IS this The End?

Hello and Goodbye.

Almost 4 month ago I started this blog as it was a requirement for one of my class- Multimedia Journalism, JMC 220. At first I was struggling with it. I did not have a plan, I did not know who to interview, what questions to ask, how to avoid academic style of writing, to which I was so used, and to start writing more freely, the way I know I would like. Almost 4 months later, I am not struggling anymore. I have a plan. I know who to interview. I know how to ask uncomfortable questions in a comfortable way so that I get a satisfying answer. And vice versa. I can ask for the most comfortable truth in a very disturbing, but influential way. Get even more than just the truth. And I do write more freely, I believe. Come on, I even let myself use slang and censured swear words. If that is not an improvement, then WAT? Oh, and questions…my favorite questions that I use even in research papers which is, by the way, a total mistake. Now I know how to use questions, where in the text to ask my readers… for the obvious.

If I have to be honest, I did not learn this FROM this class. I learned it THROUGHout this class. MMJ set the foundations of my career as a journalist. I tested my abilities to ask random people for interviews, to bribe friends to participate in videos, to spend 4 hours on editing a video, ignoring the midterm I had on the next day.  And I did it. And so did all of my colleagues. We “survived” as Professor Melody Gilbert likes to say. I am so happy for all of them. I believe they had fun and they all learned the 80/20 rule of Twitter. Now that I mentioned Twitter… Gosh, I never thought I would be obsessed with another social platform other than Facebook. But here it is…. My first thought when I find something on the Internet is to TWEET about it. I used to hate even the verb…TWEET…it sounds like something very annoying. Now I do it all the time. I tweet on events, I tweet on parties, I tweet on video shooting, I tweet from EVERYWHERE (well, not from the bathroom..I have not gone that far…for now.)

We are all up and running, just the way a real journalist should be.

I believe this class just realized my full potential, gave way to what was already there to grow. Grow steadily, with time. For this reason, I am not going to “abandon” my blog. This is not going to be ONE OF THOSE school assignments that you can just not wait to be over. This blog means more to me. So I am going to continue asking random people for interviews, bribing friend for videos, spending 4 hours on editing.

With this post I am not saying goodbye to my readers and to my blog.  I am saying goodbye to a class I took during my sophomore year at AUBG. A class that taught how to use Thinglink and Storify, how to work with Moviemaker, what is VO and SOT and NEVER TO PUT A DOT OUTSIDE THE BRAKETS. I am saying goodbye to Professor Melody Gilbert (at least for now) who taught me that deadlines are more than IMPORTANT and that being late is just not an option. I am not saying goodbye to my blog. I might shift the perspective and the topic, but it is always going to be there, for those who still have not gone on Work and Travel. Or for those who do not know that red does not go with pink (that much.) Or for those who need an advice at that very moment of their life and stumble upon my blog “50 shades of Souls.” Changed perspective, as I said. These are only future projects, though. A blog is like your personal journal; like a diary even. There are a number of examples in my class that used their blog posts for their own “adventures.” Or for the “adventures” of other that are part of their life.

I am not going to say much about my blog because if you have ever read even a single post, you already know what it is about. For those of you who have just know discovered it, well… it is about something that I was passionate about in the beginning of the semester and that I am still passionate about. Because it brought such a huge change to my life, you cannot even imagine.

You remember how I promised to reveal my secret when I am finishing with the blog? Most of you probably assumed that this is going to be at the end of the semester, that I am going to put the GRANDE FINALE and just leave it and forget about it. Well…not really, no…sorry for the disappointment, but if you want to know WAT happened to me on August 22^nd, 2014, while I was on my WAT in Anchorage, Alaska, you gotta stay and wait for me to get fed up with asking people around. But I am warning you…I am quite persistent when I am interested in something. I might not write every single week, especially not during the holidays (I just cannot wait for Christmas, I LOVE HOLIDAYS) but you will hear from me from time to time, when I decide that there is an interesting story I want to tell you. Like all those stories I have shared by far. About Georgi and his adventurous nature, about Ventzi who saw the not-so-sugar-coated face of the US, about Boyana who changed so much, even her friends cannot recognize her, about Ceco who I now call Mr. MG (for Magellan), or about Ani, who found her true love. Like all those stories I am about to share….one of them being mine.

Thank you, people. Thank you, friends. Thank you, everybody…

Almost 4 months ago I started this blog. Almost 4 months later I am saying Hello again.

And Goodbye.

You decide if what you want to hear is Hello…or Goodbye.