lonerafter

I don't think I've ever even known an Anglican, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the entire point of the Anglican church to basically be a Catholic who can get divorced? Why is divorce stigmatized when that was the reason it was founded? I could see not wanting your preacher to marry a divorced person, but they couldn't be friends with a divorcee and the town has to ostracize that person? Why?! Isn't that the entire point of your church in the first place?

That was the first time in a while that I felt the suspense was real and not just manufactured. However, I didn't get my hopes up just in case the suspense was fake, yet I still feel let down. I'm sure there will be comments about how the cheerleaders could have thought they were a strong team when they couldn't find a fish, but I'm sure there are unknown variables. If I personally had to do that challenge I would have to take my contacts out as you don't want to open your eyes underwater with them, and for me personally wearing glasses underwater makes things worse and not better for my vision (I honestly cannot read the big letter on the eye doctor chart without contacts or glasses). Also Diana stated that there were lots of bubbles and lights, and it looked like she wasn't too strong of a swimmer (I can't remember which cheerleader is which). I did really enjoy the pep talk the one gave to the other, and it was nice to see her smiling on the platform even when she had to have known they were probably going home. I'd like to see them back again, they were generally good natured IMO and to be honest if I had to pick between a season with teams that were good at racing and teams who were nice to each other and worked well together I'd go with the latter. If Kelsey and Joey don't win the finale I'm so done (which means I'll be upset for a day or so but definitely still watch the next season) I know the casting people don't know how racers will react under pressure but I'd like to see more teams that seem to get along and are along for the ride like the dancers, the cousins, the scientists from the past season, less people like the paparazzi and green team. I understand it is a competition but sometimes I'd like to see people who are there more for the trip, like I know the Texans choice to go touring in Paris was "dumb" but it's what I would do if the train wasn't for a few hours, who knows when you'll have time or money to go back? I understand being competitive, and have honestly said "second place is first loser" to myself a few times a la Justin and Diana, but I wouldn't say that on the race because my reason for going would be the experience, any trips, prizes, or money would be a bonus.

This is just a hypothesis of mine, I have no real evidence for it, but my suspicion is that the people on that boat were Bravo crew. I may be wrong in my memories but didn't Deadliest Catch or some other boat show have a boat for the crew that was following the boat being filmed? It would mean that they could carry extra equipment and switch out crew members when they've worked for a set amount of time. I'm not sure how filming works but I swear some other show had an extra boat (I think they called it a chaser or something). The reason I'm wondering this is because what random boat would just take someone in who they saw dive off of another boat? I would think that may be inviting a liability of some kind on board, and even if they did let her on why for so long? But if it were a Bravo boat they could have encouraged her to stay and calm down and extended the time she was gone so they may even have had more drama when she returned. Just a thought.

I'm glad BogoGog24 covered some of what I was thinking. I do not like Rocky one bit but sometimes if you don't see your viewpoint anywhere you start to think you're crazy! My view of how the situations are different is that Rocky tried to let Emile down more gently in the beginning, giving the "you're like a sibling" line and distancing herself while only making comments to Amy and Kate, which was more like venting than gossiping. Maybe it's just because, as a young woman, I've had a few guys who didn't take my "No, I don't want to date you" seriously but the fact she was trying to shake Emile never bothered me. Was there a better way to do it than the note? Probably, but at that point we'd been subjected to two or three weeks of her telling him she wasn't into him like that while he continued to get clingier ("I want to see Rocky's family"). Also, her and Emile never slept together (that we are shown), and everyone knew what was going on, so there was no real relationship, physical or emotional, just pining on Emile's part. With Eddie the main difference IMO is how he's handled the end of their hookups. Maybe I missed it but I haven't seen him say (on camera to Rocky) that they were through, he