Genki Gold

I've added an important extension to Stephen King's quote. It is officially the tried and true quote. My research paper was about YouTube. I titled it "YouTube: The New Media for News Media" and grew very fond of it. I showed it to as many people as I could and I am sure I will continue to show it to more people. I loved this paper because it had a purpose: I wanted to publish it. Even now that I've turned it in, I know it is not my final draft because I still want to publish it. My passion for journalism motivated me to write the paper, but my determination to contribute to the field in some way became my discipline. This is way I am a volunteer research assistant to a journalism professor on campus. I don't have to be. I certainly don't have the time to be. But I'd like to make a contribution to this cause that I love so dearly. Refworks was a huge help. Never have I been so organized before. It was also divine that I learned about it weeks before...

Humility: the most allusive characteristic. Once you think you have it, you actually aren't humble at all. Humility is desperate, hard work Doctrine of humility stems from The Great Commandment. Matthew 22:37 "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." What is love? 2 John 1:6 "And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it." Preach My Gospel is a manual for LDS missionaries. It has rules, routines, counsel, and inspiration. There is an entire chapter on Christlike Attributes and how to achieve them. One of these is humility. PMG p. 120 "Humility is willingness to submit to the will of the Lord . . . When you humbly trust Him and acknowledge His power and mercy, you can have the assurance that His commandments are for your good. You are confident that you can do whatever the Lord requires of yo...

“You all know that you’re going into a dying business?” my journalism professor chuckled as he surveyed the class. He continued into his lecture for the first day of Intro to News Media, and I was present but not listening. I would compare it to when Santa tells Ralphie in A Christmas Story that a Red Ryder BB gun could “shoot your eye out.” I did not want to believe it was true. Yet it very possibly could be.                I love current events, am I a great anomaly? My journalism class was quite full, particularly so for an evening class. All my friends did not seem less informed, if anything they seemed more informed.  But my professor was telling me my passion is going to fall on deaf ears? I am studying the most popular forms of news media because I want to know if what media consumers like in order to help fellow news media students know how to revive journalism in the future. That's a big paper. So far, I ...

"I wish I had time to read! I have too much homework" a girl shrieked at me during the third hour of my shift at work. Hi, nice to meet you. I am the antagonist to all your excuses. I am currently enrolled in 17.5 credits, I typically work 12-20 hours a week on Brigham Young University campus as a secretary for the Communications: News and Media department, I volunteer for three hours a week, I cook homemade meals at least five times in the week and I still have time to read. I am not bragging I am not saying I am better than anyone. But as a college student I must write, and if I must write, I must also make time to read. I got the title from a quote out of Stephen King's "On Writing" which I read in my free time. Doesn't this parallel make sense? Am I wrong to desperately cling to my reading time? You know, I am only going to get busier. I don't think a crying baby will work around my reading schedule. So I made some goals to help me read better...

My soon-to-be husband (unbeknownst to me) Rob and I had just descended from the Y Mountain in Provo, Utah. He had opened the door for me and let me shiver from inside his Chevy Cruise and was walking around the back of it when a boy approached him shyly. I was watching from the rear view mirror suspiciously, but when they seemed to be carrying on a conversation I couldn't help but turn around. Rob ducked his head level to the window and mouthed: They need our help. When we followed the boy we saw a sad sight. A teenage girl obviously distraught because two of her tires were flat. We were happy and eager to call AAA or anybody, but she this only made her more nervous. She had taken this car out for this drive while her mom was out of town, see. Two of her friends had tagged along. Her mother had no idea and she wanted to keep it that way. We ended up calling somebody anyway to bring two spares. As we waited, Rob jumped up and grinned. "Who wants hot chocolate?" We all d...

One of my favorite classes is my Honors course, Unexpected Connections: Social Sciences and Art. During the first class of the semester, one student said the "n" word. Several times. Not maliciously, although I still wished he hadn't said it. But at the same time I knew that I loved this class. Two weeks after the mass shooting in Vegas on October 1, 2017, we were discussing nationalism, as per the subject of the course, and one of my fellow students, as casually as if he were discussing the weather, voiced: "We know that the Vegas shooter wasn't a terrorist, but I wonder if ISIS will still claim the attack." So I thought it would be nice to review terrorism. Merriam Webster defines it this way for children: " the use of violence as a means of achieving a goal." This seems widely applicable. To use a definition of my own creation that my English teacher would definitely not approve of, terrorism is to terrify. Now, since when did Al Qae...

All Latter-day Saints would be better off if they understood the difference between doctrines, principles, and practices. (As taught by my Eternal Families professor, Dr. Larry Nelson.) This is doctrine: a true, broad phrase heavily repeated throughout scripture and at the pulpit during General Conference, and can never change. In order to experience eternal happiness, all should live by these and it is possibly for absolutely anybody to live by doctrine. A principle is an if/then statement based in doctrine. These are promised blessings should we follow God's commandments. Many of these are also found in the scriptures, and in General Conference talks, but they can change. Finally, there are practices among the Latter-Day Saints. These are day to day activities and habits that individuals create in order to align themselves to God's doctrine and principles. Practices are personal. One will never hear a General Authority promote a practice. They differ based on the pe...

"What does a prophet have to say in 2017?" There I stood, knees locked, sucking the air to fill my lungs to their greatest capacity, singing so loud I might as well have been alone because I could not hear anyone else in my Sunday school class. I would not break eye contact with the cold, black camera lens admiring my effort. I grew up believing in a prophet of God my whole life. I sang songs about God's prophets, memorized their immortalized words in the scriptures, and even wrote birthday cards to the living ones. I remember when President Hinckley died in 2008, I was sad but not scared or shaken in my twelve-year-old faith. On this day of the recording, we celebrated his ninetieth birthday. Us nine-year-old kids were singing praises to the very trump of God and I was doing my darnedest to sing my best for him. We had sung our last note, the director had his finger on the "stop" button of his camera, and before he pronounced the "t" in "cut...