Final Wrap-Up

Well it's all over now, but what a fun and interesting ride it has been. This was my first GLBT course that I have ever taken, and I cannot begin to tell you how much I have learned from being an avid listener and blogger. The tracking topics assignment was a great way for me to grow my understanding of queer theory and queer principles by studying about queer activist, Michael Warner. He has written and spoken about the inequalities and adversity that is experienced by queer individuals on a regular basis. He goes on to note that there are not such substantial differences between gay and straight people as many people like to believe; I mean we are all people first, so we share that similarity, thus we all deserve the same rights! Being able to blog about a topic like this made me feel that I contributed more to the fight towards equal rights and made me feel proud of who I am. Blogging has also taught me that there are multiple ways to go about analyzing one particular topic, and it has really been exciting to read about all of these different perspectives online, at my own pace, so then when it came time for me to write something, I could not only consider my own personal opinion, but I could read about the opinions of others and then write something profound and really engage my audience.

I really enjoyed some of the other assignments that we did this semester too; one of my favorites would have to be Queer This! Queer This! gave us the opportunity to look at a particular idea or concept and then somehow relate it to queer theory or at least have it analyzed in a queer manner. It was a chance to explore and go outside the box with an exciting idea and then engage out peers and ask them what their take was on something like this. I really liked it when someone would post a video; I like having a visual stimulus to go off of, because it really makes me feel like I am directly involved in the situation! I also liked the whole It Gets Better program. Watching all of these coming out stories and life obstacles experienced by these motivated and persevering individuals brought tears to my eyes, because every single one of those people in those videos made me think of myself and just how far I have come as a 19 year old homosexual male. It has instilled hope into my life and has made me realize that things do actually get better throughout your life, especially if you believe they will. You are who you are, and I like who I am and plan on never changing just because I am among the minority--if anything it makes me a stronger individual.

Twitter was also another fun way to engage in conversations that took place outside of class. It's a great system, because they only give you so many characters to make a brief point. I liked the idea of going paperless in a class, because it was the first time that I had ever done so. By not having to physically write anything on paper, I was forced to go on the blog and see everyone else's typed work and again, it was just another beneficial way to make connections with the other students and share our own opinion over matters. I really don't think that there is a whole lot of preparing you can do if you have never blogged before. I liked how at the beginning of the semester that you went over the basic idea of how to blog and tweet, and then we all seemed to catch on after a few practice rounds!

Thank you again Sara and class for a nice semester. Good luck to everyone on finals!