Countdown: 1792 days left

Blog members: 15

Facebook friends: 185

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12
Youtube video views: 215
Myspace friends: 2

Hello!

No I did not forget you guys!! I apologize for not keeping my promise of writing every day, I decided it was too much work. So instead I'm going to reduce the frequency to once a week, every Friday night (or Saturday or Sunday, depending on my schedule). Hope you will forgive me!

And the thing is I don't have that many amazing news to share with you today, except maybe one... On Thursday I attended the Laugh Out Proud night in Yuk Yuk's club, it's a comedy night for the gay pride week. The person who was hosting the night (Martha Chaves) is a south american comedian that I saw perform a few months ago, she is really really cool. I actually got to exchange a few words with her and when I came back home, I managed to find her on Facebook. So I sent her a message to say she did a great job and this morning I had a Facebook friendship request from her, too cool!!!

Yes I know I get excited with silly things but when you know famous people, you have more chances of becoming famous yourself right? So it's a step in the right direction! And that lady is actually really awesome that'd be nice if I could manage to be her friend in real life too :)

Countdown: 1799 days left

Blog members: 15

Facebook friends: 184

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12
Youtube video views: 214
Myspace friends: 2

Yahoo!! Somebody listened to me and clicked on Play next to my second song on Myspace!! Whoever you are, you're awesome and I love you, thank you!! :) It makes me feel much better now that I have a total of 2 plays on Myspace haha. Better than 1, better than 0. Gotta see the bright side of things of course!

Very important day today, as I mentionned yesterday, because we're now 1799 days to my deadline. I'm a last minute kind of person so I'm sure I'm going to become famous only when there's about 3-4 days left. One of my friends was asking me to actually define what "famous" is for me. Good question... I think I will call it a success the day I have 1 000 000 views on Youtube AND once I have been interviewed by at least a major newspaper/periodic, a major radio station or a major TV channel. I don't want to count my success with number of songs sold on iTunes or something similar because I don't want to sell my music. It's free, go ahead, take it. Which reminds me, I don't think I've set up Myspace to enable users to download mp3 of my songs, that will need to be arranged, remind me in a few weeks if I still haven't done it ok?

Today I've been invited to a fast-breaking dinner by a Turkish family (we're in the middle of Ramadan in case you guys didn't know, hmmm maybe I should write a song about Ramadan sometime!) I don't know the family at all but I left my e-mail address at a Turkish cooking class a few weeks ago so I'm assuming they're part of the same group of people. Anyways I'm really looking forward to it (it's 7 o'clock right now, I've been asked to be there at 7:45). Maybe I will manage to convince them to come to my concert in October who knows!

Have a great weekend everyone, talk to you next week!

Countdown: 1800 days left

Blog members: 15

Facebook friends: 184

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12
Youtube video views: 213
Myspace friends: 2

Well quite a milestone tomorrow, I'm going to be starting the 1700s days left for me to become famous!! A bit scary because the progress is really not so quick right now, unfortunately. I've set up a Myspace account forever ago and I only have one play... Whoever it is decided that my second song was not worth a listen haha :( So can someone please pretend they are interested and go here, then click on the little Play button on my second song so that it has more than 0 play? That will make me feel much better! Thank you!

Not much news today, so maybe I'll share with you something that I really want to try... Most of the time, people find it cute when you make a special effort to learn something in their language... So I want to record a few videos of myself playing songs in other languages and the plan is that everyone will find it really cute that a French Canadian sings in their language so they will forward the videos to all their friends and that will get me more famousness points. Right now I'm trying to learn the Chinese song Mo Li Hua. I'll keep you guys posted, I'm pretty sure I can improve my Youtube video plays using that method but we'll see. :) Not sure it will make me famous but it's not like I have anything to lose anyways!

Countdown: 1801 days left

Blog members: 15

Facebook friends: 185

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12
Youtube video views: 213
Myspace friends: 2


We had a beautiful day here in Ottawa today, I hope it was the same for everyone regardless of where you are! I'm happy because I was really lucky today! People often leave free books in my apartment building, mostly love novels (which I don't usually pick up) but today someone left a synonym/antonym dictionnary that will be sooooo useful when I write lyrics! That's really cool and I can't wait to start using it! Maybe I'll bring all my lyrics writing gears to Starbucks one of these days and have a songwriting marathon with myself! Actually I'll let you guys know through my blog when I go, maybe someone will want to join me and drink a coffee with me while we work on our stuff, or we can even work together who knows! Anyways right now my schedule is pretty tight so it won't be for right away but stay tuned!

