All these ups and downs...
they trip up our good intentions, nobody said this was easy ride. After all, we're only human. These lyrics, by Jon McLaughlin in his song, "Human" aptly reflect what this week has been like and the emotional roller coaster I have found myself on with several of my classmates.
It's funny that when I applied to graduate school, I heard the schpeal about how difficult the academic piece would be and I was ok with that. It's graduate school. What I didn't expect was the emotional piece that is starting to become interwoven with the academic piece. That's been tougher to manage.
This week I definitely feel like I have been on a very emotional ride and while outwardly, my emotions have been in check, there's been a lot going on internally. It started Monday evening with Safe Space training. In a nutshell, Safe Space is a 3 hour training session sponsored by the LGBT Resource Center at UGA to provide faculty, staff, and students on campus with a better understanding and hopefully a better ability to assist students who identify with that community. The training really dug up some emotions for me that I was not expecting to deal with during the training.
Yesterday, in addition to history being made with Obama's victory, our cohort participated in some pretty intense group activities which really brought a lot of issues to light concerning our ongoing transition to graduate school, or relationships with one another, and our ability to be human. It was a long draining day.
All of that in the midst of our developmental autobiographies being due tonight at midnight. It's all just slightly overwhelming.
But I want to take a moment to celebrate the victory our country achieved last night and the defeat gay Americans experienced. Obama's election was inspiring to watch and fills me with hope for our country. DP posted his acceptance speech on his blog and if you didn't stay up to watch it, take a few minutes to read it. It's empowering. And with this hope came also the removal of a civil right granted to the gay community in the state of California with the passing of Proposition 8. As quickly as the gay community celebrated a victory with the acceptance of same-sex marriages in the state of California, the community watched it snatched away.
Here it is 2008 and I often wonder how we still live in a society that denies its citizens equality and human rights? How is this possible? And what if restaurants began posting these signs again? I can only hope that with Obama's election this country will move forward and will one day get to a place where equality is more than just an abstract term. We've made leaps and bounds. But we still have far to go.
All these ups and downs...nobody said this [an] was easy ride.
It's funny that when I applied to graduate school, I heard the schpeal about how difficult the academic piece would be and I was ok with that. It's graduate school. What I didn't expect was the emotional piece that is starting to become interwoven with the academic piece. That's been tougher to manage.
This week I definitely feel like I have been on a very emotional ride and while outwardly, my emotions have been in check, there's been a lot going on internally. It started Monday evening with Safe Space training. In a nutshell, Safe Space is a 3 hour training session sponsored by the LGBT Resource Center at UGA to provide faculty, staff, and students on campus with a better understanding and hopefully a better ability to assist students who identify with that community. The training really dug up some emotions for me that I was not expecting to deal with during the training.
Yesterday, in addition to history being made with Obama's victory, our cohort participated in some pretty intense group activities which really brought a lot of issues to light concerning our ongoing transition to graduate school, or relationships with one another, and our ability to be human. It was a long draining day.
All of that in the midst of our developmental autobiographies being due tonight at midnight. It's all just slightly overwhelming.
But I want to take a moment to celebrate the victory our country achieved last night and the defeat gay Americans experienced. Obama's election was inspiring to watch and fills me with hope for our country. DP posted his acceptance speech on his blog and if you didn't stay up to watch it, take a few minutes to read it. It's empowering. And with this hope came also the removal of a civil right granted to the gay community in the state of California with the passing of Proposition 8. As quickly as the gay community celebrated a victory with the acceptance of same-sex marriages in the state of California, the community watched it snatched away.
Here it is 2008 and I often wonder how we still live in a society that denies its citizens equality and human rights? How is this possible? And what if restaurants began posting these signs again? I can only hope that with Obama's election this country will move forward and will one day get to a place where equality is more than just an abstract term. We've made leaps and bounds. But we still have far to go.
All these ups and downs...nobody said this [an] was easy ride.
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