So I play soccer and I love it, but i love soccer and not all the other bullshit that comes along with it. That actual feeling of not being able to catch a breathe but still sprinting after the ball, or looking down to see the skin ripped from your knees after a goal saving tackle, slapping hands at the end of the 90 minute game with the same girl you just trashed talked. Those are the moments that I keep playing for but the pressure beyond the field sometimes get in the way of the simple game. At this level of play collegiate soccer is next, but recently i have chosen not to even try to make a team. Knowing that next high-school season will be my last pretty much freaks me out, but am I willing to give up all my summer vacations, all my weekends, spring break christmas break, and every other moment of free time to play soccer? I am not convinced it's worth it. Decision making definitely isn't a strength for me, but I am actually proud of myself that I, by myself, have decided not to play. Yes, the college coaches are alluring and yes, its a little embarrassing when my teammates ask me if I have committed yet yes, it is scary to think I will never get to feel that competitive rush of walking on the field again, yes I feel like i am disappointing my parents and coach a little, and yes occasionally i question whether or not i am even making the right decision, but as of now I think it is the right one and for once I am going to just go for it.

So I really have no ideas as to what I am going to blog about ....

I probably could blabber on about my pathetic struggle in math class because I should be doing that homework right now but I have no idea how to do it. Just to give you a little history, I used to enjoy math class. In middle school it probably was up there with P.E and Recess, I was good at it so I liked it. Yea well not so much anymore. I despise that stupid class room and its not because of anything but the actual subject matter. The five 45 minute classes I sit through every week are somewhat worthless, almost every lesson goes in one ear out the other and its like a giant pyramid of information building up on each other that i am expected to know and I still have no understanding of the foundation. Yes I am complaining and whining but I had nothing else to blog about. So, now I am gonna go stare at my pre-cal book until the numbers somehow begin to mean something

I would define gender as what a person is biologically born with, either they get a blue hat or a pink hat in the nursery. At this point in people's lives gender is simply anatomical. Yet, I believe that gender can change as a person evolves into an adult and into their role within society. After you have been "nurtured,"have it be your parents, school, media, or peers, gender becomes in my opinion decided by the mind and characteristics of that specific individual. In my case, I have never felt like I was different than what god gave me at birth, but I have felt the pressures of trying to fill the role that America determines as acceptable for each sex. In elementary school I would much rather go play a soccer game in the mud and pouring rain, than go shopping at the mall with my friends and their over protective mothers. At recess I didn't play house on the jungle gym, I threw the football with the boys. At that point in my life physical activity was much more enjoyable for me than any other activity defined as "girly." I obviously wasn't conscious of this decision not to conform to feminine traits, I simply would rather go to a Pacer game than the spa with my mom, but media has become more and more influential within my life. I'm not saying that without the media I would still be rolling in the mud and playing outside when it was storming, but I don't know if that change to become more "girly" would have happened as quickly. It is easy to look at magazines and T.V shows and question your own behavior and characteristics and wonder if you are acting the way you are "supposed" or "intended" to.

I think that the media played a large role in Ortiz Cofer's longing to fit the American ideal of women. Her struggles with her body image came about as she moved from Puerto Rico, where her petite frame was admired, to America where muscular strong women were seen as attractive. Her perceptions were created by the media. She referred to comic strips and specifically Wonder Woman as her ideal body or role model and she was willing to take drastic measures to achieve this body type or persona. It is evident that the images planted in her mind of "attractive" women were seeded by media and american societies view of women, but it is also notable that those perceptions of women demonstrated by the society is influenced by the media just as much as Cofer was when she arrived.

Wolfson defines marriage as something that is universal, I especially like how he used a sense of language to convey that no matter where you live or how you communicate that every society has a word for marriage. He also declares that it is a public statement of your commitment and love for another person, he says that is signifies and enables a relationship between your intimate partner and the government, and also that is has spiritual significance. Although he goes in to depth with other aspects of the definition of marriage the part that stood out most predominately to me was the idea that it was ideally accessible to everyone. Wolfson proved that all people, including guilty criminals, have the right to marry and reap the significant benefits it administrates, all people except homosexuals. His definition is not only sensible and fair, but it is completely inclusive and covers almost every crevasse of marriage, the benefits and the downfalls. By first defining what it means to have a marriage Wolfson successfully conveys the importance of marriage within multiple different crucial elements of life. I think commonly people who appose gay marriage are looking at marriage as simply a formal bond of an intimate relationship, which in my opinion is still very trivial and uneducated, but they obviously fail to recognize the other benefits it brings along. Once he points out those monumental benefits it is even more difficult to understand why same sex marriage is not permitted, or more accurately addresses why same se couples can not engage in marriage.