Today I mentionned to two of my colleagues that all the profits of my October concert would go to the Ten Oaks Project, an organization who works with young homosexuals. One of my colleagues totally refused to go to the concert, because she doesn't want to encourage the cause I picked... I kept my cool but it really really frustrates me, especially because I'm somewhat close to that person at work and I was quite offended by her reaction, it hurt my feelings! I can't believe there are still people in a big city like Ottawa who are so closed-minded... It's not like we decide to be gay you know... Anyways I don't want to get started but I can see how mentalities still need to change, and little events like this one convince me even more to organize concerts that help organizations like the Ten Oaks Project. I really wish we could be in a world where we are all equal regardless of our sexual orientation.

On these words, have a great evening everyone!

Countdown: 1802 days left

Blog members: 15

Facebook friends: 185

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12
Youtube video views: 213
Myspace friends: 2

Short post today as it is getting late. More news regarding the concert, Ten Oaks Project has confirmed that I can use their name in the promotion of my fundraiser concert to take place in October. Here's the message I sent them last year, I used a similar one this year but I don't have it anymore because I sent it through their website (I should have kept a copy somewhere...) Anyways feel free to use a similar approach if you ever have to contact a non-profit organization:

Good morning, 

I am sending this message because I would like to organize a fundraiser for the Ten Oak Project and I would like to check with you if it is ok for me to use your name in the advertisement of the event. The fundraiser will be a variety show concert at the University of Ottawa (Freiman Hall) and it will happen on December 18. The show will be free but with a suggested donation of 5$ per person. If you are interested, all the profits will go to your organization. I will take care of everything, you do not need to be involved if you do not wish to be. If you need more details about my project or if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail at [...] or by phone at [...] (cell phone). French is my first language but I can speak English as well. Thank you and have a nice day!

I'm very happy that this is confirmed because we're one step closer to being able to start advertising! One of my friends who work for RCMP has informed me that they are interested in putting up an advertisement for the event in a youth newsletter, something like that... It's looking like we will have a LOT of people this year so I'm quite excited about it. Maybe I'll get one or two addicted to my blog :)

Countdown: 1803 days left

Blog members: 15

Facebook friends: 185

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12
Youtube video views: 213
Myspace friends: 2

Over the weekend I sent a few e-mails to finish up the number of performers for the upcoming concert, and also sent an e-mail to the organization I want to give the money to. I really hope it works out with them! I'd say the schedule for the evening is 75% completed now, I'm only waiting on a few people to confirm they can participate.

I know I'm talking a lot about the concert, but I want to make sure everyone who wants to do something similar realizes the amount of work it represents. I also want everyone to realize that this is something that is achievable by normal human beings. I'm not superwoman, I'm just a girl with a day job who's trying to get closer to her crazy dream. Everyone has one, make sure you follow yours!

Countdown: 1806 days left

Blog members: 15

Facebook friends: 183

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12
Youtube video views: 213
Myspace friends: 2


Improvement since yesterday, I have not gained any Facebook friends but I also haven't lost any today! All is well! I was planning on having a very quiet evening with lots of work being done on my brand new Myspace profile, but one of my friends called and I ended up spending the evening with her, eating Lebanese food at the beach. Sometimes it's better to enjoy the sun instead of spending the evening glued on the computer.

So even though I was outside enjoying the nice weather for most of the evening, I still managed to get some work done on Myspace when I came back home. I am very pleased to announce that I improved the look and feel of my profile and I even added 2 songs for you to listen to so please dear friends, go ahead and listen to my music here and feel free to give me any comments you may have! Constructive comments are welcome too of course, I know I'm far from being perfect...

I also want to spend a few minutes to let you know a bit more details about setting up the websites www.claudielarouche.com and www.claudielarouche.ca. If you're not intested in those technical details you can stop reading this post now :)

Like I mentionned yesterday, one of my friends helped me set the websites up and if you try to access them, they will both redirect you automatically to Myspace. The reasonning is that using Myspace is much quicker and cheaper as opposed to creating my own website from scratch. And now that I bought claudielarouche.ca and claudielarouche.com, I'm sure nobody will steal them from me when I start becoming hugely famous. So it's an investment for the future :) Notice how justinbieber.com does not belong to the Justin Bieber we all know... I didn't want anything similar happen to me.

