Sunday, 1
Strategized with Peggy for two hours. Worked on video scripts. Had planned to record, but too busy with revising my calendar, making new drafts, adding a post to my website that coordinates with my second YT channel.
Monday, 2
I recorded, edited, and scheduled two videos for tomorrow. Then I worked on a course I bought about a year ago about making courses. It’s an excellent course and I’m so glad I went through it when I first bought it. Today, I was able to jump straight to the modules that I need now to finalize my course on being an expat as an introvert. I’ve got a lot of work to do to get it all ready, but I’m beginning to see the light at the end of this tunnel. I don’t know if you remember that I’ve talked about making a course for online access at several times in the past. Well, this time, I might actually get it done.
Tuesday, 3
Talk with Jeanne for an hour and a half.
I decided to do a video ‘Ramadhan in Indonesia Through the Eyes of a Non-Muslim.’ I’d hesitated to to a video about Ramadhan, the Muslim holy month, but finally decided to do it. So I worked on the script for quite a while and am happy with it. I also worked on the course that I’ll be offering on my second channel.
Wednesday, 4
Strategized with Peggy for an hour and then talked with Susi for an hour.
Made revisions on two video scripts that I hope to record tomorrow. Peggy has convinced me to do a video without a script for my introvert (2nd) channel about one of my previous problems of my introversion. I can do that when I’m relating a story about myself. But when it’s information that I’ve had to research, I really need a script. So tomorrow, I’ll go ahead and record a video about a personal experience without a script, but I’ll also record a script – just in case.
I’ve been trying to keep up with responding to comments more regularly, but Indonesians seem to like writing a complete essay when they comment. I’m not complaining – I love that they comment on my videos and the comments tell the YT algorithm that my video is worth suggesting to viewers.
Thursday, 5
I recorded 4 videos – 2 for Saturday and 2 for next Tuesday. After a very rejuvenating nap, I edited and scheduled one of the videos for Saturday. I also watched an art tutorial. I don’t have time for painting now, but watching art tutorials is a nice break and still keeps me at least a little connected to painting, which I hope to get back to eventually.
Friday, 6
Tuesday, 10
I did final revisions on four video scripts and then recorded all four. Tonight, I’m going out to dinner at a place that has great food.
Saturday, 14
It’s been a crazy week. Lots of tech problems and in the end, I decided to upgrade my internet/tv package, but that involves being totally without internet or tv for 3 to 7 days until they come and replace the hardware for my connection. I know I can use my iPhone as a hotspot to give my pc internet access during the 3 to 7 days. So I walked out of the office, and then wondered if they couldn’t leave my current plan in place until they came to replace the hardware. So I walked back inside and waiting until the clerk was available. I asked the question, and she said no – that it would have to be turned off in advance. Then finally, she said why not use the portable internet access gizmo in the meantime. Why didn’t she mention that the first time I sat down with her??? Well, if you don’t ask the right question, you probably won’t get all the info you need. Anyhow, I bought the gizmo for approx $30 and will use that until my place in line comes up.
Sunday, 15
Well, things are still crazy, but at least, I got one video edited and scheduled for Tuesday. Will do the second one tomorrow. The internet company still hasn’t turned off my service, so I guess the 2-7 days starts tomorrow (Monday). I’ve got the gadget I bought to keep me hooked up to internet. Tested it on my laptop and it works like a charm. I thought it was going to be complicated to set it up, but it was a breeze. It’ll probably be slower than what I’m used to, but that’s ok – just want to be connected.
Monday, 16
Recorded four videos. Then edited and scheduled two for tomorrow. Last night as I was falling asleep, I decided that I needed to do a video about the impact on Indonesia with the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. And I couldn’t wait to do it later, so I worked and worked and got it ready to record and edit. Very happy that it will go live Tues morning (Indonesia time).
And yes, things are still a bit crazy. The lady at the internet company said my internet would go down until they were able to schedule the hardware replacement for my upgrade to 200mbps. And that’s why I bought the portable internet tool – so that I wouldn’t have any down time. But strangely enough, they have not cut my previous service yet. Someone doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Tuesday, 17
I took a day off from YT video making and watched a bunch of art tutorials. Sani and I used the new Heusom Silent Nail Groomer to file some of the dogs’ nails. It went definitely better than cutting their nails.
