My words, now in video format! Whee!

Experimenting a little here, intended to be the first in a series:

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Forgive my appearance, I was working on my car this morning.  Plus my webcam apparently sucks =P

Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

Thank you for posting this here for everyone to see and listen to, Amanda.


*Also, I'm so happy to hear you say "Yumeko", because now I know how to properly pronounce it! Until just now, I thought it was pronounced with a long "e" (You-mee-koh), now I know it's "You-meh-koh".  

You're welcome ;)

Thanks for sharing your life experience with us Yumeko, I really admire you.

It may not look like it but I'm actually forcing myself to talk slow in this video. I usually talk a mile a minute so it took some concentration to talk slower than normal (although there's a few spots where I accidentally talk fast). And yes I have a lisp, which I only notice when I'm hearing a recording of myself. And yes I have a stutter, a PTSD side-effect that I'll discuss in a later video ;P

Thank you! Great work. Hope you're doing ok.

Thank you Amanda! We are all curious about part 2. I know you haven´t a good time, so I hope you will have a better time now.

I think you're very brave to talk about and share your experience with the world. Hope you're doing well and I look forward to the next video.

Part 2:

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Yumeko-chan wrote:

Part 2:

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Thanks, I already saw it and is great to get to know little by little the whole high school day of one of the witnesses. I am waiting now the next one

Excellent video, Amanda!

Great video, Amanda! Your glasses are really cute, by the way.  

Thanks for sharing, Amanda.

Thank you for sharing this! Looking forward to hearing more from you.

Thanks a lot Amanda, really looking forward to part 3.

This is a weird question, but you said you went to Dutch Creek Elementary. Coming from a Dutchman, what's Dutch about it?

No idea, it's just a name to me ;)

Also, it's my birthday today but I still made part 3!

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happy birthday amanda, hope you have a great time.

You are amazing!

I hope you had a nice birthday, Amanda. Thanks for posting these--I look forward to them each week like I would a TV show!

Part 4:

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Not feeling good today so I'm a bit scatterbrained in this one. Plus now I'm realizing there's some details I left out, but I guess I'll have to fill those in in the next video.

Well...I blew an ovarian cyst very shortly after I recorded part 4...that explains a lot...

Part 5:

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Amanda, you poor thing, it is just one thing after the other for you, isn't it? You've had a lot of health issues. I hope this is the end of them, it's horrible to say this, but you probably don't even blink an eye at these things anymore due to them happening so frequently.

I sincerely pray that you can go one year without any kind of hassle, tragedy or problem. It's about time, you deserve a year of peace (or preferably, a nice solid decade of peace, calm, and relative normalcy).

Thank you, once again, for sharing all of this with everyone. My hope is that whenever you do things like this; making videos, or engaging in conversation, that it helps to somewhat heal the wounds this has caused within you. I know they'll never entirely go away, but I really do pray and hope that it is helping to minimize it, at least moderately.

Yumeko-chan wrote:

Part 5:

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Thanks again Amanda, I hope you are really feeling better today.

I'd really be interested to hear about what it was like at Chatfield! I don't know much about that experince other than the split days.

One year without ANYTHING happening would sure be nice, huh? Sometimes I wonder what the heck I did in my past life to deserve what my life has been like these last fifteen years! =P

This is actually the SECOND ovarian cyst I've blown. I had another one a year and a half ago that was absolutely massive (my stomach went flat and I lost ten pounds in the ensuing weeks) and it was even more painful than this one.

I just finished video 3, its not the tragedy itself that appeals to me but the story of hope and the challenges you had to face and your will to survive.  You survived Columbine, your gonna be fine don't let small obstacles get in the way of your goals.  If you made it out of there alive without a scratch, somebody or something must be looking out for you.  You were strong then and you are strong now, concentrate on your goals and keep your spirits up.  
I went to the Columbine memorial a few years ago, it was inspiring to see all the footnotes and positive messages on the walls there next to rebel hill.  Hard to believe something like that happened in such a nice community, its beautiful there next to the foot hills.  Its good to talk and tell your side of the story, I hope this has helped you express things and get stuff off your chest.  Its all part of the healing process that never seems to go away when you experience a tragedy of that magnitude.

