Summer Day 9-15

The day after we got back from Florida, we went to N.C.C.A to see my boyfriend's brother's students put on a play. It was very hot the next day, so me and my boyfriend decided to go to the Fun Bowl arcade. Later on we watched the Celebrity Apprentice finale. Marlee Matlin did not win :'( . On Monday, me and my boyfriend went to visit his grandma and pick out one of her kittens. His mom had already picked out the one she wanted which is a little girl named Stella! Tuesday, I was able to hang out with my best friend Jayda before she left for the summer. We visited my old school and we were able to see some of our favorite teachers! When we got back to her house we looked at old pictures from middle school...Oh the memories! On Wednesday, me and my boyfriend went to Academy Sports to look around and enjoy being in the nice air conditioning. Later on we watched The Middle and Modern Family season finales...one word Heelarryus! Yesterday we became victims of a violent hail storm that swept through the area. And finally, today I saw a squirrel with a nasty looking tail...I just had to take a picture of it! Later on today I am going to see Pirates with my boyfriend and his friend!

Summer: Day 5-8

Our vacation continued from Tuesday, May 17th- Friday, May 20th. We did a lot of relaxing on the beach and me and my boyfriend played "the paddle game" a lot to try to get warm! Even my boyfriend's dad joined in and played the game! Tuesday night was a record low temperature, but we braved the elements just so we could get sunset pictures. We braved the elements once more when we went out to get pictures of the full moon! We got to feed the cat that lived around the condos we were staying at and we got to feed some seagulls. My feet got really sunburnt, so for the last two days I wore socks on the beach...I think people were "digging" the new look because I got quite a few stares and laughs! After we were tired of trying to protect ourselves from the strong winds and brushing the beachsicles off of our limbs, we would go lounge by the pool. Now, let me introduce you to pool rule #7 (this gave me and my boyfriend quite a few giggles). You have to be somewhat immature to appreciate it, but here it goes..."Do NOT use pool if you are ill with diarrhea." I still wonder why this rule is #7, or the last rule. But I guess I'm not supposed to overthink the pool rules! Unfortunately on Friday, May 20th, our wonderful vacation came to a close and we were forced to head back to boring Ole Henry County.

Summer: Day 4

On May 16, I traveled with my boyfriend and his parents to St. George Island, Florida. When we left Georgia it was cold outside, so we could not wait to get to warm Florida sun. While making a pit stop after we crossed the border, we began to realize that Florida was not much warmer. After a long morning of traveling, we finally arrived at our condo around 1:30. After eating some "viddles" we all decided to go and relax on the beach. We got our chairs all situated so we could admire the view, then...let's just say we were greeted with a strong blast of wind that never died.
For supper, Jeremy and I ordered pizzas from BJ's Pizza (the only fast food like place on the island). While we were waiting or our order we decided to walk around the town where we were staying. Most of the stores closed at 5, but we were able to see the lighthouse and I was able to snap a picture of the water tower. Of course the pizza was good and after one last walk on the beach for the evening, we were ready to end our day.

Summer: Day 3

Today I got a much needed haircut. The last time I had gotten it cut was all the way back in December because I thought I wanted to grow it out. Of course, if you know me, you are aware that I never keep the same hairstyle for very long. I'm still getting used to it, but I think I'm really going to like it!

Summer: Day 2

Today I volunteered at the Scholastic Warehouse with my mom, Sierra, and Sierra's mom. We straightened and organized the book shelves and put back misplaced books. For every hour we worked, we earned $10 to go towards the books we picked out. My mom and I earned $60 each! We left the warehouse with 21 books! Today=Sucess!

Summer: Day 1

Yesterday I went to the Scholastic Warehouse with my friend Sierra and her mom. We went through all the books and chose the ones we wanted to work for. After we got done we went to a used book store that is simply called Books. I was able to meet the "smoker lady" Sierra told me and I was able to walk out with three books from my list! All and all it was a great day!

Advertising...continued even further

In 2004 Dove began running its Campaign For Real Beauty. Dove wanted to bring attention to these ads that portray women as just sexual objects, starting with very young girls.

At Dove, we want to help free ourselves and the next generation from beauty stereotypes. It’s this message that’s at the Heart of our Campaign For Real Beauty and Self-Esteem Fund, and it’s why we continue to create thought provoking ads, confidence building programs, and messages that embrace all definitions of beauty.

