5 things I have learned from mass media I have watched/viewed/read/heard this week!

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• How to crochet the "granny square" pattern- A fun fact about me is that I love to crochet; it is one of my favorite hobbies! To start, chain 5 and join with a slip stitch. R1: Chain 3 (counts as 1st dc). In the loop work 2dc, ch-2, 3dc, ch-2, 3dc, ch-2, 3dc, ch-2, sl st to top of starting ch 3. Now that sounds difficult, but it's actually one of the easier patterns you can do, in my opinion! I first saw Grandma Squares when I was younger because my grandma had them all over her house, but I had never learned how to make one until this week! It stood out to me because I not only get to keep my grandma's memory alive, but also get to learn something small to create something big! 
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  Colleen Hoover's regretting you- This is a new movie coming out that I have been wanting to see, and it came out this week! It is about the strained relationship between young mother Morgan Grant and her teenage daughter Clara, exacerbated by Morgan's husband Chris's tragic death, that forces them to navigate life's challenges together. I love romantic movies like these, so when I saw it on TikTok, I got so excited! 
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  The stages of grief are wrong- These next three months are some of the hardest months of the year now for me. In three days, it will be two years since I lost my friend and practically a sister to suicide. But after scrolling on TikTok, I watched Emily Kiser, who just lost her son to a drowning accident, talk about how her counselor told her about why she shouldn't trust in the five stages of grief because they were made for older people. So I decided to look it up for myself on Google Scholar, and it is true, it was made for older people. So all of this time, I had used those kinds of things as a guide, but really, they were wrong. I know this sounds like a tough subject, but I also don't want to sweep grief under the rug because so many go through the same tragedies in life. 
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  Lichens are 7 percent of the entire world's surface. Today in my Mushrooms and Molds class, we had a lecture on lichens. What are those, you ask? A lichen is a hybrid colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among filaments of multiple fungus species, along with bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualistic relationship. What stood out to me is when you go outside and look at a tree, you may think you are looking at bark on a tree, but really, you are probably looking at a lichen that is the same color as the tree. 
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  Shark species can get kind of weird. One thing about me is that I will learn and remember the dumbest, most useless information forever, and this seems to fit right into that box. "Most people think of the aforementioned species because of shark attacks. Although they rarely happen – there were just 69 unprovoked bites worldwide in 2023 according to the International Shark Attack File – attacks by great whites, bull sharks, and tiger sharks are sometimes fatal because of their sheer size. But there are millions of these predators in the ocean, and it's the ones that aren't seen as often that can be among the most fascinating – both in character and in looks," said CBS News. I hate getting into the ocean; it scares me so bad, and this post made me remember why. This was interesting to me because it reminded me that there are so many things out there that we don't know about and have never seen. 

            This week, mass media taught me so many things I never would’ve known otherwise, and each one really influenced how I think. Learning how to crochet a granny square was not just about picking up a new pattern, but it connected me back to my grandma and showed me how small skills can carry big meaning. Finding out about Colleen Hoover’s Regretting You coming out as a movie reminded me how the media can take love and loss and make it feel personal to each person watching. Seeing Emily Kiser talk about grief made me realize the stages I thought were universal were actually created for older people, and that shifted how I look at my own healing process and how grief is represented in media. In my Mushrooms and Molds class, I was surprised to learn that lichens cover 7% of Earth’s surface, which made me look at something as ordinary as tree bark in a whole new way. And then, on the lighter side, reading about strange shark species reminded me how much is still unknown in the ocean and why it both fascinates and terrifies me. Altogether, these moments showed me that media doesn’t just entertain, it changes how I see my hobbies, emotions, and science.