Now that I've watched your vids I read your comments on this forum in your voice.   

One of the things that surprised me from this video series was that at least one student (Amanda) stopped in the offices or rooms adjacent to the library before finally evacuating the school (at least this was how I understood what you were saying Amanda).

It was always my understanding that all the students left their hiding places and then directly exited the school through the north facing door. Amanda, is that wrong, or was it a gradual, disorderly exit? Did other students stop in the offices or adjacent rooms?

Nope, just me. I couldn't even tell you why I did that.

Amanda, I have one more question about the students' escape from the library.

Randy Brown has claimed that the door through which the students escaped was open during the shooting in the library and that the police officers outside were able to hear the shooting.

Was the door open the whole time, or just after students left?  If the door was open, would those immediately outside it have been able to hear what was going on?

Obviously it was open after you left, as you can see here.

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By the way, everyone should make a donation to Amanda's grad school fund. There have been 16000 posts on this site. If everyone gave fifty cents a post she would already have met her goal. She is a special member of this community and has been very generous with her time. Let's be generous back.

Lasttrain: I have no way of knowing, sorry.

And thank you for mentioning my grad school fund. I actually got my first donation a little bit ago!

I love your videos, Amanda. ;-;

A few links of interest:

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YouTube has a 15-minute limit, but my webcam doesn't! So we've accidentally got a two-parter this week!

Part 6a:
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Part 6b:
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I have $100 raised in my GoFundMe! That covers half of my books! Wanna help me cover the other half?

Another two-parter because my battery died in the middle! (You can actually hear the warning if you listen closely in 7a)

Part 7a: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Part 7b: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I just got back from North Carolina (I live in Alabama, so, ten hour drive, haha) because my uncle's intenstines burst, and this is the second thing that I'm most looking forward to, lol.

Guys, if you watched the videos, donate to the fund.

lasttrain wrote:

Guys, if you watched the videos, donate to the fund.

I will donate soon when I get a bit more money, Amanda deserve it but you shouldnt say that we have to if we watch her videos because you dont know who can or not and YouTube is free.

Mj has a point, and I'm not going to beg.

Mj2beat wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

Guys, if you watched the videos, donate to the fund.

I will donate soon when I get a bit more money, Amanda deserve it but you shouldnt say that we have to if we watch her videos because you dont know who can or not and YouTube is free.

I didn't say you have to. I just urged you to do so.

Even if it's only $5.

Yep, it happened. Somebody commented on part 3 accusing me of embellishing my story for sympathy. (I deleted the comment and banned him from my channel.) WHY would I do that?!

Hi Amanda, I don´t want to bother you. If I do, ignore me please. My question: did you know Marla Foust?

Nope.

Thank you.

I don't know if that person is on this board or not, but I just now had someone post on 7b suggesting I'm telling my story just to raise money for grad school (since I have the link to my GoFundMe in the last few videos). That's not it at all. I actually got accepted AFTER I started making the videos. The videos are more for me than for anyone else. As far as part 8 goes, in which I'm gonna cover the three years I got molested, I don't even have to divulge that. I can keep it secret if I want. But I'm not going to, because it played a large part in molding me and my PTSD. And it's to show Mike that I'm not going to hide what he did! That he was taking advantage of my mental state to get some quick feels for three years! And that to this day, I have NO self-esteem because of him! I've been ill all week just thinking of having to record that video tomorrow!

I'm not making anybody donate. It's simply a suggestion. If no one wants to, that's fine. If anyone here is honestly bugged by me linking to my GoFundMe, I'll remove it from my signature. But to accuse me of making the videos simply to get donations is disgusting.

That guy sounds like a troll on Youtube. No one from this website would write such horrible things to you.

Look at some Rachel Scott videos on Youtube. There is always a handful of rude comments ("stuck up bitch", "she deserved to die", etc).

We are so grateful that you are even making these videos.