Last Post

Well, this is the final post for the semester. I can't believe it's already over. In honor of the break and Christmas coming up here are my top 5 favorite Christmas songs. In no particular order.

I Cannot Find the Way/Three Kings: Michael McLean's The Forgotten Carols

Cold December Night: Michael Buble

Sleigh Ride: The Carpenters

When Christmas Comes to Town: The Polar Express

The Night Before Christmas: Amy Grant

Earnest

While reading Preach My Gospel last night I learned a whole new doctrine I have never even heard of before. It is still blowing my mind. It is the idea of earnest and how it pertains to the Holy Ghost.

Bible Dictionary:
A pledge or security. The word thus translated is a commercial term denoting the deposit paid by a buyer on entering into an agreement for the purchase of anything. As used by Paul (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14) it means that the Lord gives us his Holy Spirit in this life as a foretaste of the joy of eternal life. The Spirit is also the Lord’s surety that he will fulfill his promise to give eternal life to the faithful.


Ephesians 1:14
"Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."


I had a friend also give me the analogy of it being like a down payment from the Lord. He gives us a taste of eternal life through the Holy Ghost although we do not have the full knowledge and blessings yet in this life. It's God's promise to us of greater things to come.

Preach My Gospel

 

I am currently on page 65 of Preach My Gospel. My goal is to finish it by the end of January. Before a certain friend of mine returns home from the mission. I have loved diving into it every day and just immersing myself in this simple doctrines and divine teachings. I figure goals are better reached when telling others. So that's why I am telling you all. A great source of media. READ IT. Only 130 more pages to go.

Letter Assignment

To Whom It May Concern,

           

My name is Abbie Christiansen. I am currently an undergraduate student studying Human Development in Provo, Utah at Brigham Young University. This semester I am enrolled in a Media, Family and Human Development course as part of the curriculum for my major. The semester is coming to an end, but in this class we have learned about all kinds of media ranging from literature to music to movies, and how they affect us and in turn how they can affect the family unit. This course has been very eye opening and brings into perspective just how much we use the media, especially in America, without even realizing it.

As part of our curriculum we discussed magazines and this magazine, Sports Illustrated, obviously came up specifically. There are not many magazines that are still circulated strongly or well-known because of new forms of media, but Sports Illustrated is one that has lasted. My family personally is a big sports family. I have grown up my whole life loving to play and watch sports. We do have a subscription to your magazine and for the most part I find it enjoyable, entertaining and informative.

There are however, some major concerns regarding your magazine. These relate directly to women. In a study done by Fink & Kensicki in 2002, “An imperceptible difference: visual and textual constructions of femininity in Sports Illustrated and Sports Illustrated for Women,” they found some shocking statistics of photos in your magazine, Sports Illustrated. They found that only 10% of total photos in the magazine were of female athletes. Of this 10%, 34% were female athletes in action and 55% were of female athletes in non-sport settings. Finally, 5%  of these photos were sexually suggestive/pornographic. Those statistics are only out of the 10% of the total photos, where males dominate the other 90%. Males are shown in action in 66% of the photos, 23% in non-sport settings and 0% in sexually suggestive/pornographic photos.

This shows that there are still huge stereotypes in portrayals of women in athletics. First, that they even get any attention at all and secondly that their attention is pointed somewhere beside their athletic ability. This is true in many forms of media. Many smart, successful women are belittled and seen only for their sense of fashion or how their body type and shape. This is sadly true of women in your magazine as well, not only of the swimsuit models, but of strong, talented athletic women. They are sexualized instead of truly realized for their talent.

Obviously the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated is the best example of sexualizing and stereotyping women. While I would love for it to happen, I am not suggesting you total ban the swimsuit issue. I know, unfortunately and grotesquely, that it has become part of our culture. I know there would be great uproar over the matter, but I do think there are other ways to better demonstrate female athletes in other issues. If there is an issue dedicated purely to the sexualizing of women, why not an entire issue dedicated to women as athletes and their accomplishments as such? There needs to be more representation of women in your magazine, and that needs to be positive representation. There have been many improvements in the way of giving women a voice, but that voice is still skewed and misrepresented. Please, do what you can to help this issue and give women more and increasingly positive portrayals and advertisements.

