New Year, New Rants

The first post of 2011!! I'm a little late, but whatever!! Happy New Year everyone!! I hope the holidays were wonderful no matter which one was celebrated!! XD Anyways, so I have quite a few updates and a rant about an article I read during lunch in the Wall Street Journal. I'll start with random update tangents though!!

 

For those that missed the memo, 2011 is the year of the rabbit!

So Christmas and the holiday season, was hectic as usual. There was a lot of traveling between houses and cities (I pretty much drove all over northern Colorado). I got a lot of books and some movies for Christmas, which I'm really excited about. I also got a couple video games! I love all the books, but it's kind of bad thing because now do I not only have my nightstand full of books I need to read, but a box and a pile on the floor! Hopefully I won't be too busy this semester to read at least a few different books (and ones meant for pleasure NOT classes). So speaking of reading, I just read the latest chapter of Skip Beat! (chapter 169)! I can't believe it's already been 169 chapters! O_O Well, a lot has happened since I last ranted about Skip Beat! and the awesomeness that comes with!! Since I can't quite recall which chapter I updated you all on and I'm too lazy to go through my previous posts to find it, I'll just do a generic update!! So basically this is Ren's backstory arc. Slowly more and more parts of Ren's past is coming to light. I really enjoyed the latest chapter becuase it gave us some insight on the reasons for him acting and explained a character that the mangaka has shown briefly before. There were also some cute and silly interactions between and young Ren (known as Kuon back then) and an adult rooster! The only thing I'll say (in case you read it) is that there is an cute panel where he hugs the rooster!! I think I'll post it below so people who don't read Skip Beat! can see what I'm talking about!

 

Okay, so enough of that tangent, and on to another. Well, I'll guess I'll move on to school related things! So first off, I was promoted to manager!! I am know the manager of the Kepner 60 lab! It's really nice because most of my classes from now on are going to be in Kepner (it's the school of business) and it's also the lab that has dual monitors!! I love playing with them and using both monitors even though it's probably not really necessary. So yesterday was the first day of classes for the spring semester. So far my classes seem okay. I really like my marketing professor. He really had me controlling my laughter when people were walking in late and he was making sure that they were in the right classroom. It's Marketing and he asked them "You're here for Non-Profit Management right?" Oh it was good! I loved it. I think it's going to be a lot of work, but I'm going to enjoy the class. Later tonight I have my managment class. I have it with Keiko Krankhe and I've heard amazing things about her, so I'm excited to see how the class is going to be. On MWF I only have one class, and it's Contemporary Japan. I'm kind of glad I decided to take it. It looks like it'll be an easy A. It'll be really nice to have an easy class among my 300 level business classes. The other two classes I'm taking are online. I know you're probably thinking that online classes will be a little easier, and one of them will most likely be pretty easy. The Women's Studies class I'm taking online is a level 100 class so I'm hoping it'll be another easier class, but on the plus side it actually doesn't start for another couple of weeks. The other online class I'm taking is Computer Informations Systems. It may sound easy, but after leafing through the book there is going to be a lot of weird anagrams that I'm going to have to memorize and I'm kind of bad at anagrams. I guess I'll see how it is when the class actually starts rolling.

 An old picture of the consultant's desk I posted on Twitter!

Yeah, so I think that is it for major updates in my life. Super Junior is just as amazing as ever. I'm a starting to get a little sad though because Leeteuk (our wonderful leader) keeps mentioning entering the military soon. It'll be sad. Unfortunately I am going to postpone study abroad in Korea because of a few different issues, the main one being finances. That means when I go to Korea, I most likely won't be able to see him. T_T Oh and speaking of studying abroad, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that at this time last year I was preparing to go to Japan. It almost feels like it was dream, but at the same time it wasn't. I don't know...it's an odd feeling. One I hope I don't really have to experience again, although if I do end up studying in Korea as well I might go through the same thing. Who knows?

