The entire time that Sam has been talking about getting life I’m surprised that i never considered the how much the lack of love could really effect someone. It seems so hard for any one to truly find that feeling but it’s so hard to imagine basically having the option of love completely from you. I really could never imagine the thinking that ok I’ll never get to feel love again, it’s harder for me to imagine not having that then not having my freedom. In a way though love can be the ultimately freedom and an escape from your own reality. it seems that is what he is really craving so much right not, an escape from his reality where now not only does he realize his freedom is being taken but also the possibly that he’ll even get the chance to feel the escapism the love brings with it. It makes you think of how crucial feeling close to another person is beyond friendships and family and how precious the connection can really be to us. It’s funny to realize that I think I really could live the possibly of not having the freedoms, It would be hard but I could endure it, but the thought of liking without the possibly of finding someone to share that life with would probably make me insane. It’s an aspect of person that I’ve really never consider before. Going into jail for life with no one to begin with and having to continue on knowing that is most liking you’re definitely going to be spending the rest of your life alone as well. When we’re not in jail and alone it’s easy to imagine that one day we won’t be but once you go in I can’t imagine what it would be to actually know that you’ll always be alone. It’s easy to say you’d become a better person because you have chance to really reflect on yourself but it really gives you a deeper understanding of way it takes so long for people to coop with getting life and move on with life afterward.

I honestly couldn't say if I would definitely help someone cross into the country illegally. it seems that most people them because it is against the law that it is morally wrong however I find that many laws really aren’t directly tired to morality. I honestly don’t know if I would help because I’m not sure I would want to take that much of a personal risk to myself and family but i don’t necessarily think illegal immigration is wrong just because it is against the law. I could picture myself risking this however if I was extremely personally connected to someone that either was is a situation in another country that they couldn’t get themselves out of or was of personal danger to them. The truth is I’ve never really cared about illegal immigration. the argument that when people come here illegally and take jobs maybe true to a degree but what people don’t realize is that illegal immigrants mostly that the jobs that no american would and for much less pay. So they take jobs that no one wants for less and live in areas and situations in american that much americans would deem as poverty. However to them our poverty is better then their situation in their native country. They can’t get a job in their country and sometimes they have what couldn’t even be recognized as a home. So the question is if Americans who are unemployed would be willing to work those jobs that no one would want and is possibly very dangerous, for less money and no health benefits or hope of promotion to just live in a tiny one bedroom apartment that barely have the basic needs we take for granted with all your family. The truth is that most americans, even some who ae unemployed, live a better life then an employed immigrant in the United States would ever get the chance to obtain. But for them it’s better then their situation at home, it’s better then death and the eventual death of their children in a country where there’s nothing but that. So I don’t think illegal immigration is wrong. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to come here to survive and survive merely on the what’s left that no one really wants in our country. Illegal immigrants don’t live some glamorous life when they come to the United States even if they’re employed but they don’t get to hope that maybe they’re kids could live a better life. I really don’t understand the harm of letting these people stay when all they are doing to taking the jobs that no one would ever take because it pays below what we think we can live just for the hope that their children might have a better chance by being born in the United States, which still isn’t a sure shot to a good life.

I think that you take a certain risk when you elect any leader to office. I’m not really surprised by the fact that Obama has been expanding the military because he is still a politician. Before he was elected and came to take at Penn State I did like the way he spoke and the views he stated so I supported him. The truth is however we can never fully know exactly how he or anyone is going to be once he is in office. Unfortunately to get into office many people we tell you one thing when they know that it’s impossible or that they truly have no intention of doing that. I really don’t know the true extent of what Obama is really planning military wise and it’s hard to say considering how often things things shift however I’m never truly surprised by politicians because when they take office they ultimately are forced to overlook being a Democrat or a Republican to get anything done. I think it can also be said that many people hear that we have the best military in the world but they don’t understand what it takes financially to keep the army and how we much we continually spend to keep it up. The army and it’s quality is something that most of us just take for granted and don’t understand that the reason our army is so great is because we spend such a gigantic amount of our budget on our military, whether we can say we need it or not. I often can’t help but think how strange it is that the reason we spend so much on our military isn’t at it’s core about our protection or our soldiers protection but really to give us a sense of security. On one hand I can’t appreciate that security because I don’t know what it’s like to live without however when you hear how countries with less developed countries don’t have that security it’s hard to not feel a gratitude for our military. I often think however how much of our military is really necessary to have for our complete safety and what we could do with the extra money we through into the military that we don’t need to.