kind of just quit texting her, and as he quit texting her he started bad mouthing her to all of the crew most likely in an attempt to distance himself from her. I see this as different than her comments about Emile because everyone knew he was pursuing her and she was talking about how annoying his pining was, whereas no one knew Eddie was having laundry room time with Rocky, and he's not complaining about their "relationship", but about how crazy she is in general (which would be fine on its own if it wasn't mostly stemming from his desire to distance himself). I don't know if that actually made any sense out loud, but that's my attempt to explain how I feel the situations are different. I think Connie is more than right to complain about Rocky, especially since she waited for her to leave the table first and didn't call her a "crazy girlfriend" to her face. (Maybe it's just me but I'd much rather have insults thrown around behind my back) Also, she's on a boat with her 24/7, and there's probably some bitterness from Rocky not receiving any consequences for abandoning them. As for Kate/Ben, I knew they argued in the past season but for me the difference is they're still doing their jobs. Even when Ben said "I'll just talk to Amy" he and Kate were still maintaining the communication necessary for her to know what the dishes were whereas Leon just shut up entirely and towards the end only spoke to Rocky. It was nice to see him cleaning the kitchen up, as IMO that shows that there really were downsides to Leon and it wasn't just a bad/unfair edit. I'm so glad Dave is back! I loved him the first season, he seemed like such a happy guy that was just there to do his job and maybe get into acting some more (but without starting drama and acting crazy!). When they said there was a new deckhand I was scared it'd be Amy's brother from last season since they showed her skyping with him earlier. It was nice that the Housewives were drama free, but I feel like there haven't been many dramatic guests this season other than some who were a bit disappointed in one thing or another. I honestly didn't see the big deal about the boat staying docked, I guess the daughter went jet skiing, but other than that if all they want to do is lay out in the sun or fish couldn't you do that at the dock? I'm guessing the only big difference is the view, which I'd be disappointed in missing, but it could always be worse. One thing I did like was that after the behind the scenes tour I'm pretty sure I heard Cynthia tell her daughter "I don't want to hear you complaining about your room being small again"

So I've been sifting through this thread all day, and part of the fj threads (though I've never registered there, as I've always been what I consider a casual viewer. I watch, read the boards the next day, and forget about them until the next week). I haven't added anything since my first general shock post that I think we all made at some point, because I didn't have anything to really add. But I was just thinking about a couple of the questions people had asked. The ones along the lines of why do the show when you have this skeleton, are they really shocked at the scandal, etc. Here's what I think, they didn't think this was a scandal. I mean, in JB and Ms eyes Josh had gone to his labor camp, repented, probably been forgiven by the sisters (even if they were forced to forgive him) so all is well, right? I'll admit I wasn't as good as some others who took notes on the police report, but if I remember correctly towards the end when they're mentioning lawyers and all JB seems eager to drop it. I know you can't truly get tone from a report, but from how we've seen him act I wouldn't doubt it. Also, on them being mostly quiet about this, they're probably scared more dirt will be dug up (which seems to be their main goal in the Josh thread on fj), and you can't make a statement about "we're so sorry, every family has their one big failure" when there are more failures that may come to light. I mean we've seen the ATI blog posts going around after this scandal, the conditions most of these families live in and what the wives and kids experience, maybe the Duggars haven't been like that since their show, but that obviously doesn't mean it can't come out. Finally, while the fact that there had to be victims at all is horrible, maybe this will she'd some more light on ATI and the basic training thing I forgot the acronym for (sorry). I doubt it will have any long term effects, I mean they had FLDS raids and that was a big controversial thing for like a uear, then it died down. As long as the ATI community doesn't put themselves in the spotlight, the awareness will likely go down just like the Mormons. I apologize for any typos, this is from my phone so idrk if autocorrect did it's job or not since it's not letting me actually see the words I'm typing?

