Intro to Macro Project:

September 12th, 9pm eastern standard time…

I created this blog as part of a macro project for The LGBTQ Experience: Sexual & Gender Diversities Class that I am taking at University of Connecticut – School of Social Work. Students had several options on what one could do for their project. One could write a research paper exploring the histories of various important times in the LGBT world, others could keep a journal, etc. The option that seemed the most interesting to me was creating a blog for my macro project. For the next couple of months, I will be posting on a weekly basis reactions to journal articles, conversations from class, possible news articles that relate to this subject, and many other things.

Before I start, I thought I would introduce myself and explain why I decided to take a class on this particular topic.

I was born in Nebraska in 1980, and my family moved to Oregon in winter of 1985. My family would be considered a traditional American middle class Caucasian family which consisted of my mom, dad, two younger siblings, and various family cats along the way. We lived roughly 30 minutes south of Portland in the Willamette Valley. For as long as I can think back, I remember going to church every Sunday with my family when I was growing up. As my siblings and I graduated high school, we were given the option to continue attending Sunday services with our parents, change to a different church, or not go at all. I loved the church community that I was involved in and continued to go to a large non-denominational church in Northeast Portland. I continued to attend church services off and on through my 20s, and now in my mid-30s I tend to go once every couple of months.

If we fast forward to the present, I am married and have three border collies that keep me busy here in the Hartford area of Connecticut. I just started my second fall semester of a two-year MSW program at UConn. One of my goals while in the Master’s program was to take classes that would give me tools on how to become a good group work social worker after graduation. This meant taking classes about populations of people or culture that I may not know much about.

In the 2016 Spring Semester, I took a required Human Oppression Class. One of the best things that the instructor told us throughout the class was to push ourselves to the uncomfortable side, rather stay where we felt warm and fuzzy. If we allowed ourselves to be uncomfortable, we would then be more receptive to learn about different cultures and populations that we may have either never been exposed to. Towards the end of the semester, returning students registered for the 2016 Fall Semester classes. I knew that there was one particular elective that I wanted to take and then I had to select another class to be considered as a full-time student. I scanned the electives and read the descriptions of each class and my eyes kept stopping on a class named The LGBTQ Experience: Sexual & Gender Diversities. I figured this would be a way to challenge myself and test all of the thoughts and feelings I had about this community based on my conservative upbringing.  In addition to challenging my own thoughts and upbringing, I will be learning how I can help my future clients who may be part of the LGBT Community.

I am quite excited on how this class is going to pan out. I do believe that I will learn quite a bit this semester in this class. It is a small class of only 9 students that meet every couple Fridays from 9am-2:30p. As we progress through the semester, a blog will be posted about various things from class, movies and/or television shows, political stances, and journal articles that I am required to read. I look forward to see how this blog evolves throughout the next several months.

Please feel free to comment, follow, and share my postings if you feel like you would like to.

~Amy