Shameless Showing Off

So, I had my baby! She was born at 12:33 a.m. December 2nd, exactly one week overdue. She was 18.5 inches long and 7 pounds 4 ounces. Her name is Savannah Emily Merrill. I've suddenly realized what a blessing digital cameras are. I'm so grateful to be able to take hundreds of pictures. So, in the name of showing my new favorite media (aka looking for an excuse to show off my little girl) here are some pictures (It was very hard to narrow down to these ones): For some reason, they loaded backwards. So, they start at the bottom.

Testing the car seat

First Family Picture

Daddy's Little Girl

Love at First Sight

On the way to be induced

The 100 Hour Board

One of my favorite websites is The 100 Hour Board. I've been reading it almost daily for 4 years now. It's a bunch of anonymous BYU students who will answer any question you ask within 100 hours. The answers are often funny and clever. It's a great way to find out useless trivia or helpful information. It updates every day (except Sundays) and is a fun way to waste time on the internet. Here is a sampling of my favorite questions: This one for being very informative, and this one for making me laugh every time I read it.

Up

Today the movie Up was released on DVD. One of my best friends had a movie release party so I was able to see it for the third time. I love that movie! I think it's such a great example of positive media. It's family friendly, funny, and touching. The animation is beautiful and so much fun to watch. It also has a really good message. It helps you realize what matters in life. It doesn't matter if you have a big house or a glamorous lifestyle. All that really matters is that you treat the people you love well. I love that in the end it was Carl and Ellie's marriage that a lot of people would consider boring that was her wonderful adventure. It makes me want to appreciate the little things in my life more and see them as my adventure instead of always looking toward the next big thing.

Cyber Bullying

Last night I was wasting time on facebook. I was looking at the profile of a friend from my freshman year and I saw that recently, another freshman year "friend" had written a mean comment about me on the wall. I was floored because I haven't really talked to either of these people for about 3 years and I don't ever remember offending them. And, as silly as it is, my feelings were kind of hurt. And I was embarrassed. I wished there was a way I could erase that comment so no one else I know would ever see it, even though the vast majority of the people I know now wouldn't care one bit what those girls said. I really have moved on from my freshman year, but I still spent a few minutes feeling sad.

Anyway, it got me thinking. I know cyber bullying is a huge problem and now I understand why a little better. I mean, if one little comment from a person who's opinion I don't really care about anymore bothered me that much, what must it feel like to be a teen who has horrible comments made about them from people who they do care about? I can see why it's so effective and damaging.

I think the biggest problem with cyber bullying is the lack of ability to regulate it. I really can't think of a singe thing that can be done to fix the problem, besides trying to influence the teens in my life to refrain from it.

Everyone can see what we write...

I was looking through some of my older blog posts and I noticed a comment from a person that I don't know who isn't in our class. It really surprised me. I mean, I know that my blog is public and everyone on the internet can see it, but I never thought that they actually did. I'm not too stressed about it since this blog is meant to be public. But, it makes me want to be much more careful about what I put on my personal blog, especially in regard to my family.

And, speaking of family, does anyone have strong opinions about whether or not to put pictures of a baby on facebook? I want to because I know a lot of my friends will want to see pictures of my baby and I'm sure I'll want to show her off, but the paranoid worrier part of me thinks it might be a bad idea. If my profile is private, do you think there's any harm?

Natural Born Killers

In order to prepare for the mock trial tomorrow, I decided to read the synopsis of Natural Born Killers on Wikipedia. I think I'm going to be sick. I seriously feel ill. If I feel like this after reading about something for 5 minutes, how much worse is it to watch it for two hours? It's a horrible, evil movie. I don't understand why anyone would ever watch something like that. The violence sounds so graphic. The murderers kill about 45 people and get away with it. I don't care that Oliver Stone claims it's supposed to be satirical. Satire can go too far. There is no reason to ever watch something so disgusting. I believe in freedom of speech, but I wish that people had the decency to not make movies like this one. The Wikipedia article also talked about copycat crimes from this movie. Some of these crimes were done by young adolescents. Why are parents letting their kids watch this movie?!? It's horrible.

Anyway, I'm disgusted with every person who produced that movie. It makes me very sad that filth like that exists and is so mainstream. I think I'll listen to some hymns now to help me feel the Spirit again...