 Leeteuk from their new variety show "Super Junior's Foresight"

Okay, so I think I'm really done with all my random mattresses! On to the article I read earlier today. So if you want to read the article just click here. So this article (for those that are choosing not to read it) is about people detoxing their life of technology. I have to say I agree with a lot of things this article mentions, but at the same time a lot of families aren't that extreme, at least to my knowledge. The first family that is mentioned talks about how every member in the family is pretty much attached to a screen. Now one thing that I think wasn't quite brought into a bigger light is the fact that they don't have TV. I'm the same way so it may seem like I am on the computer A LOT. At the same time, I watch mainly TV shows and such on my computers. It's really not that different, but when people are complaining about people always being on a computer, sometimes its necessary. For myself, I don't really have the money to waste getting cable or satellite. It's a lot cheaper to just get internet and Netflix and watch everything I want to through those two venues. Plus, I get to avoid a lot of commercials that way. I guess it also doesn't help that I prefer Korean and Japanese TV shows to most American ones. But anyway, the families that they chose in this article are very extreme. I know that they chose them because of this and to help make the point, but I also think that the parents making these decisions are also biting themselves in the rear. It is kind of taking over and board games aren't as popular as they once were, but at the same time there are technological activities that people can do as a family still. Instead of buy and 1 or 2 player video game, get one of the multiple player games (a lot of Mario games are like this) and sit down as a family to play together. I remember growing up and playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64 with my Dad and little Brother and Sister. We had so much fun and created just as memorable of memories that I have playing board games (although they can't quite compare to the late night games I play with my Mom and little Sister where inside jokes are constantly made because we're so tired and that makes up loopy)!

Anyways, I can understand both sides of the spectrum. I just think that completely taking technology out of the home is not a good idea. Most families have these technologies, and there are becoming sort of a status quo now a days. In elementary school I remember comparing things all the time; backpacks, pencil cases, clothes, and music cds are a few. These comparisons sort of formed cliques of sorts and sometimes left some kids alienated and in the "weirdo" groupings. Now, I think that there are a lot of comparisons with technologies. There's a lot of phones, video game consoles, computers, mp3s/iPods and other technologies that are a huge part of the lives of kids growing up today in the states (if not around the world) and it's becoming integral. I've seen groups of young kids in the mall picking on a couple others becuase their phone is a better smart phone or they have the 'new itouch' and it is a little sad to see. On the other hand, I remember the same thing happening when I was that age, it was just with different things.

So there is something in the article, I think in the second half, that I completely agree on. Technology is starting to hinder relationships. The article mentions a study that took place in Italy that showed that couples that have a TV in their bedroom have sex half as often as couples that don't. A little later the article mentions that technology is becoming a reason for people to get divorced. As odd as it sounds, I would completely agree that this is becoming an issue, especially for the older generation that has to adapt to today's technology standards. Yes, as always, there are extremes, but I can see it happening in everyday families. I don't know if my family will be okay with me sharing this, but the relationship my Mom is in has the same problems. Unfortunately most of the arguments my Mom has with her partner is about technology. My Mom's partner was on the computer all the time in the past (it is better now). She would wake up and get on the computer before work, come straight home and get on the computer (sometimes skipping a shower) and even eat quickly and get back on the computer when we are all sitting down watching TV or a movie together. It was very frustrating for my Mom. We would all play a game or something, and if my Mom's partner didn't care for it or didn't like it, she would just get on the computer. It was frustrating for me because sometimes we would play games I or my sister or brother or Mom didn't really care for, but we played anyway because it was supposed to be family time. If she didn't like it, she made her opinion obvious and just stayed on the computer. There were also a lot of arguments in my house about people downloading things and lagging my brother's online MMOs or just lagging the internet itself.


Wow...I actually wasn't actually planning on ranting this much, but it just sort of came out. I just want to mention again that things are better now at my Mom's house, although there are still issues with the internet lagging, but the internet box also shuts of randomly now so it has helped settle things down a little bit. I just thought I would share my opinions on the article and share what I've witnessed. When I was reading it my mind was going and going and I really just needed to get it out of my head. Since I'm at work and can't really talk to anyone, I figured I'd just blog about it!! Yeah so if any of you guys reading this has your own thoughts, please comment below! I would love to hear your opinions and what you have to say. I would recommend reading the article if you haven't because I did find it very interesting. So this will be the end of my post this lovely day. I think this may be the longest one I've posted. As always I'll leave you with a gif, this time from Super Junior-T's hit song MV "Rokkugo"! (I've linked it for people who haven't seen it! A lot of people that I've shown this MV to that haven't really listened to Kpop or Jpop get this song stuck in their heads! I feel proud introducing people to the amazing music that is from other countries!! Anyway, a little information about the song: In Korean the word for backwards is 'gukkuro' -- flip that around and you get 'rokkugo', the title of this song. The lyrics can be read backwards and forwards in Korean. That is why the lyrics seem absurd in English.)

Until we meet again~~
Stasi