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Slow to Speak

Disclaimer: I did not write this with the recent world events in mind, it just surprisingly lines up pretty well. God is good at putting things on people’s minds, I guess.

Second Disclaimer: I got another fountain pen and I wanted to test it out. I wouldn’t call it a success but it wasn’t a complete flop either.

I heard a piece advice (not given directly to me) a couple of months ago and I wish I could remember who told me, but the advice was something like, 

“try and let someone finish their entire thought before you try and speak”

I immediately took that as an obvious piece of advice… “don’t interrupt people, duh”. Well, I was totally wrong. I had a group conversation happen really soon after that moment, and that’s where my eyes (ears?) were opened.

Everyone cuts each other off ALL the time.

It’s crazy how often someone will start saying something, and then another person will jump in before the first person is finished. I don’t think anyone got a full sentence in on that conversation before another person jumped in with their opinion. No one was really interrupting each other, more like quickly filling pauses. Now, you might be thinking, “man that was a terrible conversation”, but NO ONE was mean, upset, or even really disagreeing with each other. It was a normal conversation about an upcoming event, and if you asked anyone they would probably say that it was completely normal and went well. 

The more I paid attention to this advice, the more I realized how terrible of a listener I am. There were SO many times I wanted to jump in and finish a thought before someone else was finished speaking. In my next conversation, I had to consciously think about that piece of advice so that the person I was talking to could finish what they were saying.

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” ~ James 1:19-20

Slow to speak. Turns out that wisdom is from the bible. I don’t believe the phrase “slow to speak” in this verse means “speak slowly”, because right before that it says “quick to hear” (other translations say “listen”). When Jesus walked the earth, while I’m not 100% positive, based on what I’ve read so far, Jesus didn’t interrupt people very often. In the past year I’ve read Mark a couple of times all the way through now, and many times Pharisees would come to Jesus and tell him whatever they thought he was doing wrong, and every instance we usually get the Pharisees’ full perspective. Even Jesus, having the full right and infinite wisdom to interrupt the Pharisees at any moment because they were wrong (and, being God, Jesus even knew what they were going to say), was quick to listen. If you look back into the Old Testament and read Job (I also read through this book recently), it’s almost agonizing how long God lets Job and his friends speak before he confronts Job.

**Add new, present day ending because I didn’t finish this thought until now. The ending includes knowledge of all the crazy world events that are happening**

I could be delusional (it’s possible, you never know), but I don’t think many people would have called me a bad listener before I thought about all of this, but now I’m trying to make a concerted effort to be quicker to listen and slower to speak. Especially in times like this, where there are multiple world crises, pandemics and so many hot opinions on more sides than I can count. The general sentiment/world view is to try and scream as loud as we can, and while I definitely have a stance (in a nutshell - I have mixed views on the pandemic, and I’m totally against racism) and I’m not judging any of the posts or anything recently, I’m praying that being quicker to listen will help me respond with kindness more often than not.

(But like I said, I could be delusional, you never know)

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

Part 2B: After

If you haven’t read A Message to Young Adults Pastors and Part 2 of this “series”, click on the words in this sentence and you can read them!

I’m calling this Part 2B because I don’t think it’s Part 3 yet, but it still relates to the other two parts. So ta da, Part 2B.

When I posted Part 1 and Part 2, I honestly didn’t think I’d get much response. I was actually more scared of getting a negative response from young adults groups I had already attended, or people from the church telling me to stop complaining. This is why I coupled those two posts with some past writing so I could just say “hey, I have some stuff on my blog, read if you want”. I have a lot of great friends on Facebook, but I just thought I was the only one with feelings of loneliness, especially in a church setting. 

I was totally 100% completely wrong.

A lot of people read that post. No it didn’t go viral, but I got so many comments from people I didn’t expect. We’ve all heard the speech “social media is only one side of a person... never assume.... etc. etc.”, but it’s another thing entirely to actually see it. People that I thought had it all together were commenting and literally coming to me saying how much my words resonated with them. I’m sitting there stunned as they tell me that have felt lonely at church (and other places) and how hard it can be to connect with people. I also heard more statistics after my blog post released, including Britain electing a new minister for loneliness. “Over 9 million people in the UK say that they often or always feel lonely”. A MINISTER for loneliness?! I actually applaud Britain for recognizing the problem, and I’m stunned that so many people are feeling even more lonely than I gave them credit for. This loneliness problem went from more “out there”, to very close and personal, with people I know being very much affected by the same problem.

I wish I could now tell you now that things are amazing and I never feel those feelings of loneliness when I go to church... but it’s still a problem, it’s just a little better now in some ways. I’ve met more new people in young adults groups now which is awesome and been for coffee with a few new people. I have a couple of small groups that I go to that are nice to hang out with. They can be pretty small sometimes, but it’s much better than before. The biggest problem right now is Sunday mornings. I can’t tell if it’s a problem with loneliness, churches just not having young adults, young adults avoiding church, a problem with me, a severe lack of children born between 1988-1998 in Southern Ontario, or a combination of the above, but connecting with anyone on Sunday, let alone other young adults, is VERY difficult. If I don’t previously invite someone to come to church with me on Sunday or deliberately make plans to meet with someone there, 9/10 times no one will come and say hi. If it’s the first time I go there, I’ll leave with a free coffee cup or whatever paraphernalia they have, but not really speak to anyone. There’s one church that makes an exception, and if anyone from that church is reading this, you’ll know who you are because I’ve told you many times (unfortunately there’s a lack of young adults there, but maybe that will change soon).