Sincerely,

Abbie Christiansen 

The Amazing Race

I gave in and started up again on one of my shows that I tried to drop this fall. Over this Thanksgiving Break I caught back up on The Amazing Race. Oh how I have missed it. I probably could have been making better use of my break, but that's what a break's for right?

Christmas Music

I am usually a pretty strong person about no Christmas music before Thanksgiving. This year has been different for some reason. The other day I was in my car and Let it Snow came on. It was snowing and the song doesn't even reference Christmas so I listened to it happily. The other day I went to my FHE brother's apartment to help them decorate with snowflakes and even sang along to the beautiful Christmas music they were playing.

Is it Thanksgiving Break Yet?

My mind has shut down. It shut down after I finished the research paper for this class. I have a teacher conference with my English teacher for a paper tomorrow, but luckily it isn't due until the 30th. I decided to watch one of the best shows of all time instead (Boy Meets World obviously), upload pictures of my awesome Thanksgiving dinner with my FHE family, and face time with my brother and sister-in-law. Effective uses of media. 

First World Problems

So last year some of my friends and I came across the phrase "first world problems." If you don't know what these are, it is basically an issue that we face living in a first world country, that are actually quite ridiculous. My family has caught on after I told them and we use it all the time. It's a way to make the situations we are in seem less dramatic and awful as they actually are. People post them as memes (which is a totally other huge media phenomenon) and for a while they were spreading. Here are some that are media related. Enjoy.














 

Action Movies

I LOVE movies, but this year I haven't watched very many. On Saturday I found a way to watch two. I watched Casino Royale and The Fugitive. Both extremely excellent.

These are action movies. Lots of fighting, running, guns, all that kind of stuff. While I was entertained thoroughly and loved every minute, that night I felt pretty depressed and a little jittery when I went back to my apartment. This class has cursed me to always be aware of myself when interacting with the media. I know because of the content and amount I consumed it affected my thoughts and emotions.

Mission Calls

My little brother opened his mission papers yesterday. It about killed me. He's still my baby brother. He turns 18 in just 5 days and graduates from high school in May.

With the new age change for missionaries people, especially girls, are flooding the church offices with mission papers. How does this have to do with media? Well, one of my best friends growing up is in Jerusalem this semester. You know how she did her papers? Through Skype! Crazy. That's how she had her interviews with our home ward Bishop.

Coming Together

Isn't it interesting the things that bring people together?

Whenever you want to get together with someone it's always, let's go to lunch. Food always brings people together. It's quite the fascinating subject.

For me TV and movies also bring me together with people. If people don't feel like planning or going out they gather in hoards to watch a movie together, because at least they're together. For me watching TV shows brings me to people. When I find out someone loves a TV show as much as I do it brings us together. It is always more fun to laugh, get over excited and cry with someone than by yourself. You feed off each other.

A lot of the time I will go home solely for the purpose of watching The Bachelorette or Grey's Anatomy with my mom and my sister. We LOVE the shows we watch together, but it is also an excuse, plain and simply, for me to get together with them.

Tonight I am going to go watch Grey's with my friend Rachel. We both love it and I haven't seen her for a really long time. A great excuse to go see her and catch up while enjoying some good drama at the same time.

Scary Movies

Since Halloween is right around corner the topic of scary movies have been coming up in my conversations. I have never really been a huge fan of Halloween, especially the college version of Halloween. I have kind of resigned myself to the fact that I will probably be spending the night with my family. My brother-in-law is set on watching The Ring because my little brother and I have never seen it before. As I was telling my coworkers this today one of the was adamantly telling to never watch it. Like seriously she was freaking out about it. They suggested What Lies Beneath, Frequency, The Sixth Sense, The Grudge or The Skeleton Key, all of which I have never seen. We will see if I can convince my brother-in-law.
My very short list of scary movies viewed up to this point in my life are; When a Stranger Calls, The Poltergeist, The Others, Wait Until Dark, Psycho (original version), Disturbia, and some random movie I watched with my best friend and her brother years back that I can't even remember the name of.