This is honestly so much, I hope the victims are dealing with it well, I can't imagine how awful it must be to have that dredged up again. I started watching this show whenever it became an actual show (I may have seen the specials if they were on Netflix, I can't really remember now, the past few seasons are kind of blurred together in my mind) and this is just crazy. I can't believe that a couple of weeks ago I was thinking that Josh and Anna seemed like nice people who may have a chance breaking away from the Duggar cult. I've seen some people say maybe he was brainwashed/taught that that kind of behavior was okay, and while we won't really know it, I kind of doubt it. I remember when the FLDS church was in the spotlight a few years ago it prompted me to read some of the books put out by women who had escaped that culture. Most of them said that, while they were treated awfully before marriage and seen as second-class citizens who should keep their mouths shut, and other typical gender stereotypes were enforced, that something like sexual assault wasn't cool (assuming they weren't married, the books made it clear that once you were married your body wasn't your own). I am not QF, but I do have fundie family and was homeschooled* (though not for religious reasons), and therefore a part of many homeschool groups with fundies, and I think the same tends to be true. Assaults obviously happen, but they aren't really encouraged out of marriage. They see it as normal to do that to your wife, because that's what she "owes" you, but if you do that to someone else you've "ruined" someone's future wife, and then they sweep it under the rug, it isn't normalized. I just want to say I'm not defending this way of thinking, I'm just saying that because of this way of thinking I don't think that they say this behavior as normal. Also, I feel that his actions were very deliberate, not just 'curiosity', these were girls 6 years his junior or more, if he were 'just curious' he probably could have found someone his own age equally as curious at church or one of their functions, and done the typical teenage "I show you mine you show me yours" I can't imagine how terrible it must feel to know that your parents are more willing to protect your brother, who molested you, than your safety. To have to go through that with the Gothard counseling, including the packet someone linked earlier. To then have to take care of your molester, wash his clothes, cook his food, clean his room, squish into a family van with him, watch his children, and smile the entire time. As a viewer of the show, not really a "fan" in the sense of "Oh I love these people" I'm a fan more like "Oh I love to watch these people and laugh at them", I want it to continue. I want a show like a better version of Breaking Amish where the girls leave and decide the best way to get revenge on Josh is to go to school and do more with their lives, to get the same jobs he did but without the family name helping them, to cure balding and refuse to sell him the medicine, just be generally successful and independent, and to take care of the other kids left at the Duggar house, away from J&M. However I don't think it's best that it continues, because that show will never happen, and even if it did it's probably not what's best for the girls. The ideal ending to this story is that Jim Boob and MEchelle realize what they did was wrong, give the victims the option to leave & pay for housing away from the family, to give them real therapy, and to let the kids figure out on their own what they want to do. As for TLC, I doubt they will cancel it, it is one of their most successful shows. Though I kind of wonder, how many of the viewers each week are like us, wanting to watch so we can make fun of the family, and how many are true fans. I think if they came back with the season they'd already filmed and the number of true fans, and therefore viewers, is smaller than what they'd like, they'll say something like "This is a hard decision, but we're pulling the show due to Josh's actions, it just didn't feel right when we aired those first few episodes" and try to make it seem like they're a good person. I think advertisers may follow the same kind of path, stay with the show, since they do have high ratings, and pull out if they get smaller. Or TLC could easily fill up ad space if they lowered the price so more 'desperate' companies could see it as a golden opportunity. *- please don't judge the structure and all based on the fact that I was homeschooled. I'm just as smart as the next person, I promise, I'm just also too lazy to use proper sentence structure and grammar in posts on the internet.

I just finished pt. 1, and while I laughed at some of the moments it honestly wasn't that memorable, because I've honestly already forgotten most of what happened. Honestly most of my observations/thought were shallow. This is probably a weird comment, but am I the only one that really doesn't like any of their hair? Not necessarily the style or cuts or anything, but that most of their hair colors just don't go with their skin tones that well? I feel like Petti's hair blends into her, Gamble and Janet have that super fake blonde shade that doesn't seem to mesh well with their orange-you-glad-you-tanned look. (I know lots of people have hair that light, but it seems like the majority of people with that hair color dye it). I know Gina has brown hair but I feel like her hair doesn't mesh too well with the orange either. I think Chyka and Jackie's hair match them well enough, but honestly I feel like Lydia's matches her the best. I'm not sure if that's her natural color, or maybe it was and now she dyes it due to grays, but it compliments her. I honestly don't know why but like having the wrong hair color bugs me, and seeing them all in a row, sitting still made me notice it finally. On another shallow notes, I loved Chyka's dress so, so, so much. There aren't enough sos, I mean the sleeve situation looked a bit uncomfortable, but the color and the way it looked on her. I'm incredibly jealous, if I had to be/hang out with one of the housewives, I'd pick her. I wonder if Gamble stays on the show if Chyka will do the wedding, or if she decided that dealing with Petti for the birthday party was enough to turn her off of working