Here’s an example - this morning I was completely new to a church I went too. It was around the corner from my house and I decided to go because the snow was pretty bad and I could walk to this church. It had around 50 people, so pretty small, and one older lady very briefly said hi to me. No one else. No one was around looking for new people, no introductions. The church the week before was like this too! I went with a friend (thanks Janet :) ), and this church was a lot bigger, but no one introduced us to anyone. We went to the welcome desk, got a super nice, high quality water bottle, filled out a guest card and left. There was no one there to tell us more about the church, just a card to fill out. I’m not saying it was horrible, I’ll probably go back because they did phone me later this week... but what about that first Sunday? I just think about the mindset some of the best companies have. The companies that people like the most really value that first point of contact. It’s basically the make or break point - if you make the customer feel comfortable, they’ll come back. If you welcome them and are nice... they come back. So if a church wants new people to come back... shouldn't there be someone to welcome them? This isn’t even a lesson on Christianity... it’s a good business lesson. It seems like even some companies do a better job at welcoming customers than churches do welcoming people to their church. 

Anyway, I don’t want to come off as someone who just keeps whining about the same thing, it’s just a pretty hard time right now when it comes to connecting at church. I still haven’t really decided on a home church.

To end on a positive note, these couple of posts have taught me to be more bold when it comes to introducing myself to people. Instead of vaguely saying “let’s get coffee” and not actually meaning it, I say it and mean it. I contact the person a few days later and we arrange coffee and I go. If someone is new at a young adults group I’ve been to before, I go and talk to them. I’m not really super extroverted (I describe myself as ambiverted) so sometimes all of the above is a little scary, but I do it now because, from experience, if I don’t do anything there’s a really good chance no one else will. Those new people will leave feeling the exact same way I have. At least if I talk to them, they can say “well there was this one really nice girl so that part was good”. 

So if you have felt this way... high five? I pray that things change or maybe there will be another source of friends or church for you on a Sunday morning. That’s what I’m praying for myself, so it’s easy to add you to the list, haha. If you haven’t felt this way, consider the new faces you see at church. You might literally change someone’s life just by going up and saying hi to them. And if you’re reading this as someone who has even more influence than usual in a church.... this is a problem and it needs to be fixed.

Thanks for all the encouragement so far. Life for the most part is really great and I don’t feel perpetually lonely or anything (I probably don't even fit the British stat I quoted, because it’s not “always”), it’s just that Sunday morning stings a bit right now as I continue my search for welcoming congregation with some nice young adults. But... that’s why this is called Part 2B... I believe there’s an ending coming and I’ll hopefully find it sooner rather than later.

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

Part 2

So if you haven’t read the first part to this “series” yet, scroll down and read that first. It’s not directly related to this post, but it was the inspiration for it. You don’t have too… but it might help you get a better sense of where I’m coming from.

Anyway, now to the post…

I heard in one of my hometown churches a couple of weeks ago that 31 million Americans live alone. The majority of Americans have 1-2 people who they feel they can truly confide in. I did some more googling, and articles came up immediately about the epidemic that is loneliness. Older people were mentioned first (which is a whole other topic that I unfortunately won’t get into here), and after a whole 2 minutes more of investigation I found that young adults are high up on the list. That’s right, MY age group (20s-30 ish) feels lonely.

Of course the typical adult response to this “millenials” being lonely thing is “it’s because they use social media too much”, which is an argument I’m not refuting, but young adults can still be reached… probably even more so BECAUSE they’re on social media. While I was researching loneliness, a question quickly came to mind... why isn’t somebody trying to change this? Churches look for missions and outreaches all the time… yet the young adults in their backyard are feeling lonely. Why is that? Is loneliness just not a big deal?

To switch gears a little bit, I’ll tell you about my life right now. I just moved to a new town about 45-55 minutes away from my home for a new job. I am a Christian and not really into drinking or partying, so I’ve been looking for a church group to join and get connected with. I have some awesome friends here already from university, but I was (and still am) looking for a new church to call “home”. I moved in September… and I’ve only just met a couple of nice acquaintances after 5 or 6 churches I’ve tried. I’m very thankful that I finally met some nice people, but this was after at least 3 or 4 churches, two of whom have over 1000 attendees. I’ve spent nights crying because of how alone I felt at these places. I thought I was just being paranoid, but one night I literally sat alone at one of these large churches where I had talked to 5 or 6 people for a couple of weeks. They all saw me, walked right up to me sitting alone, said hi, and then left to sit with their friends. Is it really that hard to ask a new person if they want to sit with you? I’ve done it…. it’s really not that bad. It was hard to see people just walk away like that.

So right now we’ve got statistics and my sad experiences with loneliness at church. The next valid question to ask is… Does God actually care about Loneliness? Maybe I’m just being very over dramatic about the whole thing and God actually doesn’t care about people being alone.

