Kindleton

In class last week, someone mentioned e-readers and I figured I put in my two bits about it.  When I first heard of the kindle or the nook, etc., I thought it was a horrible idea.  Who would replace books with an electronic device, right?  Why replace a book with its real paper and crinkling, turning pages with a boring screen and buttons.  What a travesty!

My opinion changed when my mom got a Kindle Touch for her birthday.  I began to see the wonderful advantages of an e-reader.  I mentioned off-handedly to my mother that it might be nice to have a Kindle, and the next thing I know, I got one for Christmas.

Here are the reasons why I love my Kindle:

1) Portability: It's flat. It's small. It's amazing. I can carry it around easily in my purse or backpack and pull it out whenever and where ever I want.  I no longer have to carry around several heavy books.  And best of all, I can have 20 or more books with no additional weight.

2) Scriptures: I downloaded the scriptures onto my Kindle soon after I received it.  Since then my scripture reading has increased dramatically.  I always have my Kindle on me so I always have my scriptures.  During free time I pull it out and read a page or two.  I usually read my scriptures before bed, and ever since I got my Kindle I've been even more excited to turn it on and read.  Plus, the Kindle saves where you left of so I no longer have to wonder where I stopped.

3) Light weight: this is one advantage that I did not entirely appreciation until I experienced it myself.  Holding a Kindle is so much easier than holding a book.  I can lie in bed with my Kindle above my head or to the side and my hand never tires.  Books used to irritate me because I had to prop them open or keep them in my lap because they were too heavy to hold up.  Now I can relax and read a book with no struggle.

4) Highlighting: I can highlight and save my favorite quotes and scriptures on my Kindle.

5) Privacy: How you ever felt embarrassed when reading a book in public?  With a Kindle you don't have to feel embarrassed; no one knows what you are reading but you.  You no longer have to try to discreetly hide the fact that you're reading a sappy romance novel, a kids' book, a gigantic fantasy series, or a popular vampire romance novel.  Those old, embarrassing book covers will plague you no more.

6) Reading in the bathtub:  I got this idea from my aunt.  She puts her Kindle in a zip-lock bag and reads while taking a bath.  It's wonderful and a dream come true.

The only disadvantage is having another electronic device I have to recharge.  Sometimes I forgot, which is very distressing sometimes. 

But other than that, I love having my little Kindleton with me.

A Voice in the Wind

My favorite book now is hard for me to pick.  I love so many.  I like to keep track of the books I’ve read and according to goodreads I’ve read 269 books and I’m sure I’ve forgotten to add more.  But for the sake of this assignment I will pick one that is a top favorite.  It’s call A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers.  Rivers is mainly a romance author, and there is a hint of that in her books, but A Voice in the Wind is a historical fiction.  After the destruction of Jerusalem, Hadassah, a Christian girl, is taken as a slave for a Roman aristocrat family under the pretense that she is a Jew.  If anyone found out she was a Christian, she would be sent to the arena to be brutally killed.  This book is about her, her faith, and the Roman family she serves and grows to love.  To make things more difficult she falls in love with the handsome epicurean in the family, who surprisingly falls in love with her.  But because he does not believe in God, she cannot love him as he would like.

I loved this book because it delved into the struggles of a girl around my age who lived my standards but in a wholly different time. Hadassah was so much like me in many ways and her personality and her actions in the book inspired me to be a better person.  She followed her faith no matter the consequences.  Her strength and courage in the book gave me a model to go by.  I loved the historical detail and I thought the author did a marvelous job portraying the beliefs, actions, and environments of the Roman people. The book also gave me much to think about concerning the beliefs of the Romans and the reason for their fall.  It taught me history and gave me an image in my mind of what life must have been like.  After reading this book, I went on to read other historical fiction books to learned and, in a way, experienced history more than I ever could in a classroom.  