If anybody is interested in setting up a website, here is how I personally did it (actually all I did is type my credit card number when necessary, my friend did all of the work). I'm not saying this is the way everyone should do it, but it worked for me so I'm sharing the method with you. First of all we accessed the following website that enables you to buy a domain: http://www.domainsatcost.ca/

We set up my account there and following the instructions, I bought my two websites. It's good for two years, and it costed me $63 total. On the same domainsatcost website, there is a way to redirect the website you bought to another address, although the change may take a few hours (up to 24 I think) to complete successfully. I don't want to make this post too long so if you want more details about how to redirect, just send me a quick message and I'll help you the best I can. So that's it! This ended up being much simpler than I thought, and if I do want to have a really fancy website built from scratch one day, I can use these two addresses. 

Countdown: 1807 days left

Blog members: 15

Facebook friends: 183

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12
Youtube video views: 213
Myspace friends: 2


Oh no!! I'm so sad today, I have lost a Facebook friend since yesterday! Don't know who decided I wasn't worthy of their friendship anymore but I hope they will come back to me :(

On a brighter note, I met with one of my friends who is a website guru. She helped me buy two website domains, www.claudielarouche.com and www.claudielarouche.ca. Right now both of them are redirecting users to my very minimal Myspace page, that I finally created today. You can have a look if you want but it's pretty much empty right now, I will be adding more stuff to it as soon as I can. Probably tomorrow night since nobody asked me on a date yet lol. Oh well :) Feel free to become my friend on Myspace if you have a profile there, I promise I'll be adding cool stuff and a few mp3s shortly!

Countdown: 1808 days left

Blog members: 14

Facebook friends: 184

# of "Likes" of Claudie Larouche's Page on Facebook: 12

Vacations almost over, that's soooo sad :( But the good news is that I will start blogging again! I'm going back to work tomorrow and my parents left Ottawa this morning so I have the whole day to myself to get as many things completed as I can. There's a lot that's been sitting on my to do list for a while, I've been postponing the creation of a MySpace profile for too long now!!

Other great news to share with you is that my concert date is now officially 100% confirmed! As you know, I started sharing the date with some friends and family already and the response so far has been awesome. I'm expecting to have quite a few people in the audience on that night. So the concert will take place at Freiman Hall (610 Cumberland Street) on October 22nd at 8:00 PM. Mark your calendars! I'm really happy because not only do I have lots of people who want to attend, but there are also lots of people who want to perform with me. One of my items on my to do list today is to get organized and ensure I don't have too many performers! I've been asking lots of people and didn't expect to have that many positive answers :)

So I'll get going on the tasks I want to accomplish today and hopefully tomorrow you will have the link to my brand new MySpace profile.

Countdown: 1816 days left

Blog members: 12

Facebook friends: 182

Hello!

I'm able to sneak some time on the computer while on my vacation to keep you updated on how things are coming along. Lots to tell you today but I'll try not to make it too long!

First of all, if you guys have a project that you are working on, don't hesitate to bring it up to as many people as you can, everywhere you can. As I said earlier, you never know who's going to be able to help you. And even if they can't help you, people can still give you a little boost of confidence if they belive in what you do. And if they DON'T believe in what you do, well they'll realize how wrong they were the day you succeed!

On Saturday evening I was invited to a friend's birthday party, we had a BBQ at her place and there was a lot of people I didn't know. Some of them were members of her partner's family, a very very French Canadian family, they were teasing each other a lot and they were lots of fun to be around. Being very French Canadian myself, I got along with them very well :) They reminded me a lot of my own family which was quite nice. So at one point I did mention I was in the process of organizing a concert in Ottawa in October, and one of the ladies was really excited about it. She gave me her business card and pretty much ordered me to let her know when and where the concert would take place, she will invite her friends and family and bring all her people over to my show. That's all very exciting!

Speaking of the October concert, today I got a phone call from the University of Ottawa to confirm that the room I want to book is available on my date, so the lady simply needs to confirm with her supervisor and the room should be mine on that day. For those of you who are thinking of doing something similar, it will cost me $175 to rent the room from 6 to 11 PM, with the piano available. I will have to pay a sound technician as well, which was $25 an hour last year. So the total cost for the evening should be around $300. None of my performers will be paid. Last year there was approximately 50 people in the room and we were able to raise $586. I gave everything to a good cause so I'm not making any profit regardless, but if someone out there is reading my blog and wondering how much you can expect to make in one evening, well there are tons of variables to take into consideration but I'm giving you all the numbers just so you can have a slight idea yourself.

Once again I am quite happy with how things are turning out, sounds like I will be having a live performance in Ottawa in October which I'm really looking forward to! If everything goes according to plan, the event should take place on October 22nd at the Freiman Hall, University of Ottawa at 8 o'clock. But of course I will give you all the details again once everything is 100% confirmed.