Oh, it was a good day!

Today started out as a day where I thought I would have to fight restlessly for the respect I deserve as a Queer person, like I usually do, because my brother was being a dick and teasing me and such. I finally got in a couple of good punches, though (figuratively, of course--I couldn't punch him and make myself known if I tried, anyway, 'cause he's a pretty big, tough guy). The day started off like any other, if not a bit more productive--I finished this big project in Digital Art that I didn't think I would at least until next Monday, and it came out really well. The rest of the day was pretty mundane until Contemporary Issues, where we watched Michael Moore's eye-opening film "Bowling for Columbine". Nobody got as upset as when we viewed Moore's other film, "Farenheit 9/11", but we did get to have a discussion about it toward the end of class. It was a short little talk, because about two minutes into it the bell rang, but we're watching it again tomorrow so maybe we'll be able to set aside some more time for more discussion.

Then I had English as the last class of the day, and my teacher introduced our new unit: the Renaissance. What I learned about how revolutionary that time was for literature and society and art made me really excited--it evoked my activist side, and at one part when we were discussing how, in the Renaissance period, adulthood was considered the most corrupt time of life because people at that age were most interested in worldly issues, I talked about how society has been in a constant state of Renaissance ever since that time period because people are still discovering new things about themselves and about the world and we keep becoming less and less afraid to be ourselves and actually live. As examples of our society still being involved with worldly issues, I talked about how one of our classmates is going into the Army next year to do his duty to protect our country (FYI: even though I don't agree with the war, I'm supportive of our troops--especially the one that I have classes with this year) and how I'm a Transgender activist and put myself out there (as well as putting my life on the line sometimes) by marching for my rights as a Queer youth and just by living as myself without any censorship every day, and how one of our classmates survived a terrible car vs. motorcycle accident (he was on the motorcycle).

I'm really proud of the people like me who are fighting for our rights as citizens, and for our lives. I felt really bonded to these classmates of mine when I made examples of their bravery and staying-power, and I think they appreciated the connection I made to them. I think that, over the course of the past 61 days that we've been in school this year, my graduating class has really made progress in terms of their maturity--I was highly doubtful that some of them would be able to do that. But they've really stepped up to the plate, and the fact that we were all able to engage in some mature yet rather heated discussions today restored my faith in them.