for her castmates. I'm honestly having a hard time remembering anything that actually happened, as I was spending most of my time being shallow and focusing on how they look (I'm terrible, I know). The nouveau riche thing is kind of annoying, mostly because I think it does describe the attitude Petti has. IMO, as someone with no riche, old or new, it's meant to describe someone who just got their money so they want to show it off, they only socialize with the other elites, basically leaving behind any of their old friends and acting in a stereotypical rich person manner (bossing around the 'help'), and basically just trying too hard. Now people with old money totally do that too, but they normally just get called assholes. Besides, I don't think old money has to be from the Tudors, I would say grandparents at least, not parents like Gamble did, but I would also say that it would still count if a few generations back you had some money and each generation inherited and continued to build on it, even if it isn't all original. I think one of the funniest things about the money conversations between her and Gamble is that Pettifleur talks about how she earns everything on her own, yet she kept telling her husband/partner to buy her a Bentley, then in the episode where she's arranging the party, she makes a reference to him paying for it. I don't have a problem with working for all of your own money, being an actual housewife (not just one on the show, but staying home), or doing a combo, but I thought it was amusing she was trying to act like she got everything on her own instead of admitting that it's okay for it to be a joint effort. I actually really like Petti, up to a point, I like Gina on/off, because she's willing to call people out, but sometimes she needs to be called out as well, so I was kind of hoping this season that there would basically be another Andrea that was better at standing up to and challenging Gina. I thought that Petti may be that person, but she's kind of disappointed me. Instead, I got someone who thinks that letting her 15 year old edit her book is a great idea. I understand not wanting your message to be lost, but couldn't you find someone to check it over and make sure that there weren't any huge errors without having them touch the message? There are typos in basically every book, even in books from publishing companies that have been heavily edited. While I personally, obviously, don't pay much attention to how I write, if it were for a business or a book I would definitely want someone checking it. I also do agree with Gina that Petti is a bit high strung, I know people have personalities like that, and it's fine, I'm probably more like her than Gamble. But if you're going on a housewives show it's probably better to act a little silly and not take everything so seriously, because it seems like the only thing most of the women on the different franchises truly take seriously in terms of the show is their drama and whether or not they'll be invited back. Gina's comment about how Chyka liked everyone was unnecessary, we need at least one happy cast member with great party planning skills to make up for all of the disappointing drama the rest of you are bringing. I did have kind of an odd question though, I watch the show with CC on because I'm bad at understanding different accents, and after Gina mentioned "don't lock horns with me" because her horns that were 7,000 times bigger or something, in the TH, they cut to Lydia and her saying something on the couch? On my CC it showed up as like "Oh that's so [indistinct]" and then Gina agreed and said the 'indistinct' word again, it sounded like it started with a g? I know this is a dumb question, and I can't even quote the scene properly, but I'd kind of like to keep up with the different slang they have if it contributes to understanding the show (like I had to google bogan).

I honestly don't know how to feel about Mike winning, I'll admit when they announced it last night I did a little cheer, but after reading through some of this topic (I honestly can't read 11 pages on Survivor in one sitting, I'm a bad fan, I know) I'm kind of doubting that happy feeling I had last night. I think the issue is Mike isn't necessarily a great person, and he did act like a jerk at earlier points in the season, but if the majority of people are more like me, the casual viewer, than the dedicated fan who has an awesome memory when it comes to all things Survivor, they only remember this past 1/3 of the season or so where he's become an underdog. While I probably wouldn't want to go make best friends with Mike, I think he fulfilled the outwit, outlast, outplay motto in his own way. I feel like some people, both players and viewers, act like there is a checklist that if you hit every point on it you're guaranteed to win, stuff like winning a few challenges, being nice and social, and making probably at least 2-3 big moves. However, I feel that out of himself, Carolyn, and Will, Mike fulfilled the 3 O's best. You don't necessarily have to be social to outwit (the one I see as signifying making a big move/blindsides), you can outplay buy winning almost every immunity challenge, and IMO outlast means get to the end. I think maybe since they emphasized the Survivor catchphrase, motto, whatever you want to call it, so much at the FTC, that's kind of the rubric we were supposed to use to figure out who should win. Also, there's not just one way to win Survivor. I'll admit I haven't seen every season (probably never will unless Netflix finally supplies the DVDs for each one), but I'm sure that there are some who relied more on their social game to win it for them, and some who relied more on how many challenges they had won. That said, I would have been alright with a Carolyn win, too, even though I feel like she had an easier time due to her social game and her alliance, as well as that top secret idol all the other players were so surprised by! I think the fact that Mike essentially got to the end on his own, without an alliance to fall back on after like 2/3 or so of the game, is what made him win the votes. I'm actually kind of curious, since they didn't show the votes, were all the votes except for that one Carolyn and one Will vote for Mike? I'd assume so, otherwise I'd think