My AWESOME Chris

Yesterday morning I walked into our living room after getting dressed and my 25 year old husband was sitting on the couch watching and dancing to the music of......"Dragon Tales". For those of you who are not familiar with dragon tales, it's a show for five year olds.......maybe even younger. When I asked Chris what he was doing he sheepishly looked at me and said, with shrugged shoulders, "They were playing sky soccer". I never found out what sky soccer was because I was DYING laughing. Then Chris started laughing. And pretty soon we were laughing so hard I could not breathe. Thank you PBS for giving my husband and I this hilarious moment. Oh how I love him!!!!

Media and projects

We pretty much used the internet to steal pictures and movie clips for our entire project today and for my project next week. Enjoy!!

Letter to My Senator, but since health care passed I know she is not listening!

As one of your constituates I feel it is my duty to express my concerns for the future of our country and hope you will take these concerns and attempt to make changes in Congress. I consider myself a person of character that values the chastity and sanctity of sexuality. As a female, I place a high priority on women being respected and valued for who they are and not what they look like. When we look at the number of teen pregnancies and out of wedlock births each year within this great nation it is clear that we have a problem. It is clear that we are no longer sending a clear message to youth about the meaning of sex and human sexuality. I also firmly believe that this ambiguity surrounding teen sexuality is due to the disintegration of the family unit, lack of proper information in the school systems, and the constant messages of the media. While Congress has done much to influence the information adolescents receive in school and refuse to address the issues surrounding our nations families they have done little to address the issue of human sexuality and the media.
The media consistently portrays sex as a normal experience for adolescents. While the majority of adolescents do engage in sexual intercourse it is a very slim majority and that does not seem to be the case until they are in their last year of high school. Younger adolescents participating in intercourse is still very rare, yet the media continues to depict sexual intercourse by young adolescents as normal. I am also concerned that the media attempts to portray teen sexuality as healthy and without consequences. The consequences, according to research, of teens engaging in sexual intercourse are more than pregnancy. These teens are more likely to engage in other risk taking behaviors such as drugs, binge drinking, poor school performance, and are more likely to be victims of violence. These teens are also at a greater risk of developing serious self-image issues and depression.
More than anything else I am concerned about the image the media is portraying for young females. While the media is being to portray more intelligent, powerful women, they are also showing an increased number of women who are morally loose and are basically seen as sex symbols. The media is teaching young women that their value lies in their sexuality and their ability to “catch and keep” a boyfriend and not in their brains or values. I am concerned that if the media trends continue on the current trajectory we will produce a generation of women that are so concerned about having boyfriends and being cool that they will do just about anything, regardless of the consequences.
I support the standards are which this nation was built. I support freedom of speech and expression. What I will not support is the exploitation of women and the portrayals of sex as a “human recreational activity” all in the name of art or freedom of speech. These ethics were established to protect the rights of the citizens and citizens of this country have the right turn on their televisions without being wary about the content coming into their homes. They have a right to raise their children in a country that supports the dignity and worth of young women. Adolescent girls have the right to look in the mirror without self loathing because they do not look like the women they see on television. This is a serious and real problem that needs to be addressed in order for our country to continue to prosper and to uphold the principles and ethics outlined in the constitution. I urge you to draw attention to these serious issues and concerns and hold the media industry accountable for the messages they are sending our youth. After all, these youth may someday be in your shoes.

Music= Summer

Lately in the grad lab I have been switching up my music choices a little. I love Gosh Groban but I am getting really sick of him. So I went back to my old favorite....Rascal Flatts. I LOVE Rascal Flats! I don't know what it is but everytime I hear their music I think of summer. I swear I can smell the sunscreen in the grad lab every time I listen to them! Plus with the awesome sun appearing again lately it's making it worse. Can music remind you of seasons??? I think so! ohhh  now I want an Otter pop!

Also this is my 3 year old niece pretending to be Ariel in her back yard. I died laughing!!! She has the hair flip down!

Starving for creativity

So I had this realization the other day that as a result of selling my soul to the BYU graduate program and an endless array of statistical tests I have kind of lost the artistic side of myself. I used to be like super into music and singing, dancing, writting, and attemtping to paint. I love art, I love music, and I LOVE literature. So after coming to this realization my husband and I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a bunch of books. I read Persuasion by Jane Austin for the first time and I literally finished it in less than 24 hours. I mean it's a good book don't get me wrong, but it is not THAT good. I was just starved for art (some argue that statistics are an art and while that may be true its not really the kind of art my heart is longing for). My new goal is to read some classic work for 30 minutes a day (same as the scriptures!) The next one on the list is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I am super excited!

I like that books are part of the media. They just might be my favorite form ever!

The Blind Side

This weekend Chris and I went and saw the Blind Side so I could code it for a project (Yes it took us THAT long to see it....I know it is coming out on video like this week). We basically thought this movie was amazing and really touching. It actually hit really close to home and I swear I did not make it more than five minutes without a new patch of tears. Chris served his mission in Chicago and spent a good amount of time covering Cabrini Green-which is one of the last true "projects" in the US. So obviously this movie struck close to home. He had decided, before we even met that it was really important to him to foster troubled youth. Change gears to my story- my school district participated in the voluntary busing program for basically my entire life. How this works is that any student from a failing school in the city of St. Louis (AKA ALL of them) can come to a school in the suburbs that is not failing. This all originated in the 70's because the NAACP claimed that St. Louis schools were still segregated and brought it to court. I was just talking to my dad this weekend about how this program changed my perspective on basically everything having to do with poverty and education and that I honestly felt this experience was one of the single greatest things I gained from my public education (my dad, being a true republican through and through was highly distraught by this comment- why would we spend money on a stranger education? I think his exact words were "maybe they should raise property taxes in the City to fix there own schools and not take my money"-thank you Rush).
I seriously was so inspired by this movie. It has always been, since seeing the effects of poverty on my friends, one of my lie goals to foster/ adopt kids from poverty. The entire time I was watching this movie I just kept thinking "She is living my dream! Look at what a difference one family can make!" I seriously reccommed this movie to anyone and everyone, but bring tissues!

Pictures are amazing

So after being gone a week and the end of the semester fastly approaching I am feeling a little like this

This is my niece on their family vacation with no naps and having a moment. I LOVE how pictures can sum up exactly how I am feeling.