This was a week for decisions. Major decisions. And boy, did we make them. We elected Barack Obama as the 44^th (and first African-American) President of the United States. And though we didn’t directly choose Michelle Obama (or any of the First Ladies), we did decide who’s hot and who’s not.  We chose between working out at the gym and at home, between babes and nerds, between trendy skirts and patterned leggings. On the relationship side of things, we decided to make the jump from friends to lovers, and subsequently from lovers back to friends. We learned that guys get off on porn (really?), and girls become more fertile by watching Sex and the City. We decided that you shouldn’t spend too much money on dating, and on the proper prep work for losing your v-card.

And now that it’s Friday, take a break from all the deliberations and enjoy the weekend!

One of the great things about being in college is that you get to meet tons of people from many different nationalities and backgrounds (see: hot foreign exchange students). This is definitely a good experience for those who come from towns where the only color they see is the one of their own skin.

But the sad fact is, many students don’t take advantage of getting to know the diverse kinds of people occupying the same lecture hall or dorm as themselves. Instead, they choose to stick with people who resemble them because it’s what they’re comfortable with; which goes to show that colleges (and the United States as a whole) are not melting pots, but merely salads where different groups of people simply coexist without choosing to mingle with others.

It drives me insane!

As a kid I had friends who were every color under the rainbow, so I assumed that college would be no different. I imagined a vast body of people from places all over the country who intermingled with one another on a daily basis. When I arrived on campus however, it was like stepping into some type of reverse culture shock. Read More »

As I’m writing this, Ali Gilmore has been missing for 799 days, 15 hours, and 43 minutes according to the website dedicated to finding the missing pregnant woman.

Her disappearance was one of the bigger news stories in Tallahassee, FL for a couple of months, with fairly consistent news reports about the continuing search for her whereabouts and billboards all around town with phone numbers to call with any pertinent information about her disappearance. The case even got some national exposure, appearing on Dateline, MSNBC, the Montel Williams Show, and Nancy Grace among others. The reward was and still is $30,000, but absolutely nothing has been found in the two years that she has been missing.

With all of the coverage surrounding the so-called “Marine Murders” and even the story of Laci Peterson’s murder a couple of years ago, reports of missing or murdered pregnant women have been surfacing more and more and the news exposure has been increasing exponentially. But, as a recent story by CBS news reports, the stories getting the widest exposure aren’t indicative of the real statistics of maternal homicide victims. Read More »

I get looks a lot. That shouldn’t really strike me as surprising; everyone gets looks. Amused looks, horrified looks, heartbroken looks, enamored looks…I’ve gotten them all. Still, nothing was quite the punch in the gut as the look my mother gave me when I told her I was going out with a girl.

I’d been dating Megan for something like six months around the time I finally talked to my mom. For six months, I was horrified at the concept of telling my middle-aged, old-fashioned African-American mother that her daughter, the girl she had been a father and mother to for twenty years, was very much in love with your typical Irish girl (sans fiery-red Weasley hair).

I had told my mother that I was bi before, but it was some six years ago and I’m pretty sure that she just passed it off as me being dazed after being hit over the head with puberty. I was almost certain that she’d forgotten (she hadn’t, the old elephant), and when I told her, a look of terror and disgust would follow suit.

It didn’t, and I still can’t decide if I’m grateful for that or not. Read More »