Firstly I think it’s hard to anyone to truly understand the motivation of not feeling they belong in their own body. It’s something that most takes a certain amount of imagination to truly wrap you head around what that would feel like. I think that’s why so many people discriminate or feel uncomfortable talking about transgender issues and because they don’t feel comfortable they don’t try to educate themselves on what it means to be transgender. Most view being transgender has being male and female and can’t see that mentally they are simply just another gender and when they make the transition they are simply making their body match what they feel mentally. It’s hard to imagine because most of us have never and will never be able to feel that. When I released I was gay I remember always thinking how of it was that people who are transgender are for some reason grouped with people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual because most people who are transgender are straight. It seems to be reflective of how unwilling people are to understand what it means to be transgender that all people who are transgender are grouped into being related to being gay, lesbian or bisexual. if you look at it being transgender is really just a genetic mistake and most people who are transgender are just straight men and women who have been forced to live to life as the wrong gender. The only people who are transgender who should be grouped with being gay, lesbian or bisexual should be the people that actually are not straight yet we see that as a majority this is not true. So basically because people can’t wrap what transgender means we have straight men and women being related sexuality that are not theirs. It’s so easy to just consider transgender people as gay, lesbian or bisexual instead of truly having to understand the situation they’re in. IT’s also strange that it matters to most people whether or not someone has actually had an operation to become male or female when they can clearly see that the people looks, acts and clearly is that gender. For some reason we place so much importance of our genitals being the key determining factor in judging what it means to be male and female. It’s not about understanding what it means to be male or female because most of us even people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual have never had to question what it truly means to be male and female. We understand what it means to understand our sexuality but not our gender but because we know what it’s like to have to question a fundamental part of ourselves that most people never have to examine it becomes easier for us to understand where people who are transgender are coming from.

I was actually really glad that Ernso mentioned this after the video we watched in class yesterday. I was honestly thinking the same them as well. Honestly I do see the value of putting the children in the videos to get support for Haiti and for any other country in need but it just seems to be very ethically troubling. On one hand these are children that could be helped by the audience watching the video however it still is using children as a device in some way. It’s hard to not cringe when you think of how the children are just used almost as a simple way device to receive money. I think that’s when charitable organizations go from asking people for help to emotionally blackmailing them in a way. Showing the damage down to Haiti and when can be you can do personally seems like a much more important aspect to focus on in the videos. Personally I much preferred the parts that actually showcased the people that Ernso is helping and who you could help then the nameless faces of children that people put in to make you feel bad. Even though they’re supposed to stir some emotion in you I often find that most of the time that it detracted from the actual message because to you these children are nameless and without actually giving them a name or identity they can become just a face that doesn’t mean much. The part of the video that actual is heartfelt were the portions where got to know these women that are working hard, what they do and what you can do to help them, there needed to be more of that actual connection with a person to really get peoples emotionally involved in Haiti. So on top of the fact that the children are being used as tools like an advertise they’re also in a way not doing the job they are intended to be doing in the video. People are going to look at these children and see them as people because they’re not given any sort of connection to them and are consequently going to watch the video and think it’s sad but not feel any sort of motivation to do anything themselves. It would simply be another video on poverty that almost all of us see every do and do nothing about. People need to feel for “a person” not for “a people” because when we see a person we’re much more likely to help or feel like you could help. Focusing on just a few select people gives people a chance actually see something they can do that obtainable. When they see videos we just children all we think is that the problem is too big for just us to handle.