Wednesday, 18
Strategized with Peggy two and a half hours. Sani and Ng left mid-morning for the Idul Fitri holiday.
Messed around with all kinds of stuff, including some art tutorials.
Shadow was sick in the morning – wouldn’t eat anything morning or midday. Finally, she ate around 3pm and seemed to be feeling better.
Thursday, 19
Shadow still is not 100%, but she ate one of the treats and her breakfast. Yesterday, she wouldn’t even eat the treats that I keep in my pocket to dole out to the doggies during the day. I get so worried when a doggie is obviously under the weather because they just can’t tell me anything.
Got a notice about a new tool that Keywords Everywhere has in beta form – free for now. I gave it a try, and it’s great. It gives keywords that are surging right now and also indicates some keywords that have peaked or are going steady. I immediately got some keywords for new video scripts and started working on three of them for my introvert channel.
Friday, 20
Shadow is still sick – wouldn’t eat this morning. She ate both morning and evening yesterday, so I was surprised when she turned down both her food and her treats this morning. But at least, she doesn’t seem as sick as Wednesday morning. The problem is that this holiday week would be like trying to get a vet on Christmas day in the US.
I worked on videos for next week. The video I did about how the block at the Strait of Hormuz is affecting Indonesia is doing really well. So now, I’ve worked on a video script about Indonesia’s gas fields – a good next video since Israel has bombed some of Iran’s gas fields. Planning to record tomorrow after final revisions.
Saturday, 21
Shadow kept refusing food and I was really scared. How long can a skinny dog go without food?? Anyhow, she finally gave in this evening and ate a small dinner. I’m really relieved. Tomorrow, I plan to fry some ground beef to beef her up a little more – that’s if she’ll eat it. Here’s hoping.
I got a great idea to follow up Tuesday’s video about Indonesia’s oil supply because of the block of oil tankers and other ships at the Strait of Hormuz. At first, I didn’t think it was a big deal – so far away. But when I looked into it and found that Indonesia gets some oil from refineries in Singapore which gets its crude oil for the Middle East, I realized Indonesia is affected.
Then last night, I thought I should do a follow up video about this issue. Did it this morning with help from both ChatGPT and Claude. Then I recorded 5 videos for the coming week and into the following week. Edited the follow up video and scheduled it for tomorrow morning. I hope I’m not being too optimistic to think that this one should also do really well.
Sunday, 22
I spent hours responding to comments. I was really busy the previous few days so let them slide, and the video I did about Indonesia’s oil reserves brought out a bunch of people who wanted to rant about corruption. They think other countries don’t have much corruption. What a fantasy! I had to delete some people because they were too brash about the topic. Won’t see comments from them again!
I’d planned to paint today – didn’t realize it would take all morning to respond to comments. Maybe I’ll still have time for a little painting this afternoon. Many months ago, I did two abstract paintings that I supposed I’d use as backgrounds for something else. But I loved them so much, I couldn’t stand the idea of covering them up. Then yesterday, I watched a tutorial on abstract art and I remembered my two that have been sitting around and I realized they were a similar type of abstract that the teacher was doing. And a brick fell on my head to give me an ‘aha’ moment – no need to use them as backgrounds – they just beautiful abstract paintings.
Shadow is fairly back to normal although she’s still weak. But she’s eating, so I know we’re headed in the right direction.
Monday, 23
I edited and scheduled a video for tomorrow. Then I worked on two paintings that have been sitting around here for a very long time.
Tuesday, 24
I had several video scripts ready for my Indonesian channel – follow-ups to the oil video that is doing really really well. But the first follow-up is not doing well. The first oil video currently has 76,500 views and the follow-up has only 2.000 views. I just don’t get it, but not even the YT creators who are making big money can predict the YT algorithm. Chat advised that it would be good to do a few follow-up videos because the YT algo would recognize the new ones as related to the one that’s doing great. But Chat was wrong. In fact, I tried some series before and did not like the results.