Well… that’s not true. He cares. A LOT.

In fact, loneliness is mentioned in the first book of the bible:

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him” ~ Genesis 2:18

David also asks God for help when he’s lonely in Psalms:

“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted” ~ Psalm 25:16

After googling “What does the bible say about loneliness”, good ole Bible Gateway gave me probably close to 100 verses that directly said words like “alone” or verses that alluded to loneliness. God reassures us SO many times that we aren’t alone in the bible:

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out prisoners with singing…” ~ Psalms 68:5-6


“Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” ~ Matthew 28:20

“I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you” ~ John 14:18

These are actually some of the less known verses (at least, verses I didn’t automatically remember) on the list. Anyone remember “I will not leave you or forsake you”? Even John 3:16 is about Jesus saving us so we could be with God. God alludes to OR directly says that he will never leave us alone SO many times. This made me think, feeling alone must be dangerous/concerning enough that God reassures us ALL the time that He is with us.

So far we’ve got the following points from this post: 

- Loneliness is a problem. 

- I feel lonely at church. 

- God doesn’t want us to feel alone. 

So why aren’t churches exploding with lonely young adults? I don’t know about your town, but I know here young adults groups are small. Some of the bigger churches have more, but still not as many as you might expect with a church of over 1000 people (maybe 30-40 max?). Why isn’t this an exploding ministry?

Ultimately this question remains unanswered, because I don’t know. I have a couple of small theories… I think churches are scared of millennials. They don’t want to disappoint them so they don’t act real with them. But enough complaining about churches.. I ultimately wrote this article to explore loneliness and to let the world out there know that you are not alone. God is the ultimate comforter, which is enough in itself, but to add to that.. you are literally almost in the majority of the population who ALSO feel alone. So many people feel alone. You’re not a freak or just unlikeable or doing something wrong, you’re like everyone else who is struggling with LONELINESS. Some people put on a really good front, and this is where I think the “those millennials on the twitter” argument is valid, but ultimately there are many people who are LONELY, even if they don’t look like it on Instagram.

To ALL my family and friends out there, NO you are not making me feel lonely. I am extremely blessed to have every single one of you. To my university friends who might stumble across this, I would literally be crying everyday if I didn’t have you guys to hang out with here. I have just gotten a taste of this lonely feeling while trying to find a new church in a new town… and I can’t even imagine having anymore than a taste. It takes over every part of your thinking. You feel aimless and out of place.

I need to thank God every minute of every day for the multiple people I can confide in when I feel lonely, because according to stats, there are a lot of people that don’t have more than 1 person. So if you feel alone, you’re not. Everybody feels alone.

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

A Message to Young Adults Pastors

Loneliness Pt. 1

PREFACE: I wrote this about a month or two ago. It was one night really late when I was disappointed with the third or fourth young adults group I had been too and felt alone. Since then there HAVE been exceptions, and if you happen to be reading this and felt like we’ve gotten to know each other more recently (there’s one group I can think of in particular that has really made an effort to make me feel welcome, which is 100% MUCH appreciated), the disappointed parts of this article probably don’t apply to you. Regardless, I really wanted to put this somewhere, because it’s something I’m growing more and more passionate about. A part two to this will be out soon! Hi. I’m a 22 years old, a lifelong Christian right in the 18-25ish bracket of young adults, and I find it extremely difficult to make friends at church.

You’re probably thinking it’s just me, and I thought this too. For years I thought I was terrible at making friends. I didn’t relate to anyone at church and nobody really seemed that interested in developing a connection that would last longer than the couple of hours. “Maybe I’m just really boring or I look like I don’t like them”.. to be honest I still think that sometimes. As I’ve gone through life, however, I’ve realized that this can’t be the case. I have a lot of friends. I made friends at school, at work, and even became great friends with the creators and fans of a YouTube channel I really liked. Nobody has called me a freak, I’ve actually been surprised to find out that people like me even more than I thought, so no, it can’t be me, or I would have no friends. Shouldn’t it technically be harder to make friends outside of the church because people out there aren’t all Christian?

Assuming that you believe it’s not me, I think I’ve figured out what’s happening. The church is struggling. The young adults generation of 2017 has been the hardest one to try to appeal too because the church is trying too hard to appeal to them. Bright lights, nice clothes, the latest technology, red bull (aka the closest the church can get to beer) and more are all being offered to millennials in a desperate attempt to get them to like the church. The problem is, it DOESN’T WORK. Here’s what needs to be changed in order to actually appeal to young adults.

1) Be friendly (aka a human) As Christians, we are called to love others. Love our enemies and fellow Christians and walk together. In this suggestion, I’m not asking the church to go this far. For example, If a new person joins your work team, chances are you’ll probably introduce yourself and make them feel welcome.

I just want this.

I just want the church to welcome me when I visit. So many times I have not had this. I’ve walked in to a church or young adults group completely and very obviously alone and many times I’ll get the “oh hi what’s your name?” Then they ask a few awkward questions and I never see that person again. I end up standing with some random group that I awkwardly joined, wondering if I should just leave or try and jump into a conversation I know nothing about.