Photos

The more I blog about the media the more I think about the more abstract forms of it. One of my all time favorite forms of media (which I didn't really think of as media until now) is photography. I LOVE pictures. Taking them, viewing them. Of people or nature. Posed or candid. I appreciate a good photbomb, but not every time. Needless to say, my favorite part of having an iPhone is the fact that I can take better pictures, and of course instagram. So take a look at some of my recent favorite photos. Pictures show love, pictures share beauty, pictures keep memories, pictures relate growth and change, pictures help us remember how good life really is and to not forget the little things

Letters

It is interesting to think of letters and notes as a form of media, but I really believe they are. A lot of books are even written in letter form where the entire plot is told through correspondence of letters. One of my favorites that is laid out like is called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

I absolutely LOVE letters. I write them quite often and when I receive them they are such a special treat. So go brighten someone's day with this form of media.

Favorites

I have many favorite TV shows. This year I have tried to narrow them down as much as I can, so some get left out. As for the fall seasons my favorites include...

Sundays

Once Upon a Time



Wednesdays

Modern Family



Thursdays

Grey's Anatomy




While I would love to be watching The Amazing Race, The Voice, or starting on new shows like Downton Abbey and Prison Break that everyone keeps telling me about, they just don't make the cut for now.

Gender: Dumb Dads

As we were talking about gender and the stereotypes that are presented in the media I thought about a lecture I had almost 2 years ago in Larry Nelson's 210 class. We were talking about gender and family and how roles and stereotypes are presented in the media. He asked us to find an ideal family in the media. The first one I thought of was from Modern Family. Other people came up with examples like Everybody Loves Raymond and Home Improvement. Of course Dr. Nelson shot us down and brought to our attention that all of our shows included "dumb dads." It's a very relevant theme in media today. It's like the gender stereotype from women is trying to overcompensate and switch to men. As much as I love Phil Dunphey he is definitely in the category of a dumb dad. They have jobs and still function in society, but mom seems to be cleaning up their messes. Mom is the competent adult. 

The one more modern example he brought to our attention was The Cosby Show

While Mr. Huxtable is silly and funny, he is also taken seriously as a person and teaches values sternly to his children. He and Claire, his wife, work together to solve issues and teach. Claire is a lawyer and Cliff is a doctor. Both have stable jobs and they try to promote a stable home. They are respectable characters that are taken seriously while still being fun loving and making a good TV show

It's interesting how the media thinks they have to make this humor of the dumb dad and do sort of a role reversal when The Cosby Show is one of the best out there and they maintained the balance. 

Literature Lecture

Yesterday's lecture in class on literature was one of the lectures I have enjoyed the very most. Human Development is my major and English is my minor so it combined two of my fortes and subjects that I have a love for. I went home afterward and talked my roommate's ear off about all the things we had learned and the realizations I had. I can't believe how much literature gets away with compared to TV and movies, but I still absolutely love books more than their movie adaptations. Books have a way of touching me, I cry and laugh out loud way more in books than  in movies.

Book Assignment: To Kill A Mockingbird

 

For my book assignemnt for class I chose To Kill a Mockingbird as my favorite book to write about. I am not sure if it is really my favorite book of all time, but it is one that has extremely impacted my life and views. Here's an excerpt from my paper

Atticus Finch is one of the best and more influential characters ever written. Harper Lee is brilliant to write the story from the point of view of Scout, his daughter and a young girl. By writing the story from the point of view of a child it makes Atticus’ role even more amazing if you really understand it. When you understate something, the reality you can dig up because of that makes it much more impactful. She sees him as her wonderful, loving father, and only gets glimpses of the amazing advocate for human rights and lawyer he is. He is like a symbol of integrity and goodness. He is relatively quiet throughout the novel, he is gentle and wise, but during the last scenes as he argues in court, he is powerful, persuasive and strong. The book teaches the importance of morality and fighting for what you believe in even if you know that you are doomed to fail. Atticus defends Tom Robinson and not only, that believes him too. He knows there is no way they are going to win the case against a white family even if that white family is considered trash, but he know what is morally right and teaches the importance of equality. 

If you haven't read this book. READ IT. 

Power in my Palm

Of course I am still on my iPhone kick. Since I have never had a smart phone, every day I am freaking out about some new feature I discover or new power I find that I have just in the palm of my hand. Here are some of my discoveries.
-I have had an ipod converter in my car for years and never used it. I always have my phone with me so when I hop in the car I can just plug my phone in.
-When I say, "we should Google that" I can do it right then and there
-When I forget something or need to look up certain information from the internet I don't have to wait until class is over and find a computer with limited time.
-Face time. It's awesome.
-I knew I would love instagram. I LOVE pictures and to have that ability right there, always, is the best.