it’s hard to find out to what level people can get in life with the forces outside of their control. Also the fact that with people we gain power unfairly and then give more power to others unfairly. In the United States it seems like we are told time and time again that we can be and do anything we want if we work hard enough which I’m finding at a more increasing level is completely untrue. iI watched a children's show the other day and one of the songs said that you could be president in a list of ideal careers including doctor and lawyers etc. I remember laughing at that part of the song because I realized how very untrue that was. most of us have the an almost impossible unlikely hood of being president an in fact have a large unlikely hood of achieve many of the dreams that are promised to us are fully possible when we are children. In school I remember being bombarded with you can do anything you want to do but as I’ve gown you can actually do anything you want to do within your own social confinements which is really truly saddening. And increasingly it seems to be mostly true that working hard just isn’t going to be enough. Inspiration stories of people raising up against there social limitations are inspirational because they are rare. That’s not to say that they’re are not many many people working to better their situation but there really aren’t as many stories of success are there are failures. In fact failure does not even seem to be the right way to describe it because the limitations place on people are so confining that it is like having a huge road block in the middle of any path to success one could have. Then when looking at the flip side of the perspective of people who have success and earned it seem to be the minority of the people who are success. And even those that are success seem to be limited in their continued success because they are not willing to go to the lengths others will stoop to get success. It seems that most of the time the people you hear about who have power are most likely abusing it in some way and giving power to those that will misuse it as well. The aspect of that I can say about that fact is that another aspect we are very silently taught is that you have to step over others often to get the the place you want and once you’re there the best way to stay there is to put people you trust around you. Everyone wants security in their lives and within reason it’s hard to not understand when people who understand how unfair the united States is to not follow the system when any other way is nearly impossible.

I’ve always found religion to be a strange idea for me to wrap my head around. When I was younger I mostly found myself disliking anyone was really religious. I through my phrase very young where I experimented with religions to find what was right for me. I thought a religion was something you picked when you were young kind of like a category. But I soon realized that none of these categories were for me and I had not attached instilled in me by my family in any direction in particular. I had family members that were Christian but none that pushed me in any way to be. My household was very opened minded to any ideas on religion and I think because of that I ended up choosing not to have one and I didn’t understand how people came to the conclusion to be one religion when there was clearly contradiction to most of them. More and more I hear people, especially at Penn State, say that they’re not religious and even if they say they are one religion they also say that they’re not really “religious”. I think that people take not being religious in a different way then I imagine though. it’s not that I don’t particularly believe in a creator or that I think that people we believe in God or any other deity is wrong. I just think of when we strip it all down that most religions are at their core the same and that the rituals of religion are less about god and more about culture now. In the future I don’t see the disappearance of religion ever truly happening however I do see that many religious ideology will disappear but another we always take it’s place. However I don’t ever in any realm of conciseness I can see that the idea of god or the creator will ever disappear. We we always wonder how we came to be. I think many people who hear me say I don’t have a religion think I’m devaluing the idea of god but all I feel is that humans as they are can never really know god and that for me personally it’s not as important to find out the meaning of my existence in religious context.

I would say the information of the opposite sex was not necessarily more enlightening but put something else in a larger context for me. Being gay I’ve never really had to consider the sexuality of women since I and any sexual partner I could have would be male. It’s hard when hearing Sam and Lori talking about male and female sexuality to not imagination that they were making a general assumption of all men and women, However when I realized that the aspects of female and male relationships are also mirrored sometimes in gay relationships I realized when they meant by it not being exclusive to every man and women. It’s almost as if you have to remove the individual as aspect and look at it as just feminine and masculine sexuality and they all of us (men and women) have both these aspects in varying degrees. I was able to finally wrap my head around they aspect when I realized that in my relations both my partner and I have had both characteristics of masculine and feminine sexuality, and yet we’re both still men. Like sam was saying it’s easier for men physically in general to be immediately ready for sex while it can take women a little bit longer to get in the mood for that contact. However I’e found that’s mostly true for me as well, even I I’m aroused I’m not necessarily in the mood for sex immediately without some sort of feel of connection. I think the one thing that made this confusing is that Sam and Lori exclusively gave heterosexual examples that it became harder to separate being male from masculinity and femininity from being female. So by result the two became intertwined and hard to separate from each other and realize that there is such a varying degree of masculinity and femininity instilled in all of us. I think it’d be interesting to find how many men and women who find themselves very tied to being masculine and feminine in personality are more the opposite when it coming to sex and their relationships. I think the reason the feminine sexuality was more surprising in my case is that such a value is placed on the masculine aspect that the feminine sexuality is largely ignored because it can’t be applied to us. I myself am most often considered masculine both most people that I’eve looked at myself and picked out the parts of me that are more feminine when it comes to relationships as opposed to my masculine side I normally see more often. I think what I’ve gotten the most it that both sexualities apply to everyone in very complex ways that we don’t see because we perceive being male and female as being exclusively connected to masculinity or femininity.