they would pull them out when they read the votes to create more suspense. Okay, that was more than I really meant to write about Mike winning, now onto the episode. For the most part I found the episodes boring, I really thought Carolyn was going home both times, if I'm honest. I was kind of annoyed that instead of getting rid of Rodney or Will that Sierra went home, but once they showed that Mike wasn't going to take two goats to the final with him I was alright with it. As for the tribal council where they got it down to the final three, that fire making challenge was a nail biter. I was so sure Rodney would win and I'd have to just shut the TV off, but she pulled through! Also, Dan's facial expressions during the 2 regular tribal council's were great, he was so annoyed that Mike had the necklace both times, and he looked mad when Carolyn's fire won. I thought it was hilarious how, when Rodney finally got a fire started, someone in the back row of the jury shook the person in front of them to wake them up (I didn't see who, I was too focused on how much I wanted Rodney to lose). Am I the only one who thought it was weird the actual final three didn't do a speech? I'm 100% okay with them cutting out the tribute to former tribe mates thing they used to always do in the final episodes, but I actually like the jury speeches, it seemed like all they did was answer questions. The reunion show was kind of boring to me, I feel like they spent too much time on Dan and Will, which would be okay if they had been more apologetic and said it was an eye opener to their behavior or something, but they really weren't. I guess Will apologized, but idk, I've never seen "I apologize" as a real apology? I just remember this one time in school a kid had a giant fit over something minor the girl next to him did, and got really nasty while he was yelling. The teacher made him actually say why he was sorry and take some time before the apology to put some thought into it, I guess it doesn't mean it is more sincere, but it at least feels more sincere. Shirin seemed 100% annoying in those earlier episodes, and I understand getting fed up with someone's behavior and blowing up, but IMO that's not what happened, he blew up over a specific situation, made it personal, and then did not apologize afterwards. Maybe it's just me but when someone I know does something that's just like the tipping point when I'm already having a bad day, I go back and apologize as soon as I calm down, and it's not just "I apologize." And this is kind of just a general thing, but when people say "I don't act like that, that's not me" I mean, maybe you don't think you act that way, or you don't usually act that way, but you do act that way sometimes, obviously, and I'm very sure that they didn't hire some kind of impostor to go take your place on Survivor for the sole purpose of making you look bad. I know that Dan's piece at the reunion wasn't meant to be funny, but it just was to me. All of the backtracking, I understand not remembering things exactly as they happened, I know I learned about how people can make memories in like a high school psych class, so it isn't that shocking. However, maybe if you're on a TV show where you say something bad like that, don't tell everyone that it was "your mama jokes" unless you're like a million percent sure that it was. Either he does have an absolute horrible memory, or he didn't think they'd really pull the raw footage, good thing he works for the post office because from talking to our mailman it seems almost impossible to get fired. I actually thought his shirt was amusing, mainly because I love puns too much, but I feel like maybe he isn't the best to be wearing it, since, as Jeff basically said, he doesn't really come off as funny when he makes those kinds of jokes. Plus, Dan said about his slapping Shirin comment that if he had known her past then he wouldn't have said that, but then either a few minutes before or after that (unlike Dan I don't posses a perfect memory) he complained about how 'PC' the world was now? Political correctness is basically a negative way to portray being sensitive to others, I believe the statistic is something around 1/4 of women and 1/7 of men in the US have been abused by a partner, now I guess that doesn't include like parental violence, but that's definitely a lot of people, so it's best to just assume that in your group of like 10 or however many Survivors were left, at least 1 of them has experienced violence in that way, and to not be rude about it. I feel like he also owed many different people apologies, because it seemed like he was so negative the entire time, it seemed like almost any time he was alone with someone he wasn't 'bros' with, he would be so rude. Like at that little watering hole/pond with Shirin one time, then Sierra the next, I mean, what happened to if you don't have anything nice to say don't say it? I get that it's Survivor, you can lie, steal, betray, get into people's heads, but that was just a whole other thing. Finally, next season. To be honest I've only been watching live for the past few years, and other than the past few seasons, I've only seen the previous seasons that Netflix has on DVDs. So I was really surprised that I knew most of them, as they were from newer seasons, I guess maybe that's what voting does. I bet after that million dollar comment Shirin goes home fast, if any of those people can remember it long enough. There are reasons besides money to play Survivor, yeah, but I doubt even if she made it to the end that she'd win based on that. I loved Woo, he was so happy and fun, not looking forward to Kass or Spencer, I found them pretty annoying, they were okay players I guess? I wonder if the people from this season that are going on to next one are at a disadvantage, as people just watched them and are more familiar with them, or if they're maybe better off because no one really had time to analyze their footage and see what their gameplay was throughout the entire game (I guess Joe and Shirin got out soon enough you could do it, but you'd have less time to). I bet Shirin will be very annoying on this next season, as she was a superfan. Also, why is Keith there? Didn't he say he didn't even really want to play the game, he was just there because of his son?