In one of the Dove commercials, an elementary school girl is shown being exposed to all kinds of beauty, diet, and plastic surgery ads. The main message of the commercial is to “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.” This is very reminiscent of the Above the Influence drug campaigns. Basically, Dove is showing that when young girls are exposed to these ads, they begin to think they are inferior in society. As they get older, they continue to try product after product, or diet after diet until it becomes an obsession, like a drug addict.  Girls are being taught from a very early age that looks are everything. A Dove commercial called “The Evolution of Beauty” depicts how these ads take an average- looking woman and turn her into a billboard model. The process shown in the commercial is very shocking. Before the ad is placed on the billboard, the woman was made up, had her picture taken, and then her face was manipulated and changed through a computer program. Yet seeing this still does not change the minds of women.

Advertising...still continued

Today, girls are more focused on making sure they have lip gloss on than learning how to read. “According to a NEWSWEEK examination of the most common beauty trends, by the time your 10-year-old is 50, she'll have spent nearly $300,000 on just her hair and face” (Bennett). Girls are being taught by the pop culture of today that anything can be upgraded and the more they have the better off they will be (Bennett). It has also been made clear that girls are taught at a very young age what the perfect body type is, and they begin to do just about anything to get it. “A recent study conducted on college sophomores in California found that over 60% have tried to lose weight by dieting…of the 60%, an alarming number of girls started dieting by the time they were eleven, and an overwhelming 84% had dieted by age fourteen” (Adams).  On the TLC show Toddlers and Tiaras, girls as young as two are taught about the importance of wearing makeup and constantly being aware of their appearance. Little girls admiring themselves in the mirror is a common image on this hit reality show. In the pageant world, girls are taught to always be perfect. Moms on the show constantly remind their daughters that the judges look at their whole appearance from head to toe. According to Belinda Luscombe author of the article “The Truth about Teen Girls,” girls learn from a very young age what it means to be sexy. She claims that in one generation, girls seem to have moved from Easy-Bake to easy virtue. “Sounds extreme? Maybe. But this, my friends, is the new normal: a generation that primps and dyes and pulls and shapes, younger and with more vigor” (Bennett). Yet moms still continue to spend money to please their daughters. Perhaps the reason for this is that the moms are just as sucked into the advertising as their daughters.   

Advertising continued

     Women are bombarded with television commercials, magazine ads, movie trailers, billboards, and Internet ads every day. “Kilbourne (2002) pointed out that advertising is a 100 billion dollar industry. Each day we are exposed to more than 2,000 ads. Advertising can be one of the most powerful sources of education in our society” (Greening). It is impossible to completely escape from any form of advertising, and it is really difficult to not suffer the effects that advertising brings, no matter how educated women are.
     But of course, advertisers are not interested in changing their ways. Women are buying into the ads and therefore spending thousnads of dollars on products, which is exactly what the advertisers want to happen. They do not care if a woman hates her face or starves herself; they are just interested in the profit. They are tearing women’s self-esteem down and laughing all the way to the bank.
    

According to the beauty industry, I should not look like this.

According to the beauty industry, this is what I should look like.

Mass Communications: Advertising...specifically for women

        Advertising has become a major part of today’s society. It shapes women’s attitudes, beliefs, and self-esteem. It is impossible for women to escape the in your face ads that try to persuade them to conform. According to the article “Women and Advertising: The Social Cost of Commercial Culture” written by Jessica Moore, “Advertising is the opposite of therapy…it’s designed to generate an inner-self conflict with ourselves.” Even a beautiful, confident, highly educated woman can begin to feel inadequate when comparing herself to the models featured in ads. Most women are not going to reach the level of beauty that has been set. Women will spend thousands of dollars throughout their life time on all sorts of beauty products.  Young girls are now taught that being pretty plays an important role in their social status. Advertising featuring images of perfection affects a woman’s self- esteem and the way she views herself. This has become such a big issue that a campaign has been set to try to bring back confidence.
     Based on advertising, women should have luxurious hair, eyes that pop and are surrounded by thick lashes, no wrinkles, white teeth, no unwanted facial hair, luscious lips, big breasts, they should have long legs with no cellulite, they should be perfectly fit, and, of course, they should be a size two. “Statistically only 5% of women have the body type most portrayed in the media - the only one seen as desirable and acceptable” (Kilbourne).  Women have become sexual eye candy for advertisements. Ads put a lot of pressure on women to conform or desire to be like the women selling the products. Women are constantly being compared or comparing themselves to the unachievable looks of these models. According to a research study by BBC’s Money program, one in three women believes that media images portraying unrealistic, beautiful women make them feel overweight and unattractive.
    

