Wow, this weekend has gone by WAY too fast. Can I have it back?
Last week was good. Nothing really special happened that I can remember.
Yesterday I filmed most of my new video. It is almost entirely green screen so filming was the easy part. It was fun though putting on the different outfits and becoming the characters.
After I filmed I helped out my friend Chance with the audio for his new parody. He sent me 2 audio files with singing in them and I had to copy and paste them onto the instrumental. It was pretty fun. I think it turned out pretty good.
I watched the Kids' Choice Awards at 8pm. They were ok. I thought the best part was when Miley went on stage to accept her award. Although I think she deserved it, it was to good to pass up the opportunity to spoof:
I made that last night at like 11PM, so it's not that great, lol. That's why I put it on my side channel.
TODAY: I finished the filming of my video! I did the Amy part. Oh yeah, the video is a music video spoof of "If U Seek Amy" by Britney Spears. It is a cover of the song, because it is already funny lol. By the way, if you ever wanted (or didn't want) to see me as a chick:
I know, I'm hot (NOT) lol.
After that I saw that one of my favorite YouTubers theoriginaltyler needed someone to edit the audio for his video. I jumped on it! He gave me is AIM (which I never use) and we talked about it. After about 3 hours of work I finally finished it! I think it turned out great. Haha, here is his video:
Lol, he is awesome.
Well that's about it for this weekend. I will try to update more often throughout this week. I emailed "Jakers" Thursday but haven't heard from him this weekend. Jake, hope your weekend went awesome! You are still my best online bud! Have a great week bro!
This entry is going to be a little different from my regular entries. I wanted to take the time to tell you about a woman who came to speak at our school today. Her name is Sarah Panzau. You can see her website here:
On August 23, 2003 I was in a near fatal car accident which changed my life forever. On the road, I was clinically dead and was given a 0% chance of survivability. I did not have a blood pressure or a pulse and was no longer bleeding. A policeman (who was on an East St. Louis over-pass picking up shell casings from a shooting the night before) and an ambulance crew (that was returning to Illinois from a transfer) just happened on my accident. While I was lifeless on the road, considering calling the coroner, they witnessed an agginal breath, and I was immediately intubated. I was stabilized and air lifted by helicopter to St. Louis University where I lived the next 6 weeks. 2 weeks in a coma and 4 weeks in intensive care and on a ventilator.
My injuries were: a traumatic left arm amputation, a LaForte type II fracture of the maxilla, a fractured mandible-in 7 places, a degloving (scalping) of the whole back of my head and left neck down to the carotid artery and jugular vein. A right sided flail chest, left knee disarticulation, severing 3 major ligaments, fractured left clavicle and scapula, a degloving down to muscle of the left scapular area, bilateral hemo thorax, bilateral pnuemo thorax, 3rd degree liver laceration, half way severing my right ear off and multiple other lacerations. I had a pulmonary embolism, which required a thoroscopy and eventually a thoracotomy. All totaled, I initially spent 77 days in the hospital. Those 77 days were just the beginning of many more hospitalizations for life threatening infections and many more surgeries for the next year and a half.
But after near 40 surgeries, I am here to tell my story. It was a miracle that I survived the accident. I was out with my friends (the people I thought really cared about me.) These so called friends let me get into my car with a blood alcohol level of 0.308. That is almost 4 times the legal limit in the state of Illinois.
Prior to my accident, I only lived for today. I lived like I would never die. I had turned my back on my family and I had very little purpose in life. I had quit school, and gave up a full ride volleyball scholarship. A two-time all American Volleyball player to bartender! I had no direction in life.
My life has totally changed and I have started public speaking to teens and young adults about drinking and driving, making good decisions, what is important in life, and the importance of parents and family. It is a presentation of courage, determination, and the celebration, that emphasizes making the right choices in life. I am speaking to area junior high and high school students concerning underage drinking. I just recently signed with Anheuser Busch to be apart of the AB speakers Bureau. AB will allow me to take my story from coast to coast. My presentation is not like any prevention lecture ever given. All in all, I have given my presentation to 90,000+ area teens and young adults. I would LOVE to continue to share my story, “Sarah’s Journey”, to young and old alike because if it can affect just one person, I will have considered my life a success.
Her story was really inspiring and makes you think how fragile life is. You never know what is going to happen. You think because you are young that "This will never happen to me". That's what Sarah thought. One bad decision changed her whole life. She found out who her true friends were that night.
Even with her disability she continues to follow her dreams. She played in the 2005 Paralympics and represented the USA. Her biggest passion now is to speak to teens and tell us about how dangerous some decisions can be like drunk driving.
Here are 3 videos about her that you may find interesting:
I don't really have much more to add. Please check out her website. I was really hit hard by her message and hope that you are too.
Friday: After school I went to the middle school beside my school to help out with a "Bingo Night" thing a kindergarten/elementary school was putting on. We went as a group (Beta Club). I didn't really know anybody there though. It was kinda weird at first, but once we got to work I enjoyed it. I started out helping with making sure the kids didn't make a mess in the drawing area, and then I moved into where they had a bunch of inflatable carnival games. I spent the whole time helping out at the "Baseball" game. It was hard trying to keep all the 3 year olds from walking in front of the person hitting the ball. There were a couple times that all 3 of us running it were like "Crap, that was close!" lol. But no one got hurt. I left at 8 and my mom came and picked me up.
Saturday: We went to my aunt and uncle's house in Gastonia for my uncles birthday. It was more like a family gathering type of thing. A lot of the people I haven't seen for years. And my cousins are weird. But in a good way, lol. We stayed there for several hours and then came home. Oh yeah, my mom scratched my other uncle's car on the way out. It was so small but she made a big deal out of it. But I think he knows someone who can fix it for free. We got home about 4 and I didn't really do much the rest of the day.
