Letter to Pres. Samuelson

President Samuelson,

            I thank you in advance for your time. I am a senior majoring in Family Life and one of the classes I have taken this term has been Dr. Sarah Coyne’s Media, Family, and Human Development. We have talked about many aspects of the media including: infant media, sex, reality TV, literature, social networking, advertising, music, etc. It is music in particular that I wish to speak with you. I have learned from my own experience that music can be one of the most influential types of media we have access to today. It has the power to increase good feelings and welcome the presence of the Spirit but it also has the ability to drive the Spirit away and enhance negative and destructive feelings.

            Since my first semester here at BYU I have noticed the fast-growing trend for students to walk around on campus with headphones in their ears listening to music. As a first-year student I was nervous to join the ranks at such a wonderful university especially, when it seemed that everyone was more interested in the noise in their ears, rather than the people around them. Please do not misunderstand, I know the uplifting power of music and I also know the peace students can find in moments of solitude. However, I believe our university could be a much better place if more emphasis was placed on reaching out to our fellow students and offering a hand of friendship rather than being distracted by this form of media.

            Part of the saying that is inscribed on the monument as you enter BYU campus is “Go Forth to Serve;” I submit that we should not have to wait until graduation to serve God’s children but that there are opportunities all around us, everyday, on BYU campus. I hope that with your encouragement more students will be inclined to observe the people and places around them at our beautiful university and seek out opportunities to show love and friendship. Thank you again for your time and your continual support for the students and university.

Sincerely,

Bonnie Buhler

Brigham Young University

The Race of Life

We went visiting teaching this month and I gave the lesson on President Monson's talk on Sunday morning titled The Race of Life, the talk focused on questions such as why are we here? where will we go after death? etc. However he always talked about getting your priorities in balance and reevaluating where your place your importance. He related the story of an older woman who before being diagnosed with a terminal illness always had a clean house and focused on keeping herself beautiful; she rarely had her family over because she was worried they would break something precious in her home. After she was diagnosed she decided that none of those things were important and that she was going to spend the rest of her time with her family.
This made me reflect of the things that I place the greatest importance in. Am I always focusing my energy on my family, the thing of greatest importance, or do I neglect them for temporal pleasures? I encourage everyone to read this article and decide for yourself if your life is balanced.

Amy Adams

I didn't realize this before but for both my content analysis and the inter-rater reliability assignment I watched movies that starred Amy Adams. I really like this actress, mostly because she always seems so wholesome. I looked her up on IMDB to see if she was LDS because she is so wholesome and also wears a lot of modest outfits and it turns out she is, or was. She was born into an LDS family but I doubt she's practicing anymore. Reading her bio was a bit disheartening, I'm pretty sure she had a child out of wedlock. I always think its funny that biographers are sure to mention the fact that someone is LDS and then of course those people are no longer practicing but do you think people remember that they're not active or just that they were born LDS? Luckily, even if she's no longer practicing, I hope she really comes back, she is still a good actress and always plays very clean roles.
Just a bit of FYI, her hair is not naturally that red, its strawberry blonde. I never would have guessed, she looks like such a natural redhead.

Date Night!

My husband and I went on a really awesome date last Saturday night. We ate Cafe Rio for dinner, and had my favorite meal BBQ pork salad, and went to see The Avengers at the Imax at Thanksgiving Point in 3D. Now, I really loved the movie but didn't love the 3D as much. My husband and I found that there were so many fast paced action scenes in the movie that many of the characters were out of focus and it made our eyes hurt. I don't know if my eyes were killing me at the end of the night because of the 3D or watching a 2 1/2 hour movie, most likely without blinking. Either way I would strongly suggest that everyone sees this movie.

Bye Bye Facebook

So today's lecture was on Social Networking and one of the girls in the class talked about how much happier she is without a Facebook account. I have been thinking of canceling my account for some time but always decided against it because it doesn't really cause any harm. However, after today's lecture I felt empowered. Like I could survive if I didn't know the latest gossip (because most of it isn't news of any kind). Plus now I never have to see unwanted things posted by foolish people.

