, which was obbbbbviously a highlight. It wasn't quite as big or as crazy as our normal wizard
rock dance parties, but dancing with friends is always going to be fun.

Then we hopped right over to night two of the VIP party, only that night, they were making FLIPBOOKS. FOR FREE. Seriously. Like, you grabbed some silly props, got in front of a camera, moved around for 6 seconds, then they printed it out and MADE IT INTO A FLIPBOOK. It was so awesome. Luke and I did a pretty good ALL CAPS one, and then I did a really hilarious one with Jason and Jimmy that involved us all falling onto the ground at the end. Typical.

That night Luke and I both made the decision to turn in a little early. Having to wake up early AGAIN and knowing we had our show the
next day.. It just seemed like a good idea. I was glad for it, because Sunday was incredible. :D

Until tomorrow!

Flights taken: 6
Pokémon Gym badges: 4
Oshawott level: 27

Playlist Live and BEDA!

So, lovely blog readers, it's almost April. And you know what that means, right? RIGHT?

Blog Everyday in April.

I'm definitely going to be BEDA-ing it up over here, so tell your friends! Tell your grandma! Tell your cat! Or bust out your own blog and start writing yourself!

Either way, I'm entering BEDA with a running start this year, so here's the first of my recap blogs about Playlist Live in Orlando, FL.


Friday ----

Playlist Live was such a blast. I went into it not really knowing what to expect, but I'm finding that, like Wizard Rock, anytime you get a bunch of YouTubers together for a weekend, it's bound to be a good time.

I left on a flight early early Friday morning, connected in LA, and arrived in Orlando about 6pm. I got picked up there along with a few other people I knew from the Tubes by a guy named Will who was working the event, and we all arrived at the hotel around 7. I tracked down Luke, dropped my stuff in our room, and immediately had to go downstairs for the Partners meeting thing which, if I remember correctly, ended up just being everyone hanging around downstairs, getting our Playlist lanyards/badges, saying hello to everyone and getting wristbands for the VIP party later on that evening.

Then there was the ongoing food saga. There wasn't much in the way of food at the hotel (three expensive restaurants and one gross food court) so after an hour of being wishy washy on making decisions about food, we decided to just head down to the party for awhile and see if there was food there.

There wasn't.

And naturally, nobody thought about eating for the next few HOURS while we danced and socialized and utilized our free drink tickets. There was so many awesome people already there, and it was so much fun to just mingle and meet new friends and catch up with old friends. My normal crew was there (Luke, Alex Jason, Jimmy, Joey, Brittany, Meghan, Mike, Hayley etc.) but it was nice to see other friends like Kaleb Nation, Tyler Oakley, Tessa, Shawna, and way too many other people to begin to list here.

It was nice to know that people like ShayCarl and his wife, MysteryGuitarMan's girlfriend Sarah, DaveDays and other random people I've only met a few times remembered me as well, even though I've only spoken to them once or twice before. I also got to meet the other members of VlogCandy (since I obviously know Meghan) which was awesome, since they're super nice people and some of the only vloggers I haven't actually met yet (and who've been around approximately as long as I have).

In fact, the only people I'm still bummed I didn't get to meet we're Shay's kids. I spoke with him personally a few times, but never managed to be around when his kids were meeting fans. I went to their panel though, which was one of the most adorable things I have ever seen.

Fridays night's party was really fun, and of course there was an impromptu conga line to Rebecca Black's "Friday". I was telling someone this weekend it's hilarious that YouTube conventions always coincide with big memes, since we're all Internet people and there's always something new going on. VidCon was "Double Rainbow". Playlist Live was "Friday". You just can't plan this stuff.

That night we ended up hanging out in a hotel room for awhile, getting pizza around 2am (I'm ashamed to admit I broke Lent :/) and then , much later than we intended, we went to bed, as the real events weren't even happening until Saturday.


I'm going to just admit something to you now. I haven't played WoW in over 3 months. So I'm going to stop tracking my progress there (since there is no progress). I'm going to let you know how many gym badges I have on Pokémon White and what level my starter is. Still nerdy enough? Okay? Okay.

Flights taken: 6
Pokémon Gym badges: 3
Oshawott level: 24

Emerald City Comic Con

I've had another whirlwind of a week here in Kristinaland. I got home from DC late on Wednesday night, went to bed, woke up, and had one day to prepare myself for Emerald City Comic Con. I can't even remember what I did, but I think it involved editing a video or two and lying in my bed watching The Big Bang Theory for awhile. Which, if I were to sum up my life lately, would be pretty much that.

