Gettin’ to Crunch Time ~ Episode 9

/in , /by

Before I started blogging for the day, I realized that i had mixed up the blog assignments, and today was supposed to be the blog entry about group motivation… guess I just have to role with the punches!

On to the blog:

This episode of Survivor was full of surprises; first, Jeremy and Natalie gave up their spots for the yacht cruise (a very intrinsic reward), and then Jeremy gets sent to exile. Baylor (my LEAST favorite of all the cast members) won immunity for the week, so I’ll have to sit through another episode with her in it. What I thought was most surprising was the fact that Keith chose to be risky and not use his immunity idol, but Jeremy was the one to go to jury. I thought for sure Keith was going home, because everyone was getting suspicious of him (which just means that the next time Keith is in danger, he’s going to have the advantage of the immunity idol). I was also happy to see Reed pull through for another week. I just hope he can keep going.

Relating this episode to the chapter on Motivation was somewhat difficult for me. I saw mainly two categories of motivation in this episode:

  • A sense of meaningfulness- I saw this, like I see every week, in the challenge for the rewards and the immunity challenge. This form of motivation especially showed in Reed and Baylor during the immunity challenge, and I’ll admit my heart broke a little bit when Reed messed up at the last second and gave Baylor the opportunity to win.
  • A sense of choice- by quick definition, was choosing strategies to achieve goals. This was apparent during the last few minutes of the episode during the Tribal Council. I was surprised to see multiple names come up for elimination, and had a bit of a hard time trying to figure out who voted for who. I had to think a bit about how the Survivors strategies had begun changing. I also saw this when Keith chose not to play his Immunity idol. I’m not sure how this move will effect him in the future.

 

The Million Dollar Decision ~ Episode 7

/in , /by

In this episode of Survivor, the contestants have lasted 16 days in the competition. With the two tribes officially merged together, I could sense that the rising tension between Jeremy and Josh really come to fruition. It was also apparent that Julie was slowly losing her mind, which ultimately led her to the “Million Dollar Decision” to leave the show, and leave Jeremy and his allies a person short of a Majority.

The chapter elements that stood out in the episode to me were the Decision Making Questions:

  • Question of Fact- I saw this when Josh went to Jon and Jaclyn to recruit them to his alliance. Josh tried to sway them with gossip about Jeremy, which caused the power couple to second guess their decisions,and ask themselves if what Josh said was true or false.
  • Question of Conjecture- I always see this in the episodes when it gets closer to tribal councils, when they have to wait to see the outcomes; “Am I going to stay, or am I in danger of being voted off?”
  • Question of Value- I saw this a lot in Baylor in this episode when she had to choose between her alliance with Josh or siding with her Mother (which meant Jeremy and other former Hunapu members). Baylor had to choose which alliance was more worthwhile and determine which would be right and wrong for her progressionin the game.
  • Lastly, the Question of Policy- This was apparent when the tribe discovered that Julie had been going against the basic tribal (though unspoken) policy about food. The tribe had to decide how they were going to deal with her for being selfish.