All in all, I'm glad I did it. I will be spending my time on better things like my olive fingered child or school. (I don't mention Kieran because I only really went on Facebook when he was gone anyways.) I'm not suggesting anyone else do this but it was a good decision for me.

Facebook Videos

I don't know what it is but recently I have seen a lot of inspirational videos posted by friends of Facebook. Even though I think they are overdone I end up watching most of them. Usually the link is to a site called "Godvine" and all the videos seem to be the type where the people don't talk they just shuffle through index cards with writing. I get their message and I admit sometimes it has a more spiritual impact when they aren't talking but, man, they are long!!! So I came across this one today and I liked that it actually looked like they put some good work into it:

It's a good story, I like to see the marvelous transformations. Good for this man!

Marie Antionette

So I got the movie Marie Antionette with Kirsten Dunst from Netflix and I finally watched it last night. I wanted to watch it last semester because I was taking a humanities class and we talked about her and the French Revolution. Anyways, I was really disappointed with the film. It was 2 hours long and so slow. I kept waiting for something really exciting to happen or something historically based but it just seemed like a teen flick  set in the 1700's. Even the music felt off. Why, you ask, did I continue to watch it? I should have gone to bed, it was after 11, but I was waiting for my husband to get home from work.
Marie Antionette and her husband Louis XVI were actually really in love with each other but the film portrayed them as only barely fond of each other. I guess being in love would have thrown off the plot of her having an affair. I've noticed that when I watch movies like that by myself it makes me really miss Kieran so as soon as he got home I told him how excited I was to see him. He always likes to hear that.

Today our lecture was on Music and we talked about how music can provoke different moods. I started thinking about the different music I listen to and my favorite songs and why they are my favorite. I specifically thought of the songs that, upon hearing, bring me back to the days when Kier and I were dating. When I hear Coldplay's "Viva La Vida", We Shot the Moon's "Perfect Time", or Keith Urban's "Your My Better Half" I am right back in Kier's blue car holding his hand and feeling in love. I can remember distinctly the smell of his suede jacket and his car, I can tell you exactly where we were going when a particular song shuffled through the ipod and I can remember how I slowly was falling in love with him through those songs.

I thought it truly amazing that music can have such a powerful effect as to elicit so many other memories and feelings. Its amazing that man's music is so powerful, I can only imagine what music from Heaven is like and what that can do. Maybe upon returning to our Heavenly home we'll be greeted by music that will immediately trigger memories from our pre-mortal existence and we'll remember all. I know that God has created our brains to work this way for a more eternal purpose.

Love You Forever

When I was a child my favorite book was Love you Forever by Robert Munsch. It tells the story of a mother whose love never ends as her son is growing and even does things that drive her crazy. The theme of the book is these lines:

I’ll love you forever,

I’ll like you for always.

As long as I’m living

My baby you’ll be.

Growing up I loved to have my mom read this to me. It made me feel a greater connection to her as I envisioned she was saying the words to me rather than just reading a book. When my daughter was born this was one of the first books I bought for her. We read it often and it still makes me tear up; not only because of my childhood but I hope she is feeling the same thing when I read it to her.

Spring Term Assignment

So I'm graduating in August and I'm going to school this summer to get some elective credits. I decided to take this class called Media, Family and Human Development. It's been a really great class so far and one of the assignments is to write 2 blog posts weekly about anything media related and comment on 2 blogs of my fellow classmates. This will be the most frequent I will write, probably ever.
So, Kieran and I have really had to start monitoring what kind of shows we watch while Becca is with us. She is very empathetic and in tune to the emotional atmosphere around her and lately even suspenseful music will make her scared. She actually says, "scary Mamma" and cowers in to me. We got so used to her just ignoring the TV that it is a shock to be reminded that she is absorbing the things we watch. I don't want her to grow up with fears associated with our TV viewing, like my parents lovely ritual of watching X-Files at 9 pm on Sunday nights. I still can't hear that theme music without getting a little scared. My little girl is growing up fast and now is when I need to more mindful of the things she is taking in.