Coding Aggression.

I feel like coding aggression is making me more aggressive. I could do a case study on myself because I'm feeling the "effects" so badly. It took me about 3 hours to code one movie and after I was done I felt like I couldn't control my attitude. I was frustrated and discouraged all night. I'm not sure what else I can blame for my actions. (I needed to vent. I thought that might help.)

Differing Opinions.

Today I had the difficult experience of hearing a friend of mine tell me that her 13 month old daughter knows how to turn on the TV and VCR. The sad part is that she said that her daughter wants to play video games, so she turns off the VCR and turns on the game system. Then the daughter sits and pushes the little buttons and watches the screen move around. She said that she is so happy when she is playing the game even though she doesn't know what she is doing. She was excited that she was teaching her child young to play because she and her husband love to play video games! It broke my heart.

I guess that differing opinion just comes from my experience with television in my own home. It makes me sad that someone so young experiences so much through the television screen.

Quantum Leap.

Every day in class my professor plays 15 min of this show to explain our discussion on qualitative research and naturalistic views. In all reality, he doesn't realize that it is wasting time, and putting us further behind on our discussions. He is going to play it every time for 15 min until the episode is over. I guess some like it because we aren't actually talking about class stuff, but I don't like it. If it was a funny YouTube video maybe, but not this.

Note: One good thing is that we finally got batteries in the remote so we don't have to fast forward through the whole episode. We can skip chapters. It is so much easier that way with DVD technology.

How do you disagree with family? You just don't.

This past weekend I was talking to my husbands extended family about television shows geared towards children. I was actually just listening, but the conversation was very interesting. Someone said that these television shows were not good for children and the mother of the children said, I think that some of them can be good. The teenager said, what shows? The mom said that Dora the Explorer was a great show (or something to that effect). Then the discussion went on with an small argument between the two. However, I couldn't help but think that I disagree completely with the thought that Dora is a great show. It may have the potential, but ... think about this.

A child is sitting in front of the television and Dora asks, "What is 1+1?" As Dora pauses the child answers incorrectly, "1" or "3." Then Dora continues to say, "That's right, 2."

Woah. Now what do you think that is going to do to the child? At that age they are not able to understand why she said that he/she was right, but then said the answer was 2 (which is not what he/she said). How confused do you think this child will be?

I decided not to say anything because I didn't want to criticize her parenting. She is a great mom, but I think there are things about television for children that need to be improved. Another way the show could be successful is if mom sits down with the child and pauses the show to discuss each question Dora asks. Then when they've come up with the correct answer, press play and allow Dora to say, "Great Job." That way Dora is always saying great job to the correct answer, not just any answer. This, however, is not typically the way parents engage in television viewing with their children. Typically the child is plopped in front of the TV to fend for himself while the mom does the dishes. Sad.

Oh Yeah.

I forgot that I was going to write about this. Yesterday in Relief Society we were talking about God's love for his children and our different talents etc.

Quotes from the gospel principles book read, "Joseph Smith taught that 'every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was [fore]ordained to that very purpose'. However, everyone on earth is free to accept or reject any opportunity to serve."

"We were not all alike in heaven... We possessed different talents and abilities, and we were called to do different things on earth."

The topic of comparing ourselves to others around us came up and all I could think about was blogs. Blogs are such an easy way to compare our lives with other lives. However, blogs are typically fantasy. Does anyone ever really say that they live a horrible life? For the most part, NO. Most posts are about exciting, fun, happy, etc. things that people have in their lives. I think this is a false idea about life. We all need to know that great things do happen, but we typically all have bad days. (We just never tell people about them.) It is easy to compare ourselves to someones perfect life, but we need to remember that it is probably not perfect.

MythBusters

Today my brother-in-law said, "Man, I could watch MythBusters all day." Good thing today was a MythBusters marathon on the Discovery Channel!

P.S. I finished Harry Potter this afternoon. WooHoo! I loved it. Now I need a new audio book to read.

I've never read Harry Potter. Are you serious?

I am serious. I have never read one Harry Potter book in my life. Woah! However, back in August when I went home to visit my family (5 younger siblings) I started my obsession (a little late I know).
My dad had just installed surround sound in the room with the 50 inch big screen television. We were trying to decide what to watch, and we settled on the first 5 Harry Potter movies. Granted I was only there for about a week. Hello, we watched 5 movies so quickly. Every night was a new Harry Potter movie. Well, I had just earlier seen the 6th movie and I needed to know the rest of the story (even though I had previously looked it up on Wiki).
I stumbled upon the audio version of the book (from my cousin) and I started listening on my way home from Texas (20 hour drive). I now listen to it while I am doing the dishes, working, blogging, or whatever!


Okay, okay, I keep getting told that I cannot read the 7th book before I read all the rest. You know what I have to say... YES I CAN! It is awesome. I can't wait to finish and get my hands on the previous books. I am also looking forward to getting other audio books to read while I am doing other things. I love it.
(There was a ton of media in this post!)

Booth & Brennen Kiss

Someone was asking and I checked it out. They kiss in Season 3 Episode 9 "Santa in the Slush" (I didn't actually watch the episode again to check it out, but that is what it says online). P.S. This is one of my favorite Bones episodes regardless of the kiss. The ending is the BEST EVER!

Skype Update.

I was on Skype for more than FOUR hours yesterday. Woah. As I was talking with my dad I remembered the thoughts I had while listening to Elder Andersen's CES Fireside. I had a huge impression to find the Elders who baptized my dad. Wouldn't it be very cool to let them know how grateful I am for what they did for my family. It was awesome too because we were able to look online and I found missionary websites. These sites allow missionaries from any time period to post their information for others to find. Here is the website to my dad's mission as an example. I just looked up his Mission President's name and it gave me Elders and Sisters who served at the same time period. It was so fun to use technology to find friends of my dad.

Note: Another cool thing is that my dad has facebook. That is cool because I DO NOT have facebook and he is learning how to find mission companions as well as the missionaries who baptized him. I still don't know if we will be successful, but it has been really fun searching together.

Skype.

I am so grateful for Skype. This amazing little thing has allowed Kendall and I to talk to his parents in Fort Worth, his brother in Galveston, a family in Mexico, and my parents in Sacramento all on the same night for FREE! It is great. It is almost like being there with each of them. This has changed the meaning of conference calls. I heard there were other programs like this that allowed multiple callers, but I haven't yet figured that out. Someday I will be able to have family reunions online. Awesome! For now, I will stick to the basics.