Media Madness

I've never understood why the media especially sources people perceive to be credible (i.e. the news) or bodies that have great influence (i.e. the government) tend to hype situations to a level that I think is unnecessary. It's like they take pleasure in whipping people into a frenzy.

Every time there's a big story or topic of concern all sense of reason goes out the window and the media set about publishing and broadcasting in such a way that the only obvious outcome is panic. First it was Mad Cow Disease, then it was Bird Flu, then it was SARS and now of course it's the infamous Swine flu. Now I know myself that I've never been affected by the any of the diseases the media previously hyped and neither has anyone I know so I doubt I'll be greatly affected by Swine Flu...even if I was it's still just a flu I'd just take the medicine and move on. Considering no-one has died from it in the UK yet I don't why the media hype is so great...it's got people wearing face masks and all sorts!!

Now we move on to the government, obviously they have a duty to protect the people and regardless of how dangerous Swine Flu is they want to stop in from spreading. I believe they are on the right track by quarantining people that have contracted the flu and providing information leaflets to people with the actual facts (cause believe me if you just watched the news and read the papers you'd get the impression we were all in grave danger of dying from it). However I have to say I find the government's 'CATCH IT, BIN IT, KILL IT' campaign a bit dubious. Do they think people are stupid?! How can you tell people to use a tissue (or cover their mouths) when they sneeze, chuck the tissue in the bin and then wash our hands?! What do they think we have been doing our whole lives?!!

I just find it beyond reason that people have been dealing with the common cold and flu basically their whole lives and as soon as a new strain arrives the government thinks it's necessary to teach people how to use a tissue!! They would be better off telling people not to worry because if they do catch the flu there is an anti- viral available...because at the moment the hype is just too crazy! I've got my friend's telling me 96,000 people could die in London...hmmm until 1 dies I don't think I'll worry! And apparently face mask sales have increased so rapidly the companies that make them have had to increase their production.

This just re-iterates what a powerful machine the media is but in this case instead of using their power to benefit people they've got them all concerned, giving the suspicious eye every time someone sneezes on the train. I can't take the media seriously anymore it's just a circus.

'A Very Berry Mind...of my own!

I write this post as 'Bonita Berrybum' as that is my blackberry pin name based on A tribe called Quest's song 'Bonita Applebum' (click to see the video) I just replaced the apple with a berry cause it's blackberry... but people never seem to get it! It seems obvious to me perhaps they just aren't aware of the song and think I have a fruity porn star alto ego just dying to be unleashed!

Any who (I kinda strayed from the point a bit lol) I've had a blackberry for ages now and I love it. It's everything you need in one package: the Internet, e-mails pushed straight through to your phone, blackberry pin, Facebook, MSN or any other social networking site you might use it's just an all around solution allowing you to keep in touch with people and organise your life. So as you can see although blackberry's are known to have their technical faults...it's nothing but love between me and my berry.

Now when I first got my blackberry I got quite a lot of stick from people mainly things like 'oh why've you got that big ugly phone...' 'your blackberry always crashes haha!' you get the gist! And it was also quite lonely in the blackberry club (not that we minded) I only had 4 or 5 blackberry contacts on my pin that I could converse with, we were the elite few that recognised the benefits of being berry!

Fast forward a year and the scene is completely different! Long gone are they days where I had 4 blackberry contacts now I'm close to 40! And the funniest thing is that everyone that used to criticise me and my blackberry has now joined the club. It seems strange to me as blackberry's have not changed during that time, the features are still exactly the same maybe they look slightly better but trust me any improvement is appearance is definitely minute. The only thing that's changed is the last year is blackberry's popularity especially amongst younger people. I work in a phone shop and the increase in the sales of blackberry's especially since the start 0f 2009 is beyond belief!

So it seems that once a product gets 'socially validated' everyone wants one which I think is just totally ridiculous! If you truly like something you should get it and if you don't like it then DON'T get it! As adults our choices should not be so greatly influenced by what's popular and what everyone else around us has...it just shows how much people love to follow fashion! Not me though I do my own thing, I have a very berry mind of my own!

I've been tagged so here goes...

Be one with the Fro tagged me in this note so it is my duty to respond ;)

8 things I look forward to:

1. Having Children
2. Getting Married
3. Buying my first property
4. Travelling the world
5. Visiting restaurants ;)
6. My next back massage
7. Receiving something I have ordered from ASOS
8. Catching up with old friends

8 things I did yesterday:

1. Went to work
2. Ate ribs and wedges prepared by my boyfriend
3. Wore sunglasses
4. Drank 2 Capri Sun Orange
5. Played Cluedo (I am a master detective!!)
6. Ate a banana and a kiwi
7. Took the bus
8. Fell asleep listening to Kanye West's album

8 things I wish I could do:

1. Drive!! Well I can drive but I need to pass my test lol it's getting rather ridiculous now
2. Speak another language fluently... although my French is improving due to summer tripes to the South of France
3. Dance Ballroom and Latin. I am going to learn!
4. Eradicate world poverty
5. Play the Piano like Sakamoto Ryuichi
6. Go on a holiday whenever I wanted
7. See a sunset in every country
8. Be a food critic! Best job in the world!

