About Me

Hello, my name is Lauren. I am a senior here at Ohio University. I am from West Chester which is in Cincinnati and went to Lakota West high school. I was a competitive dancer for 16 years and a dance teacher for 5 years. I was also involved in a musical theater group and was the dance captain for our high school theater.
When I am here I work at Outer Glow tanning salon and when I am home on breaks I teach at The Children's House which is a Montessori based pre-school and daycare.
My major is Early Childhood Education. I chose this major because I absolutely love children and can't see myself doing a job that doesn't involve them! I will graduate this June. I am still trying to decide whether I really want to teach in a classroom setting or do something else with children. In order to obtain my teaching license, I would have to get my masters within the first five years of graduating so I will of course go to grad school but for what and where is still to be decided. I would really love to be a Child Life Specialist at a children's hospital because I would get to be more personal with the children as well as their families and it would be more of a social and emotional job than teaching would be. I also have thought about working with teen moms or parents who may need a little extra help and advice. Who knows where the future will bring me but I know I want to help children and their families.
I think Emily and I are the only seniors in this class but with all of our crazy schedules with teaching and being in the public schools it has been hard for us to fit in our non-major classes. I took this class because we have to take a junior English but, specifically because the topic really interests me. I have already enjoyed our class discussions. I am not very confident in my writing and admittedly had a hard time reading that Yep article but I think I will really enjoy this class.

Also, I bought the MLA updated book "A Pocket Style Manual" if anyone would like to reference it let me know and I can bring it to class. :)

Something that has really jumped out to me in our class discussions and through the first few readings of Yep is the fact that heteronomativity can be violent towards both genders. It creates a mold that each gender is supposed to fit into and alienates those who do not. I hadn't had very much experience with homosexual people until last year. One of my close childhood friends came out to me that she is a lesbian. I have been spending time with her and trying to understand her better. One of the things that really upsets her is the fact that even being a lesbian or a homosexual woman means that you have to fit in a certain mold. She says that people expect lesbians to be butch and act manly and dress a certain way and that is not her at all. She loves fashion and loves to wear make-up and be girly and it really bothers her that people sometimes don't believe her when she tells them that she is gay. This was very interesting to me because although Yep talks about the violence in heteronormativity, I think there is a such thing as homonormatinity and there is violence in that as well.