Letter to Brian Regan

Dear Brian Regan,

            My name is Abby Gibbons and I am a Junior at Brigham Young University studying Marriage, Family and Human Development.  I am currently taking a class called Media, Family, and Human Development in which we study all aspects of the media and its effects on individuals and families.  For the class, we have an assignment to write to an authority or a figure in the media and either ask them to change something about their media influence or thank them for their positive influence in the media. I wish to do the latter.

            I have been a fan of your comedy for many years, as has my family and many of my friends.  I greatly appreciate the clean nature of your jokes, especially when so many comedians today rely on cussing and sexual innuendos and references in their comedic routines. The reason I love your comedy routines so much is because these types of offensive references are not in your jokes.  Your jokes rely on and perfectly explain the humor of everyday life, and I LOVE that!

            Consider this letter as an appreciation from myself and many of my friends and family for the clean, hilarious nature of your jokes.  As long as your comedic routines stay this way I will continue to be a loyal a fan.  My fiancé and I will traveling to St. George for our honeymoon so we can go to your show and we are so excited! Thank you, again.

Sincerely,

Abby Gibbons

Long distance communication...

Lately I have been so grateful the amazing technology we have today.  My dad is in Ukraine for almost a month. But, thanks to blogs, skype, and google video chat, we have been able to hear from him multiple times a day! He keeps an updated blog, where he writes about all of his dailty activities.  My mom has been talking with him several times a day using google video chat.  My fiance and I were also able to talk to him with google video chat for a little while last night.  I am so grateful and amazed by how easy it is to communicate instantly with loved ones who are so far away.

Go check out my dad's blog here.... kyivdiary.blogspot.com He's there teaching law students about the American jury trial system.

Create

So I can't figure out how to post the video right into my blog... but click the link and watch this awesome video. :) The other night my fiance and I went on a "Mormon-Messages-watching-spree" haha... I think this one is my favorite. Enjoy!

Create

The Olympics

I love watching the Olympics. It's just so much fun. Isn't it great that we have the technology to be able to watch what's going on in the Olympics across the whole world?

This year it was especially exciting to watch women's snowboarding because the gold medalist, Torah Bright, is a member of my Dad's singles ward here in Utah.  He's her bishop and was able to give her a blessing before she left for the Olympics a few weeks ago. So, it was way cool to be able to watch her compete on TV with that connection! :)

I love the internet...

So... I love the internet. I've decided that it is a life saver and makes like SO much easier!... Especially with planning a wedding.While trying to find a photographer, for example, I can go online and search TONS of different photographers websites and decide which one I like best.

ALSO, as I am working on a research paper right now, I am able to search thousands of Journals ONLINE... sitting right here, without going anywhere. We are so lucky!!!

Little Women

I recently rewatched the movie "Little Women" and I was reminded of the strong reminiscent power of the media.  This movie is and always has been one of my family's favorites and we watched it countless times growing up.  In fact, one year for Christmas, my mom made my sisters and I white nightgowns like the March sisters wear on Christmas Eve in the movie.  The reason I love this movie so much is probably because I have always compared the March sisters to me and my sisters.  In my family there are four girls and then the youngest is a boy. Therefore, it was hard to watch the movie and NOT compare it to my own family.  I remember watching the movie as a little girl and always trying to figure out which of my sisters was the like each of the march sisters.  I was the youngest, Amy, (since I am the youngest), My sister Liz was Beth, and it was always a conflict in my head in deciding who Jenny and Annie were (Jo or Meg). When I was young, my sisters and I even formed a "Pickwick Society" like the March sisters did.  We only met a few times and I was too young to remember what we did in our "meetings" but I remember thinking my sisters were "so cool!" 

Anyways, as I rewatched this movie the other day, I'll admit I got a bit emotional.  Partly because it's an emotional movie. But, I think it was mostly because of the reminiscing power the movie had, as I remembered different memories that I had with my sisters growing up.

Sideways Stories from Wayside School

When  I was in elementary school, my favorite book series was “Sideways Stories from Wayside School”.  There were three books in the series and I just loved them. I read them all multiple times.  The books are a compilation of stories from an elementary school called Wayside, and there is always something crazy going on at the school. I loved these books because they were so easy to read and I liked to imagine what it would be like if I went to a crazy school like the one I was reading about. 

Several months ago I had a conversation about these books with my sister and her husband.  They had recently checked them out from the library and were enjoying reading them.  I had almost completely forgot about the books but as we began talking about them I immediately remembered how much I loved them! I found my copies of the books and started reading portions of them.  It’s amazing how much of a book you can remember even after not reading it for years. 

Thank goodness for the media

My last post was an announcement about my recent engagement. At first I simply posted it because I'm a typical girl in love and excited to tell everyone that I'm getting married! I didn't make any connection between my engagement and the media. However, as a classmate pointed out, my engagement DOES have something to do with the media, because as I announced my engagement to all of my friends, I primarily used the MEDIA to send out the good news.  The day after Ryan and I got engaged we decided to make it "official" on facebook.  It was so entertaining to have 10 or 20 notifications every time I signed on to my facebook, with people commenting and writing messages congratulating us.  Thanks to facebook it was A LOT easier to get the news out to people. Thank goodness for the media. :)

So.... I don't know what this has to do with the media exactly... but....

I'M ENGAGED!!!