Dragonsong

One of my favorite books when I was younger was Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey.  It’s about a girl who finds herself involved the planet Pern’s troubles.  Menolly lives in a hall beside the sea, and her only love and desire is to create music, but her father forbids it because she is a girl. The planet Pern is a dangerous place.  Every two hundred years, gray threads rain from the sky to destroy every living thing they land on.  It is up to the native dragons and their riders to destroy the thread and protect the land.  In addition to the dragons, little fire lizards, miniature dragons, roam the land and are highly valued as pets.  Angry at her father for destroying her dream, Menolly runs away from home, gets caught in Threadfall, befriends nine fire lizards, and lives to tell the tale.  But that’s just the beginning of her story.  Menolly moves on the Harperhall to be trained as a harper, a teller of tales and a musician, but also finds herself submerged into bigger things with her nine singing fire lizards. 

This book is my favorite because it embodies all I wanted in a book when I was a teenager.  I loved fantasy books with dragons and adventure.  The main character Menolly was easy for me to relate to.  She was a musician like me and her personality was similar to mine.  Her struggles suddenly became dear to my heart and I felt for her.  She reminded me so much of myself.  I also loved this book because it reminds me of good times with my sister.  She read this to me out loud as we gave each other back tickles and ate heath bars.  It was a great bonding moment for us and this book will forever remind me of my sister.  The book itself didn’t have a huge impact on my life but it did influence my imagination.  This book and many others inspired me to imagine stories, plot lines and lovable characters.  Dragonsong sparked a huge interest for reading.  After this book I went on to read every other book Anne McCaffrey had about the Dragonriders of Pern.  It sparked inside me a huge desire to read and vicariously have adventures through the characters.  But it also taught me how to create adventures of my own making inside my imagination.  

Day without Internet

Yesterday, a horrible thing happened.  I was watching a video on Youtube, basically just wasting my time when I should have been doing my homework, when suddenly the internet stopped working.  I tried to load the page again, but the message that popped up was quite unexpected and unwelcome.  It said, "The bill for your internet has not been paid." Knowing this wasn't my fault (I am not in charge of the internet bill) I could do nothing about it.  It turns out that my roommate wants to switch to another internet provider and stopped paying the bill for our current provider.  The ladies above my apartment are planning to install the new router and let us share with them but it will take a couple days.  Anyway, my apartment is going to be without internet for the next few days, perhaps the next few weeks.  And it is going to kill me.  After the internet was shut down, the next few hours of yesterday were quite revealing.  I was having serious internet withdrawals.  I wanted the internet back!!  I didn't know what to do with myself.  After wasting my time pouting because of my loss, I decided to do my reading and play the piano instead--activities which are a much better use of my time.  However, I still miss the internet greatly.  I couldn't check my email or Facebook.  I couldn't access my Google docs which contained much of my homework.  Oh, yesterday was a sad sad day...such a tale of woe.

Saw this picture on Facebook and thought I'd share:

Music and Word

Music is power.  It has the ability to change and influence our lives.  Certain music has the power to make me hope, to make me dream, to make me relax, to make me me, to make me imagine.  At this very moment I am listening to my epic soundtrack playlist and feeling totally inspired. 

When I was a teenager--well, now that I think about, I still do this--I would turn on my music and put headphones to my ears and just sit and listen.  The music would inspire thoughts and emotions.  I would think about my life or just imagine life being more amazing.  I would see myself saving people and doing heroic acts.  Or I would imagine a new place and new people, entirely of my own creation, and develop plots and personalities to go with it. On car trips I would listen to music for hours and just entertain myself with my own thoughts and mental images.  For me it was better than watching a movie or listening to books on tape.  I was the creator and the observer.  No one, not even me, would know how the story ended.  The music led me through a story as I followed the emotions of the songs.  I have brainstormed my best stories while listening to music.

Music also makes me introspective.  As I listen memories and ideas come to my mind as they are triggered by the lyrics or sounds.  I have received many epiphanies and clarifications about life, humanity, and the universe from music. My testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ has increased many times just by listening to one song. This is the power of music.