2) Make it look like you care

Almost a part two of the one above, if someone doesn’t show up for a week or two, or longer, maybe you should call them. Make the new person in your young adults group feel like you actually care about them, even if you don’t. I have left 3 young adults groups now without saying a word and besides the odd random like on a FB photo, they never asked why I left. Granted maybe I should have told them, but to the leaders out there, you need to make the group feel like you care, that’s part of your job.

3) No, I don’t want to join a team yet

This one sounds the most harsh but let me explain. If I come to your church brand new, knowing no one previously, I don’t feel comfortable joining a team. It feels awkward, especially if the first impression of a church is that they’re unfriendly. It’s like being asked to go up on stage and sing a song you don’t know the words too. It’s TERRIFYING. Extremely awkward, and almost makes it look like your forcing yourself in. If you want me to join a team, make me feel welcome first, or ask God to give me a calling to join a team.

4) Healing > technology, coolness, branding, social media, anything else in the world

This is biblical. -insert verse here about being in the world but not of it aka maybe the most quoted verse of all time-. Technology, nice branding, social media, red bull, free food, coffee bars, worship songs with “life is hard as hell” as a lyric, weird worship song phrasing, modern music during fellowship, cool looking pastors and trendy worship teams will not “attract” people to the Lord on any deeper level than “oh yea this is cool”. I do not care about any of the above. I don’t even care if you have a building. If there is healing at your church, if the Holy Spirit is moving at your church, if people are visibly changed, if something God-oriented is happening at your church, I will go to your church. Nothing else matters to me. I couldn’t care less about nice branding (and that says a lot coming from a designer), I couldn’t care less if you have 2974917199 Instagram followers. If none of them are visibly showing the Lord in what they preach and how they act, I’m out. What people don’t realize is, all the stuff above actually doesn’t attract new people either. I’ve talked to non-Christian people, and they’re not stupid. You’re not going to trick them into believing with nice branding and free food. They will ONLY be there for the free food. If God isn’t moving, you’re not doing anything.

It really saddens me overall to write this, but I don’t think I’m alone. I’m REALLY sad that church hasn’t been friendly. I’m desperate to just meet a group thats friendly and dedicatedly serving the Lord. A couple of the groups I’m going to now have potential to be friendly in the future, but it’s still really hard, and I really don’t think it should be. I’m already a Christian. I can’t even imagine how hard it would be for someone who is struggling, or not a Christian, to join some of the churches I’ve been too. So, if you take anything out of this, please, for the future of young adults, just do what the bible says, and be even just a little bit friendly, please?

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

How To Get the Job That’s Not Posted

Reposted from: https://www.creatorspaces.xyz (but written by me) Hi, my name is Abbie Goulet. I am a graduate of GBDA Class of 2017, and I recently got hired as a User Experience Designer for the exact company I wanted to work for. This was a job I never applied for and a position that was never publicly posted. How did this happen?

Networking.

No, I didn’t go to every networking event in KW/Toronto area. I can honestly count on one hand the number of people I’ve given business cards too. I built my network a different way. I had a really great internship last year, and a month into that job I knew I wanted to work for that company again. I spent the remaining three months building connections at two of their offices, and then spent the rest of 2016 and most of 2017 making new connections, keeping up with old ones, and constantly connecting with everyone I met until I was offered a job. I built my network strategically, and as a result I now have a job that I really wanted.

Here are five real tips to building and maintaining a network that could get you a job:

If you’re meeting someone important, RESEARCH

This is one thing professors and career advisors will tell you about in school, but not many people actually take the time to do it. Take my advice and research, ESPECIALLY for networking events and interviews where you have a very limited number of minutes to talk to someone. Don’t ask these people about their company or where they worked in the past — research it! A quick LinkedIn profile search will tell you a lot of what you need to know. Come up with questions that will catch these people off guard and break them away from their more rehearsed answers. It’s fun! You’ll probably gain valuable information and actually get to know the person behind the big name.

2) Networking events are a stepping stone

Professors and career advisors will make networking events sound like the ultimate dream. If you go to one of these events, you will get the job of a lifetime, or at least give out like 50 business cards. The problem is, 99.9% of the time that doesn’t happen. Best case scenario you will have a great conversation and a LinkedIn connection. The great part is that this result isn’t bad! It just means there is a little bit more work involved, but still a lot of potential. Keep the connection strong, share things with this person that relate to your conversation or to work experience they have, and you never know what could happen.

3) Be a stalker (ish) and win the email game

One thing that professors never teach in business class, personal branding lectures, marketing, or any other class in school is… the email game. The email game is about strategy and quick thinking. Your ultimate opponent is the person who can hire you. This could be the manager of a team, a VP of a department you want to be in, or even a CEO. These opponents are powerful, but very hard to contact. They get hundreds of emails a day from people who are way more important than you. As you read this you’re probably thinking “this game sounds impossible to win”, but I promise there is a semi-easy, yet mostly unknown strategy to winning — be a stalker (ish).

