Back at college..

Hi all and welcome back,

I say this every bloody time BUT I really want to blog more, I usually think this at about 11.30pm and decide I'm to tired to blog so I just well... fall asleep.

I have a feeling though I may be blogging a lot this college year as I'm going to have lots of occasions like this one, where I either have a lesson cancelled or I've an hour to myself. I think a year ago I would've struggled to cope being on my own a lot but spending the time I did in hospital, you're on your own a lot sitting..waiting. I'm known in my family and with Elly for being really really impatient, I don't think I am as much now because I've had to spend time on my own getting better and thinking about my life/health etc.

I've suddenly come back to college to nobody. I know less than 5 people well, obviously I see people around to say the odd hello to, but with everyone else gone off to work or University it's difficult to get through a day staying happy. I know how sad. I do quite like being on my own though because I've spent 14 years surrounded by busyness and friends and issues that when you look back on them mean nothing. I miss having the social aspect of course, and this whole online world is quite a good comfort blanket to go to when you need someone to talk to or just have a giggle with no real life consequence.

Although despite all that alone feeling I've got a lot of things going on concerning Youtube, a website which I now look at with wider eyes, I realise that it doesn't mean much and the drama that concerns it is needless, sure I share my opinions on the occasional drama with the rest of you but when you look at it, Youtube is a website for people to post what they like when they like. As I was saying.. I've got my own channel which is in a bit of a limbo, I'm not sure where to go with it and maybe these other projects will give it more direction. I'm returning as a member of the new Love Hate Society along with 4 others which I'm pretty excited about we had a chat about how things are going to run, the underlining point I got from it is that a lot has changed since we first started a couple of years ago, and because of that, as a channel we need to evolve while at the same time keep that friendly feeling we always had. I might as well talk a bit more about it.

We're going to run it in seasons, not like RantTank though, as the members of the channel are unlikely to change. We'll do a run of 8 weeks then have 3 off so it's not a weekly chore. That was my main problem with it last time, I loved doing it and the people on it were some of the people I really loved watching on Youtube. So it was great for me to be involved in a Youtube channel which brought all of those people and myself together. I think we're going to have fun with it anyway and you'll find out lots more soon.

Other things I have lined up is that me and Lex are likely to start doing DoctorDuck again, we planned to do it the other day but that went to shit due to Lex being hopeless :)
So I won't give a date for the next podcast as it could be tonight it could be 2014 it's a mystery to be honest.

Obviously I'm still doing GetFeaturedUK, it was hard to manage at the beginning and I don't think people realised just how hard it was, we were getting literally hundreds of emails a day with videos and questions. Now it's not so busy but it's still hard working sorting it all out and getting it together. I have to say though everyone that's been on the panel seems to have a great time and we've had some great videos pass through our fingers. I do feel bad that we can only feature 3 videos, I posted on the twitter the other day 'What can we do to interact more with the viewers' or something along those lines and Olly Newport simply put 'maybe feature more videos for a start' (or something like that) anyway the point is, I think he's annoyed that he's sent videos in and hasn't been featured. Maybe we haven't be clear to why we only feature 3...
Basically it's a matter of exposure, if we feature 10 videos then the viewership of those 10 is likely to decrease because its more for a viewer to watch, another reason is that we like the fact we feature 3 its a good number it means we can get a nice spread of videos from singing to animation, vlogs to sketches. It's a nice mix. I've taken a back seat from GetFeaturedUK recently and it's nice to know that Gary can cope without me and take a positive role within the panel and with the videos. An idea I'm going to pitch to Gary when I next get the chance is that we get panel members to help us present the featured videos maybe it'll be a nice thing to trial.

But yeah to sum up things are looking up slowly but surely I had a blood test this morning for my next dose and some people in the waiting room look ill, I didn't feel that ill at all, I felt bad sitting there looking at middle aged women and the elderly thinking, I know the feeling and don't know what to say, actually I just said to sum up and now im going to to make another point. A point I was actually going to make a video on and still might. I got on the bus yesterday to go home from college and as I sat down next to a man who must have been hitting 80. I looked quite relaxed before I sat next to him and as soon as I touched the seat he sat up straight and held the bar infront. Now I didn't look that threatening apart from being a teenager, but it made me sad that as a youth an elderly person feel scared/worried by my presence and that really hurts me. I wanted to turn to him and say 'I'm not scary' but obviously I can't do that because buses are the most social difficult places on earth as it is without me talking to an old man. Anyway I want old people to realise that we aren't scary people most of us are kind weel natured human beings.

Thanks for reading

Ben
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