Homesick for Homaha

Please ignore the cat’s sneeze and the little dog’s noisy tags…

What’s in a name? (JMC406 Column #4)

Do I get rid of my middle name, to become “Alison Sievers Freemyer”? Do I keep my middle name, and ditch my last name? “AlisonLeRae Freemyer”. How about a hyphen? “Alison LeRae Sievers-Freemyer”. Or, do I take my future husband’s last name at all? What exactly is in a name?

My mother chose not to change her name. When I asked her why, she explained: “When I was growing up my dad always made a big deal about being proud of our last name. So I grew up being proud and liking it, and didn’t really want to get rid of it. Plus it was my byline, so I knew I would be keeping it for work anyway. When I checked into it I found out it was easier to just keep my name. I would have to go through and change it on all my social security, bank accounts, credit cards and all that. When I had kids, I was worried that it would cause a problem. So I used to carry copies of your birth certificates in my wallet. What if I got to a hospital and they wouldn’t let me authorize to give you treatment? But not once has a health care provider ever questioned it. My name is part of my identity. I think changing it is kind of an outdated practice anyway.”

It only makes sense that I would feel the same amount of pride about my last name as she feels about hers. After all, we both grew up within the same family. My dad tells me, “You’ll be the first Sievers to graduate from college!” As he beams with pride.

And about that outdated practice thing- I hate it when I go to wedding ceremonies and they introduce the bride and groom as “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”. Where did she go? Did she not just get married as well?

Despite my rebellion against traditional ceremony practices, I still feel differently about the name. I love Chance. I want to be a part of him and his family. I want us to be connected forever. And although there were no problems when it came to health care and my mother’s different last name, teachers and my peers always asked me why they had different last names. Oftentimes people assumed my parents were divorced, or had never been married to begin with. On the other hand, I love that sense of familial pride.

When my grandfather had nothing, at least he had his beautiful, strong and ambitious family. At least his sons were upstanding citizens and did well in sports, his daughters smart and kind. If anything ever happened to his washer repair business, he still had them. The name Shanahan is all over the history of the city of La Vista, if you look closely.

So what’s in a name? Is it rewarding to be prideful? To keep the thing that binds you to the history of yourself. Or is it just a silly name?

A Pinch to Grow an Inch

About 6 months ago, my friend Monica and I decided to start making tutus and headbands. We got a ton of custom orders right away, so we were able to keep buying more and more tools and supplies. This hobby has since evolved into A Pinch to Grow an Inch. We were in our second craft show yesterday.

Monica and I at our first craft show in North Platte.

We’re not making a ton of profit by any means, but it’s definitely fun. I get to spend all day dressing up little girls and gossiping with my best friend. All while making a little bit of cash. The booth itself always puts a big smile on people’s faces. It just makes me happy.

During the show yesterday, we met a woman who’s a photographer. She specializes in maternity and infant photography. She bought a few headbands and tutus to use in her studio. That’s when it hit me: what if we partnered up? We gave away her card with every purchase, and she promised to talk about us on her blog.

Our booth at yesterdays show.

Then I thought: what if we REALLY partnered up? We sold our headbands and tutus, and right next door in an additional booth, she was taking photos of the girls in their newly purchased items.

For those parents in our class, is this something you would do at a craft show? What about home Princess Party shows? Would you throw one for your little girls birthday party?

Unfortunately I’m moving home in a few weeks, so craft shows won’t be ask frequent. But we want to keep this hobby going. Plus, it would be a nice excuse to spend time with each other a few times a year. But we also don’t want to waste a ton of money without gaining any profit. 🙂

Our table of headbands before the show started.

Ours. [Column]

Lawn mower. Rake. Shovel. Hose. Sprinkler.

All things Chance, my fiance, and I don’t own; things that we soon will have to own. Today we met with my grandmother, the current owner of our future house.

The siding is yellow, complete with brown trim. The walls are wallpapered and paneled. The bedrooms have half windows because they were more affordable when the house was built, and there’s aging carpets over beautiful wooden floors. The single finished bathroom is straight out of the 70’s. The air conditioner may or may not work, and the garage is not quite big enough to be a two car garage. The back yard is tiny, and the kitchen is apartment-sized.

Despite all the flaws, I’m incredibly excited.

The trim will be painted a crisp white, wall paper and paneling can be peeled away. Smooth colors of red, beige and blue will coat the walls built in the sixties. Windows will be replaced to let in more light, so that it will fall across our faces during all the moments that I will not forget. The wooden floors will be polished, so that someday tiny feet may take their first steps on them. The air conditioner can be fixed, and our little dog will love the backyard no matter what size it is. There’s a tree in the front yard that has the perfect branch for a baby swing.

In May I will be the owner of a house that costs $87,000. Currently it is just an outdated shell, one that’s just waiting for us to put our mark on it. It’s a yellow, fruit and paisley covered dream. The house is not perfect. It has many scars from the lives it has contained.

And I don’t care.

Because it will be one hundred percent ours.

I’ve never been a baby person…

In fact, as a teenager I was a terrible baby sitter. Very awkward around kids. What do you SAY? What if you say something that ruins them forever? Or worse, DO something. Like drop them.