I just watched it and I'm not really sure how I feel about this episode. So far I've loved each episode, so I haven't really felt the need to comment since everything has basically already been said, but this one was kind of weird to me. There were definitely funny moments (Dre calling Bow a chicken with all of the 'buts', Junior finding the loopholes, Bow's mom not wanting to harsh her vibe) but the whole premise kind of annoyed me. I think maybe it's because I'm closer in age to the kids than the parents, or that I haven't had my own child yet, but I felt like they went way overboard. I completely agree that Zoey should have had some kind of punishment, as if she had been caught/gotten into an accident there would have been actual legal ramifications, but I don't think one kid making one bad choice is a good reason to put all of them on lockdown. I mean, Junior doesn't seem to break any normal rules, apparently he just finds ways around them, so why punish him with the 10,000 commandments? I guess he doesn't really have a lot of friends to go out and see anyway, but group punishments always rub me the wrong way. Another thing was how almost everything Bow said about being close to her daughter was made fun of in one way or another, when I feel like a lot of what she was saying had some value (especially when she said something along the lines of "That's why you resent your father" to Dre). It was also kind of annoying how Dre took charge of the punishments. I get taking her phone away, as that isn't huge, she could always use computers at school or a friends phone, and Bow didn't seem to mind that. But the 10,000 commandments weren't good, it was obvious that Bow did not support them, and if the decision regarding the punishment doesn't come from both of your parents it makes it harder to take seriously. I understand having rules, my parents were strict when I was little, and then somewhat into middle school, but eventually they realized that continually grounding me wasn't fixing anything, and instead that we needed to talk and actually have communication. Maybe it's just me, but if Bow and Zoey had had a closer relationship, maybe they would have had a conversation about how Zoey wanted to drive to impress her friends, and they could have talked about the motive behind the actions and maybe prevent them from happening again by offering up a different solution. Once I was about halfway through middle school, and all through high school, my parents essentially left me alone and didn't really ask "What are you doing?" "Who are you hanging out with at school?" or anything like that. The fact that they weren't constantly pestering me made me more prone to tell them things and talk to them about important stuff going on. I had a friend who had very strict parents, they would go through all of her messages, demand to know her passwords and then change them so they determined whenever she could do anything. She didn't magically turn into an angel, she just learned to hide things better. There was a lot of drama for me in the beginning of high school involving what I guess would be called bullying? Or maybe just harassment, but either way it took me a few months to actually work up the courage to tell my parents about it since I assumed they would be like most of the people I knew and blame me for it, but I ended up telling them just in time. I can't imagine how much longer it would have taken me to tell them if they had been overly harsh and strict, or if I would have just continued to hide it. I mean if Zoey was pregnant with a toilet baby, who would she be more likely to tell and talk to about it, supporting parents who she has a good relationship with, or parents who revel in the power they have over their children? I can't remember if she has her permit or not, but the rule in my state was if you had a permit you had to have someone 21 or over in the passenger seat, and it had to be during certain hours of the day. So, when they showed her in the car my first thought was that she was hanging out with a much older guy, which would be a huge problem. I don't know why I expected that, maybe it's because I had some friends who would befriend 21 year olds when they were 15 just so they could drive without parents. Basically, I think there should have been a punishment for Zoey, but not what was done. I don't think reacting with anger always works, I think explanations combined with a reasonable punishment do a lot more good. Also, if she is 15 and she doesn't have a permit (because I honestly can't remember), why wouldn't they get her into drivers ed. and start that process? It's obvious she wants to drive.