To be a stalker (ish) and win the email game, the trick is to watch the times when your opponent emails you. Because your opponent gets many emails throughout the day, there is a good chance that they have a regular time when they check their inbox and respond. Use this to your advantage. If you find that your opponent tends to email between 1:00-3:00PM, send your next email to them around that time. I’ve found this to be very effective in getting quick replies, and I had an opponent that was very similar to the one I just described. They were a VP of a team I was really interested in working for, and it was REALLY hard to get ahold of them. I would go weeks (even months) with no replies. I stressed out many times thinking they were just going to forget about me. It was after a few months where I discovered that my opponent never emailed on Monday or Friday, and usually sent me replies back between 2:00-3:00PM. I started to email during this time, and I got replies minutes later, instead of days later. Answers to my questions came faster as I discovered that this strategy worked for many people I was talking too. My stress level went down, and my email inbox number went up.

Side note: This isn’t a fool-proof strategy, and there were many times when I still had to wait, or times when I emailed outside of the ideal range, but this strategy helped me feel less stressed and generally got replies a lot sooner than before.

4) Work really, really hard, even when it doesn’t feel worth it

In second year, I thought networking started at my first networking event. As I think back on it now, however, I realized that actual networking started in my first year of GBDA. It was here that I learned that if I worked hard to please people, people would like working with me. I spent extra time accommodating peoples work habits, and took the lead many times when it came to organizing deadlines and responsibilities. I ALWAYS got my part of the work done and would stay up all hours of the night to finish anything else that was left, even if it wasn’t originally my responsibility. All of this led to people wanting to work with me, and more importantly, people that I LIKED working with wanted to work with me. “Pick your groups” went from a semi-terrifying experience in first year to the phrase I wanted to hear. In a nutshell, I learned that hard work impresses people. So even if that GBDA project feels stupid or your group isn’t that great (GBDA’s you know what I mean), work hard anyway. The work ethic and skills you learn to impress people go a really long way in the work place.

5) Keep up with people, don’t give up, and (if you do this) pray

Job hunting is a long road, and for your first job, you’ll spend A LOT of time networking. This past summer there were many times where I was frustrated, tired of emails, resumes and cover letters that never felt like they were going anywhere. Rest assured, all the times I spent networking at the company I now work for were pieces to a puzzle that was leading me to the job I have now. They say the first job is the hardest, and it is, but it’s nearly impossible alone. Have your network help you by connecting with them, and get the job that isn’t posted. And if you pray, do that a lot too.

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

I’m alive again....

HEY what’s up anyone reading this? It’s been way too long. I was going to officially kill this blog, but then I realized I’ve written a few things this year and I really have no where to put them! I have also been inspired to write something for like 2 weeks now and I have nowhere to put it... so this blog is semi-alive again! It won’t be consistent anymore, but from time to time you might just find a new post.

So have fun reading stuff whenever I post it! :)

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

My Computer is at 8%...

The fact that my computer is at 8% kind of represents my life right now. I had plans to release part 2 of the FCP X vs. Premiere post (for anyone out there reading!) but these past few weeks are insane. A really good insane, but in the past two weeks I turned 22, graduated, and watched my sister go to prom. That involves celebrations in between, and then normal contract work too.... yea it’s just kind of nuts.

I will EVENTUALLY release part 2, just haven’t had the motivation to yet!

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

Final Cut Pro X vs. Premiere: Part 1 (Layouts)

I’m not sure how many video editors are going to read this, but I’ve wanted to do it for awhile now, so I decided to just go for it! Plus I sometimes get “so what program do you like better? Final Cut or Premiere?” - this “series” will fully answer that question. For reference:

FCP X = Final Cut Pro X (latest version)

Premiere = Adobe Premiere (latest, or second latest version.. I might not have updated yet) So in this part, we’re going to look at the layouts. Let’s start with Final Cut Pro X, because it looks prettier. 

FCP X’s layout is NICE. Flat design has done FCP X a lot of good. Things look simple, and that’s hard to pull off in a complicated editing program. For any previous iMovie users out there, FCP X immediately looks familiar. For any Premiere or FCP 7 (the previous version of Final Cut) users, FCP X looks either too simple and/or really, really different.

Because I feel like FCP X is used less than Premiere, I’ll explain FCP X’s layout a bit more in-depth than I will with Premiere. FCP X uses two types of blue boxes - a big one for footage, and a small one (usually underneath the big one) for audio. The blue can sometimes combine footage and audio - you’ll know if you see audio peaks underneath the preview picture. There is ONE main track, called a “Storyline”, and you can create additional story-lines above footage, but they don’t create a whole new track, it just sort of hangs there (see photo). Another big change is that FCP X also moves whenever you delete something - for example, if you delete one piece of footage in a long row of cut up footage, the rest of the footage in front of the one you just deleted will automatically shift left. If you want to have space between two pieces of footage, you have to insert a gap. Overall, the timeline change is HUGE, but it might be the only biggest change. The rest is pretty familiar. You have your “Library” window (Project window equivalent to Premiere), where you can find all of your libraries for any project, and projects (Sequences equivalent in Premiere) and footage within those libraries. You have your effects window, which is basically the same, but FCP X allows you to preview each effect before you use it, and you have your “editor” window, which allows you to adjust certain effects and keyframe.