Despite my child fear, lately I have been finding myself surrounded by babies… and worse yet, wanting one. Why? How has this happened?

This is how. All of these babies are babies of girls that I graduated high school with. (Except my cousin’s baby, the St. Patty’s day girl.) They have that intoxicating baby smell, they’re soft, and my cousin has even deemed me the baby whisperer. The second I hold Emma she stops crying. I find myself day dreaming about the potential nursery my children will have in the house my fiance and I are buying. 

I day dream about which features they will have of mine and of Chance’s. I wonder if they’ll be a boy or a girl, what they will grow up like in either scenario. What our parents will be like as grandparents. The list goes on and on.

Now, this baby fever thing may be just a symptom of my age. After all, I will be graduating college, moving home, buying a house, getting married and getting a “real” job. But because all of this now is exactly the wrong time to have kids. So why? Why do I have baby fever?

I’m honestly the last person on earth who should be pining for a baby.

Has anyone else experienced this?

West Bank Story [Review for JMC 406]

West Bank Story is a short parody that makes light of a serious situation: the Palestine and Israel conflict. The film parodies the classic musical West Side Story.

In the movie, David, an Israeli soldier, who’s  family owns the Kosher King, falls in love Palestinian cashier Fatima, who’s family owns the Hummus Hut.

The enemies-made-lovers try unsuccessfully to initiate peace between the dueling fast food restaurants. The fighting results in a fire that burns down both places.

Despite the fire, West Bank Story doesn’t end in tragedy like West Side Story does. Among the wreckage the workers discover a new, promising opportunity.

The movie does a great job of making various cultural and religious differences not as big a deal as we make them out to be. At the end of the day we are all humans. By using satire, writers Kim Ray and Ari Sandel create a humorous “love concurs all” story. The film reminds us that something better is possible if we work together.

Water for Elephants [Book Review for JMC 406]

Over spring break, I found time to enjoy one of my favorite hobbies: reading. Because my mother had been raving about the novel “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen, and because there’s a movie coming out in April that’s based on the book, I decided to download the story onto my Kindle.

The synopsis truly doesn’t do the book justice. I expected it to be boring, and I certainly didn’t expect the book to touch my heart the way it did.

The novel provides an inside look at what it’s like to age, lose independence, and process it all while experiencing intense nostolgia.

The story follows an elderly man who’s reminiscing about the time in his life when he met his wife. They both worked on a circus together during the Great Depression.

I think this book came at just the right time for me. Both my fiance and I are experiencing our grandparent’s decline in health. Chance’s grandmother was recently diagnosed with dementia. She has good days and bad days, mostly bad ones. When we were home for spring break she could hardly speak. She wanted to be in her wheel chair to sit and see us, but her leg hurt her too much. She couldn’t physically say that her leg hurt, so she just kept yelling. We didn’t know what was wrong. She’s also lost the ability to swallow in the past couple of days. They’re trying to figure out why.

My grandmother is moving into my parent’s house. After surviving two heart attacks and breast cancer that has returned twice, she has very high medical bills and is just physically very weak. She’s also started to buy multiples of things, which is a little scary.

I think Water for Elephants was an eye opening experience. It takes this elderly man that people have seemingly forgotten, and provides him with a mind, a voice, expectations and disappointments. It shows that just because someone is old, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have hopes and dreams for the future. Whatever time they have left should be cherished. It answers the question of: What do you look forward to when there’s seemingly nothing left?

Job Hunt Update

Over spring break I had one formal interview, job shadowed and I sat in on a meeting that was full of advice. All three experiences were extremely helpful, I feel more comfortable in my job hunt. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel!

The first meeting was with Damon Andersen of Creative Reservoir. He was very helpful, and put me in contact with people at Leslie Kline Lucas (I have a phone meeting with their social media person tomorrow- just for a bit of advice,) and a woman who does freelance social media. He also gave me a lot of good advice about what employers are looking for.

The formal interview went really well. It was with two employees of Dillon Brothers Motor Sports. The interview was really positive, and he seemed to really enjoy my portfolio. Unfortunately they needed someone to start fulltime immediately. I can’t start until I move home in May.

The job shadow was with Scott Bishop at Bozell. He’s the Director of Social Influence. He gave me a lot of really helpful advice about what to put in a portfolio in regards to social media, as well as what I can do in an interview to stand out from other candidates.

As a result of all of these meetings and just being in Omaha for a week, I have a job interview for a social media coordinator position at Anderson Partners Advertising in Omaha, as well as an interview for a marketing/writer position at Professional Research Consultants. Both of those are on April 11th.

I counted today, and it’s only 37 days until I graduate, and 38 until I move home.

Advertising Is Bad: Really?

In my mass media and society class, the chapter we’re currently working on focuses on the effect advertising has on women. As part of this chapter, we viewed the video “Killing Us Softly 4″. I saw the third version in my women’s studies class, and while I agree with most of it, something just didn’t sit right. In the video, Jean Kilbourne states:

“Advertising constantly sacrifices our health and our sense of well being for the sake of profit. It sells more than products. It sells values, images, concepts of love and sexuality, of success and normalcy. Not only who we are, but who we should be.”