I'm normally more of a lurker, but as someone who's dealt with the college process in the last 10 years I can't help but join in the conversation this time. There are websites that do something similar to Scholly, but I'm thinking the simpler look of the app, and assuming it has push notifications that alert students to new scholarships added, may appeal to high school kids more than logging into a website every day to check for new scholarships. Now as far as FAFSA/need based and all of that goes, I'm fairly sure most of what y'all are thinking of falls into the categories of grants, need based scholarships, or institutional scholarships. There are many what I guess would be 3rd party scholarships, ones that come from non government organizations that could be applied to any, or at least many different, colleges. I know that my friend received a hefty chunk of change in the form of a scholarship she won from an organization she had been volunteering at for 7 years. Had nothing to do with the college she went to or her family's financial status. Also, it is possible to receive a large amount in scholarship money, I'm not sure that $1.2(?) million is easy for everyone to receive, as he did say he was raised by a single mom and had been working for a while, things that could either make him eligible for more scholarships or win someone over in an essay. However, I do know that schools, at least in my area, apply scholarships a certain way. First the money goes to tuition/fees, so the actual classes, then if you have enough to cover that and still have leftovers it goes to dorms, if there's more left it can go to a meal plan, then it can go to books, etc. I remember in high school they had a college fair to encourage everyone to apply, and there was a girl there who went to the local state university who spoke, and she was getting gas money from scholarships she had so many. As opposed to getting a job in high school like her friends, she would spend hours each day after class looking up scholarships online and applying, even if she was not qualified. She ended up winning some of the ones she wasn't qualified for because no one else applied. So yeah, you still have to apply and write essays, and these scholarships the app features may not be worth much, but if you add up one $500 scholarship here, and another $250 there, and you use it consistently, you could make a dent in your tuition payments. I like the idea of it being available for students on their phone, so they have no excuse to not use it since the phones are constantly in their hands anyway. I wasn't a huge fan of Lori and Daymond cutting him off, but they seemed to understand the purpose/vision, which always makes me happy. Okay, that ended up being longer than intended, sorry. But I still have some (much shorter) impressions from the rest of the episode: I thought Daymond was insane to suggest people pay, what, $200 for those backpacks? Especially if the target audience is the average college student. They didn't look very sturdy or like they had much room, though I did like the different designs. For some reason I really liked the light, especially that it was rechargeable. I didn't see the solar thing as being a huge issue, if I put one in my car for emergencies there's no reason why I couldn't just leave it on my passenger seat or back seat. I guess if you had kids in the back or people who ride with you frequently you'd have to figure something else out, but it seemed like a good idea to me. I loved that it was being used for emergencies as well, I don't know why but I prefer the showcases for products that also help people as opposed to just selling a product. I mean they're obviously still selling it, but it just makes me like it even more. As for the vents, I see more uses in the hotels like they mentioned rather than in individual homes. I think the people who would like a more technology friendly house are also the people who can't afford $400+ for something as simple as a vent.

I'm typically more of a lurker than a poster, but I just had to comment on all of this Julie stuff. To be honest I'm probably a bit biased towards her because of a few reasons. I admit I haven't watched any interviews, so correct me if I'm wrong, but she didn't really seem like she was that enthusiastic about going out on Survivor, and I'm almost wondering if she just did it for her boyfriend. As for this whole food fiasco...I'm honestly on her side. The way most of the folks on both tribes are eating whenever they receive a reward seems very gluttonous and it didn't particularly look like she was one of those people, I understand you can't really save most of the food so you have to eat it before it goes bad, but trail mix is something that can last for a little while. My guest is that she's someone who can't eat a lot in one sitting, even when she's very hungry, which I can definitely relate to. If that's the case I don't really think it's wrong for her to take some trail mix and make sure she has her fair share of food from the 'feast'. I kind of feel like this lust for food among the tribe was shown when they suggested strip searching everyone for the trail mix, and then instead of saying "okay we can each have a bit now, but let's save some" (which they should have done to avoid being caught, but even if it were out in the open they should do that to make it last longer) they were going back into her bag and pulling out handful upon handful. I also found it humorous that they complained of her selfishness, but then when she quit were exhibiting their own selfishness by whining about how they lost a vote. I feel like if the tribe's atmosphere as displayed tonight had been happening for a bit, it could possibly explain why she described it as Mean Girls in the woods (don't remember the exact quote). I know Survivor is all about the numbers, but if you make it clear to someone either directly, through what your words imply, or through your nonverbal behaviors that they are just a number to you, I don't personally feel like that's a great social game. As for the rest of the episode... Jeremy still grates on my nerves, and I'm sincerely hoping for him to be voted out at the next Tribal, but with my luck he'll probably win the game. I'm kind of confused as to his hatred of Josh, though. It seemed like he had a really good alliance with Reed, so does he just dislike Josh because he thinks Josh stole Reed from the alliance? Did Jeremy even try to bring Josh with the alliance instead of just assuming the worst? I thought that the John and Jackelyn(?) comment about the fact they could still date each other because they both made it to the merge was humorous, I like it when contestants make jokes about past seasons Baylor and Missy are both very annoying, and I invite them to leave my TV screen any time. I chuckled at the fact that Keith forgot his son's birthday. Typically I'd feel really bad for Wes, but I forget the date enough in the modern world, let alone without a calendar or electronic to check the time/day.

