Is It OK to be gay at work

Lets start by saying I have a lot of homosexual friends, my best friend actually is gay, and I feel very strongly about this subject. Now that, that is out of the way I can start to talk about this. So I was sitting in SIAST, yesterday with my mom (who is going back to school! I am so proud of her, but i will blog about that later). We were waiting for her appointment to start and I noticed this picture on the cover on a job posting magazine. It was three little like stick people, and then one stick person in a flower covered shirt, and pink tie. They were all male stick people, and the last one was well obviously suppose to be the homosexual one. This caught my attention because, this is a professional magazine and they just stereotyped the gay population into a stick man wearing bright colours and flowers. I have met many gay men, and hang out with a lot of them, and I have never ever seen them wearing bright colours and flowers. So, with that graceful start, I decided to read the article. It began very well actually, discussing the difficulty of being able to say either "No, it is not okay, or Yes, it is okay". One part of this article that I found especially well written was this piece

"At the time of writing this article, a federal US judge deemed 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' unconstitutional, ordering an injunction stopping the enforcement of the policy; a policy which the former US soldier pointed out directly conflicts with the Honour Code soldiers are taught at military academy: don’t lie. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ forces you to lie, he said in an interview, and “hiding and lying aren’t army values.” President Obama, also lifted that ban. Made me (for once) pretty interested in what was going on in the United States. I have been sitting here wondering, if homosexuals are allowed to fight for their country, why now are we still deciding if they are aloud to be gay at work. Especially a school setting, what then? I know many homophobic parents and I am sad to say that I am sure if they found out the teacher at school who was teaching their child was gay, they would ask to have that teacher removed from the school. Even in the 21st century this is still happening. I want you to read this article for yourself, and then comment on what you think. Because frankly even as proud of my gay best friend as I am, I don't know if I would want him to put himself at risk by letting his students, and then their families to know he is gay.          

should we vote?

we an election coming up my parents have been constantly asking me if I will vote. This is my first year being eligible to even vote, and frankly I thought it would be a lot more exciting then this. Even when I was younger during election time, I never understood why candidates feel the need to personally attack the opposing team instead of taking all that time and money and actually making an ad about what they are going to do for my city, province and or country. I keep telling my mom I am just going to vote for the Green Party, she doesn't like that idea very much. A friend of mine told me "if you don't vote for liberal or conservative, you're pretty much wasting your vote", why is that? Because from what I have seen so far, the Green Party is one of the only parties who actually tell me what they want to do if they get elected into power. I've decided that if I am infact going to vote, I want to be highly educated on who exactly I am voting for, and what exactly happens then if they win. I read this article in TIME and I know it's for the States, but I thought it was really interesting that one state has picked the winner 25 out of 26 times in the States. If us as newly 18 and 19 year olds vote, will it really infact change anything? http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1708570,00.html go to this link, and read this article, decide for yourself if it really is a waste of time voting, or if it is "the year of the youth vote".

Studying tips ?

Well looking around the university, you can see everyone is starting to realize that next week is our final week of classes. Being a first year university student isn't all it's cracked up to be. I was not prepared for my first semester finals like I thought I would be. Thankfully this semester I only have to write one final. One big English final. I know there are about a billion ways to study, and distress but for me, I find if I leave stuff until the last moment I get it done without any distractions. I found this super cool youtube video about studying that I really wanted to share with everyone; because I am assuming (and forgive me if I am wrong) you probably have more than one final to worry about. I thoroughly enjoyed my second semester more than my first semester due to the nature of the classes. 

Howdini.com, is a series of videos made to teach people how to do things from studying - managing stress - how to remember what you read, they are an excellent bunch of videos and I enjoyed watching them. 

new paths

Choosing a new path, isn’t easy. Sometimes, more or less most times things don’t work out as you planned, and things change. Everything happens for a reason. Deciding to go into education was what I always imagined I would do. Ever since I was little, I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to help kids, and teach them and make them trust me like I trusted my grade seven and eight teacher. Addictions counselling was my second choice, if I didn’t get into education. However, I did get in. But this second semester.. has shown me that I don’t want to be a teacher anymore. At least, not a music teacher. Have you ever turned your passion into a career, did it take something away from it? Because that’s what has happened to me. Now I am going a totally different direction, and things are scary. I’ll move to a new city, new province. New school, different friends. Leaving old ones behind. I’m scared, but I think a new found independence will be good. The best part? I get to start a new, and take what I’ve learned from this first semester at the university and use it there. I understand that education is very different from counselling, but things I’ve learnt will stay with me, and help me along the way. Things may be tough, and they may seem like they aren’t going the way I planned, but everything will work out. 

Everything works out in the end, if it hasn't worked out; it's not the end 

Technology Wordle

There has been so many things I have learnt in this class that I had no idea existed. Before this class I considered myself an above average technology user, I am on the computer everyday, and if you gave me a computer and asked me to do something I could probably figure out pretty easily how to. I'm not so much into the computer science side of computers but more the programs and applications you use on a computer. I have taught my parents how to use the computer and have shown them new and easy ways to do things, which is exaclty what this class does for me. I have really enjoyed this class and I feel as if this class will be the one I take the most away from.

I made this wordle uses the definitions of technology, computers, resource and education which I feel really explain this class as a whole. (Not to mention all the amazing youtube videos I've discovered due to this class).

I think this class needs to be a requirement for all education student now, especially because of the direction that the future is taking us.

six word stories

six word stories :)

This is one of my dearest friends and I, at a girls night I had. I always have fun when I'm with her, and we're always laughing.

this is from my trip to Italy last spring. It was the most amazing experience I have ever had, and I pray everyday that I get to go back

Youtube Covers: Copyright laws?

You know something I don't understand? Why is it when someone posts a cover of a song on youtube it gets taken down due to copyright? They aren't making any money off of the songs, and I mean if it was me, and people all over the world were sitting in their bedrooms and bathrooms doing covers of my songs I'd feel so honored. The weird thing is it's only some videos, so what are those videos that get taken down just to bad that the artist's don't want people hearing their song heard like that? or are they too good, and the artist is jealous. I mean I'm sure all of you heard about the Manitoba girl who did a cover of Lady Gaga's song Born This Way, and Lady Gaga was so honored she asked the girl to preform the song with her. I bet that changed this little girls life, and yet some videos still get taken down?

Maybe I just don't understand enough about youtube, and copyrights..

What do you think?

This is the little girl, I think she does an amazing song. I don't even really care for the new Lady Gaga song, but when this little girl sings it, I like to listen to it. Good for her !