This picture shows that I am not completely detatched from the technology of today. The song that is displayed on the screen was uploaded from one of my dad's CDs.

This picture shows how I still use CDs. The CDs are in black and white to represent how they are now considered out of date.

CDs continued

     Even though CD sales are on a downward spiral and most people are getting rid of their old CDs, I have evidence that there are still people who prefer CDs. My dad loves music, so years ago he began collecting CDs. I grew up listening to CDs in the car with my dad, so of course there is some sentimental attatchment to them. However, I am certainly not stuck in the 90s. My dad and I have ipods and use them just about everyday. I have an adapter so I can listen to my ipod in the car, but my dad still prefers to listen to CDs in his car. My dad also still continues to buy CDs. The advantage have having access to so many albums is when I first got my ipod, I did not have to pay for hardly any music. I still had the option of picking and choosing what songs I wanted just like digital downloading does. I am also able to upload music by some artists who are not even featured on itunes such as Tool. My boyfriend just recently got his first ipod and even he took advantage of my dad's CD collection. By the time he got done making his itunes playlist, he only had to pay for two songs. Again, call me old fashion, but I still appreciate and enjoy CDs.

Mass Communication: Sound Recording...specifically CDs

     According the the textbook, the digital revolution has caused a seismic shift in the way conusmers buy and store music. Throughout much of recent history, the recording industry sold collections of songs, called albums, in a variety of formats: vinyl records, tape cassettes, and plastic CDs. Typically, consumers found that there were only two or three songs per album that they actually liked, but they were still forced to buy the whole collection. The digital revolution put more power in the hands of the consumers, who could now buy and download only those songs that they liked. Needless to say, conusmers began abandoning the album format. Sales of CD albums have been slowly declining since 2000. They dropped 19 percent from 2007 to 2008. Meanwhile, the number of digital downlaods increased an impressive 45 percent in that same period. It doesn't take a genius to see that the old way of selling music is on the way out. Unfortunately for record companies, the increased revenue from downloading of individual tracks is not enough to make up for the losses from the decrease in CD album sales.

Mass Communication: Books

     In class we learned that books are the last stronghold of the analog age. Although the digital age has transformed newspapers and magazines, it has yet to significantly change books. However,the way books are produced has changed significantly. Authors submit text in digital form, editors prepare digital text for publication, and publishers set type from digital text. Most people still buy the traditional books...you know the ones with covers and pages...but there is evidence that books are about to enter into a transitional period. Digital books, or e-books have been around for almost a decade. The Amazon e-book Kindle was introduced in 2007. It can hold about 200 books and Amazon boasts that it can download a book in less than a minute. The books claims that e-books make possible things that print books can't match. One example is an e-book can be continually updated. The disadvantages of the e-book is the price and there is always something that could be improved whether it be color or battery life. Also, if you happen to drop your e-book you're screwed and out a few hundred dollars. So far, they only account for not even one percent of all book industry revenue, but this is estimated to increase in the next few years.

     Here are my thoughts about e-books. Of course all I know is the traditional book...and call me stubborn or stuck in my ways...but an e-book really does not appeal to me. I like the feeling of holding a book, the pages slipping through your fingers, and the swoosh sound when you turn the page. This is a personal experience that and e-book cannot give you. Sure it saves you a trip to the book store, but there is just something relaxing about browsing through Barnes and Noble until you find the perfect book.
     I am currently reading the book A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Let me just say that there is absolutely no way I could read this using an e-book. Alex, the main character of the book/narrator, talks in a futuristic British slang called Nadsat. This requires me to look up the meaning of the words in a Nadsat dictionary I found by going to google. While reading the book, I write the meaning above the slang word. I would have a very difficult time doing this if I was using an e-book. Kindles do allow you to make marginal notes, but I would prefer the meaning to be right above the word.
I guess I'm just too old fashion for this day and age.