I get more distracted though, I will work on that. I just blame it on the fact that it is still new and I am trying to figure it out.

iPhone

I have finally entered the world of the smart phone. On Friday I got an iPhone. It's definitely been a new experience and taking me a while to get used to, but it's amazing the power you have in the palm of your hand.
Well unfortunately the second day after I got it I got it wet. I know right? It worked just fine but wouldn't charge. So for two days I tried to put it in rice and nothing worked. I didn't have a phone for two days. It was pretty rough. It is amazing how much we rely on our phones., even for me who is not used the the smart phone. While at times I just wanted it I found myself actually NEEDING it too. I am the activities chair in my ward and man was it hard to not be able to get in contact with or be able to be contacted by people.
How did they do it in the days before cell phones?

MODERN FAMILY

I have a lot of favorite TV shows, I love TV. It is awful timing that when school starts so do all the new seasons of all my favorite shows. I am anxiously awaiting Grey's Anatomy, The Amazing Race, Once Upon a Time and Psych. But seriously, Modern Family tops them all. This show is absolutely hilarious. It started last night so hopefully I can get some time ASAP to reconnect with good old Hulu and watch the season premiere. This is what the recap of the episode says, "Phil takes Jay on an unconventional fishing trip; Gloria wonders how to break the news about her pregnancy; Dylan temporarily moves in with the Dunphys; Cam and Mitch think about adopting a cat." I LOVE IT. Can't wait. If the description of the episode making me crack up and this excited I can't wait for the actual episode.

Being Young

Last summer and the beginning of last school year I was really struggling socially. I mean I had a lot of friends and had a lot of fun, but I wanted to be done with being the single, crazy young adult. Ya I know at 20. Sad right? So I tried to change my attitude. I found a lot of quotes and inspirational sayings about living in the moment. I started t live by them. I mean, you aren't young for long. I have a lot more years left to live and I tried to remind myself of that. There is no use yearning for something you don't have yet, or wanting to be at a stage of life other than what you are in. You look back and have no regrets and look forward knowing those stages are going to be awesome once you get there.

"You pile up enough tomorrows and you'll find you've collected a lot of empty yesterdays. There is no tomorrow to remember if we don't do something today."

It looks like media, in a lot of ways, helped me to change my perspective. I read numerous talks and quotes like I mentioned before and also tried to remember the song "We're Young and Beautiful" by Carrie Underwood. It's about living it up and loving being crazy and free while you're young and beautiful. A new song just came out that reminded me of my struggles last year. Of course it is from One Direction.  It's called "Live While We're Young." Definitely a great song and helping to remember to love being young. 

Foolery and Car Music

Yes. I drive a Grand Caravan and I love it. It's name is The Trojan. Obviously because it can hold many people inside. There is something terribly wrong though. The AC doesn't work. This causes some rifts between my car and me, but I live with it. I always drive with the windows down, which I realized the other day leaves me quite exposed. I am one of those crazy people who pumps the radio in their car, when they are by themselves, singing and dancing along. When the window is rolled down, people can more readily hear and in fact see you. Unfortunately this doesn't keep me from rocking out everyday in my car to those same songs that you hear over and over again. I love me some rocking radio music, with the windows down in my Grand Caravan. 

Reading for Fun

I love school. I love learning. Don't get me wrong. But I also love to read, and not read textbooks but read for fun. Once the school year starts, reading just for the enjoyment of it doesn't make it on my list of priorities. The last book I read this summer was "The Alchemist" by Paula Coelho. Great, easy, deep, meaningful, short read.
It is about a young man trying to pursue his personal legend. He meets numerous people, has many challenges and learns 'the language of the world.' At the end he and The Alchemist are captured and The Alchemist tells their captors that in 3 days the boy will turn into wind, and if he does then they have to let them go. The boy doesn't think he can do it. On the appointed day he climbs up a mountain, talks to the wind, the sun, and eventually God himself. There is a huge wind storm and the boy ends up miraculously off the mountain. That was sign enough for his captors to let them go.