Here are some of the songs that have inspired me...

To Feel the spirit

To Relax

To be Empowered

To Have Fun

Mormon Messages

Today in SFL 358 we watched one of the Mormon Messages and it made me realize the impact they've had on me.  Many if not all of those messages have touched my life and given me strength in different ways to continue living my life well.  Some days I reach an ultimate low - like today - with no motivation or strength to fight the pressures of the world or to tackle the stresses of life.  Homework, classes, relationships, challenges, and fatigue.  On and on and on.  What I need is a little hope, just a pleasant thought or encouragement to keep me going.  Mormon messages are often the source I seek for that hope.  They are some of the best outputs in the media.  Below are some of my favorites.  Enjoy and feel the spirit today.

Create

Patterns of Light

Moments that Matter Most

EviDANCE

Saturday I attended EviDANCE which used to be known as World of Dance.  I'm not sure if dance concerts can be considered media but I'd like to think that they do.  This concert in particular attempted to share a message to the audience.  They were discribing what dance is.  In the process they used large screens that you think are backdrops at first but are actually images projected onto a  canvas.  Each of their performances was assigned to one of four catagories.  Whimsical, romantic, mysterious, and life.  For each introduction into the catagories, the screen was used to display it.  It was beautifully done.  The message they conveyed to us was that dance can be a part of life and life can be in dance.  I'm not a huge dance fan but I think it's fun.  I've taken Social Dance 180 and I enjoy dancing around my room by myself.  But this performance was inspiring.  It made me feel like I could do great things. I cried almost four times during this performance.  While I was walking home I felt like I was on cloud nine.  Attending performances like that is like stepping into another world, escaping life and its dullness, to be thrust into a world of beauty and inspiration.  The magical combination of music, dance, and images impacted me strongly.  Before the concert even started I felt more at peace.  I was sitting by myself, attending the concert alone as I am want to do, surrounded by people I did not know.  The sound of chatter around the large room was loud and rumbled in my ears but I did not hear it.  The music in the background was what I focused on.  Playing over the speakers was music from the Lord of the Rings.  It was calm and serene.  I closed my eyes and let myself relaxed.  Every stressor and pessimistic thought lifted away from me, and I became a figure of stillness in that room full of noise.

Performances are one of the greatest forms of media and they are my way of escape. 

While I was working on an assignment for this class, I noticed that the synonym for entertainment was 'diversion' and 'distraction.'  In some ways these two words have a negative connotation but they can also be viewed as positive.  In this instance my positive diversion from life was music and dance.  But instead of making me feel wasted and dead inside like some entertainment leaves you, this distraction left me feeling empowered.

Phoneless

I usually consider myself not addicted to my phone.  On any given day I check my cellphone maybe once a day for text messages and missed calls.  I talk on the phone maybe once every two weeks and text maybe five times a week--and that means only five text messages per week.  I'm notorious for not answering my phone and responding to texts.

I carry my phone for two main purposes: 1) clock, and 2) emergency calls.  I do call my family every once and a while, but other than that I avoid it.  I do not like talking on the phone.  I prefer speaking face to face with someone if at all possible.

The downside to my neglect is I miss out on invitations and people stop texting me because I don't respond.  I perpetuate the neglect of my phone.  And sometimes, I don't care.

However, I had an enlightening event this past week that opened my eyes to my dependency on my phone.

I was visiting my sister and my nephew Jonathan on Tuesday.  Jonathan loves to play with my phone so I gave it to him to carry around.  He laughs every time he presses the buttons and a red screen comes up.  It says 'to unlock, press ok, then clr.'  It's the only reason I allow him to play with it.  I'm pretty sure he won't press those two buttons in the right order and accidentally call someone. I love watching him giggle every time the screen pops up.

Eventually he lost interest and left the phone somewhere and I left without it.