I'm normally more along the lines of an accountless lurker, hoping not joining/posting will keep all of my trashy reality show obsessions more secret, but this episode is the one where I finally join and comment, mainly because of all of the Amy sympathy I'm seeing. I need to know for real whether or not I'm crazy, because I don't actually think hooking up with someone your 'friend' (more likely work colleague) likes is awful unless it's in high school? I mean, I guess to me it would depend on the circumstances, but unless Amy was like a lovesick puppy, actively pining, and getting ready to ask him out/he's almost ready to ask her out, I don't necessarily believe in calling "dibs", friendship or not. Though what Kat did was wrong in the sense that she didn't actually seem to like the guy, just wanted sex, and Amy had an actual emotional and physical attraction to him apparently. I guess I'm saying it could be interpreted poorly for Kat, but without more details I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. However, the behavior after finding out the rumor...that's entirely wrong. From the second they boarded the boat again you knew that the whole crew would be aware in 5 minutes. She was itching to tell someone. I thought Kate should have kept her from slamming the door or apologized to Amy after talking to Kat, but I think Kate was more just nodding her head and engaging Kat rather than actively gossiping. But, to be fair, Amy "was walking to her room" (as she told Kelley) when we saw her follow the other two interior ladies as soon as she heard Kat say she wanted to talk to Kate. Or maybe that's just my interpretation, meh. Another thing I see brought up on these threads often is Jennice (is that how you spell it?) being a poor deckhand. I think this is the first episode that it's truly been shown, as far as pulling up the anchor/ropes or whatever that was, and needing help from Eddie. While I know cruises are much different than yachts, but I know on the cruises my family has taken they called people who worked on deck "deck hands" even though the majority of the work is cleaning the boat and I guess just making sure it looks good/nothing grows on it. I suppose it may be different, and due to small crew numbers they'd want everyone to be butch and strong, but if they had 2 other deckhands and Eddie to deal with most of the lifting, I could see her being useful as far as waxing the boat/making sure all of the outdoor stuff is the way it's supposed to be. On the topic of Jennice...Amy's talk with her was weird/creepy and I don't get why she can't just stay in her own room and let Kat move in (I understand why she'd want to be with Amy over Kat, but the way it was presented on TV was she was just being forced to move over to Amy's). Quite frankly I'm surprised Kat didn't try to work some deal to be in Ben's room. Or does he only have one bunk? I've forgotten. Other comments: The guests were repulsive imo, I mean yeah, you're paying for the yacht you can do what you want, but I don't find that to be attractive behavior ever, at all, especially if they were all related and so crass, that's even worse. Kelley and Amy seem kind of whiney to me. Even if Amy was more justified in her whining this episode than Kelley. Maybe it's just because I never had siblings, but I don't get the tear/hug fest every week. Jennice on the phone with her boyfriend at the end was hilarious to me. I imagine she was thinking along the lines of "I just turned down a hunk for you and you won't even see me when I'm in port?!!" I never liked Adrienne, liked her even less in just this 1 episode than all of last season. Her hugs/kisses were weird and I think most everyone who received one looked like they were uncomfortable with it. Ben finally managed to get the food out on time, I'd say good job but in reality it'd be more of an "adequate job" seeing as it's expected you eat at a scheduled time, not whenever Ben feels like. Speaking of the dinners being late, anyone notice how when Cpt Lee eats with the guests, the dinner is never late? Do you think it's because production wouldn't do that to him, or Ben wouldn't do that to him? Or just a case of correlation? I apologize for the spazzy character of this post. As I said I just finally made an account, so I guess I'll figure out how I'd like to format my ideas/opinions of the shows I watch as time goes on. I'm also sorry if I got any info wrong, as I don't commit my full attention to the show, I watch it more just for fun and then to know what's going on when I go read the forums later. I personally feel that people's comments are often more entertaining than reality shows themselves.