"The boy reached through to the Soul of the World, and saw that it was a part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles."

It's all about the journey. It's who we meet, what we learn and our goals that we are fighting to achieve. We can accomplish so much, we just need to put ourselves in those situations and follow our dreams. With God's help, we can perform miracles. No matter how great or small.

"The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon."

Moses 1

While I am on the topic of scriptures this week I thought I would share one of my favorite scenes and lines. We don't read the Pearl of Great Price very often, but I am in the class right now and it is the one I have been looking forward to the most and hasn't let me down. Luckily I found my quad because I didn't have an extra Pearl of Great Price laying around. Our first assignment from the actual text was Moses 1:1-20. Seriously I love how stalwart Moses is here. After Moses had a really spiritual experience Satan came tempting him.

Moses says, "Who art thou? For behold I am a son of God; and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee?"
Satan has no glory and Moses could see that. He understood his worth as a son of God and asked what Satan had to offer, if anything, for him

Next verse 16 "Get thee hence, Satan; deceive me not."
He speaks with power and force and by this Satan get desperate. It shows his true nature that we do not see other places in the scriptures. He tries to convince Moses he is the Only Begotten. Moses is scared by this reaction but not fooled. He then calls on the name of God and Satan leaves. 

I honestly hope to have the strength of Moses. To understand the difference between those who want to hurt and those who would help me. Media has a way to tell stories but also to show truths and teach lessons by example, not just in the scriptures but it all forms.

Lost Scriptures

My religion is everything to me. I love being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One of my favorite parts are the scriptures. I have always loved to read and the scriptures are some of my favorite stories. We don't necessarily think of the scriptures or necessarily books as media, but I learned this week just how attached I am to that big old thing.
Like I said, Thursday was my birthday, so after class I booked it out of there to get on with the festivities of the night. On Friday night I went to read my scriptures like always and couldn't find them anywhere. I went all weekend without them. I mean I had other copies of the scriptures I could read but I actually felt lost and so empty without MY scriptures. I know them and they are part of my identity, they have a part of me inside them. It is amazing how we can become attached to the media, for religious or secular reasons alike. We are so dependent on it and make it personalized to ourselves.
Luckily I headed to the lost and found yesterday and there it was! I can't tell you how relieved I was. In this particular way the media has definitely changed my life.

Cyber Birthday

Yesterday was my 21st birthday. The world has changed the way you receive birthday greetings. Most of them now come in the form of some type of media communication. If you take a look at my facebook wall of course it is covered with happy birthday wishes. I received many texts messages throughout the day, a few phone calls and even a letter. Of course many people wished me a happy birthday in person, but you can't see everyone that cares about you on the actual day for many reasons. For example, my brother and sister-in-law are currently living in Oklahoma, so when it came time to open presents and sing happy birthday we brought out the ipad and face timed with them.

My family on my birthday. My brother and sister in law on the ipad in Oklahoma got to celebrate with us

It is interesting how even if it's just a simple text or facebook message, a lot of the time it's who is writing it that makes it more meaningful. If you have history with someone or know how they really feel about you then even the most simple birthday message can mean so much more depending on the person they come from. Media can be a cheap way out to think about someone for a second on their birthday or it can be to really get in contact with someone you truly care about. I am grateful for the media and that it could connect me to loved ones who are far away on my special day.

Pandora

I didn't start using Pandora until last year. (For those of you who don't know it's an free internet site that lets you listen to music). I had no idea how to make playlists or use it effectively. I have a desk job here at BYU so that's where I learned to use it. Even as I have become proficient with it I don't think I fully understand it still or I just find things to judge about it. I put it on at work because I can zone out and still have something in the background but I swear the same songs seem to play over and over again. There are only so many playlists you can make. The worst is when you give a thumbs down to a certain song and that exact same song comes on a different station but doesn't have the thumbs down recorded so you have to do it again. Maybe I am just too lazy to figure these things out but I find myself going to Grooveshark or YouTube to listen to songs when I am feeling like listening to specific songs or can't stand anymore versions of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Oh and does anyone notice that T Swift comes on basically every station? I have no idea what genre that girl is in these days, but I still love her. Obviously I still use Pandora so I appreciate it but I guess sometimes you just have to shake things up.