First Day, New School, Olympic Dreams

So, last night I was officially assigned to teach a class at Salt Lake Community College. This is on top of 7 courses I will be teaching at Utah Valley University. So, the end of the email from the coordinator who hired me said, "So, will you be able to make it tomorrow?" TOMORROW!? The first day was apparently today, but I thought it was next week. Dear me. So I stayed up late, through something together and almost died when my alarm sounded at 6 a.m.

I really do love the first day of school. I always have -- as a student and a teacher. I like change. It's fun and different. Maybe I like drama too. Not sure. Anyway, I had to stop and ask several people for directions before I found the office and my classroom. But it all worked out in the end.

As a class I had my students do a giant brainstorm of all the media involved in the Olympics. We talked a lot about mainstream media messages NBC commentary and newspaper coverage. Then I had them get on computers and search for underground and less noticeable media messages that have been made about the games.

This seemed fairly obvious to me. Look up videos on You Tube posted by athletes and spectators. Search Google blogs for peoples accounts of attending or watching the Olympics. Look for small Web sites, fan sites, athlete sites la, la, la. Instead I look up and every single students is staring blankly at the same list of Google hits from their obvious search of "Olympics." So I said, "Someone go check for interesting clips on You Tube and someone else go search Google blogs." Next time I look up, 8 of the computers are playing the same Chinese cartoon, which was obviously the first video that came up on their search.

I mocked them, and we had a good time about it. But, I am sort of shocked that even with the computer generation, they don't always know what to do with the Internet. They blog, but they don't know how to search a blog. They know how to find funny videos, but they can't search You Tube to learn something. Nothing against them at all because it was early, and they were really fun in class. But it is sort of a sad cultural commentary.
Also to their credit, I did the exercise myself later today and much enjoyed the junk they found.

Seriously, So Blessed

Blog satire gets me thinking...


So, a friend sent me a link to the following blog: seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com.

It is a satire making fun of a certain type of married Mormon women in Utah. I read it. There were some funny parts. But reading about it just made me as annoyed as meeting this kind of person. But the comments are pretty funny because some people don't realize that is it fake even though the "about me" section describes the person as a composite and she refers to her husband as the initials of 4 men that fit the mold. It's weird that someone would get on the blog of a person they don't know and then just start judging and commenting without really even getting the joke. I don't get it.

I think this blog does say something about blogging in general, though. As time goes on all new media will find new ways to fulfill certain comedic or dramatic or human needs that we have. This one is sort of a Saturday Night Live character for bloggers. I just think that is in interesting thing to think about.

I also want to take a minute to share the definition of satire: criticism to produce reform.

The goal of satire is to change something. Just a thought. I think we forget that sometimes. But trust me, if there is any part of this composite girl from the blog in me, I will remember it next time I act like her. Maybe it will stop me, and maybe it won't. But I think it is interesting to think about that find of effect within a new medium.

Anyway, check out this blog and use it to ponder the great media divides/expansions/changes/needs/purposes/ or whatever.

Lost is not Lost

Once again my friend Lizza brings up a great topic...but in this case I think she has the wrong idea.

On her Blog she posted about how she hates the ABC television show Lost. She said she watched the first season and got sick of the mysteries, bad acting and fat guy. She said she has cuddled up to watch a few partial episodes since then but not much else and still feels strongly that the show should get "lost." I told her exactly how I feel about her rant with some of these words, and then went on my own rant.

Come on now, Lizza, my love. Don't you think you are being harsh? Don't you think judging a 4 year old show off of 1 year of viewing is like judging a 16-year-old girl on the way she looked when she was 12. Not really fair. The show has evolved for sure. Plus, since you gave up, your not really a source of the matter anymore, true?

I didn't like the first season and a half, but I have been pretty entertained since then, and hey, if this baby turns 10 and I don't like it anymore, I can at least say for sure that years 3 and 4 rocked.

And I see where you are coming from with Hugo Hurley and his growth (how does he stay fat with barely any food?), but I actually really like the acting.

You've got to hand it to Lost that it is creative and entertaining to those who follow it AND it is different, which I really admire. What more can you ask in a show? I think it is important to judge a show based on both its relationships to other shows (1) and its relationship to itself (2). So as for Lost here is an evaluation:

1. Relationship to Other TV Shows: Better than a lot of other shows. Interesting. Different. Creative. Has fun media extensions on the Web, which might change the future of the industry. But doesn't have as many episodes as most shows in a season and makes you wait a long time for the next adventure. Sometimes doesn't go very far in an hour episode. Creatively challenges the format of linear storytelling, which is cool, but also challenges the format for actually linear time, which is annoying. Great job at keeping people posted on what has happened in the past will recaps and and pop up video style reruns, which I have not seen anyone else do.