Something to think about...

“Because the Spirit is often described as a still, small voice, it is also important to have a time of quiet in our lives as well. The Lord has counseled us to ‘be still, and know that I am God.’ If we provide a still and quiet time each day when we are not bombarded by television, computer, video games, or personal electronic devices, we allow that still, small voice an opportunity to provide personal revelation and to whisper sweet guidance, reassurance, and comfort to us.”

Vicki F. Matsumori

Missing American Idol

Up until this season of American Idol, I have always been an avid fan of the show.  I've watched every single season and usually watched each episode every week.  However, this year I haven't watched it at all! My schedule makes it hard to watch unless I record it or something.  Anyways, it's kind of weird... but also kind of liberating! I'll admit I'm sad I haven't been able to watch it. But, like I said... It feels very liberating to not be tied down to watching a show twice a week simply because I'm obsessed with watching it.  We'll have to see if this No-American-Idol-streak lasts!

Quality Movies on Lifetime....

When I came home tonight, my roommate had just started watching a movie on the Lifetime channel. So, my boyfriend and I started watching with her. The movie is called The Pregnancy Pact.  It's one of those typical, cheesy, Lifetime movies... but this one I'm actually finding quite interesting! haha The movie is basically about a group of 15-year old high school girls who make a pact to all get pregnant at the same time so they can raise their kids at the same time.  Apparently the movie is based on real events.  Anyways, I'm finding really interesting and it's making me think a lot.  Especially after the class discussions on sex education and teen parenting in my adolescent development class and parenting class last semester.

I'm excited to finish watching the movie and find out what happens with the girls. Whether they decided to keep the babies or put them up for adoption. It will also be interesting to see what overall message comes across.

Relaxing evening in my apartment...

Right now I'm sitting in my apartment with friends listening to the wind blow outside and watching a classic movie on TV... Sleepless in Seattle. We were flipping through the channels and found it on TV and then found out that one of my roommates has never seen it! So now we're all watching it together. There's just something cozy about watching a good classic Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie on a windy night like this. :)

Phone Issues

So.... I have had the worst luck with phones lately. Due to issues with my phone I am now back to using my OLD phone that I thankfully kept after getting a new one. But now, as of this morning, this one's not lookin' too good either seeing that it won't turn on at all.

The NOKIA 5310 XpressMusic Phone:

So this phone had issues from the start... You know how you can "delete all" of your messages and once and it will usually take like 2 or 3 seconds? Yeah, well this phone has the "delete all" option... BUT it still deletes all of the messages one at a time (ex. "deleting 1 of 532".................."deleting 2 of 532"..............) IT TAKES FOREVER! AND, not only does it take forever to delete them... it freezes while deleting them! So at that point the only option is to take the battery out of the phone to turn it off, turn it back on. But then, there's another problem. It takes at least a half an hour to load all of the inbox message back on the phone before any text can be sent. ANYWAYS... so I went through this vicious cycle of trying to delete my messages, taking out the battery, turning it back on, and waiting forever until i can send a text and then trying to delete my messages, thus starting the whole annoying process over again. That went on for months and months... until my phone basically couldn't hold any more messages and it's basically completely frozen up now. I turn it on and it immediately freezes... and there's nothing I can do.

That's why I was so happy when I remembered that I kept my old phone...

the SAMSUNG t509:

This phone has actually been really good to me. I had it for 2 years... and basically everyone in my family had the exact same phone too. (We once came up with a game where we would put all of our phones on the table and mix them up so we didn't know which phone was who's, and then someone would call one of the phones from another phone after we placed bets on which one would ring.... haha wow we're WAY  to easily amused.... We would also have "phone wars" with them. We would put them on the table, upright back to back, on vibrate, and call them both at the same time and see which one stood the longest. GOOD TIMES haha) Anyway, when my Nokia phone stopped working I just pulled out my old trusty samsung phone and it has been working great for the past few months. However... last night at 2 AM I sadly dropped it in the sink briefly while I was brushing my teeth. (It has gotten wet MANY times before so I wasn't too distraught.) But... after taking the battery out and letting it dry out over night... it now won't turn on. OH NO! I don't know what I'm going to do... I definitely can't afford a new phone right now.

(Luckily I have a sister serving a mission who has an extra phone lying around the house that I might be able to use... )

All of this makes me realize how sadly dependent I am on my cell phone. I am just lucky that I still have other methods of communication like FACEBOOK, and that my boyfriend lives in the same apartment complex as me.

How much do we rely on the media?

Hi classmates... sorry I'm a little behind on my first post. It was evident that I hadn't posted anything yet when Dr. Coyne scrolled through the blog list today in class. So I figured I better get on the ball and post something!

So last week, on the second day of classes, my desktop computer started acting crazy and I figured I must have a virus or something. I just turned off my computer in frustration and didn't do anything about for a day or so.  I found out that my boyfriend's roommate is a computer whiz so I asked him if he could help me figure it out.  While he was fixing it he was skeptical whether he would be able to fix it or not.  I started to really worry! I began listing things that I NEED on my computer... like my billions of pictures from the past 5 years, and my 8,000 song itunes library.  And then I realized how much I actually do RELY on the media. The media has become such an intricate part of life, and I think that sometimes I don't realize just how much I depend on having my music, pictures, facebook, etc... kind of sad.