I could go on, but then Part 1 one would go on forever, so that’s a brief description of FCP X’s timeline. Now, onto Premiere...

Compared to FCP X, I find Premiere a bit overwhelming, especially for beginners. Buttons, options, sliders, big bulky boxes - it’s a lot to take in. FCP X is better. There’s still some text, but it looks cleaner and a little more inviting with the nice colours. HOWEVER - Premiere’s layout is reminiscent of other Adobe products, and if you actually take the time to learn Premiere, you won’t be disappointed. People who have learned other Adobe products will have a basic understanding of the Adobe “language”, and might find this type of layout vaguely familiar. Premiere also looks a lot similar to other video editing applications out there. You have multiple tracks in your timeline, footage doesn’t automatically shift, and your tool bar is on the left. Premiere also uses recognizable colours - blue and green, and then adds a few more colours for other things. Blue is for footage, and sometimes for audio that was connected to the camera. Green is for just audio. Pink is for text, yellow is for transitions, and sometimes you’ll see red if you use Adobe Dynamic Link. Red and yellow are also used in rendering. The best thing about Premiere is it’s customizability. Once you get into it, all the options are literally right in front of you. Seemingly every part of every effect can be changed, edited and/or animated. Your keyboard can completely change in the program if you want to set up hotkeys (e.g. I want my “r” key to be the blade tool, instead of “c”), and there are a lot of options for key framing. As you can see in the diagram above, besides the timeline, there are similar boxes for the Project Viewer, Effects, Effects Controls, etc. like FCP X. Overall, Premiere has a steeper learning curve if you’re a beginner, but if you invest some time into it, it totally pays off.

That’s it for part 1! For the rest of the parts I’ll probably put in a “winner”, but for this I’d probably give it a tie. It really depends on what your skill level is.

Until next week!

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

There will definitely be a post for the next two Fridays :)

Trying to keep it consistent so anyone reading this knows when to look, but yea, I got inspired! Stay tuned!

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

Life’s Craziness Continues...

So it’s been a few weeks - whoops. There’s so many things to think about that I forget about this project. I don’t really know where I want to go with it... I think it needs a subject or something, not really sure. Anyway... to give a quick update.

1. No I don’t want to quit the blog, posts just might not be as often.

2. In the past two months I’ve been in Ontario, Ohio, Kentucky, Nashville and Florida. It’s been a blast travelling with some great friends! That’s also why I’ve been so busy. A few days after Disney World I got an invite to a wedding in Nashville for two friends that were at Disney with me, which was great because it made me feel less sad about leaving Disney (and them)! They have become really great friends, so it wasn’t even a question about whether or not I was going or not. Fantastic time at Disney, beautiful wedding in Nashville. We also got to Nashville a few days early, so we hung out all together quite a bit. Seriously so fun! I just got back from there on Tuesday.

3. I’ve also had two job interviews! One of them was for a 12 month contract position as a graphic designer, the other a UX position, full time. The 12 month contract didn’t work out, but I am getting another interview for the UX one soon. I wanted the UX position more, so I’m excited that there’s some movement on it. Lots of career developments. It’s kind of a weird time of life because it’s constantly up in the air - you never know where you’re going to land. There’s been some extreme trust in God, some worrying about the future, but also some excitement too!

I promise I have a cool post coming - I want to compare FCP X and Premiere eventually because even though the “readership” of this blog isn’t super high, I think I have a unique perspective because I actually started off using FCP X. I’ve heard some people saying they don't like it, but I want to give it a chance against Adobe haha. I might post some projects as well since I’ve been doing some creative work! We shall see when that actually happens, but for now things are good and crazy!

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

Life's Craziness and a New Perspective

Life is nuts. I have barely thought about this blog post until now (45 minutes-ish before I post it... 😅). Since Sunday I have been in two countries, a plane, train and automobile (ha...), been sad about Disney being over, nervous about a "meeting-that's-basically-an-interview", worried about future jobs after that interview, excitedly planning two trips the states, figuring out a house for 14 people, scheduling meetings for two small part-time jobs, helping my grandparents out after my grandpa's surgery.... the list is probably longer than that!! It's all mostly good. Some stress about the future and careers and typical "post-vacation" blues (especially with the people I went with - I don't see them often and I love hanging out with them!), but overall I guess it's better than being bored! It's just nuts instead... haha. Now I'm going to abruptly switch gears and talk about a verse I gained new perspective on: "When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it - quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you" - Matthew 6:4 (MSG) I've heard this before - do things in secret and you'll be rewarded. I always thought that the reason we did the -insert thing- in secret was for the reward. It's not that I don't like doing good things without a reward, I just always thought that was the main incentive when I read that verse. It is *one* incentive, but I realized that God works "in secret" too. When you add up everything God has done for everyone around the world (if you can even add it up), he gets VERY little credit. He also doesn't get the reward he deserves. Yes, he gets believers, but so he technically deserves so much more. He does all these good things because he loves us. We should do good things in secret not only for the reward, but to be more God-like. To do it out of love, and to know that by doing good things in secret, we will be more Christ-like. Maybe this was obvious to everyone else, and I definitely knew that we should do things not expecting a reward, but for this particular section I always focused on the reward, when in reality, we act more Christ-like when we do a good thing in secret! Anyway, that's it! Maybe I'll have something planned for next week, but this at least turned out better than I thought! :) have a good weekend, whoever is reading this! (Ps. Apologies if this is roughly written... I might have to edit in the morning, but I wanted to get it up before we were too far into Saturday!)

