Blizzard = No Work = More time for Essays

If you haven't heard, the East Coast got/is getting hit with a blizzard!  Under normal circumstances I would just consider the snow a nuisance but since the NJTRANSIT buses are suspended for the time being, I cannot make it to work tomorrow!  Since I no longer work in NYC, I actually have an excuse for not making the hour and a half commute into the city - that excuse is I like my life and I don't trust anyone to drive under these conditions!  The snowbanks 2 feet outside of my front door come up to my belly button.  I kid you not!  Also, there was a snow plow stuck in the snow in the street out front!  I'm not sure how my mother is going to make it to work in the morning, but I'll ask her because her alarm clock will be going off in an hour.

Meanwhile - back at the ranch - guess what is being copied to a DVD right now?  My video essay!  I'm sooooooo glad to be done with this essay you have no idea.  It will definitely free up time to continue working on other essays.  Luckily I had blank DVD's at home otherwise it would have just prolonged the process.  I am in love with the final product.  I won't be sending it to anyone because they won't know why I put in what I did.  I've gone through many versions and many reviews that I now have what I deem the best finished product and don't need anyone telling me what I should and should not include in the video.  In this case...with this school... I feel confident that it gets everything across that I want it to.

Also, yesterday I finished 2nd drafts of two Michigan Essays!  I'm going to finish the third one Today and send them to my friend.  I also reached out to my friend/next door roommate from Rutgers who is a 2nd year to ask him a question about something I can potentially use in my essays.  That reminds me, I need to email him back with that question.

I've got to also email my Consortium "Why MBA" essay off to one of my recommenders.  (Going to do that right after I finish this post).  I don't want to do too much stuff on my computer right now for fear that the burning of the DVD will mess up.

Today I plan to get the rest of my essays done so that I can shoot them off to all of the people who will be reviewing them.  Gotta give them time to get back to me so I can get back to them so they can get back to me until it's time to hit Submit!

I'm looking forward to Thursday of next week since that's the day that I will no longer have an obligations regarding this business school APPLICATION process.  I do know that I need to monitor my savings account because should I be accepted...Deposits will be due shortly thereafter, May need to sign for an apartment in the Spring, may need to pay for a couple of trips in the summer.  Lot's of things to still "do" but hey... if I can get through the front-end of the process...the back-end should be a cinch!

Just as I put the exclamation mark on that last sentence my DVD popped out!  Now it's time to play it in a real DVD player to make sure everything works properly.  All I can say is - WHEW!

Video and Audio Essay: Best Practices

I love having my blog because as a result people send me great resources.  


Today Sarah from Accepted.com sent me, what I'm going to call a WhitePaper, on the best practices for creating Audio and Video essays.  I took a look at it earlier today, after I downloaded it, and it's very useful!!!  So for anyone out there in the same boat as me take a look at this...


Audio - Video Essay Best Practices from Accepted.com.


As I was reading through it, I was making a checklist in my head to make sure I did everything as prescribed.  Most of it I had done but there were some things that just simply did not apply.  It's also tough because my essay can only be 90 seconds long.  Some may think that 90 seconds is enough time, but it's not.  Try reading a 400 word essay OUTLOUD while enunciating in 90 seconds.  Pretty tough if not impossible to do.


You all know that I tend to ramble.  Getting everything to fit in those 90 seconds has been tough.  I've gone through a whole legal pad with script edits.  I've gotten to the point now where I don't need my script and can simply speak what it is I want to say.  This makes for a better video.  I wish I could show it to you guys, but I'll refrain from putting too much of my business out there.  


I do like it thought - if I may say so myself.  It's been a blast learning to use all of these default movie editing programs on my Mac that I've had for two years!  I remember getting it and said to myself "why are Garageband and iMovie default programs on this thing!  I need Excel!"


So yeah on that note...  I must be going to sleep now.  I'm sick so I'm trying to get tons of rest!


Adios Amigos

Essay Writing Break

Unforunately, I never heard back from Dartmouth regarding my status on the Diversity Conference waitlist, but that's another story for another post.

So as you may remember back in September I requested a bunch of days off in October and November from work, so that I could visit schools and junk.  So Wednesday the 10th (yesterday) comes around and I was still prepared to hop on the Dartmouth Coach and head up to the conference that started today.  I had the days off so why not.  Around 5pm I still hadn't heard back and my manager asked if I was going to come in Thursday/Friday even though I had taken off.  She knew why I had taken the days off, so it wasn't that big of a deal.  I decided to take today off and work on my essays but I will be going in to work tomorrow.

I didn't want to take Friday off and have a three day weekend, because I would prefer to have a Thursday off and then go in on Friday and then have two more days off.  

In any event, I've been working on my Tuck essay for 4 hours.  Why have I been working on it for 4 hours you ask?  Well... it's difficult editing videos.  Oh yeah... since I'm applying through the Consortium I can either write an essay (they didn't put a word limit on it) or do a 90 second video.  Using context clues from above, I'm sure you can imagine which option I've chosen.  

I have a Macbook and this is the first time I get to try out all of the video editing features.  Very excited about that!  I'm also using something that I learned about during my digital marketing class in June.  Someone did a presentation and used a certain program, which shall remain nameless, and I'm using that to create my video too.

I needed to take a break from staring at my computer screen for so long.  I also took a break to go to Best Buy because I needed to buy a microphone.  I'm almost done putting the video together and plan to have it completed tonight - otherwise today was a bust and I can't afford to have a day off without getting anything done.

I didn't think making the video would be this difficult.  It's hard enough writing an essay, but when you write an essay (especially with no limit) you don't care how long the video version of it would be.  Of course I'm not simply sitting in front of a camera reciting an essay, but think about having to create sound bytes essentially for a 90 second video.  90 seconds is NOT a lot of time when you think of "Introductions" and "Conclusions."  

Oh well!  Don't cry for my Argentina - I'll get it done and it'll be phenomenal - I HOPE!  I actually need to find out if I can burn DVD's on either my Macbook or my mothers laptop.  Hhmmm...