"the primary colors are one, two three..."

Today was the Primary program at my ward, which is usually one of my favorite sacrament meetings.  I love watching all the kids up there singing the choruses (and mumbling through the verses while the kids 10+ sing the actual words) to every song and having them recite their little segments into the microphone.  Today though was a little bit different for my ward as far as Primary programs go though because while we do have a Primary presidency, we no longer have any children in primary.  So instead of kids to entertain us we had the presidency speak (which don't get me wrong was not bad, just a very different kind of Primary program).  One of the things they talked about was, obviously, the importance of Primary.  I had never really thought about Primary as something that had that huge of an impact in my life, but then I started to think about all the Primary songs, and how much I still could sing all of them, and how often I sang them when I was younger at times when they helped me make decisions or something.  I do believe that Primary songs do serve a very real and special purpose in a child's life that can help them not just in childhood but later on as well, as it did with me.

"hand you another drink, drink it if you can"

Right now I am taking a CPR and First Aid class.  The classroom is FILLED with promotional advertisements (and I don't think promotional is the exact word I'm looking for) for healthy living; namely not smoking, or drinking, or using tobacco, etc.  Most of them I've seen all throughout my high school and junior high experience in every health class I had.  Yet, a couple of them I had not seen before.  One that stood out to me was a poster that had a picture of quite a few billboards one after another along the side of the road, all advertising for some type of alcoholic drink.  In the upper corner it said "How many times has your child been offered a drink today?".  I guess it stood out to me because I would have never thought about an ad for beer as someone "offering" me a drink, but that is essentially what they are doing.  I think that poster made a good point at helping us realize what are kids are exposed to not just at school and by peers but by advertisers as well.

"I wanna make you smile, whenever you're sad. Carry you around when your arthritis is bad..."

This week a monumental event happened; I found my very first gray hair.  What made me think about this was Dr. Coyne's topic about how pregnant people are portrayed in the media and how stretch marks should be worn proudly.  When I saw that gray hair, I'm not gonna lie, I was excited!  That hair seemed to me to be more of a symbol of life, particularly of all the things going on in my life right now.  This is my last semester at BYU, my husband and I are having a little boy in Feb., we're moving to Pennsylvania after April, we bought our first car car, just lots of things.  And so when I found that hair I just thought about all those things and couldn't help but smile.  I think another reason I welcomed getting the gray hair was the fact that I've had time to consider what my reaction would be to becoming gray.  My mom claimed she was gray by the time she was 20, so even as a teenager I was bracing myself for being gray young and I decided that I would just embrace it.  I think that is important to think about your actual views on beauty and to figure out what is important to you before you let the media try and tell you what beauty is.  I think it is a lot easier to withstand their attacks when you know what actually matters to you.  So even though it is just one gray hair for now, I am going to wear it proudly.

"Let's get together and feel alright"

This weekend I watched to movie Marley & Me.  After our discussion in class about how more and more "love songs" out there refer to lust instead of love it was interesting to see the portrayal of those two types of "love" in the movie.  The main character continues down the more traditional view of love; getting married, starting a family, working through hard times together, etc.  Where as the main characters best friend continues down the more "modern" lifestyle; different girl every week, not getting tied down, mainly letting his career dictate where his life is going, etc.  While both story lines are present, the main focus is on the more traditional view of love and family and I was really glad it focused a lot on the positive parts of the family.  So even with this growing interest in lust, there are still a lot of things out there that also portray true love.

"She is fast and thorough, and sharp as a tack. She's touring the facility and picking up slack"

As previously mentioned on the first day of class, one of my favorite TV shows is Chuck.  While watching it the other day I got thinking about how TV shows use similar facets as advertisements in order to capture our attention.  First off, the show has to stand out against all other shows out there as something worth looking into (Perception facet).  Then, it has to connect with us on an emotional level by possibly fulfilling our need for laughter, or to be caught up in romance, etc. (Affective facet)  It also has to be somewhat stimulating cognitively.  (I guess the tie to the cognitive facet is a little bit of a stretch because it is not necessarily informing us of anything, unless you look at it in the sense that it needs to be intriguing enough that it informs you of a new plot development each episode so as not to be completely predictable.)  I think the association facet plays a large role in TV shows.  For example, I can no longer hear the CAKE song "Short skirt/Long Jacket" without thinking of Chuck.  Or (probably a more popular one) I'm sure a lot of people think of 24 anytime they hear the alternating high and low beep of a second hand.  I'm also sure few people actually think of the literal theory that the solar system started from a little speck when they hear the words "Big Bang Theory".  If all these facets work together through the persuasion facet, then as the TV show creators hope, you'll end up watching their show because of the behavior facet.

Conference

This weekend I got to go camping with my family, but that meant that I did not get to watch conference live.  When my husband and I came back Sunday night, we were wanting to watch some conference so we wouldn't be completely out of the loop. (Plus conference is just amazing.)  However, my husband informed me that they probably didn't have anything up yet on the internet because it just happened.  I asked if they'd probably have it up tomorrow, and he said that it would probably take a week.  We checked just to see though and they already had it up!  It is great how productive and instantaneous the media can be.  Especially when it comes to being able to watch conference right away.

"my bags are packed I'm ready to go"

This weekend I had the opportunity to go camping with my family.  It was a lot of fun and I got to hang out with my nephew quite a bit (I'm kind of his favorite aunt, and I kinda think he's the bees knees too).  He love singing and listening to songs and will make up a song for just about anything.  He also knows a large amount of songs for a 4 year old.  Well I was sitting there playing with him and he started singing the song "I'm leaving on a jet plane".   And he's not just singing the chorus...he starts off with "my bags are packed I'm ready to go, I'm standing here outside your door etc."  And when he sings the lyrics, "the dawn is breaking it's early morn"  he asks me, "is the dawn breaking and cracking?"  It was hard to explain to him how the dawn breaks.  However, it made me think about how critical advertisers must be for advertisements geared towards children because they take a lot of things quite literally.  Same goes for children's songs and how picky they need to be with what words they choose to use.