Horrorcore Rap

This definitely isn't a happy post, but I think the effect media can have on a person is fascinating. In the news recently (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32974921/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts//) there's a story about a girl who was really into horrorcore music (a music genre that glorifies killing and things like cannibalism). She met a fellow fan online and they started dating. A few weeks ago, he went to stay with her and her family and a few days later her, her parents, and friend were found murdered. This guy is the main suspect. He was suspected when he hitched a ride from someone and smelled like a corpse. Here are some of his lyrics:

"They just want me to murder continuously.

"They want me to take lives on a mass murder spree.

"They love the smell of a body that's rotten and decayed.

"That's what I think about when I'm stalking my prey."

In another article I read about this story, friends of the parents said the parents didn't know what to do about their daughter's obsession with this evil music. They were against it, but were worried that if they tried to force her to stop listening to it, she would rebel and listen to it anyway plus she would hate them. They seemed like good parents trying to do the right thing and I feel so bad for them that this was their consequence. I keep wondering what I would do if one of my kids tried to get into this kind of music... It makes me scared to raise kids in a world like our's. Hopefully my kids take after their parents and never think this type of thing is anything but disgusting.

My New Best Friend

So, Skype is definitely my new best friend. My husband left early Sunday morning to move to Wyoming. I'm staying here until I graduate in December. It's only been two days since he left, but I already miss him tons. We both have webcams so we decided to try Skype. Unfortunately, we could only get the cameras to work one way so we had to take turns being able to see each other and the voice wasn't working at all. So, we just IMed for a while. Then, I saw that there were games on there. So, we played chess together. And then we played bowling. One of our favorite things to do together is play games so it was awesome to be able to play together. Him being gone still sucks and I will miss him a lot, but I am incredibly grateful for a form of media that not only allows us to talk to each other, but to have fun.

Cell Phone

I am seriously addicted to my cell phone. If I ever leave it at home when I go to campus (which is rare) I spend the entire day wondering if I'm missing calls and wanting to text Corey (my husband). Whenever I have a long (long as in 10 minutes or more) car ride alone, I try to think of someone I can call. I have always loved to talk on the phone and having a cell phone has just intensified that. Once in junior high, I talked to my best friend on the phone for 9 hours straight (9 p.m. to 6 a.m.).

When I first heard about texting, I thought it was stupid. Why wouldn't you just call someone? But, then I met my husband who kind of hates the phone but doesn't mind texting. So, I quickly learned to like to text. I mostly only text Corey and a few friends. But, I rarely go a day without texting someone. Pathetic? I don't know. But, it is an easy to way talk to people quickly.

I have quickly become very grateful for my cell phone though. In a week, my husband will be moving 10 hours away to start a new job. Since I need to finish the semester, I won't be joining him until Christmas. We'll probably only see each other once between then. Even though nothing can compare to actually being together, I am very happy about the fact that we will be able to talk and text as much as we want. 10 years ago, that would have been extremely expensive.

Live Free or Die Hard… You’d think the name would have tipped me off.

My husband Corey and I spent the weekend at his parent's house. On Friday night, they wanted to watch a movie. Our movie tastes differ quite a bit (Corey's two brothers are 12 and 15) so I didn't offer any input. They kept suggesting R-rated movies which Corey knows I usually won't watch unless I think there's a very good reason to. So, Corey said, "Let's let Allison pick the movie." I quickly said they wouldn't like any movie I would pick. They asked what kind of movie I would want to watch. You should have seen the look on their faces when I said I wanted a movie where no one shoots anyone else…

Obviously, my vote was vetoed. Instead, Corey's parents suggested that we would love the movie Live Free or Die Hard. I was doubtful, but we agreed to watch it anyway.

If you really like this movie, I'm sorry, this isn't meant to offend. But, it was absolutely ridiculous. There was so much shooting and violence. So many people died for no reason. It was ridiculous. But, I think the most ridiculous thing about this movie was the way that a character would get totally beat up and be just fine. For example, one woman was crushed by a huge thing of shelves made of metal and glass. So, maybe this woman could have survived this, but she would have had several broken bones. But, in the movie, not only did she survive, she managed to get up without a scratch and throw a man that was twice her size out of the window. There were several instances of extreme violence barely hurting people. I think this is a very bad message to be sending to viewers. It diminishes the true nature of violence.