2. Relationship to Itself: Challenging and stretching itself and creating a new format. Totally getting better all the time. Started answering its own questions at the end of the second season. Pretty consistent. Great Season finales. Not afraid to break genre rules and kill people's favorite characters but created its own rules so those people can come back in flashbacks, flash forwards, ghosts, weird island spirits, which is all kind of annoying.

Honestly, if anything, you have to give Lost credit for creative storytelling even if you hate the story itself. They have created a way to engage a multitasking society and generation in a new whole new way, so even with its weaknesses in story, I've got to give Lost props for breaking the mold.

Quinn visits the Hospital

A trip to the ER and a stay at the hospital helped me feel like an adult, a TV star and a much more grateful human being.


Well, I had a milestone as a mother. I had to make the call to rush my 14-month-old daughter to the emergency room. She was making the loudest possible noise a person could make with their lungs when she was breathing, but she was still walking around the house with a big smile. But at one point she took a turn for the worse and her little chest was caving in with each breath. I jumped into some crazy mom flight mode, and next thing I knew we were in the car and calling my mother to find out where the heck we should go since we were out of town and I didn't know where the hospital was.

I parked the car at Torrance Memorial Hospital, threw Quinn in a stroller and ran to the front door. But I wasn't sure what to do when I got inside. On TV the frantic mother runs in holding her limp child and screams, "Somebody help my baby! My baby can't breathe." I figured that was not the way it go (since most things on TV are not accurate), so I calmly walked in and told the lady at the window, "Hi, my little one here is having a hard time breathing. I think she needs to see a doctor." But I guess I could have gone with the first thought because they all jumped to it to check her in. Some poor women with stomach pain got booted behind us. (I heard her say her pain was an 8 -- sorry about that, Lady.)

The TV show continued when they put is on a bed in the ER hallway because there were not enough rooms. They sort of left us on our own for a minute, but we quickly got everyone's attention again when Quinn started to have another attack. We got a room and several nurses to help me hold Quinn down while she got an IV along with breathing treatments, chest x-rays and some steroid shots.

We ended up getting admitted into the pediatric ward and staying for two nights! Good Grief. I guess I made a good call by getting in the car when I did.

Our nurses were wonderful. The two we spent the most time with were Lisa and Elena. They really made me feel comfortable so I could do everything it took to make Quinn feel comfortable. They even searched for an Elmo DVD, which got Quinn through several of her breathing treatments.

The whole experience really made me feel grateful for health and good fortune. I felt very connected to the other parents and children in the pediatric ward. I was very aware that some kids spend far more time there than Quinn did and with much worse illnesses. I really am grateful that my little one is so healthy. I hope I never have to sleep at a hospital again (except to have more babies.)

It really is interesting to see a new world or situation from the inside. I've never donated to march of dines or to the Pennies by the Inch program they have here in Utah to raise money for the Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake. But now just after a few days in that sick kid world, it seems to be the first place I would donate. I felt myself making a mental list of things the toy room and book cases needed for future kids, and I really wish I had any money at all so I could give. If anyone reading this has any money, send some books to the Torrance Memorial Pediatric Unit. They could also use some more baby dolls. A pink poodle, too. (For the books I would send good, quality chapter books that have won awards. All they had was some old chain books like Babysitter's Club.)

It reminded me of a special moment of clarity I had when we were in the hospital after Quinn was born. She was in a low level NICU, and she was given a handmade baby blanket to cover her warming table where she slept. I was so touched by the fact that someone in the community had taken the time to make it and donated it even though in the past I, myself, had sort of mocked those kinds of service projects. Everything changed once I saw the experience from the inside.

So, to sum up. I guess you can dramatically run into the ER and Thank God for health and for chances to see more clearly the love and lives of others.

Fertility from the past

I was watching "Little House on the Prairie" on Sunday like I always do after church. The episode was the one where Caroline has baby Grace, her fifth and final child. Her fourth baby was a boy who died 4 years before. The episode was emotional. It touched briefly on how little women back then knew about what was happening to them. It also dealt, of course, with grief and death and wanting a boy to help your husband on the farm.

Anyway, I thought about women in this time period, and it really caught my attention. I could say more, but my point is that I found this interesting little Web site with the history of how women, motherhood and fertility have been thought about and understood medically and socially since the pioneer days starting in 1600.

Check it out:
Fertility History Web site

It is for sure now: American Idol is fake

Another American Idol mess-up shows that contestants' sour notes are sometimes cleaned up. I give up on the big lie that is Idol.


So, at the beginning of the American Idol top 24 episodes this year, my husband declared to me that American is totally rigged and that the judges/producers purposely put failed or already discovered artists into the 24 to stack the deck at getting a better chance at a hit-selling winner. He had done a bunch of reading online, and he told me the stories about how Carly crashed a record label with her $2 million flop when she was 19 and how David A. has been beating the pants off of Star Search for years. I told him to calm down, and we'd see what happen.

