TV Rots Your Brain

Okay, so I've always been a bit of a television fan myself, and I admittedly watched way too much of it as a child. I didn't have cable, so not only did I watch a lot of TV, but I watched a lot of really bad TV. Unfortunately, it is a habit that has stuck with me. Having watched several hours of television every day for most of my 26 and 3/4 years of life, I have seen a lot of television programming, both good and bad. I know that these shows have influenced my thinking in many ways, but until the last week and a half or so I didn't realize how much the stuff in between the programming has influenced me. You know what I mean: COMMERCIALS.

So, on Mother's Day I was in the car with my mother (novel idea). We were heading home and I was getting hungry. We had swung by Dairy Queen for our Mother's Day lunch (pitiful, I know), so I jokingly asked, "What's for dinner?" The answer came to me immediately: Beef. Okay, so the cattle ranchers' association or whatever was successful in their advertising campaign. Big deal.

Until later that night. I was trying to be a good daughter, so I took out the kitchen garbage. I noticed that my mom had used a Hallmark bag for a garbage can liner. I looked at the bag; I looked at the garbage. Can you guess what I thought? That's right, "When you care enough to send the very best." Now this was good for a private laugh, but coming so closely behind the other advertising connection it was a little disturbing. It made me wonder how much all those commercials have really influenced my thinking.

So anyway, other stuff happened and a week passed with no more notable taglines running through my head. Until I went to my Life Group last night. We were talking about magic, and how sometimes what God does seems magical. Somebody was sharing a thought and said something along the lines of, "It was just magically..." followed by a brief pause as he tried to think of the right word. And then, into the silence, three people said, "Delicious!" followed by many groans and giggles.


I had been thinking it in my head, but am quite proud to say that I didn't say it out loud. I guess I shouldn't be too proud, since it was probably just the fact that my mental/verbal filter was very firmly in place after my earlier lapse. It was not at all related to advertising, but still funny enough to mention here. My Life Group leader had given the story of Noah's Ark as an example of a "magical" event in the Bible. To which I whispered (obviously not quietly enough), "Not if you were in the water!" At first there was a moment of shocked disbelief at my irreverence, then a great deal of laughter. It was rather hard to refocus the group after that, and my embarrassment over that is why I was able to refrain from adding the "delicious" where it so clearly belonged. But I digress.

Anyway, the commercials coming so readily to my brain have made me very aware of how much TV I watch. I have already been working on that lately, but these latest events helped to stiffen my resolve. Well, that AND my increasing joy in seeing things blow up (thank you, Kiefer and all you people at 24!). As an educator, I am familiar with some recent studies on television watching and can see how too much of it affects kids. It was a little unnerving to see the effects so clearly in my own life. Which brings me to my main point:

TV rots your brain. Read a book!

The Beauty of Silence

In order to understand any of what follows, it is necessary for me to tell you something about myself: I generally have an absolutely pathetic social life, and no professional life to speak of at the moment. I'm not wallowing in self pity or anything, merely stating a fact. I am also very much an introvert, according to every personality test out there. That might be why my lack of a social life doesn't bother me all that much.

Okay, time to get to the point. Yesterday was a notable exception to my otherwise dull life. I got to do a number of fun things, nearly all of which involved interacting with other people. It was great fun, and I enjoyed having things to do and places to go for a change (well, things I wanted to do and places I wanted to go to). The only problem is that by 10:00 at night, having engaged in social interaction almost continuously since 7:30 in the morning, my conversational skills had been severely overexerted. It kind of reminded me of the first day of tryouts in the fall, when you haven't used your muscles all summer and suddenly they all rebel against you. My brain was so exhausted that it was all I could do to respond appropriately to my mom's attempts at converstion when I got home. I felt so bad, but I had no conversation left.

By the time my mom went to bed, I had more or less figured out that my problem was overstimulation and took steps to correct the problem. I turned off the TV and had some quiet time with my book. Unfortunately, I was so tired that I very quickly fell asleep on the couch.

Anyway, this experience helped remind me of the importance of taking time for myself. I need to have my time alone so that I can really appreciate my time with others, and to recharge my social batteries. This also made me think more about having my own place, so that when I am overstimulated from a day spent with children I can have I quiet space in which to unwind. A good goal, and possible motivation for getting off my butt (both physically and metaphorically) and getting a job. Or two.

So this probably isn't all that interesting to anyone but me, and the one person who will probably read this has already heard the whole story, but I posted, and that is my main objective for right now. =0)

um..hello.

So, I've never blogged before, and I feel that my title might be a bit overly ambitious. I can pretty much guarantee the inanities, but rare moments of brilliance might be hard to come by. I'm afraid I left my brain behind when I graduated from college nearly four years ago, and it hasn't managed to travel back down the I-5 corridor yet. While I didn't miss it much at first, its absence has become more notable now that I am trying to finish up graduate school and have to produce formal writing again. I can only hope it will make an appearance again soon.

So anyway, my life is not terribly exciting right now, but I can at least try to make it sound interesting. However, after spending hours filling in endless details about my work history this afternoon, I just don't have it in me to use clever vocabulary. Instead, I am further numbing my brain by watching my favorite TV shows and finding other ways to waste time that should be spent working on job applications and/or completing neglected household chores. I expect I'll be trying very hard to avoid those things I should be doing over the next week or so, so I'll be back.