<editorsnote>Hi, I'm Jen Friel, and we here at TNTML examine the lives of nerds outside of the basements and into the social media, and dating world. We have over 75 peeps that write about their life in real time. (Real nerds, real time, real deal.) Sit back, relax, and enjoy some of the stories!!</editorsnote>
Wow. Wow. Wow. My buddy el Graham-erino just posted this on Facebook, and seriously - I started tearing. This is so UNBELIEVABLY beautiful, and so heartbreaking that this is TWENTY ELEVEN and we are STILL DISCUSSING THIS!?!?!?!!?!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?!?!
Just watch ...
and FTR, I'm sorry this whole civil union thing is such fucking bullshit as well. Homosexuals will not ruin the sanctity of marriage, I believe celebrities have been doing a wonderful job of that for the past - however long. I just get so UNBELIEVABLY irate knowing so many of my friends here in LA that will never get to experience a wedding like one day I will be able to. It literally breaks my heart. They just want equal rights, dude especially when god forbid their loved one gets sick, is in the hospital, and only spouses are allowed. There are SOOO many legalities behind what an actual marriage means. I mean come on, man. Such fucking bullshit. Open your heart, open your mind. Stop being ooey booey buttheads!!!
Night of 100 Stars Oscars Party livestreaming with my OWLE yo!I LOOOVVEEEEE me some OWLE - like serious, its absurd, obscene, should prolly get a restraining order. Well, OWLE's Graham just told me the other day that he's headed to Africa for a year! No - really ... it's happening!
We talked yesterday on the phone about it, and DUDES, he's got some really really really really really sweet ideas on driving tourism, and helping this place out!
Here read!
Incase if it's too small for your eyes - it says AND I QUOTE:
Hey Jen!
Yes, I am moving to Ghana and please come visit! I know it sounds a little nuts but I'll be spending a year in Busua Beach, Ghana. My job is going to be mainly focused on getting exposure for all the great things going on there especially the surfing. Throughout my journey I'll be filming for a documentary of sorts which I will of course share with you and the TNTML crew!
The organization I'm traveling with ( www.blackstardevelopment.org) is an NGO that was born from a for profit surf shop( www.blackstarsurfshop.com). I'll be there shooting photo's and video, but most importantly teaching photo video. My personal needs are few but I am hoping to seriously arm the locals with filming equipment. This is where you and the great people at TNTML come in, I'm gonna need some serious #nerdsunite karma!!!!
The main thing I'll be bringing (of course) is iPod touch OWLE's. I can supply the OWLE's but the 4th Gen Ipod's aren't cheap… giving people a platform on which they can shoot edit and upload is an excellent solution for developing area's like this.
Filming stuff:
-Waterproof Digital camera's (tougher the better)
-GoPro Hero Camera's /surfboard Mounts
-Sd Cards
-iPod touch 4th generations ( as many as possible)
-Canon 7d (HIGH PRIORITY NO IDEA WHERE I"M GONNA GET THIS)
-Any Canon Lens's
-Tripod's
-Gorilla Pods
-misc cleaning, filters,bags,
Personal Stuff:
-Washable Travel Hammock (no idea what that is)
-someone to watch my two cats
-Surfboard (MeyerHoffer 7'6) (but will take any…)
-Malaria survival tips
-seriously how do I not get Malaria?
-Plane ticket to Accra Ghana (That's a Big one)
-Freelance Job for Nat Geo or Al Jazeera.
-Anything that any of the genius people who read TNTML think I need, don't be shy, send away. I'm unsure if i'm totally unprepared for what is going to happen, but I am sure that if you help me get there I will share every second of it with you
-Nerdsunite
We've had SMASHING success in putting things like this out there before, and seeing what you guys can do in return ... I told him I could at least see what is out there. I kid you not, Graham and the people at OWLE are some of the kindest, hardworking, and uh, nerdiest dudes on the planet. I cannot think of a single person that is more deserving of everything on this wishlist than Graham. He's fucking AWESOME, and their product has changed my livestreaming foreevvveerrrrrrrrr.
Anything, ANYONE can do would be greatly appreciated. If you donate anything, please drop me a note, tweet, or email so I can say thank you!
PS. Graham also has the greatest name ever ... Graham McBain. I plan on one day writing a porno with a lead named Graham McBain in his honor. That is all.
Alrite, woke up to a bunch of emails and shiznat today that I want to address. I don't even know where to start, so I'm just going to sort of leap in the middle.
You all wanna know what's really been going down behind the scenes? I'll letcha in on a little secret - I am scared shitless.
There is a whole backstory right now, that I cannot post on - that is regarding the pilot. Ah yes, the pilot. That thing. It has shook me to my emotional core knowing that in a few months the rest of my life is about to change to something I have no frame of reference for. I get it, I asked for it - big whoop ... but it's one thing when you hustle something, and know it can be done, and then waking up to the reality of holy fuck, this is happening. It's head to toe shock. No other word for it - it's out of body meets ... let's just get this done.