It took me a while to realize it was gone. I went back to my sister's and we found it in the diaper bag.  I was so relieved and also shocked that I actually missed my phone.  All my talk about how I don't need it was a lie.  I use and need it more than I thought--even only to tell the time.  I don't know how people lived without the ability to contact others whenever and wherever they wanted.  Phones are one of the greatest inventions and has changed humanity forever. Never the less, I am glad I am not completely dependent on it.  Too many people are addicted to using their phones and neglect things that are more important, like personal interaction and basic appreciation of their surroundings.  I see too many people walking around on campus, talking on their phones or texting, while completely ignoring the people and the world around them.  They become self-centered and consumed by their phones and transmitted conversations.

Imagine Dragons

I promise, I am not obsessed with dragons.  It's just a coincidence that my first two blogs have to do with them. I have to admit, I did read a lot of fantasy books when I was a teenager so perhaps I am.  But lately I prefer to read dramas, weird but yah.  Anyway, I'll move on.

Imagine Dragons, if you do not know, is a band.  And I am obsessed with them.  Their music is peppy and fun with a unique sound and voices. When I hear their music, I can't help but be happy. I love listening to them.  If you haven't heard them before, you should give them a listen.  They came out recently with a CD which includes several of their most popular songs, like 'It's time' and 'Radioactive,' and some refreshing new ones which keep getting stuck in my head.  I think my favorite of the newest songs is 'Bleeding Out.'

Music is an escape for me.  I turn it on when life gets too overwhelming or when I need at extra boost to get something unpleasant done.  I listen to it when I clean the dishes or when I work on other monotonous tasks.  It helps me relax and enjoy life more.  Sometimes when I'm extremely stressed, I put on some of my favorite, calming music and just sit, listen, and meditate.  When I'm feeling melancholy, happy music is the best medicine.  But sometimes when I'm angry and depressed, I turn on music that matches my mood and even that consoles me.  

Music has power, people.  It can be great good in our stressful lives. But beware, it can also evoke emotions that can hinder your happiness.  Don't listen to things that make you want to hurt someone, behave rashly, act inappropriately, or go against what you know to be right.  Limit or completely rid yourself of music that endorses sex, promiscuity, violence, depression, anger, and revenge.  There is a plethora of good music out there; you just have to sort through the slush pile to find music that is worthwhile.

Imagine Dragons was a diamond found in the rough.  I came across them while exploring music on Spotify and have listened to them constantly ever since.  Let happiness and excitement begin!

Here There Be Dragons and Devotional

Today I attended the first BYU devotional of the semester.  I closed up the reference desk where I work and headed to the Marriott Center.  I was quite excited and pleased to see so many people walking along with me.  Sister Samuelson and Brother Samuelson  spoke and what intrigued me most was Sister Samuelson's speech.  She told us about old maps and how in areas where the topographers hadn't explore or where they encountered danger, they drew a dragon along with the words "Here There Be Dragons."  She went on to talk about the "dragons" in our lives which are those things which terrify or tempt us.  She told us to mind our dragons.  If they be temptations, avoid them.  If they be irrational fears, face and explore them.  As we come into this new semester, we will be faced with dragons.  There will be places on our  maps that are unexplored, dangerous, and unknown, marked with the words, "Here There Be Dragons" but we must be brave and face them with caution.  Half way through her talk, she spoke of media and mentioned how it can be used for good or ill in our lives. Media can be used to extend our knowledge and enlighten our minds. It can share good messages and be a useful tool.  But media can also be our dragons, those things which tempts us, and we can use it for ill.  So, my peers and happenstance visitors, beware of your use of media and choose it wisely because you may find a quite unfriendly dragon in your path and it's not going to be Toothless or Puff the Magic Dragon.  Be brave and stay away from those treacherous regions.  Proceed with caution.  Beware. Be aware.  Because Here, in the media, There Be Dragons.