I was sitting in my chair and my eyes were fixated on one thing and one thing only. That one thing was the excruciating and painfully slow second hand of the clock. My ears were of no use to me as I sat there in English amongst annoying students waiting only to hear one thing. That one thing being the bell which signaled it was the weekend. The weekend only meant one thing as well. It meant I didn’t have to be in school.

        I didn’t have any plans for the weekend. I just wanted out of the building. Out of the way of noise and dramatic stories of the students I didn’t understand. The teacher continued reading out of the book periodically stopping to describe the details the students couldn’t get. I figured if we needed a history lesson behind each piece we read, what was the sense in even trying to understand the last half when we read it alone. This thought then was interrupted by the epiphany of what’s the point in even listening to the first half when it is the weekend and my mind is wired to think of other things through any comprehensible reading in the first place.

        Luckily the bell rang and I carefully waited for everyone to exit the room first before I casually filled in the end of the line as if I had something important to put away which was taking up time. I had put my papers in my folder slowly and told Mrs. Grethers, “You’re a wonderful reader! It makes the story understandable. Have a good weekend.”

        In teacher mode she replied folding up her lesson plans, “Thank you and you have a great weekend as well.”

Gay-Straight Alliance Network partnered with Community Link present…

Expression Not Suppression

ENS is a FREE conference for LGBTQQI youth activists and their allies who are dedicated to defeating homophobia and transphobia and creating safe and supportive schools for everyone. The target audience is high school & middle school students. Teachers & GSA advisors are welcome.

This FREE event will be held on Saturday, February 7th  from 12pm-9:30pm

Workshops include:

• Same-Sex Marriage – Why youth and STR8’s need to be involved
• Feel Yourself:  Tips to creating a more Positive You
• KickBUTT:  LGBT youth and the tobacco industry
• Organizing 101:  Activism After High School
• Your Role in Changing the Political Climate
• Queer Literature:  an exercise in expression
• Organizing a Powerful Day of Silence
• Fight the Power:  Know Your Rights
• Coming out: Tips and Strategies
• Gender, Gender Everywhere
• Queers and Spirituality
• How to Do Drag

Cash Prize to the Best YOUTH DRAG performance before Dance

• How to Have a Kick-Ass GSA – GSA Leaders meeting
• Resources, Tools and Networks for Safe Schools Advocates – Adviser Training
• Safer Sex

Get down & dance with everyone you've just met at a special, youth-only Freedom to Marry Valentine’s Dance

The location of the event is 2131 N Van Ness Blvd, Fresno, 93704

If you'd like more info or would like to help with planning, 559-268-2780 or robin@gsanetwork.org

All interested youth should register at www.gsanetwork.org/ens - after 1/16/09

For the first time since the Advertising Council was founded in 1942, the organization – which direct and coordinates public service campaigns on behalf of Madison Avenue and the media industry – is introducing ads meant to tackle a social issue of concern to gays and lesbians.

The campaign, which is scheduled to be announced by the council in Washington on Wednesday, will seek to discourage bullying and harassment of teenagers who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

The campaign, created pro bono by the New York office of Arnold Worldwide, urges an end to using derogatory language, particularly labeling anything deemed negative or unpleasant as “so gay.” That is underlined by the theme of the campaign: “When you say, ‘That’s so gay,’ do you realize what you say? Knock it off.”