Ariana had just gotten home from New Zealand or wherever the heck she was this time, so naturally we needed to hang out. She came over around 7ish, when we then immediately left my house to head over to the Apple store, where the Brothers Wong were looking at the new Macbooks. Jimmy was getting himself a new laptop, so we stood around for moral support or something, then with his computer under his arm, we headed out of the store to find someplace to eat (but not before dailyboothing, obviously).

After Thai food (and milkshakes from Dick's), our pilgrimage lead us back to my house where we watched Star Wars Episode 4, on account of my never seeing it and that not being okay with Ariana. Or Jimmy. Or Freddie I suppose, but it never came up with him before that night.

Friday started Emerald City Comic Con, which was AMAZING. I can't believe such a great nerd convention takes place in my OWN CITY every single year and I never knew about it. It's incredible.

We started Friday by just moseying through the vendor room, checking out all the booths we would inevitably empty our wallets at. Then there was a Will Wheaton panel (how is that man so brilliant) and immediately after there was the JAMES MARSTERS panel. I had never seen him in person before, so after being so immersed in Buffy for as long as I was, it was truly bizarre to be within throwing distance of the man who played Spike.

He was so interesting to hear speak. He jumped up cross-legged on the table, and answered questions with such ease. The most amazing part is that he really DOES share a personality with Spike, minus the bleach blonde hair and innate desire to kill people. I regret so badly that I never got to actually speak with him or get a picture or anything. Someday. Soooomeday.

After the panel, we headed back out into the general hustle and bustle of the conference. We saw adorable children dressed as super heros, overweight sailor scouts, parents encouraging their kids to hug a giant walking pedobear - Emerald City Comic Con is simply a magical place.

That evening the Zaxy girls were invited to be involved in Unexpected Productions "NERDprov", which is essentially just an improv show where the topics are nerd related. Tara, an improv veteran herself, was actually asked to be onstage for the show while Britt and I were given black robes and put on the side as judges. Which was a total blast. I really channeled my inner Simon Cowell that night.

Afterward there was the obligatory post-show partying in the bar area, and then we made our way back to Tara's apartment for a necessary Zaxy sleepover. Too many fun things going on to bother heading back to my place.

The next morning, after a stereotypical stop in Starbucks for some breakfast, we went on a quest to find "the girl dressed as Wonder Woman" for a flash mob we were SUPPOSED to be part of. But let me tell you, looking for a Wonder Woman at a nerd con is like looking for a hipster at Urban Outfitters. They're everywhere. So that didn't happen.

Saturday was fraught with Buffy panels, more shopping, and the much anticipated Buffy Sing-a-long (which was put on by a company that used to actually do them professionally, a la Rocky Horror style. We had props! And instruction sheets!). That night we all had tickets to James Marsters concert at the Hard Rock Cafe, with a few other bands such as H2Awesome and Kirby Krackle. The whole night was a blast, including meeting the members of the other bands and making friends with them, having Space Unicorns drawn for us by guys at the merch table, and having a guy hunt me down based only on my twitter picture and the fact that I had tweeted about his band during the show. Crazy.

But the highlight of the night was obviously watching James Marsters play. He had a hilarious combination of heartfelt, cheesy songs about his then-girlfriend-now-wife, intermixed with very inappropriate and suggestive songs including one he prefaced was about Michelle Trachtenberg when she was 14. Surreal night. But the best.

Sunday I didn't end up going to the convention at all because I wasn't feeling well, but I did get to see Jimmy again before he headed back to LA. Now I've been stuck in bed since then with one of the strangest sinus sicknesses I've ever had. Such is my life.

Flights taken: 4
Levels on WoW:
Mage: 56
Shaman: 34

Washington DC: Part 2

I had so much fun having Kayley with me on this year's Washington DC trip. There was a ton of traveling (almost as much flying time as time actually spent in DC) but it was alright, since I enjoy flying with her so much. We're currently on our flight from Chicago to Seattle and we found that channel 3 has the best pop mix going on right now - so we both have our headphones on and we're having a little dance party here in row 26. She just leaned over to me and asked why no one else is having as much fun on this flight as we are. These are the questions we ask ourselves.

"Baby I like it! The way you move on the floor. Baby I like it!"

The first day in DC was great, but we were just so tired. We went to an Advocacy Day debriefing workshop, then one on the situation in Haiti. It was good to get a refresher on what Save the Children is doing right now, because while I have plenty to say to the Senators about what I saw in Guatemala, it's good to be current on the stats and everything too.

YES KE$HA. "There's a place I know, if you're looking for a show, where they go hardcore and there's glitter on the floor."

