Bachelor: Competition or Romance?

I'll admit it: I watch The Bachelor. I also like it. There are a few reasons why: I like seeing people fall in love, I love seeing the various date ideas the show comes up with, it's something I can talk about with my friends, and it's different from my life (albeit, their's is not very realistic--who dates 25 women at a time anyway?).

Even though I like the show, I almost stopped watching it because I was not very (still am not completely) happy with the bachelor. I was rooting for him when he was on The Bachelorette because he lives only 44 minutes (33 miles) from my hometown. He lives in the same county even! Rarely do people from Iowa, let alone Fayette county, population 20,502, make it onto national television. He seemed like such a true gentleman. I was shocked when he kissed someone on the very first night and every night since. Normally they wait for a few weeks. There are some other reasons, but I have come to learn that it is not really his fault of some of the things that I thought of him, but the people in charge of editing the previews for future episodes.

Anyway, onto what I really want to talk about...

Something that Kelsey said from Week 6's episode is how it's a competition and that she's in it to win it (which she doesn't). That got me thinking could The Bachelor be under the category of competition too, in addition to romance? I think it could be. These girls are trying to win over the bachelor's heart at an attempt to become his wife. Each week X number of girls are eliminated, thus losing their chances to win over his heart, although some girls try to come back for a second chance, but always lose a second time...In addition to competing for his heart, they try to compete for the rose or a one-on-one date (even though they have no control over who goes on which type of dates). The reasons for it being a romance reality TV is obvious: there's kissing, hugging, dates, and other mushy love stuff that takes place.

If this does classify as a competition show, I like the ladies who don't treat it as such. Those that come in with a strategy or game plan of how they will get the bachelor or far enough to become the bachelorette just seem very fake to me and there for the wrong reasons.

With that all being said, I hope Whitney wins because she seems like a very cool and real person. Plus, I think she could do just fine living on a farm and she's already from the midwest.

Family History: Census Records

I love family history. It takes a lot of time and patience, but it is worth it. I spent almost 7 hours working on it yesterday, just trying to find all the censuses from one of my ancestors' life. I found all but two. No idea where his 1830 and 1840 census is...I looked everywhere it seems (FindMyPast, FamilySearch, Ancestry, USGenWeb...).

I didn't mean to spend that much time on it, especially since I had other homework/reading that needed to be done for other classes, but time just got away from me (plus, I had no idea it would take me that long to find seven censuses). At least, it's mostly done now. Hopefully, I will get it finished tomorrow that way I can focus on my other assignments.

If you haven't taken REL C 261, you should. I am learning so much about how to be better at family history and it is so great being able to get to know my ancestors more. It really helps me know that they are real people and not just names to take to the temple.

I do look forward to taking this family that I've been working on all semester to the temple at the end. I feel excited just thinking about it.

Pinterest

I love Pinterest. There are so many neat pins out there. I probably spend a little too much time on there sometimes...Thankfully, I've been getting a lot better about that. Lately though, I have not been super impressed with Pinterest. Here's why:

Something somewhat new Pinterest has done is "suggested for you" pins. Let me just say, I am not such a fan. The majority of pins they "suggest for me" are things that I would never pin. There's been a few good choices on their part, but mostly it is things relating to alcohol, swearing, immodesty, and other inappropriate things. I would like it more if they would actually look at the pins within my board and see that I don't find things about alcohol or immodesty or swearing or other inappropriate things to be tasty, cute, or funny.

I hope sometime in the future they will get better about finding pins I'm more likely to pin rather than giving me pins that I hide because I don't want to see it due to various reasons mentioned above.

Content Ratings for Books

I've been thinking about the lecture from Monday and if books should be held to the same standard as other media types (TV, movies, video games, music). From our discussion in class I think it would be a good idea to include a rating and content. I know for myself when it comes to reading, I would like to know what is inside the book before reading it.

There are a few websites that give books ratings (just do a Google search), but the rating systems are more than likely different, so some books could possibly be rated differently. The other downside to that is that it's not on the book itself. It is nice, though, that these websites do exist.

With the exception of music, books are the only media type where the pictures are formed by your own imagination. Maybe this is the reason books are held on a pedestal? Maybe also that books are one of the oldest media types. Maybe because we imagine the pictures instead of it being shown on a screen, publishers/others believe that some people won't have as graphic images in their minds, therefore books don't need ratings.

I don't know the real reason to why books don't have ratings like other media types, but I think it would be a great idea.

Gilmore Girls

A semi new found favorite TV show of my husband and I is Gilmore Girls. I originally started watching it because Netflix gave me a 5 star rating, so I thought "Why not." I had seen bits and pieces of it on ABC Family when I was waiting for Full House to come on. At the time I that it was okay. Nothing I would normally pick or watch on my own. Now, though, it's a great way for my husband and I to relax after a crazy day of school and work. I love the humor and how relatable most of the characters are.

Chopped

A show that I started watching recently is Chopped. It seems like a pretty interesting show. So far I've only watched one episode. It kind of reminds me of my dad, who is a chef. He likes to cook fancy things and make up things as he goes along.

If I liked to cook, I think it would be great to be as good as my dad someday, but cooking isn't my thing. I much rather have a bowl of cereal every night then have to cook anything. My husband tends to do most of the cooking in our family, which we are both okay with. I prefer to bake. I find that to be more fun.

Maybe Chopped will provide me with inspiration to want to cook more often. We'll see. :)

On the Hunt for an Apartment (Maybe)

Most of my media consumption this past week (and three weeks really) has been surfing the internet looking for/at apartments. It's like the only thing my husband and I have been doing, besides homework. Who knew there were so many places to go to find apartments? KSL, Apartment Guide, Craigslist, Zillow, Trulia, various property managers...The list goes on and on.

Out of the seemingly million apartments (so...that's a bit of an exaggeration, but that's what it feels like) we have seen, there's been a few that we like. Most if not all of them we ended up not liking because of the rent and silly fees. The others just ended up being apartments that we just quite weren't looking for. There's one we looked at recently that we might move to (might being the keyword), but just don't know if we should. Hopefully, we'll find out soon enough if it is the right thing for us to move.

For now, though, I'm content where we are at. It's a nice, modest, spacious, affordable apartment. The nicest place I've probably ever lived in. It also helps that we have amazing landlords. :) 

I'm also thankful for the internet because if it wasn't for it, we wouldn't be able to look at the hundreds (maybe that's a more reasonable number...) apartments/condos/houses.

Music in My Mind

This kind of relates to what we talked about in lecture on Wednesday, but not exactly. It relates in that it's about music but it doesn't in that it's about music being stuck in your head.

Today I wondered if sometimes we get music stuck in our head for a reason or is it just random? I know we sometimes get a song stuck in our head because it relates to something that was said, just finished listening to the song, something we did, or something we thought about.

What does it mean, though, if we get a song stuck in our head not for any of the reasons mentioned above? I know I have some big decisions to make within the next few days that are potentially of eternal significance, so I don't know if the songs in my head are related to the decisions that need to be made.

Here are the songs that popped into my head first thing after waking up yesterday and today:

"Try" by Colbie Caillat and "Blank Space" by Taylor Swift (This was in my head today--Sunday--I didn't want it in my head since it's not a Sunday song, but it was in my head anyway)
"Everything Has Changed" by Taylor Swift featuring Ed Sheeran (This is one from yesterday--Saturday)

Just for fun here is one that was randomly stuck in my husband's head either this morning or yesterday morning:

"Everything is Awesome" from the Lego Movie