It is draining. Very emotionally draining. Albeit, clearly exciting ... but a bit anti-climactic. We just got huge news on Sunday, and the way it was positioned was like "oh yeah so that's all good, and we're doing this this this and this. See you in a couple days." I sat there, and thought - wait, does that mean this? It totally took me a minute and a whole fuck ton of processing to even understand. These suits are in this biz all day everyday, I know it means nothing to them - but it takes me a bit to process all that it means to me on a personal and professional level. I'm a lifecaster - when my life changes, my work changes. I just want to do this because of what this project is going to mean to social TV. I fucking LOVE working on the app, and figuring out out how we can do x with y and have that equal z. Gets me off. HAHA! I'm so excited to share this with you all, you have no idea.
But at the very end of the day, I am 26, a seal swimming with sharks, and scared out of my mind.The one thing that keeps all of this a float, and keeps me focused however, is social media. Everyone in this space knows people; hence the social part of social media. Whenever I've needed something from someone (advice, food, water, clothing, shelter, headphones, car, help with a feature script), all I've had to do is send a tweet, drop an email, or pick up the phone. It circumvented the entire system, and just got to the people that it needed to get to - and got shit done ... very fast. I don't post on things to say, hahahaha I know all these people and you can nevveerrr havveeeee themmmmmm mwahhaahahah! Dude! ASK ME!!! If there's anything ANYONE ever needs, omg, I would be so happy to help them connect. THAT I LOVE. THAT I LIVE FOR! Rad, we've built this community - do you want an award or a breast to pin it on? I'm not interested in that - I just want to tell cool stories, and have adventures.
Those are still the same sheets I got last year from www.itsthesheets.com. I sleep on a couch, get woken to the sound of barking dogs, and random midnight snacking from housemates. BUT! I am here by choice because I am following my passion. I won't give up. I am eternally grateful that I have never had to sleep in a shelter. Only on Venice beach, which again, really wasn't that bad.I've spent the last year operating from a place of nothing to lose. Someone said to me recently that I wasn't really homeless ... it's like, are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?! Hold the phone, er twitter feed for a second. You can say a lot of shit to me ... dude, for reals, I can tolerate a lot, it's the internet, if you don't have a thick skin you'll die ... but saying I'm not "really" homeless is just a slap in my face, and complete bullshit. All of the people I have stayed with in the last year I have met because of this site, and because of bartering and work exchange. I never called a single friend, family member, I didn't ask for ANYONE to bail me out. I choose to do what I did, and I knew I could figure out a way out while still fulfilling my passion, or I was willing to die trying.
The day I became homeless was one of the best and worst days of my life. (Here's the actual post from that day) Best because I knew my life was going to change; and worst because I knew my life was going to change.
I remember packing up my old room, and intermittenly sobbing hysterically. I'm from Connecticut. We are bred to aspire to piss only excellence; there IS not other option. What was my family going to think? Friends? I felt so ashamed, I couldn't tell people, or could I, I thought? The actual moving out process took days - I couldn't bring myself to do it. I hadn't paid my roomie May's rent, and time was ticking on submiting my invoice to a client. The only problem was, this client was a big fucking client. I didn't want to invoice him because I saw more value in the day that he asked me why I didn't invoice him - I could tell him what I was doing without being "pitchy."
I had a choice, to submit the invoice that would have covered a couple months worth of rent, or follow my gut which was telling me to walk away from it all.
I honestly didn't even want clients anymore, all I wanted to do was work on this site - I had only kept this last one because writing his bio was literally the most bat shit thing I have ever read; I found it to be incredibly inspiring. Plus too, this man was an absolute revolutionary, getting to spend time with him and talk about how much social media is changing everything really put things in perspective for me. Dream bigger, I kept thinking, dream bigger. Life is about how you roll with the punches and attitude is everything. This isn't going to be easy, but if I get smart, and use my noggin, I can figure it out.
6 zebra crates, 1 frame, my grandmother's train case, and my LG external monitor. Everything else I owned, I donated. I was packing the last of my stuff into the Ford Fiesta (I was part of the Fiesta Movement, Ford gave 20 teams across 16 cities a car to travel around in and document their adventures in social media.), and I got a call from my friend. He said, he had some great news for me ... he had shown the site to @kaleycuoco and not only had she heard of it (I had set up the search engine optimization in the early days specifically targeting that show, so that if the online reputation manager was looking for blogs talking about them, they would find us.), but she loves it and he was going to see if he could get the whole cast shirts.
I broke down.
I was holding this little zebra crate, and I fell to my knees hysterical. My friend who is one of the toughest dudes on this PLANET, like true blue NY Italian - he even told me to stop, because I was making him cry. I knew in that very moment, on that day, I was doing something - I just had no idea what. I could get to people that I wanted to with this site, I just had to find out what my message was.