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

Where Dreams Come True... (ps. sorry it’s late)

I’ve been in Disney World all week some friends from Ohio, Nashville, Atlanta and Kentucky! Yes, it’s Disney Cow - a Blimeycow meet up, but we’ve all become friends because of the Nashville meet-up, and this time we all stayed in the same house!

MAN it’s been an absolute blast. I’ll post some photos next week, but I’ve just had so much fun hanging out with a bunch of great friends at the most magical place on earth, haha!

So I don’t have much to say, other than I’m sorry for the late post but I’ve literally been having too much fun, haha!

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

Happy Good Friday! That seems like a weird thing to say but even though Jesus went through all that pain, he still chose to say us. Amazing! I just posted my favourite set of verses on Facebook, and I'll attach it here too. I just love how it played out. The criminal was one of the few people in that crowd that knew Jesus didn't deserve the punishment he was given, and Jesus forgave him despite the INTENSE pain he was under. Yea, just always been one of my favourites. Other than Easter, I am off to OHIO tomorrow :) meeting friends who live there - I think many people who read this know I'm a big fan of Blimeycow. Through that channel I've gotten to meet A TON of amazing, nice, friendly people that have become really great friends. Victory and Susan are two of them :) Then Monday we're off to DISNEY to meet up with even more great friends! 😃🎊 That's it! I wish it was a little more inspiring but it's honestly been a CRAZY week. A bunch of work for a contract job came up (from my old internship place - a company I loved working for) which was really fun but made things pretty busy when combining it with finishing an essay, arranging a meeting for another contract position and applying to a few jobs. It's been nuts! So the vacation will be nice, man I'm so excited!

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

Mumii

For those who don’t know, I’m in my final term of GBDA (Global Business and Digital Arts), and I had a design capstone course where we had to create a solution for the experience of waiting in hospital waiting rooms. I JUST finished everything for it this morning, so I figured I’d talk about it!

The project, Mumii (pronounced Moo-me) is an application that helps mom’s through the early stages of labour. When trying to come up with an idea for this project, our first thought was to tackle the hospital emergency rooms. We actually went and sat in two different ER rooms, but we weren’t super excited about the ER room. We actually got excited about the idea of designing for a maternity ward. It turns out that when moms are at the early stages of labour, but not ready to give birth, they need to wait and walk around, sometimes for hours, to help get things moving. This process gets especially boring for the supporting person (husband, mom, etc.) who has to just wait with the mom for hours until she’s ready.

So we came up with an app and extension. The app has three main sections - data; which measures fetal heart rate and contractions, tasks; which gives the mom and supporting partner tasks to complete, and AR; which is an augmented reality experience where the mom and supporting partner can walk down the hallways and, when they approach certain artwork, they can hold their phone over it and a tulip will open and close to the rhythm of a breathing exercise. If you don’t know what AR is, think Snapchat filters and Pokemon Go - they use augmented reality :)

It was a great project. It was an honour and so much fun to be on a team with so many talented designers, user experience designers, artists, and fellow GBDAs that I’m happy to call my really good friends. I also got to learn a bit more about the business side of things! My goal on every team I work on is to fill a need instead of always play to my strengths. It’s been hard, but it has also made me fairly adaptable! In the past I’ve been the designer, video editor, project manager, camerawoman, and for this project, chief financial officer, haha! While I would say my strengths are video editing and design, I actually found some of the business stuff not too bad. It was cool to see how we could actually make our design idea a reality.

Wow, I guess this is getting long. My last BIG project of GBDA is complete… and on my instagram I just posted my graduation photo. Crazy crazy! Time is flying TOO fast.

Until next time… (ps. I wish this wasn’t so late but oh well)

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

What’s up with Facebook?

Anyone notice the iOS version of Facebook changing like, daily? In the past month I’ve seen Facebook go from a 4 icon menu to a 5 icon menu, back to 4, then to 5 again. They’ve added stories (like instagram… which they own…….), games, gifs, snapchat-like camera features… it’s overwhelming!! So my frustration channeled into a last-minute blog post I figured I would post now instead of the one I had planned (because you know, logic).

I noticed some of Facebook’s changes have happened even within the last week, and the direction seems a little funny. I can’t tell if they are trying to be like snapchat, rival instagram or what, but it seems weird to me that they would:

1. Try and rival their co-company, Instagram, through stories 2. Exclude a huge chunk of their current audience (30-even 70 year olds) by adding features that even I have a hard time understanding. 3. Try and (I think) attract millennials, who probably aren’t even on there right now

It just seems weird, and I’m definitely NOT a Facebook hater. I find Facebook a pretty nice social network. Almost everyone around my age and older is on there, and a lot of people check it regularly. Facebook is also useful for things like user testing (e.g. spreading surveys) and organizing secret surprise videos (haha… https://www.abbiegoulet.com/global-thank-you ).  If anything, I’m probably closer to a Facebook advocate vs. someone who doesn’t like it, but right now I just don’t get the direction. It’s confusing, and the multiple changes make it a negative experience because I don’t know where anything is!