My Addiction

Hello.

My name is Allison and I am incredibly addicted to Bejeweled.

Seriously. It's starting to interfere with my life. I made the mistake of adding the facebook app last week and now I can't stop playing! It hasn't gotten in the way of my homework too much yet, but I have this Independent Study class that I'm supposed to finish before I have a baby in 7 weeks and every time I sit down to work on it, I somehow end up playing Bejeweled instead… It's such a simple game, yet so addicting. Yet another example in my life of media distracting me from homework.

Jane Eyre

My favorite book now has been my favorite book since I was 13-years-old. It's Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It's the story of an orphan 18-year-old girl who becomes a governess for the ward of a wealthy man (Mr. Rochester) and ends up falling in love with him. The day of their wedding, she finds out that he has a secret wife that is insane and lives in the attic. He begs her to stay with him anyway, but she leaves him. In the end, the insane wife sets fire to Mr. Rochester's house and Jane gets to be with him.

So, to someone who hasn't read the book, that might sound incredibly ridiculous. But, the book is beautiful and well-written and my summary doesn't do it justice. I think I love this book so much because I see so much of myself in Jane. She is a very quiet person, but she's smart. She doesn't long for wealth or prestige. She only wants a quiet life with someone to love her. Unlike so many book heroines, Jane isn't a great beauty. I always hated the books where all the guys were constantly vying for the attention of the heroine because of her great beauty because that's not what life was like for me (or the vast majority of girls). Mr. Rochester isn't your perfect Mr. Darcy either. He's not incredibly attractive and has personality flaws. But, he loves Jane and she loves him and they make their relationship work. That's so much more realistic than many books. I also love that Jane has an innate desire to do the right thing no matter what. Even when she's desperate to be with the one person who has ever shown her love, she leaves him because she knows it would be morally wrong to stay with him. In one part of the book, Mr. Rochester pretends to be in love with a gorgeous, immensely wealthy woman. Jane's jealousy is very well written and as a teenager, I loved that the book echoed similar feelings I had. Reading the book made me feel understood and that someday I too would have happiness like Jane's if I kept trying to do what was right.

Pole dancing?

In class today someone mentioned that Miley Cyrus recently did pole dancing at a teen awards show. When the show aired about a month ago, I read an article about how horrendously scandalous her pole dancing was. The article made it sound like it was a hyper sexual dance. At first, I was disappointed but not really surprised since so many tween queens become sexualized. Then I decided to actually look up the video and watch it. Skip to 1:05 if you just want to see the pole dancing part.

So, I don't know much about pole dancing, but from what I've seen in movies, it's a little different than holding onto a pole and singing... I'll admit, her outfit is skimpy and I certainly wouldn't want my daughter to imitate her dancing, but to call her dance hyper-sexualized pole dancing is pretty unfair. I just think that sometimes people are too quick to judge people in the media. And, if I had only read the article instead of watching the video, I would have had a worse opinion of Miley than I do. I guess it's just important to be always an active consumer of information and to form opinions based on fact instead of someone else's bias.

Anne of Green Gables

Tonight I went and saw my 16-year-old sister in her school's production of Anne of Green Gables. The kids did a really great job. As I was watching the play, I kept remembering all the times I read the book as a young girl. I loved to read as a child and did it all the time (now I just wish I could, but homework seems to get in the way...); I was often grounded from reading because I would do that instead of homework, cleaning my room, or going to sleep. I read everything I could get my hands on, including shampoo bottles and cereal boxes. I've developed a lot of my ideas about people, relationships, history, and life from the books that I read as a child, but most of the time I wouldn't realize that my opinions didn't originate with me. In class we talked about how books are often considered the "higher" form of media. I don't think that's always the case because there are hundreds of great movies that are better than hundreds of books. But, in general, I'm very glad that I grew up mostly reading instead of watching Rugrats. I think it's made me a less judgmental and more educated person. Here's to hoping my kids will be the same way.

Big Bang Theory

My favorite show is probably The Big Bang Theory. It's about these four physicists who are intellectuals geniuses, but very confused socially. I'd been looking forward to new episodes of the show ever since the season ended in May or whenever it is that seasons end... I have to say, I was a bit disappointed. Normally, the show is hilarious. But, this one mostly poked fun at over-the-top born again Christians and had a subplot about the hazards of friends having sex. I hope it's better next week because this is one of the few TV shows I actually like...