Well, what just happen is the season finale, which took any doubt out of the equation that this show is not what it appears to be. I'm not out of my mind. I fully expected the producers to use their song choosing powers last week to try to help seal whatever deal they want, but I have never expected that what is being sung on the stage is not actually what we hear at home. But this is what happen at the finale. It is very clear during the recap clips at the end that David A.'s last high note in Imagine was totally off (horrid, horrible, wanted to plug my ears, off.) We went back to listen again, and the note in the performance was on key and never went to the high note heard in the recap. What is going on here, idol?

The same thing seemed to be the case with at least one David C. note. And, ironically enough, this was the only night of the season that the judges did not comment on the performers "pitchiness" in spots. But I heard it myself; David A. hit a full-on sour note. It is clear that an autotuning devise was used during the performances and then the wrong clips where pulled for the recaps OR someone was in charge of cutting out the bad note for the replays of this not-so-live show, but they forgot to fix the recaps too.


Now, I have the worst ear for music, so the fact that I could hear this problem is crazy. I also noticed that David A.'s songs were muffled as if a remix was dubbed after taping to focus on the crowd and not the singing. I am Mormon and from Utah like David A., so I back him and hope he wins. But I don't think anyone would really want to win this way. What is American Idol trying to pull? How can we trust anything when these mix ups keep happening that show what is really going on?

As much as I enjoy the show, I think I might have to be done forever because this kind of obvious dishonesty is just unfair. Right, everyone knows that we are all suckers when it comes to all kinds of media and the fact that we watch this show in the first place (and buy the iTunes the next day.) It reminds me of the movie Simone where a man created a pop super star who was actually just a hologram that he projected from his computer.

In general, I don't want to be part of something that makes people even less aware of how media industries and messages actually work. I originally supported idol because I felt like it gave consumers the power to choose the people they want to see in pop culture. I liked being able to choose sleeves and kindness, but now it just feels like a lie.... 'cause it is.

*** We just re-watched everything AGAIN. And as we watched and compared the notes, movements, facial expressions and all (because we are that lame) it is clear that they ending recaps are not even the same clips as the actual live performances. It must be from the dress rehearsal. Now, I hate this show because it's just dumb. Don't they pay people a lot of money to keep things straight? And what are the odds that both would sing so poorly in rehearsal and not make any mistakes in the live show?

Colbert Report Effect

A student dicussion of Fox News helped me make the connection between Stephen Colbert and my new comfort in watching or listening to conservative media.

So my students in a mass communication and society class were talking about Fox News. They had read an article for class about how Fox has higher ratings because it is fair and balances and appeals to a younger audience. Younger audience, yes, but fair and balanced? I'm not so sure about that. But it did make me think about why, if ever, I watch Fox News and why, if ture, its ratings are going up.

As the students talked about Fox News, they were mostly talking about convservative, dramatic news shows like Hannity and Colmes. One of their questions was, "Does higher ratings mean that they ahve more true, and the audience goes there because they know it has more true?" Well, no. That seems rediculous to me. How can you really measure truth? And I just don't think the average person watches any news show and consciously thinks, "That's not true."

One person talked about access and how maybe cable access for conservatives has increased, which is increasing the number of viewers of conservative TV news. This made me think about the Colbert Report, and how I didn't start watching any conservative TV news or even know that they exsisted until after I got hooked on Stephen Colberts spoof version. After regularly navigating through the Report, I got a better understanding for how conservative TV news in layed out. I soon started stopping on those channels when I wanted news because they felt familiar. This is just another aspect of access. After watching the Report, I had more mental access to the other shows and to the Fox network all together. And it was mostly subconsious.

I don't have many strong opinions, so conservative media sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable. i'm not a name caller, and I like to hear both sides. In the past I would avoid extreme political discussion on either side, but again, I think watching Colbert has made me feel more comfortable because its not real. I just get used to listening and thinking without all the stress like I used to have. I listened to Rush in the care for like an hour a few weeks ago because his voice put my baby to sleep, and I was able to listen and think and have my own opinions when in the past I would have change the channel.

At the beginning of class we also talked about the CSI effect that makes juries nervous to convicted people in court these days because they expect more evidence and high-tech results from forensic science. This effect is obvious and huge, but I can't help but think that the Report effect is small and subtle but maybe making Rupert Murdock a lot of money and maybe helping a few young independents feel more comfortable learning and growing on the political scene.

Rate My Professors

So, I just set up this new blog, and I wanted to know if you could find it using a google search. My last blog was at Jillfellow.com, but it is missing. Long story. But when I searched, my blog did not come up... but look what did .... my students' comments about me on Ratemyprofessors.com. Nice. It makes me a little uncomfortable, but I'm trying to embrace it. I guess my issue is that I know students talk about me, but it feels more intense when it's circulated by mass media, you know? 

Check out this link to read what my students have to say about me:  http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1085293