Before directly answering the question, I want to acknowledge how arrogant and close minded this haughty man is, yes these are two adjectives often tagged alongside conservatives like Senator Wade, but in my opinion they couldn't be more accurate in describing this man. Maybe my disagreement stems from a close family friend who lives with his partner of 31 years and raises their teenage son, who quite frankly is more stable than most kids I interact with today, or maybe from my cousin who has seen his dad twice in his entire life, yet has a full ride to USC and is a star baseball player that has worked a job since the 9th grade, but Wade, if even having a defendable argument, didn't present his case well. If I didn't agree with his position before the essay I sure as hell don't now. Dr. Wade's metaphor comparing a single parent family to an airplane that isn't guaranteed a safe landing is unconvincing. He is implying that a single parent home can take a child's life, the result in most cases when a plane fails. The connection couldn't be more irrelevant. A questionable airplane has some sort of technical and physical flaw or mishap that hampers the flight, how can you tie that to a single parent home or a homosexual relationship, there is no technical flaw, no loose screw or missing bolt that would cause the child's life to be ruined. In some cases the time spent with you child could be less due to necessary working hours to support your children, but the difference is in no way comparable to a missing piece of a plane. Maybe I am being subjective but I don't see how he draws this comparison what so ever. When I first read it before I had even looked at the blog's prompt I was bemused, I went back and read it again and frankly from that point on I though he was a nut. Wade goes on and on about how committed and dedicated his family is too each other, he basically is trying to get us to believe that if we live like him our lives will be perfect, this man who claims he has a utopian family should broaden his horizons and see that successful childhoods and safe families exist far beyond a traditional two parent heterosexual relationship.

The purpose in Vazquez waiting to disclose the fact the both Mickey and Brian were heterosexual is to emphasize to the readers that antigay and lesbian violence is not only damaging to the homosexual communities but to all men and women. These men were being attacked because they "acted" like gay men, not because they were. When the reader understands that the violence they presumed to be directed toward only gays and lesbians, is capable of happening to straight people, the intensity of the violence is simply that much larger. Not to devalue or discredit the brutality of antigay violence directed at homosexuals, but when a straight person is reading this essay it only magnifies the threat and danger if they know it has potential to effect them physically as well. The point of her disclosing it at all is similar to the reason why she waits to disclose it at the end of the anecdote. The issue is amplified. When the threat is tangible to a much wider scope of people and more people are aware of the fact that the danger is able to harm them then the problem and violence is increased and treated with the seriousness that is needed.

No I do not think that Eustace Conway is a transcendentalist. Although he appreciates and lives off of nature he doesn't believe that the trees and the rivers and the animals have souls and are capable of demonstrating discipline. Eustace also doesn't believe that nature earth holds a spirit or divinity to god that is overpowering to all life. Transcendentalists, like Emerson, hold nature and all living things as equal to human kind. I think that both men appreciate nature and recognize the importance of it, but Emerson has a different idea about nature's spirit. Eustace finds spirituality within himself through nature, but Emerson believes there to actually be spirits in nature.
Gilbert doesn't think Eustace is a transcendentalist either. She knows that he uses it and recognizes its beauty but Eustace doesn't do this because he has deliberately thought about it. He personally experiences life in nature and is able to form this bond with it through his personal experiences. Emerson on the other hand is being philosophical about it. He isn't emerged in nature as Eustace is he rather is being hypocritical and telling people how important and valuable nature is and how they should be connected to it because they are part of nature.

"Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. A lamb is innocence; a snake is subtle spite; flowers express to us the delicate affections. Light and darkness are our familiar expression for knowledge and ignorance; and heat for love. Visible distance behind and before us, is respectively our image of memory and hope." Here Emerson is talking about how we have created a world where the actual correspondence between things have become translated through words and language into an intangible or metaphorical relationship. Here he is saying that we ARE nature and that the natural and spiritual facts are one in the same. Without a human to analyze nature and without nature to allow the relations to happen neither exist. This is in some ways similar to Conway's attitude toward nature. He doesn't t see the animals he kills for food as any lesser than himself, when he kills the deer he gruesomely slashes his throat and later drenches himself in the blood of the animal, simply to show his appreciation and spiritual passion for his relationship with the other living objects around him. Emerson is doing the same by acknowledging the direct and actual correspondence between nature and human kind.

In my opinion Gilbert is glorifying Eustace's lifestyle and attitude towards nature. It is obvious that Gilbert becomes enthralled and amazed at the way he lives his life and she is determined to pass on his lessons through her writing. I'm not exactly sure whether she seems them feasible for the entire nation, knowing that realistically not all people are willing to make such a big step backwards, but it is undeniable that she wants to please Eustace or maybe rather assist him in achieving his life goals, despite the fact that she is knowledgeable of the fact they might not be realistic. There is a long passage in chapter five that describes multiple "Men of Destiny" and how Conway some way simulates or is like these admirable men. By including this I feel like her intentions are to humble and slow down her readers, maybe not insist that they change, but enlighten them that people like Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone still exists and there is more to life and the world than living in a mass production fast paced social climate. I think through her relationship with Eustace she has gained a better sense of her world and a larger appreciation for nature, and by writing this book and titling Conway as "The Last American Man" she is both educating her readers, but also leaving them with contemplation over the idea of their current lifestyle or Eustace's and which is really better.