Have you ever noticed that literally every single Ke$ha song references glitter? Listen for it. I need more glitter in my life, I think. Say what you want about Ke$ha, but any woman who likes glitter that much is okay in my book.

Okay, focusing. Washington DC. My trip.

NO WAY. Okay, off topic for one more second. I've been going back and forth on whether I should buy the $7 fruit and cheese tray on this flight, because I'm hungry but the prices of airline food are always really excessive. Finally I decided to just go for it, and when I handed the flight attendant my credit card just now he leaned in and said, "that'll be $50. Nah, I'm just kidding, our machine is broken. It's on us."

So hell yeah, free food! FREE FOOD, GUYS.

OKAY. DC. I need to do this. After our workshops, there was a little reception upstairs where we got to meet the CEO of Save, awards/honors were given out, and Kayley and I made small talk with a lot of Save employees and politicians and other volunteers. Also these catering guys KEPT trying to give Kayley and I these crab cakes and little shrimp rolls, which was just silly since Kayley's a vegetarian and I hate seafood like ... a person who really hates seafood. But he was relentless. I think I waved my hand and said "no thank you" about ten different times.

Okay, this blog just isn't happening. Now "the King's Speech" is playing on those overhead airplane screens, and after seeing it win so many Oscars, I need to watch it. More soon.

--

The next morning:

I have been up since 11 AM and in that time I had a meeting with the people at Vokle.com, replied to and written over 10 emails, and am now finishing this blog post. And it's only 12:20. Sometimes I wonder if real blood runs through my veins, or if it's pure energy.

So the second day of DC, we got up early and met up with a group of people taking the children out to hold their adorable hand-made picket signs saying "Don't cut our funds, invest in our future". It was absolutely freezing but Kayley and I braved the cold to get some footage of them in front of the Capital Building.

Then it was time for breakfast where we saw a few more speakers, watched a recap on what Save has done in the past year, and I was incredibly embarrassed when they showed my video from Advocacy Day LAST year in front of about 200 people. And I know, usually my videos get 20,000+ views so what's the big deal, but the big deal is that I'm not usually in a room with all of them watching it WITH those people. Kayley seemed to delight in this, but we'll see if she's laughing next year if they show HERS. Haha.

Then we split off into our groups and headed over to the House side of congress, to meet with our first Representative (who was conveniently from Washington State). We spoke with an associate of Norm Dicks first, which went rather well. Then we had about two hours free so my group decided to while away the time in the Air and Space Museum (AWESOME). Then we headed to the Senate side to speak to an associate of Virginia Senator Jim Webb, which also went smoothly. Unfortunately my flight was kind of early so I had to head back to the hotel before my group spoke with Washington Senator Patty Murray, but I'm sure they did a great job without me.

I waited in the lobby for Kayley, and then we took a cab back to the airport around 4:30. Which almost brings us up to date.

I had such a great time returning for my second Advocacy Day, and I only hope I can keep coming back. I'll be posting a video on my channel soon about the experience, so if you want to know more, look out for that. :)

Flights taken: 4
Levels on WoW:
Mage: 56
Shaman: 34

Washington DC: part 1

My brain is so confused right now. I left Seattle on a red eye flight with Kayley last night, and I had every intention of trying to sleep on the first leg of our flight. We had five hours to Charlotte, NC first. But dumb me, I ended up using the time to read two chapters of Scarlet Fever by Maureen Johnson, play about and hour of iPad games and write lyrics to an ALL CAPS song.

I mean, all in all, a pretty productive flight. But now I'm sitting in Charlotte and it's almost 9 am and I've completely missed my window of opportunity to sleep. Now we're gonna fly to DC and it'll be nearly 11 am when we arrive and then we're off to meetings and social things with Save The Children and dangit, I haven't slept a minute. I'm going to be a zombie. Hello, important Save The Children people, let me drool on you and then eat your brains.

I'll just have to fake it; the awakeness. Or perfect the art of sleeping with my eyes open. They'll never know. Unless they read this very public blog, I suppose.

In other news, when I was going through security back in Seattle, I saw a baby in a space helmet. Its like these people WANT me to steal their children.

My day and a half in Seattle between LA and this trip was... Short. I edited 4 videos, watched some Big Bang Theory, slept a lot and unpacked and repacked my suitcase. That's honestly about all I had time for. But regardless of my disdain for red eye flights so soon after other flights, I'm very excited to be returning to DC for another Advocacy Day. It'll be great to see the people I know from Save again, and I love the feeling I get working with such a wonderful organization.

I think they're about to start calling us to board the flight. I'm in Zone 4 but somehow Kayley is Zone 3. What a cheater.

Flights taken: 3

WoW levels:

Mage: 56

Shaman: 34