So I’ve decided to scrap the follow-up oil videos for now – might use some of them later. Instead, I’m working on a few Indonesian mysteries. The first one is that there are people who think Indonesia is the lost island of Atlantis. I was shocked when one of my viewers mentioned it, so I had to check it out. And now I’m going to see if it’s interesting enough for my Indonesian viewers. I’ll bet that not many Indonesians have heard of this theory, but the big question is whether they’ll like it.
So I spent all day working on new videos for my YT Indonesian channel. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get a little painting in again.
Wednesday, 25
Mimin is back. Sani phoned yesterday to tell me that she’s sick so can’t come back right away.
Thursday, 26
Sani is still sick.
I recorded 4 videos and had a couple already recorded, so I’ve now got enough through the end of next week. But then I came across something about how gas prices are not rising in Indonesia like in the rest of the world, so I decided to do a video script about that right away so that I could publish today. And of course, my iPhone after recording said it couldn’t download it because I didn’t have enough space. I deleted a bunch of previous videos, but then I found out that it takes days for the iPhone to catch up with calculating storage on the phone. I googled so many ideas about how I could get the storage updated quickly, but nothing worked. So I had to use my old iPhone – recorded it again. The image isn’t very good – that’s why I got a new iPhone. When I buy a phone, I always get the max space possible, but unfortunately, only the one with 128 was available here at that time. So I think I’ll be trading it in pretty soon for a model with more space.
I wasted so much time trying to find a way to get the iPhone to update the storage. Lesson – delete videos asap after I’m sure they’re on my hard drive. I was too busy to eat until after 4pm. Maybe if I’d eaten, I’d have done better research on figuring out how to update the storage!!! But in any case, I got my new video written, recorded, edited, and published, and after 3 hours, it’s doing well already. I just hope it continues on that path.
Friday, 27
It took hours and hours to respond to all the comments on my Indonesian channel. That’s what I get for letting 3 days go by. And I’m not complaining. The video I did about the Hormuz situation has 100,000 views. I call that viral. And the video I did when I got a brilliant idea to make one about how Indonesian gas prices aren’t rising even though it’s a big crisis everywhere else is also doing great – 25 hours 15,200 views. So it’s on its way to do very well. And when you get views like that, you also get lots of comments. So no, I’m not complaining.
I edited and scheduled a video for my second channel, which is coming along – slowly but moving in the right direction.
Saturday, 28
Met up with Anida at the food court AmPlaz. We chatted for two hours. She and I have a lot in common – not wanting to be tied down, difficult to make long-term commitments. She has to decide whether to go ahead with getting Dutch citizenship vs keeping her Indonesian citizenship. She wants to retire here, but a Dutch passport would give her more freedom in Europe.
Sunday, 29
I tested using my iPad to record videos on with my teleprompter app. It works great. My iPad is pretty old and doesn’t hold a charge, so I wouldn’t be able to record several videos in a row like I usually do. So I’m thinking about getting a new iPad and forgetting about using the iPhone for recording. I also did some research on what simple-to-use cameras could be used – that are not too expensive.
I’m still waiting for the storage on my iPhone to update. When I googled the issue, I found that a lot of people complain about this. There’s supposed to be a way to force immediate update, but none of the directions seem work on my iPhone 15 – even though my search for this issue was definitely for this model.
I have some videos ready for next week, but worked on two more scripts that I want to publish quickly because they’re timely. Hope to record both tomorrow.
Monday, 30
It turned out that recording on my 11″ iPad was better than using my iPhone. I don’t know the percentage, but a lot of YT creators record on their phone – whether iPhone or Android. I don’t recall even one teacher/creator/YTer suggesting recording on an iPad. I edited one of the videos I recorded yesterday and it was good – both the visual and the audio. What made it so good in my mind was that the teleprompter app that I use showed more text and that made it easier for me to follow along.
I still need to get a new iPad to replace this old one so that the battery will last longer, and I’d originally thought to get an iPad Mini, but given that I love having a larger screen showing more of the script, I’ll stick with an 11″ model. But it’s not urgent for the moment. Having trouble with the storage on my iPhone really had a silver lining.
Tuesday, 31
I edited and scheduled a video to go live this afternoon. Then I got back to the YT course and did a couple of lessons.
The internet guy is supposed to upgrade my packet today, but it’s 4:30pm and still not here. We’ll see.
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