To give Facebook some credit, I did really like the games and gifs. The games are actually good and I really got into some of them (endless lake… 12 000 points later), and the gifs made sense because other networks were also incorporating gif keyboards. I just don’t get the stories and the weird menus. Like the gif keyboard used to be it’s own icon, one click and it was there. Now it’s three clicks… three clicks! That makes a UX designer cringe, and it probably decreased Facebook’s gif usage just because the keyboard is so complicated to find. Maybe they’re just testing stuff, and they probably figure their audience probably isn’t going to leave very easily. I do feel, however, that if Facebook is trying to do the third thing I mentioned (attract millennials)… why not go to the network they’re actually on, their network, Instagram! Find a way to make Facebook more attractive through a feature on Instagram… or something other than changing the messenger and Facebook app a million times.

Anyway, that’s my little rant. Ended quickly, and it might not even be that well written, but oh well. When I look back in a few months at old blog posts, maybe it will be fixed. Let me know what you think if you end up reading this all the way through!

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

There are two phrases in every class that are the simultaneously the best and worst phrases:

1. The slides will be posted at the end of every class (or even: these lectures are being recorded and available online with the slides)

2. The only things you need to know for exams and midterms are all written on the slides and/or the text book OR there is no exam or midterm for this course

Abbie you’re insane there’s no way those could be bad.

They aren’t the worst because I just love taking notes (definitely not). The phrases are lifesavers for midterms, exams and projects. They are the worst because as soon as I hear those two phrases together I immediately start re-prioritizing the time I spend in class. In other words, my brain says “go to class but work on ______ during class” or worse “go to class, but there’s this conversation happening on twitter you need to check it”.

I do well in school (don’t worry), and I always ask questions and go to office hours if needed, but sometimes paying attention is difficult, especially when the lecture content is dry and all the important stuff is available online whenever I need it. So recently, I’ve been trying the method in this photo. Just picking out key phrases and doodling them in this little sketchbook that I got on-sale at Chapters. I tried it at a conference where we had over 4 hours of back-to-back keynotes, and I actually found myself less distracted. It’s also helped in longer periods of class time too. I have VERY limited drawing abilities (“I have limited drawing abilities” is probably an understatement) but this has just been helping me stay focused and think!

That’s my new discovery over the past few weeks. Next week I have three presentations, two of them I’m presenting and one of them is two of my group members, so maybe I’ll write something about that. We shall see - and thanks for reading if you’re here! :) If you have any other cool ways to help pay attention, let me know (because, you know, I have my last week of school ever next week and I totally should not have posted this in third year…. ha)…

[lemonsmakegrapejuice-blog1]

A crazy week...

This week has been a really busy one. My original plan was to do Final Cut Pro X vs. Premiere for this week’s post, but I realized I’ll have to go pretty in-depth in order to make a fair comparison. So I will do it, just not soon.

Because this week has been so busy (and kind of interesting), I figured I’d recap it. Here’s five things I did this week:

1. Researched a lot about maternity wards, pregnancy and labour No I’m not pregnant.

A group of friends/classmates and I are working on a project for hospital maternity wards. We want to design an experience for pregnant mothers and supporting partners to help them through the early stages of labour, especially the walking experience. Last week we had people pretend to be pregnant moms and have contractions (see my favourite tweet of all time below) as a part of our user test, which was really funny. Tomorrow we will be doing some paper prototyping and a user test with those prototypes. Next week we’ll probably get into some nicer UI design and maybe some 3D modelling. Should be fun!

2. A LOT OF EMAILING This is my last semester, and all classes/assignments will be done by mid-April. That means the job hunt is in full swing. Right now it’s a mix of job post searching and emailing people I’ve connected with. I have some contacts from my last internship that have been really, really helpful, so I’m hoping to get back with that company again. We shall see!

3. Going to bed at odd hours I am definitely a night owl. I will work until all hours of the night to finish something, but I’d rather not do it in the morning if I don’t have too. I also have all of my classes in the afternoon this semester, so that makes for a pretty weird sleep schedule sometimes. I still usually get 8 hours, but the times are definitely not normal (2:00AM, anyone?).

4. Planning for Disney! I’m headed to Disney in a month, so a group of friends and I have been doing some planning for it. I’m SUPER excited about that. It’s going to be a blast and a great way to end the semester.

5. Taking Mackie for Walks and Hanging Out With My Dad Mackie is my dog. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. It’s been nice to be just with my dad for a bit!

That’s it! I wish it were more thought out (especially for the second post!) but this week has been insane and I’m afraid if I did pick a topic, I wouldn’t do it justice. I also don’t have anything tooooo creative to show yet, but that’s coming soon. At least with this post I’ll look back years from now and be like “wow that was a crazy week back in 2017”.

Hope whoever is reading this is having a good (and maybe less crazy) week too :)