Sunday: Didn't wake up until 11:30. Went to bed kinda late last night. I spent pretty much the whole day working on a video. I came up with the idea late Saturday night, and got the whole video done today.
First, here is what I'm making fun of:
And here is my version:
Lol, I think it turned out pretty good. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment and rating on the video! I can't believe I did it all in one day. Normally a vid takes me a week or two. I stayed busy for about 6 hours straight working on it.
That's about it for this update. I hope Jake is doing ok. We wrote each other on Saturday I think. I hope I hear from him again tonight.
GAHHH! I don't wanna go to school. It's a normal week, and I don't really have anything to look forward to. At least not yet. Hopefully something will come up.
Today was pretty good. My English teacher came up to me this morning before the bell rang and asked me how I was liking Scarlet Letter. Why would I want to talk about a book at 8AM???? lol. I just told her I liked it better than the last book (which is true).
Math was a review day for our test tomorrow. I think I'm pretty ready for it. We had several pages of review questions to do and I don't think I had any problems and finished it all in class.
I almost fell asleep in History! Not that it was boring, but I was just really tired for some reason. I actually went to bed kind of early last night (midnight, lol). We did an activity where we were given cards and we had to get in order to depict the process it takes to make a law. We watched this video like 3 times, lol. OH YES!
I love it! It actually gets stuck in your head, lol.
In English I did most of my homework for that night. I couldn't hear the teacher anyways, I sit beside the AC and it was going crazy today. We didn't do anything really anyways.
In Speech we went through the first round of PowerPoint Speeches. Only about half the people did them though, because the rest didn't have them done or hadn't even started. How could some students be so dumb? On the most part, they were good. None with sound though, so I hope it doesn't take off points.
I still haven't taken a shower so I better get going. Haven't heard from Jake but it's gotten to where we only write on weekends. I hate how it's so little, but life gets busier. When we first met we talked for at least 3 hours or more chatting. I have some guys I do that with now (Ryan and Steven) but we don't really talk much. Just the occasional "hey...whatsup?" lol. They are cool though. Oh and in case they ever read this, here is their shoutout so I can say, I even wrote about you in my blog! lol.
There ya go guys, lol. That actually looks awesome, wonder what mine looks like?
Neat-o!
Have a great night and I'll write again tomorrow if I have time!
Where to start???? I know I haven't updated in over a month! I'm really sorry about that. School has been super busy this semester! But my absence has also been a result of my laziness. I have had several chances to update, But I just put it off. I don't know why. Most of my online time has been spent with my YouTube. Last time I updated I was announcing my 1,000th subscriber, and now with over 1,500 I am quickly becoming more popular. No, not a celebrity yet, lol. Maybe one day. But the more viewers I get, the more it inspires me to work on my vids and promotion. I applied for Partnership (where I get paid for making my videos) last Friday and received my rejection letter today. It was pretty disappointing because I thought I would for sure make it this time. Oh well, it gives me more time to work on improving.
I have probably lost a lot of my regular readers, and I really apologize for that. Especially you Jake. I have been updating you in little portions in my emails, but you deserve more. Also, same goes for my new friend on YouTube (you know who you are...”manager”, haha). I am going to try and commit to update daily again. Even if it's only a few sentences, it's better than nothing. I was reading some of my older entries and they were really cool to see how much I've changed. Well not really changed, just matured. I guess that's the right word. I started my journal in December of 2006, when I was 13. Doesn't seem like that long ago, but it really was. My interests have changed, my friends have changed, and my way of thinking has changed. But deep down, I am still the same person I was back then.
So an update on school. Algebra 2 Honors is going good. I was lost earlier in the year, but I think I have caught on now. It's not as hard as it seemed at first. Although I still don't have any friends in there. Well there are two girls from my speech class, but we aren't really friends.
American Govt./Economics Honors is pretty cool. Definitely more entertaining than Survey of American History last semester. The teacher is really nice. She likes for us to do activities to learn instead of just sitting in desks taking notes (which we still do some times). I'm doing pretty good in that class.
English....Blah. The teacher is nice. That's pretty much the only good thing I can say about that class. The teacher assigns us way too much work, and grades very strictly. It's like she doesn't think we have homework in other classes! And although we have been done with “The Great Gatsby” for over 2 weeks, we are still talking about it and doing assignments on it. Give it a rest already! We are starting on Scarlet Letter now. I hope she doesn't take that one as far.
Speech. Ahhh speech. Lol, I love it. My favorite class. It is teaching me a lot, and is very helpful in getting me used to making presentations in front of people. We have another speech that I will have to present on Wednesday. It had to be a PowerPoint presentation. Here is my practice vid.
Scouts is going good. We are changing out positions in a couple weeks. I will be kinda relieved stepping down from SPL. It was a lot of work, and I want to take some time just being a regular scout. I really did like being a leader though. The Jamboree is coming up next summer, I'm really excited about that. I'll be 17, lol. Not excited about growing up, but just going. I love to travel, and had so much fun when I went in 2005. I have a bunch of pics. I used to have them on my old website, but I may rescan some of them some time and put them on here. Oh yeah, and I may get to finally meet my pal Jake there :) That's one of the most exciting parts!
Well, this entry is getting long. I guess I will close here. I hope everyone has a great night, especially you Jake. I'll try to update tomorrow. See ya!
Hey! Thanks for checking out my blog. My name is Clifton and I am 15. I love making videos and hope to get a career in film making. I also like acting, photography, video games, and making new friends. I am in the Boy Scouts and the OA. That's pretty much it about me. Now go read my blog!!!