Does advertising do this? Or do we do this to ourselves? Are men naturally more aggressive than females? Are they hardwired to constantly think about sex? Or is that just an excuse? I think there might be a happy medium some where.

In the video, Kilbourne mentioned that women’s bodies tend to be dismembered and portrayed as submissive in ads. I don’t think this is the result of modern day advertising, I think it’s simply the way it’s always been. Take a look at these famous works of art:



This attitude towards women has been long standing. The women’s rights movement has allowed women to finally attain high-powered positions, but we’re not done yet. This perception of how a woman should be, as well as how a man should be, still remains. Until we learn to get rid of these expectations, this type of advertising will remain.

Through out all of this, I kept thinking about an article in Ad Age about the “talent crisis” in the advertising industry. A quote made by Kat Gordon, founder and creative director of Maternal Instinct, an agency that completely focuses on mothers, really struck me.

“Until women make up more than 3% of creative directors, there will be group- think that cannot represent the height of creativity. And since women control 80% of consumer spending, it’s crucial to have women creating messaging that will connect with this market.”

The industry is changing. It’s not because advertisers are realizing that they’re wrong- because they’re not. Their disgusting tactics are working, or they have been working. The ad industry is a mirror. It shows us what we want to see. If we want to feel bad about ourselves, if we have low self esteem, and a commercial emphasizing that is successful, that’s our fault.

Mad Men is a wildly popular drama that features the advertising industry in the 1960′s. The show has three of my all-time favorite characters: Betty, Joan, and Peggy. The only one of these three that is conventionally beautiful is Betty, and she’s constantly portrayed as vain, selfish and disloyal. Joan and Peggy are portrayed as strong women who are fighting for respect in a world full of ignorant men. Probably unsurprisingly, seven of the nine writers for Mad Men are women.

As I mentioned before, despite all the changes that have been made by women in the feminist movement, there’s still a very thick glass ceiling in advertising. Women provide an important perspective. While agencies like Ervin and Smith in Omaha are creating entire departments that are dedicated to women (Ms. Smith), there’s still far too many agencies that simply aren’t concerned with having women in management positions. I don’t think it’s because there’s women who simply aren’t intelligent, creative or business-savvy enough.

If the communications department UNK provides an accurate image of the future, I truly think things are changing. In this May’s graduating class, most of the advertising majors are women. If this trend continues, it won’t be long before women are providing a point of view that is severely missing in a lot of popular brands.

Putting my Thoughts Together [Column 2 Rough Draft]

Advertising is bad: Really?

In my mass media and society class, the chapter we’re currently working on focuses on the effect advertising has on women. As part of this chapter, we viewed the video “Killing Us Softly 4”. I saw the third version in my women’s studies class, and while I agree with most of it, something just didn’t sit right. In the video, Jean Kilbourne states:

“Advertising constantly sacrifices our health and our sense of well being for the sake of profit. It sells more than products, but it also sells values, images, concepts of love and sexuality, of success and normalcy. Not only who we are, but who we should be.”

Does advertising do this? Or do we do this to ourselves?

Are men naturally more agressive than females? Are they hardwired to constantly think about sex? Or is that just an excuse?

I think there might be a happy medium some where.

Kilbourne also mentioned that women’s body’s tend to be dismembered in ads. Are bodies dismembered, or are they being portrayed in art? It has long been believed that women’s bodies are more beautiful than men’s. Of course that doesn’t explain how sexualized some advertisements can be.

Through out all of this, I kept thinking about an article in Ad Age about the “talent crisis” in the advertising industry. A quote made by Kat Gordon, founder and creative director of Maternal Instinct, an agency that completely focuses on mothers really struck me.

“Until women make up more than 3% of creative directors, there will be group-think that cannot represent the height of creativity. And since women control 80% of consumer spending, it’s crucial to have women creating messaging that will connect with this market.”

I think the industry is changing. And it’s not because advertisers are realizing that they’re wrong- because they’re not. Their disgusting tactics are working, or they have been working. The ad industry is a mirror. It shows us what we want to see. If we want to feel bad about ourselves, if we have low self esteem, and a commercial emphasizing that is successful, that’s our fault.

Mad Men is a wildly popular drama that features the advertising industry in the 1960’s. The show has three of my all-time favorite characters: Betty, Joan, and Peggy. The only one of these three that is conventionally beautiful is Betty, and she’s constantly portrayed as vain, selfish and disloyal. Joan and Peggy are portrayed as strong women who are fighting for respect in a world full of ignorant men. Probably unsurprisingly, seven of the nine writers for Mad Men are women.

For some reason, despite all the changes that have been made, there’s still a very thick glass ceiling in advertising. Women provide an important perspective. While agencies like Ervin and Smith are creating entire departments that are dedicated to women (Ms. Smith), there’s still far too many agencies that simply aren’t concerned with having women in management positions.

If UNK provides an accurate image of the future, I truly think things will change. In this May’s graduating class, most of the advertising majors are women. Hopefully this trend continues and women can provide a point of view that is severely missing in popular brands.