8 shows I watch:

1. Heroes
2. The Apprentice
3. Gossip Girl
4. Match of the day
5. The Wire (Just started thanks to Broadband )
6. Desperate Housewives
7. Master Chef
8. Eastenders

Do you remember...?

Following on from my post yesterday about young love who remembers these?

The ones I used to receive (and on occasion send) had yes or no boxes that you had to tick but it's the same idea lol! Simple yet highly effective. Ahhhhh the good old days...

To anyone who never received one of these back in the day, this one's for you!

The Interpretation of Dreams

Whether my dreams contain highly unusual or highly conventional content I usually tend to read quite a lot into them...this may have something to do with the fact that I studied Psychology and Sigmund Freud the forefather or Psychology believed that dreams were the "royal road to the unconscious".

Freud presented a topographical model of the mind; in which the mind is divided into 3 parts. The Conscious, this is the part of the mind that holds what you’re aware of. You can verbalise about your conscious experience and you can think about it in a logical fashion. The Preconscious, this is ordinary memory so although things stored here aren’t in the conscious, they can be readily brought into consciousness. Finally there is The Unconscious, Freud felt that this part of the mind was not directly accessible to awareness. In part, he saw it as a box for urges, feelings and ideas that are tied to anxiety, conflict and pain. These feelings and thoughts have not disappeared and according to Freud, they are there, exerting influence on our actions and our conscious awareness.

Freud's model of the mind has often been represented by an iceberg metaphor with the conscious being the tip of the iceberg the only part that it is visible whilst the majority of the iceberg lies beneath water and is unseen (the preconscious and unconscious).

I'm not saying that I believe everything Freud ever said (because believe me he had some quite far fetched ideas!), however I do believe he may have been onto something when he explained the link between our dreams and our unconscious feelings and desires. Many a time I have dreamt about something and only after having that dream have I realised there is someting I really want, really need to do or some unresolved issue I need to resolve. That's not to say I have to dream to think about certain aspects of my life logically but obviously our conscious thought is immensely influenced by social stipulations including moral and social norms so the mind is not as free to think about things as we would wish, sometimes we may push thoughts away as we feel that they would not be deemed to be socially acceptable. When we dream however, the mind is free from such stipulations and thoughts can flow in as they wish.

So...to conclude I don't let my dreams guide my life (i.e. if I dream about fish I don't automatically presume someone I know is pregnant lol) but I do believe that dreams contain more truth then some people would like to believe. After all even though you're asleep it's still your mind so everything you dream about is always there you're just not aware of it most of the time!!

What do you think? Is there some meaning within our dreams? Or are they just a load of random images and scenes our mind creates whilst we sleep?

Just a link...

I saw this video the other day during a rare moment of watching Channel AKA formally known as Channel U. I was really shocked as this is the type of music young people are making and listening to these days.

Not only is the song not great musically I don't think it really gives out the right message to young people regarding relationships. The girl on the track is singing 'All I am is just a link to you...' and dancing around like it's cool and the guy is saying 'you wanna be wife but we both know wifey is a no go!'. Basically it evokes the idea that it's OK for guys to decide that a girl is not good enough for anything but sex...and that females should accept it! It's a dangerous message as I know children as young as 12 that watch Channel AKA all the time and I feel it's giving them a skewed vision of reality, females need to know that there are guys out there that will treat them as more than just a sexual object and guys need to be taught that females deserve more respect than is shown in these types of videos.

Pump up the Jam

I have a day off today so I'm thinking hmmm what should I do? I have a friend's birthday celebration but that's not until the evening so I still have the whole day to play with...I know what I should do go to the gym but when it comes to the going to the gym I'm always procrastinating.

I joined up to my local leisure centre a month ago and I've been really good going to countless dance classes, aerobic classes, spinning, swimming even water aerobics! However when it comes to the dreaded gym I've only been once :(.

I know I should go more often as it's important for cardiovascular fitness, it could really help me improve my stamina plus I can count how many calories I'm burning but I can't help but find it boring. When I go to a class it's fun I interact with other people and there's a class leader to motivate me, when I go to the gym it's just me and my ipod.

That's where I need the help I'm going to have to use the music to motivate me so if anyone knows of any songs or (play-lists would be even better) that really get you motivated in the gym then please help me out! It would be much appreciated :).

Thanks

Saint or Sinner?

I haven't blogged for ages lol...guess I haven't quite got the hang of this blogging lark yet. Anyway whilst at work today my colleagues and I had a rather interesting debate so I thought I'd write a blog about it.

One of my colleagues suggested that when it came to females and their sexual behaviour they were either good or bad. Fair enough...I agree with that, however he expanded on this by saying that if you were a virgin or a wife that had married her one and only sexual partner you were good whereas if you weren't a virgin or had engaged in sexual activity with more than one person you were bad. Thus he stressed that when it came to a female's sexual exploits there was no continuum you were either a saint or sinner...

