Holi - Festival of Colors

Ah the Festival of Colors. An amazingly awesome day of the year where everyone is allowed to get super messy, and throw stuff at complete strangers, without getting in trouble. Where it's encouraged, even. Even for a shy, introverted girl like me, this is a pretty sweet event! I found out about this thing last year, when my fiance at the time insisted we go. I thought it was going to be lame and that I would just be annoyed, but it was actually way cool! I was amazed at how cool the "color throwings" were, and how the air suddenly just became filled with tons of colored chalk and in an instant, you yourself were covered. I mean, you can't breathe, and you're blowing purple snot out of your nose for the next week, but it's totally worth it for those few moments of ultimate chalk-throwing chaos.

This year, my husband and I went with his brother, his brother's wife, and his cousin. I remembered what the parking and everything was like last year, so when I saw lots of empty spots by the Spanish Fork Library, I suggested we just get out and walk from here. BAD IDEA!! It's 2.4 miles, trust me, I just consulted Google Maps. And Google Maps is always right. Luckily I'm not 400 pounds and way out of shape. Just the second part of that sentence. But still. It was totally worth it in the end! And I have no idea how this all relates back to the media part of this assigment :) Tough luck. .... Okay, they're starting to advertise it. Which is media. And charge an entrance fee. To pay for their advertising. Which is media.

The Hunger Games

Yep, I'm one of those people, and I'm going to write a post about it. I read the series in one week (last Christmas?? 2010?? Seems right..) over the break and absolutely loved it! And when I heard they were making a movie? - BEST DAY EVER!! Now I should have been wary of this news - the film industry has been known to severely screw up an awesome book. But I will say this: I was not disappointed! A buddy got his company to hook us up and booked a theater for a 7pm showing on Thursday, and it was awesome! Very well done, in my opinion.

But then yesterday, my older sister posted on facebook how disgusted she was by this story, and how it is crazy that this is what we call entertainment. And it got me thinking about all the stuff we've been learning in class about violence and being critical consumers and whatnot. And as much as I really, really enjoyed this, I must say I have to agree with her. How is it that a game of fighting to the death is what we all want to see? It's a little insane, and probably not that good for our young, impressionable children! In light of what I now know concerning media, I can definitely see her point of view.

So does that make me a bad person if I still love the film/books and cannot wait for the next one to come out?? I sure hope not. Because despite my better knowledge, I can guarantee I will be out there with the rest of the diehards on November 22 next year, when Catching Fire comes to theaters!!

How Do They Do It??

I have come to a conclusion, and it is this: advertisers are smart people. They must be, in order to get people hooked on a product in only 30 seconds! For example, my husband has been watching a lot of the games recently for March Madness. And there have been a number of commercial's for Applebee's. We LOVE Applebee's!! It is one of my favorite restaurants here, I love the 2 for $20 deal, and it's great for a little sit-down dinner that's still casual! And everytime I've seen this commercial the last few days, I have started drooling and craving Applebee's. There's been like 3 separate times, and I'm like "mmmm let's go to Applebee's sometime!" So yep, it's a quick little commercial, and doesn't even say a whole lot, but it definitely gets me to (almost) do what they want! If I was rich we'd go every time I saw it!

Sunday Talks

I hate speaking in Church - it gives me the heebie jeebies cause I'm always so nervous. But I love that technology has made it possible, through the media, to have such easy access to amazing resources. It makes writing (and therefore giving) a talk so much easier! Don't know how our parents did it, for reals. Lds.org, and mormon.org, amazing stuff!

Technology Tribute

Sometimes my life sucks. Sometimes I write a really awesome blog post, and then go to add a picture to it, and lose the whole thing. I don't know how it works, but it sucks. Soooo this is going to be a much shortened redo of what I had written. I read a post by a classmate earlier thanking technology, and I realized that the vast majority (if not all) of my posts end with a message about how bad the media can be and to be careful, blah blah blah. So I decided to write my own little thank-you!

Confession: I am a texting addict. Well, not really. I can (and have) gone days without sending/receiving a single text! But I do love texting. I am very shy, and non-confrontational, so I love being able to text people. If I need something done, or have to talk to someone (and I usually don't want to), texting is a great way for me to "confront" them in a much easier way.

Unconfession: I am definitely not saying that everyone should go out and start texting like crazy - that would be a disaster. I still believe we should be careful about our media use and, especially in our day and age, not let our cell phones take over our lives. But I really am thankful for all the advances we've made - especially the iPhone. I didn't want to get one, but my phone broke on the first day of school this semester, and my husband convinced me to get it. And it's awesome - the iMessage feature is so great. My family is all back in Canada so I can't text/call them without giving up an arm as payment. But now I can - and it's amazing! Now I get to chat with my friends and family back home all the time. And I get to see my adorable little niece, even though I'm missing her growing up.


Isn't she just the cutest?!

Read Me!

Well, I don't really know what to write about this week. I have been crazy hectic busy (I almost spelt it "buzy"... just attests to how tired I am), and haven't had a whole lot of time to think about this assignment. So I'm sitting here, trying to think of some awesome interaction with the media I've had lately, and all that keeps popping up is how freaking busy I am! There's always just 10 more things to do, isn't there? I think a lot of us are feeling that way right now (*cough cough* Princess RA's...). And you rarely see that in the media. Way more often it's like oh man I'm bored, hey what are we gonna do today, oh I'm just going shopping, I think I'm gonna make an awesome craft, etc. None of this absurd student life we're all living! So... media is a liar! And that's it. That's my spiel for today.