gadgiation

I'm not a big crier, but I cry at the end of things. I cry when best friends move, I cried when Jerusalem ended, I cry when I realize a phase of my life is over just as soon as it began. 

It's the nostalgia. I am its queen. I think about all of the people, places, and experiences that passed and I just can't help but cry. So many memories and I didn't even realize when they were happening. So many people come and gone and all of them changed me. So many classes, so many research papers, so much learned. So many roommates, so many laughs, so much bonding. 

And my major. My beautiful, life changing major. As Jennie said, we will always be able to use our major no matter where we end up because our major is about life. Our major is about people, families, and communities. Our major is about communication and learning how to be an influence for good. My major changed my life. 

There is no possible way to explain how much I have loved my college education. I love my campus, I love my people, I love my classes. I love remembering how hard it sometimes seemed, not just school but life in general. I remember nights where I honestly could not imagine how life was going to work itself out. I remember actually referring to my future as a black cloud and laughing at how cliche that sounded, but not knowing how else to communicate the totally unpredictable state of my life. 

I love being able to look back knowing that everything worked out. I love that I will always be able to look back at my college years and have good memories of people and places. I love the way my life has happened. I'm so excited for the next adventure.  

:)

I have canker sores in my throat

You guys. All I know for sure is that I was understanding my stats class just fine until they decided to throw this baby at me:

Pro tip: don't leave an independent study class until a month before graduation. 

On an unrelated note, I currently have multiple canker sores in my throat. I would say it's like a 9 on the pain scale, and I've had screws drilled into my hips so yeah, I know my pain scale. The result of the cankers is that eating anything with more texture than a limp noodle is like the most painful thing ever, so my diet over the past few days has consisted of ramen and ice cream. It's been just about as good for me as it sounds, maybe a little worse. 

So this one time while scrolling through the mother of all craft inspiration I came across an iPhone case that allows you to use your phone while scuba diving. Right because you wouldn't want to miss any instagrams or status updates while you were swimming 60 feet under the ocean.

If you are one of the like two people who has tried to contact me via phone over the past month, don't take it personally. Unless you are my dentist, then yeah, I'm still a little bitter about the time you compared me to Ke$ha.  

I can usually assess my mood according the way my blog posts turn out. Mostly complaints? Biting remarks? Dripping with sarcasm? Time for a nap. And maybe some protein.

I have happy things and a trip to Morocco to talk about, so maybe check back after I've cranked out this stats class and then we'll chat. 

Comprehensive Sex Education

I posted this link on Facebook the other day. You should definitely read it, it's Elizabeth Smart's view on abstinence education. After posting it I got a question about what the alternative is, and when I read the comments left by other readers, I noticed that a lot people seem to oppose comprehensive sex education.

I get that. If we give our kids the knowledge aren't we empowering them to have sex? In my adolescent development class, we discussed this topic in great detail and I would like to share what the research says.

An article by Lindberg and Maddow-Zimet (2012) reveals that giving our youth comprehensive sex education does not increase the likelihood of them engaging in sexual activities, nor does it result in an earlier onset of sex. What it does increase is the level of protected sex, which lowers the number of STDs and unplanned pregnancies in youth. This same article states that sex education in general does not have an effect on if or when youth participate in sexual behavior. Comprehensive ed gives them the knowledge to make informed decisions about contraceptive use and partner selection, while enabling them to ask questions. Abstinence education fails to do so. In fact, youth who have an abstinence only education feel less comfortable asking questions about sex (Culp-Ressler, 2013). Additionally, if they are victims of sexual abuse, they are less likely to come forward and discuss what happened. They are also less capable of describing the abuse as they don't know the appropriate terms (Culp-Ressler, 2013). 

Beyond the school system, parental involvement is a huge factor in an adolescent's sexual behavior. As stated above, neither comprehensive nor abstinence education affects the if or when of a youth's sexual onset. However, there is an aspect that affects that very thing: communication. When parents teach children about their beliefs and values, a decrease in sexual behavior is seen. One research study looks at the importance of a parent's involvement in their child's sex education. Rue et al. (2012) looked at abstinence programs that included take home assignments. These assignments were designed to foster developmentally appropriate discussions about sex between parent and child, leading to smarter decisions about sex. I believe that if parents and children can discuss sex in an appropriate manner, their children will feel more comfortable coming to them with questions. In my class we learned that good parent-child relationships are correlated with fewer pregnancies, higher levels of abstinence, postponing sex, having fewer sexual partners, and higher levels of contraceptive use. 

I understand and respect that we are all entitled to our own opinions. I just know that a lot of the time I form my opinions on matters before I know what the research says. I wanted to get some of the research on sex education out there in the hopes that some of you can use it to help form your own opinions. I also encourage you to look at the research for yourself so you can get a broader scope than what I touched on here. I focused more on the pro-comprehensive side, and, as this is simply a blog post and not a research paper, I only used three sources, though many more are available. It is always a good idea to do your own research before coming to a conclusion on a topic.

References

Culp-Ressler, T. (2013). How teaching kids to accurately identify their genitalia can help prevent sexual crimes. Retrieved from http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/04/23/1909631/kids-identify-genitalia-prevent-crimes/

Lindberg, L.D. & Maddow-Zimet, I. (2012) Consequences of sex education on teen and young adult sexual behaviors and outcomes. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51 332

Rue, L., Chandran, R., Pannu, A., Bruce, D., Singh, R. & Traxler, K. (2012) Evaluation of an abstinence based intervention for middle school students. Family and Social Studies Worldwide, 104 32-40

my life is so hard

Here's the issue: I never graduated from high school.

This is me at my high school graduation . . .  not graduating

It's called homeschool, and so far it's been working pretty well for me. BYU let me in on my ACT score and some official "she really had an education we swear" papers from the school district, so no sweat. But now that I'm applying for a different degree they're all like, "high school diploma, yo." And I'm like, "does my bachelors degree not count?" and they're all, "no." So, that's an issue that I'm currently working through.

Here is another issue. For my media class we have to write a letter to someone influential about our thoughts on what they should be doing. I'm torn between writing an angry rant letter to someone about the sexualization of women - Hugh Hefner, Heidi Klum - or writing a letter of appreciation to someone for all the good they have done for the world - J.K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer. 

Lol, jk. But really, for some reason I feel super attached to this assignment like it's my baby or something and I want to pick someone amazing. I feel pressure. 

That's all I have for you today. Except for that my followers keep going back and forth between two numbers, so, not that my happiness and sense of self worth depend on followers or anything, but that needs to stop. And you should probably check out my brother-in-law's blog. It's a party.