Of course I had to beg to differ, in my book there has to be a continuum. A female that has had 3 sexual partners all of whom happened to be long term partners cannot in my mind be compared to an extremely promiscuous female who has slept with countless men regardless of how well she knows them!

His argument was that the lady that has slept with her 3 long term partners is still not as good and can never be as good as the virgin or the woman that married her one and only partner so why differentiate her from the ho? My argument is that she is nowhere near as bad as ' Lil' Miss Promiscuous', so why not differentiate?

It was a very interesting debate...but in the end I concluded that he was wrong as life is just not that black and white! What do you think? Once a woman has slept with more than one person is she tarnished? Should there be no distinction between a female that's had 2 partners and one that's had 200?

FaceSpace

Is it me or has the line between 'Facebook' and 'Myspace' become blurred? Now I was never on Myspace as from what I heard and occasionally saw it was not something that appealed to me. I felt Myspace was primarily a place for promoting your craft whether it be music, art, modelling, comedy...etc so I couldn't understand why a lot of people I knew that had no craft were on there lol I felt they were just promoting themselves...and for what reason? Then I was told there was another reason for being on Myspace 'linking' or forming contacts with members of the opposite sex so I decided I definitely didn't want to be party to it.

Now when Facebook arrived I was understandably sceptical about joining but after being reassured it was nothing like Myspace I joined. I was pleasantly surprised when I joined Facebook as I actually really loved it not only did it provide me with a fun and cost effective way to keep in contact with my friends, it also allowed me to reunite with some friends I hadn't seen for ages. Rekindling my primary school friendships would could be better?!

I loved seeing how my friends lives were progressing and discovering how people had changed over the years. Every time I got a friend-request I was excited to see what 'long lost friend' it was or who was my latest acquaintance to join the Facebook craze.

Recently however. that all changed, I am no longer excited when I log in and see friend-requests. I now receive on average 10 requests per day from people I don't know and have no desire whatsoever to get to know. It's beyond me why people want to add random faces they see on the Internet but I have to admit I find it extremely annoying. When I asked one of these randoms 'do I know you?' he said 'no but we can get to know each other, I'm just trying to be social'. Hmmm why not be social with people you actually know?! Now don't get me wrong I am by no means anti social but I just believe in meeting people in the good old fashioned 'face to face' manner instead of over the net. Call me a dinosaur but hey each to their own. Friend's have suggested I change my privacy settings, but then that would prevent people that actually know me from adding me. So I guess I'll just have to leave or put up with it.

Seems as though Facebook is more similar to Myspace than I thought and all social networking sites eventually become a playground for prowlers (and begfriends lol)...sigh

Insomnia

It's very fitting that my first blog should be titled 'Insomnia' as insomnia is partly what inspired me to start this blog...something to do when I can't sleep!

Recently, I have been suffering from really bad insomnia...really bad meaning I haven't had a good night's sleep in over 3 weeks. Insomnia is described as a persistent difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep. Now even though I love to sleep and make sure I get at least 7 hours every night (well except when I have a night out then have to get up for work with little or no sleep!), I have always wondered how distressing insomnia actually is. I have experienced minor sleeplessness in the past, you know the kind you experience when you have an exam or some really exciting event the following day, and have never found it to be a big deal which led me to believe that insomnia couldn't be that bad...if you can't sleep you find something else to do...

I can't believe how wrong I was! You would think that the main problem with insomnia would be tiredness from lack of sleep. However, I have discovered that this is the least of your problems. Yes of course I was tired for the first few days but after that you kind of get used to it and learn to run on an empty tank. What I have found to be the most distressing part of suffering from insomnia is the frustration and this frustration comes in a variety of forms. Firstly, the frustration of wanting to go to sleep and not being able to. I get in to bed, I toss I turn, I listen some music, I toss and turn some more...the whole experience is very agitating and eventually you just want to punch the wall or scream or both!

The second thing that I find frustrating is the lack of opportunity to rest my mind or get any rest bite from my own thoughts. In other words I know we sleep to rejuvenate but it is also one of the only times where we can be free from our thoughts and if we are lucky enough enter the world of dreams. If I could at least have some freedom from my thoughts not sleeping would not be as frustrating, but sadly this is not this case and trust me at 4.30 in the morning after 2 hours of trying to get to sleep you will start to resent the random thoughts that are inclined to enter your head.

The final frustrating or maybe I should say upsetting thing about insomnia is loneliness. When you can't sleep you really just need someone to talk to and you realise they are all asleep. Of course you could phone them and wake them up but that wouldn't be polite lol. So instead while the world sleeps it's just you and your thoughts and although your life may be filled with friends during the day, when night falls you feel...alone. Personally I have taken to writing memos on my blackberry to combat the loneliness and frustration of insomnia and these memos were the foundations of my blog!

So there you have it a brief insight into the world of insomnia...feel free to comment!