I find such beauty in exposing human emotion in raw form even though half the time, my loaner self wants to crawl back into my shell.I don't post a lot on how scared or sorry I feel because I don't want people to EVER feel sorry for me. Like ever, at all, never, can't stand the feeling - eck. I spent 24 years perpetuating the victim's mentality. All I ever had was people feeling sorry for me, because I was perceived as being this "survivor." I wasn't a survivor, I was a chick that was in a really really negative space without knowing it, and drew some really absurd situations to herself as a result from it. I now get to live every day doing what I love. Some days are certainly easier than others, but no matter what, I'm not sorry, so you shouldn't be either. I chose this life. If I told everyone exactly how scared I was especially back when I first started, it would have changed things. I chose with direct and deliberate intent to focus on the positive. Not for you all, but for myself. I was sure it could be found even in the "worst case scenarios," I just needed to shift my consciousness. When I was waking up in my car the first few weeks, I still woke up EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. so stoked to be alive. That part, was no joke. I got to keep posting on this site, and talking about things that I enjoyed. That made me INCREDIBLY happy.
That shift in consciousness is, of course, a continuous work in progress. But by throwing myself in this constant state of uncomfort and in this constant state of unknown, I am learning a lot of things a lot faster. Living with so many different personalities alone in the last year has been incredibly beneficial in understanding tolerance. Trips me out.
My next task is to understand how to shift things into something new. We're in the middle of a growing pain. I don't have the answer for that, but I am still aware that right now, I can still take risks - which I won't stop doing. I am navigating in this space as much as you all are - the only difference is, is that I am broadcasting what I am doing. For me, it provides a sense of liberation being so transparent and so honest, because even if I didn't get something that I wanted from a given scenario, by broadcasting it and declaring to the universe that I wanted it - someone, somewhere has been able to help out. The downfall to that is that sometimes I post things that I didn't mean to come out that way, but it's again something I am working on, and something I am making a commitment to change.
I don't believe in being preachy. I use social media, and these are my adventures in using it. Everything that is done on this site is done first hand; social media experts are super fucking lame IMHO. It is in my hopes that by saying this is how I was able to execute x goal, it can inspire someone to do something with it. So far, a bunch of you have actually been inspired to do some cool shit.I kid you not, that it makes my LIFE to hear that. I didn't start this site for other people, I only started it to figure shit out for myself. However, the quote from Man in the Mirror always stuck in my head, that "you have to be the change you want to see." I've ALLLWWAAYYYYSSSSSSSSSSSS wanted to change the world. Always. Always. Always. Not even world domination, since I strive to follow the path of least resistance, and go with the flow. I just wanted to tell people that yes, no matter what your set of circumstances are - you can change. (That message of course was also a sounding board for myself, as I was eating my own words over and over.) If you start using social media, you can even get all these BIG BIG BIG companies to sponsor your change, and keep you a float. The journey is the destination, so you all want to know where all of this is headed, and I still do not have an answer. I only have a goal - I want to inspire people to use social media through education and relating first hand experiences.
Dude, yesterday - I was hanging out with this rad dude Vance, and I was showing him this social media bible I wrote for the pilot, and I asked him, the non-techie, non-social media southern boy that he is, to read it to see if he understood it. Parts of it he didn't get - but then when I took out my phone and showed him exactly what it all meant, he got it! And dude! Even tweeted me about it!
THENNNNNN!!! This morning, I woke up to a friend request from his best friend, who told me this!
That is my goal, that is my mission - will it work? I dunno. This is being done in real time. I can say that success is a very personal thing, and I am a person that no matter what is now conditioned to take situations and perpetually look for the lesson learned versus wallowing in them. That part I cannot help, I will always roll with the punches. I make mistakes all the time, but instead of beating myself up about them, I think - what can I learn from this experience, and move on. There are only 86,400 seconds in the day, and I'll be damned if I waste even 10 of them with a single negative thought.
Fear of course is something that the human body is conditioned to experience to remind us to stop doing stupid fucking shit. I remind my brain over and over to shut up, and to start listening to my heart. Meditating has been VITAL to my survival as of late, since fear has been creeping in more and more - but again, that is just because I have been operating in a prior state of nothing to lose. In a few months, things will be different. I am adjusting to that, and trying to understand how to process it.
This is social media as told by people who live their lives using it. Like any social exchange in life, of course things are going to be weird, and jumpy, and whatevs - but that's life! Did you really expect lifecasting to be any different?
Dude, OMG Lizzie, thank you so much for reaching out - absolutely ... yes yes yes all this that and much more. I'm so sorry to hear about the devastation and that it has affected you personally. We read about things in the news here in the States - and it always seems like a world away, when in reality - its on the other side of the monitor.
Absolutely absolutely absolutely - anything I can do to help.
Have you guys seen some of the devastation? It's crazy.
I found a list of ways to donate for anyone that is interested - click here
Stay strong, Lizzie! I will keep you and your nerdy friends in my prayers.
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 4:25PM
