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Haha, well thank you Rhapsodica. Hmm. First, I am kind of wary of the way people characterize me as honest for two reasons. The first one is easy to explain. I don't always say what I want, in particular, the things I wish I could say. I have been disrespected, mistreated, lied to and it is at those times that I find it hardest to stand up for myself. Second, I find that people usually connect me to the kind of honesty that goes hand in hand with rude. I am sure you know those people: "Your hair looks horrible. Well, I'm just being honest." But I don't think you're doing that. So thank you.

My need to be honest comes from two things (me and twos): horror movies and my gut. In the horror movie, the protagonist usually sees a ghost or a monster or someone who was supposed to be dead and no one ever believes them. Watching movies like that since I was 5, I had this huge drive to make sure that I told the truth so that in the event that I told someone I saw, I don't know, Elvis, they would, without a doubt, believe me. Second, I get a pain in my stomach, literally, if I don't tell the truth. I tried to write down the time of my journal entry but I didn't have a watch, I just knew it was close to midnight. I was at war for about 5 minutes deciding if it was honest to write 12:03am if I wasn't absolutely sure so I just wrote ~12am.

Haha. And my sense of humor comes from having been through damn near everything. Sometimes, you just have to find a light, a bright light coming from a disco ball and dance. Because it's quite easy to just become depressed, stay depressed and wither with the leaves. And it is has been fairly recently that I have accepted that it is my natural born right to be happy.

How will this course shape my academic experience as a science major and how have my experiences in that discipline been shaped by issues of gender and sexuality?

Well, I have always had a thing for math and biology and physics because of their attempt to have absolutes. In Biology especially, there is always an 'exception'. I always said that if they spent less time making rules, they would have more time since they wouldn't have to list the 'exceptions'.  I have always thought scientifically from a need to control and order my life. If I can prepare, account for and plan everything, then there are no unknown risks. But I knew, that when I came to Haverford, I was going to be a Gender and Sexuality minor. There is just this burning rage that comes from within whenever someone treats another as inferior, less, not good enough, sinful...all based on things that they had no control over or have absolutely no bearings on the well-being of another. So it makes no difference to me if you were 'born' gay or just 'choose' the same sex; you should be able to live and love the way you want to. Not tolerated. Accepted. So I think it's the discipline that has been shaped my views of gender and sexuality, not my experiences.

But I think this course will forever change it. It's courses like these, that come along once in your academic career that make you go back down the steps and enter a different door. My new door wasn't too far from the old one but it's taken me somewhere entirely different. When you spend your life trying to fit everything into a neat little box, so that you're all together, all prepared, nothing out of the ordinary, you take this course and change. I think I have finally confronted some of my own misconceptions. I kept trying to separate myself from all things stereotypically woman to avoid being deemed weak or inferior or overly emotional. But being in this class, I saw women who did dress like 'women', who wore make-up, who had gorgeous bags, who spoke their mind, who felt sad, who have been through everything, who did care what others thought of them, who were sometimes afraid. I saw diverse women. No one no more 'woman' than the next. I think the parts of me I turned off in fear were finally getting a chance to come out. So how has that shaped my science career. I guess for the first time, Asia Gobourne is a science major, not just a part of me, not just a section, every part of me. And I don't box the genes I study into particular categories as I would no longer box myself. For the first time, who I really am is entering my academic career. And it feels pretty damn great.