Library in my pocket

Last year, I bought an iPod touch. I felt like it might be a tad over the top and materialistic, but I did it anyway. I'll be honest, I bought it because it was pretty. I used it to listen to music, but rarely took advantage of the other features on it. But, a few months after buying it, I discovered the world's most amazing app. It's called Classics. And it is full of classic books! I'm kind of a nerd and my favorite books were written at least 100 years ago. Suddenly, when I have my iPod with me, I am never bored. 5 minute wait in a doctor's office? No problem. I have hours of entertainment at my fingertips. And, even though it does cause me to be continuously connected to my iPod, I'm okay with it because I read books that make me smarter. I've even found a new favorite: The Count of Monte Cristo. I might not have ever read it otherwise and I loved it. It took the latest technology to get me to read a book that's been around for over 100 years. Thanks iPod :).

Movie Party!

My husband and I teach primary. Our class is a combination of kids who are 8 turning 9 and 9 turning 10. When we started teaching in January, most were very well behaved, but there were one or two that we couldn't motivate to listen (granted, this year is church history which I think is the most boring primary manual there is, there's like 6 lessons on Joseph getting the plates, but still, they should listen and learn.) Then, one of us had a brilliant idea. We told the kids that if they were good enough to collectively earn 10 check marks in a month, they could have a Wii/movie party at our house. They earn checks by doing things like bringing their scriptures to class, paying attention in sharing time, and correctly answering the questions we ask them about the lesson at the end of class. They lose checks by talking too much and not paying attention.

The day we introduced the party concept, the kids were fantastic! Even though most of them have Wiis or friends with Wiis and they all have movies, they still really cared about our little parties. At this point, we've had about 6 parties. The funny part is, only 3 of our 7 kids have ever come... And they are the three that would be well behaved no matter what. But, that doesn't seem to matter. Every week if someone isn't listening, we'll threaten that there won't be a movie party and the kids automatically start to pay attention. They don't seem to notice that they've never even been to a party...

I just think it's really interesting that these kids that are infamous in the primary for not listening are so willing to do anything to come to our house to play a video game or watch a movie, especially when they've never actually taken the time to come.

So, I don't know if this is an indication of the power of media in these kids lives, or if they just want a party, but I think it's interesting to think about.

Obamedia

Obama is all over the media this week. Yesterday was his infamous (at least in Utah) speech to all of the students in the country and today he just finished up a speech on his plans for health care reform. I didn't watch the speech to the students, although I read it, and I only caught the tail end of the health care speech. But, my purpose isn't really to analyze his plan anyway. First of all, I don't know enough about it to do that and secondly, this isn't a blog for a political science class.

I think it's very interesting how riled up political media can make people. I know several people who were absolutely furious that President Obama was going to speak to children. One of my friends who teaches at a junior high school in Tooele wasn't allowed to show the speech because parents hadn't been able to prescreen it (which was ridiculous by the way, since the text was available publicly 24 hours before the speech was given). I wonder how many of those parents "prescreen" everything else that their children watch. I would hope that they do, but I have a sneaking suspision that many of the things those kids see portrayed in prime time television are much more harmful than the president's message to work hard in school.

I'm not saying that everyone should support Obama. If you have valid reasons for disliking him, that's your right. But, I do think it would be smart for people to be more rational when choosing what they will and won't let their children watch.

Here we go!

My goal this semester is to be one of those obnoxious over achieving, gets her assignments done ahead of time people. Of course, taking time to make a cute blog when I could be doing my independent study homework is kind of like procrastinating with the guise of working, but it's a start, right?

I guess this can count as my first post. Right now the media I'm enjoying is the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince soundtrack. I really like it. It has a good mixture of the classic Harry Potter themes and music that is different than the other movies. I particularly like the song I'm listening to right now. It's called "Harry and Hermione". I liked the way their friendship progressed in the movie because in a lot of ways it reminds me of friendships I have. I don't really know what else to say about it the soundtrack. As far as the movie itself goes, that will have to be a post for another day after I go see it again in the dollar theater... This post feels very boring... Hopefully the appeal of the blog will increase as I get going :).