http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htoCf1Owk4I

Sorry for the late post… I’ve had nothing but headaches with technology on this.

So my project began with a feeling of nostalgia—with the end of the year coming up so quickly, I was constantly reminiscing about my time here at Duke.  Similarly, my diving career had just come to an end.  Having consumed 10 years of my life, it’s been tough to let go of it all.  And so I figured, what better way to spend time lingering in the past than to make a video, with narration and pictures and a few video clips, to recap it all?

That being said, my project starts with a some words on the screen, telling a little about my story.  I then talk about my entry into college, discussing some of my worries, fears, etc., before I really even bring up my time at Duke.  I wanted to set the stage for my turnaround (and I had a pretty big one), so I emphasized the partying and disappointment (in my diving) that I felt in the beginning of my video.  I wanted to show a progression, so when I talked about my surgery, I made sure to note that it was at this point that I decided to make a commitment to turn things around.  Not surprisingly, a little bit of work ethic produced better grades and better results in the pool, and I spend the middle of my video talking about those strides that I made.  At the end of the video, I look back on all the people I met and experiences that I’ve had that have changed my life completely.  I end with a narrative that kind of brings the story full circle, and I decided to have a little fun with it in the end, just to show that I’m not a completely different person (I still like to have fun!), I just have a different perspective and a different set of priorities now.  I then have a couple of my best dives from over the past two years inserted at the end, just as sort of a fun thing to finish it with.

In the end, I loved doing the project, but I’m just frustrated with how time consuming the technology aspect was.  I was prepared to spend hours recording, editing, etc., but I wasn’t ready to spend equally as long (if not longer!) trying to download programs to compress or convert files, letting those programs run, using different platforms for different parts of the essay, etc., etc., etc.  It’s definitely been quite the experience!