I think I flip between humanitarian and reversal stage. I’m most often in the humanitarian stage I think mostly because I’m bi-racial. Because I’m half black and half white my race was something I was forced to face at an extremely young age. I couldn’t be white and I couldn’t really be black either. On one hand other white people never considered me white but they couldn’t figure out what race I was so I was often asked “what race are you?” since before I can even remember. I still am asked daily. When I was younger often times I’d just say black because I didn’t want to be associated with the white racism that was characterized to me by my black relatives. However when I entered elementary school in a mostly white distinct I was forced to challenge that white people weren’t always racist in some form and that not just white people are racist. Before this It never occurred to me that black people could be racist but the more I interacted with both I realized how racism exists on both sides. I think that was my awakening early in elementary school. I was in the reversion stage for most of elementary but it was in middle school in high school when I finally developed my own idea of what I actually considered my race that I entered the pseudo communication and humanitarian stage. i started challenging both races when I was exposed to double standards betweens races and I realized that I myself couldn’t truly be either race. I was born in between and I never needed to choose a side because I would never just relate to just one. I’ve never truly felt what it’s like to be white and I’ve never felt what it’s like to be truly black either. I’ve been given the opportunity to be both and in some ways racially anonymous. It’s because of this I’eve never felt what it’s like to be one race that I think I often find myself in the humanitarian stage . That and also that I began dealing with my own race and race issues since before I can remember. It’s because of this I can be in this place of peace when it comes to race relations, not having to truly associate yourself purely on one side it like experiencing a conflict from the outside. You see it and can understand it but most of the time it doesn’t effect as deeply as it would if you were actually in that conflict. However that being said the reason I say I something flip to reversal is because being in the middle often gives more anger to both sides. The constant back and forth between the two sometimes does get to me and I often revert to feeling anger towards white and black people for the way they’re so often at each others throats.

This issue is something that hits very close to home with me personally. I myself am gay and also wish to marry and one day adopt children. Through the process of coming out I’ve never once questioned that I wanted to raise children. I realized I was gay from a very young age, an age that I didn’t even realize that homosexuals couldn’t legally marry and we often stopped from adopting children. I remember when I first learned how discriminated against gays were in america and being truly shocked at first. In my house hold being gay was taught to me as being normal. My mother worked in a restaurant and many of her friends from work were gay. She taught me from a very young age what it was and how normal it was to be gay. Of course me mother didn’t realize that I was in fact gay when she told me this(neither did I at that point). So when I grew older and began to wrap my own head around my own sexuality it also came with an idea that was foreign to me. That to many people gay wasn’t as normal as my mother described. It seemed completely nonsensical that being gay wasn’t normal that i wasn’t fit to marry or raise children of me own and for years afterward it was hard for me to even comprehend the idea because I was raised so defiantly in the opposite belief. Even if I had not been gay myself in my household I still would have had confusion on why being gay was such a big deal. Even today I often have trouble just wrapping my head around something that’s so simple in my mind, we’re not really that different from one another and even in the areas where we are different these differences aren’t negative things. Maybe it’s true that it’s good for a child to have a male and female figure in their life but there’s more then one way to raise a children. Every parent will tell you that there’s not formula to raising children and no one does it right all the time. Just because gay parents don’t have have another aspect that could be just as influential in the development of their children. It’s hard not to see the value in a gay household when hearing this man defend her family so passionately and eloquently.