Legos! And Growing Up

As I finished my homework tonight (yay!) I thought I should entertain myself with something fun. What did my brain go to? Why, Legos of course! Well, maybe not of course, but seeing as my family knows and loves me all too well for my dorkiness I had received some Legos for Channukah. And not just any Legos, oh no, Spongbob Legos--complete with the Krusty Krab and all. *feels lame*

As I sat in our living room reading the instructions and carefully placing each piece where it belonged I thought of the list we put together in class about imagination driven games versus toy driven games. When I was younger I had a mix of both. Certain friends sparked the creative side of me, fairytales, animals, house, etc, while other friends brought out my MyLittlePony sets. As I thought back I remembered all the fun I had as a kid with my imaginary games, dressing up, running around, being a kid, the freedom it created. Then I brought myself back to reality. I'm a teenager. We don't "do", "imaginary". If we ever have time what are we playing? Wii, Xbox, iPod music dance party, assorted acceptable board games maybe, etc. A lot of these ideas come from our generation growing up with new technology as well. When have you gone up to a friend of yours and said, "Hey, let's play fairies!" That's right, never. Maybe once. Maybe you have friends like that, I'm not judging (Spongebob Lego girl here), but the majority?

I know the class discussion was about "childhood" but it still brought me to the aspect of "playtime" or as the term grows up,"hanging out time" or "friend time" and how we distribute our time and energy to bond with our friends.
What do you do with your friends? How do you think new technology has interfered with the bonds of friends?

Viscious Verizon

Do you remember the old Verizon commercials? "Can you hear me now?" Does it ring a bell now? Do you remember old AT&T commercials? With the iPhone indistry taking over Veirzon is fighting back. And it's fighting back hard, yet very cleverly.

Recently on TV there has been a very visual war between Verizon and AT&T. Verizon showed AT&T as having a very uncovered map of coverage, only to be sued by AT&T because of misrepresenting their "3G coverage". So Verizon just stuck the words "3G coverage" on the map, and continued on. AT&T created their own map, and using the actor Luke Wilson, threw postcards over visually almost all of the nation showing their "coverage", being sneaky of course. But then Verizon came out with something I find very clever, "There's a map for that". Using Apple's words of "There's an app for that", they created a commerical to HURT the iPhone, with the same ring to the phrase meant to HELP the iPhone.

I do personally have an iPhone, but I have nothing against Verizon, being a customer there myself before switching to AT&T to be with the rest of my family. Watching Verizon's commercials I have to give them credit. But I also have to cringe at the immense hate flowing through them. It's a lot of effort put into a commercial, and it reminds me of the Geico commercials. They are genius. Simple, but fun. But yet, it makes me sad, does anyone know anyone you actually has Geico? I hope so.

There's a map for that! --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZPjJI0K7Bk 

I just looked back at the two logos and realized something: how different they are. AT&T has a sphere, rounded shapes and text, and blue and white logo. While Verizon has a check mark, straight lined shapes and text, and a red and black logo. Strickingly different. What do you make of that?

RUSH!

Many people go to colleges hoping and dreaming to become part of a soroity or a fraternity. They are thought of as the epitome of college party life. The "in crowd", the only way to make friends. My sister has recently transfered colleges and has decided to try out this whole idea of soroities. I never thought of her as a soroity girl, but then I realized that colleges have tried to change this now.

There are 12 sororities at her school and everyone of them claims there is a "sorority for everyone". That each sorority has a different type of girl, creating a nice clique and friendship circle. There are even just charity sororities. Well this is all well and good I really wonder if that's true. My sister is undergoing her week of rush right now, where she goes to all these parties, meets people, and tries to showcase herself as someone the soroity would want. After each day of partying each girl is either invited back to a soroity or not. As I hear, apparently the first invite back should be between 6-8 sororities. I don't know too much about the process but to me, there must be many, many girls there. All trying to be there best. Be fun, inviting people. And in ONE day the girls already in the soroity can go back (after the party) and decide which girls they will invite back? It's like RUSH! show me who you are in....*uhh I have 2 minutes with this girl* 2 minutes of awkward talking! Go! The girls have one night to show if they have a personality fit for the soroity. One night. Unless they get invited back that is. Too me, that's too soon.

I haven't asked my sister much about what's going on, but my mom explained to me that she was told "not to talk to the press". The press? I didn't realize this was such a pressing issue for the press. But even then, the bigger question here is why? For secret reasons that is. This whole process is suppsed to be very secretive and mysterious. Which brings the soroities back to looking like cliquey groups of friends who dont talk to anyone else but the people in their soroity. Now I know this isn't true but this whole idea still interests me. It almost makes me want to rush a soroity just to see what craziness goes on! Or if there even IS craziness.

What do you know about sororities/fraternities? Sibling part of one, want to be part of one (and why)?

The Big Hungry Bear

When thinking about secret messages in children's books I automatically went to one of my favorite books that I can remember, The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear. It's a simple picture book. No more than big pages and big text with not many words but it says a lot.

The idea of the book is *spoiler alert!* that a little mouse finds a strawberry only to be told by the narrator of a Big Hungry Bear who wants the strawberry and that there is nothing the mouse can do to hide the strawberry or disguise it. The book has the narrator constantly telling the mouse that his plans to hide the strawberry from the Big Hungry Bear will never work and the only solution is to share the strawberry with the narrator. We never actually see this so-called "bear" in the book so we don't even know if it really exists.

After re-reading this short picture book I realized that there could be many hidden messages. Each character (or fruit) can represent many things. There is the narrator who scares the mouse and eventually gets the strawberry, there is the idea of what the strawberry could represent, and there is the Big Hungry Bear who we dont even know if it exists or not. Sadly, my first instinct when reading this again for secret messages was the government. There is the citizen mouse with his new money he has earned, being told by the government that he needs to share it (give taxes) or he will be hunted down. Now, I'm probably reading too much into it, but you never know.

The book was most likely intended to teach children about the quailities of sharing but there is also a protectiveness. You need to protect what's yours. Or it might be taken away.

What do you think these characters (plus fruit) could represent? There are so many options and ideas that could be read into.