June & July

Every year we look forward to this to months because a lot of special things have happened with in. Our wedding Anniversary, Victor's Birthday, My Birthday, and most importantly it is time that brings a lot of good memories that will be remembered for years amongst good friends. These months along with the special events brought a lot of unity, happiness, and good people together. These people have grown within our hearts and have become very special to us. So we would just like to take a moment to thank those wonderful people for creating such amazing memories that we will laugh, cry, and talk about for years to come. These memories are the things that bring good to our lives and make it worth living and embracing life.
Thank you

Choose your Friends Wisely

There are many people that use the term friend loosely, but some of us when we call you friend we mean it in our hearts. In the end we as humans are responsible and should be smart enough to know that some friends are not truly friends, some friends are just their, and some friends will disappoint you, but most all friends will in the end just be acquaintances that pass through your life. And as these friends/acquaintances pass through your life they will have a lot, little, or no impact in your life. Some of us as friends only see the good in those people and hope that maybe we have made another good friendship that will last for many years to come or even a life time. Sadly, those friendships of many years or life time friendships are rare... A Wise man once told us, "You are not my friend until after I have known you for over 5 years". At the time I did not understand what he meant, but as we looked back at all the people we called friends and where they stood in our lives, we discovered that most of them could not be called friends and some of them we could not believe that we even called them friends! In the end some of these revelations break our hearts because you think you know someone, but you really don't... In college we have met many people that till now have become not just friends, but family in less than 5 years and that is because they genuinely have loved us and have been there for us through thick and thin (Thank you). We have also met people that have passed through our lives posing as friends with their own agenda and this make us feel used! We don't have much to offer, but we can offer you our true friendship through thick and thin. For those who posed as friends, stop playing mind games with people who have good intentions and good feelings of being your friend! Figure out your own life before you pretend to be a friend, and over all respect yourself and love yourself in order to have friends that you can call friends 5 years later down your life.

And to the Family and Friends that were present at our wedding and through preparations (you know who you are) thank you for being in our lives and being so supporting as family!

Neri and Being Gay with spiritual belief

My grandmother passed away on February 27th, 2011 at 11:30am... I had not seen her since the age of 5. I left my country (Nicaragua) after the president was assasinated and the sandinistas took over the government, everyone's property, and began to forcefully recruit young men/boys as early as the age of 7 for the military. My mom, dad, my brother Edward and I fled to the U.S. to avoid being caught in the turmoils of the country. I don't have many memories about Nicaragua and my family there, but the few that I do have I've made myself hold on to them and remind me of the happy times. When I heard my grandmother passed away those memories flooded my head. When I was 4 years old my grandmother Neri and I use to take long walks in Esteli. The houses were old and varied in pastel colors, the roads were unpaved, and the stray dogs were friendly. Neri lived with my grandfather and my aunts and uncles in this house where the floors would be cold at night because they were concrete, but I use to love laying and falling asleep on that floor during the hot days, because they were cool. The kitchen in the house had a huge clay oven on one end, a small rustic sink on the other end, and there was no floor but only dirt. I remember that when I would get upset, got hurt, or was just in the dumps my Neri would run to the corner and get me a snow cone. She would come back with the snow cone melting because it was so hot, but I still loved it because she got it for me. Non of my other brothers really knew her or shared those young memories like I did, and I miss her for that. I missed my time to see her once more in this life time. I think of her everyday now, more than ever. I think of how she is in a better place and hopefully looking down at me. This pass week I performed and decided to dedicate all my performances to my Neri. You see I was raised catholic and my family was raised strict Roman catholic. I don't go to church on a regular basis because I do not believe that I have to step into a church and pay my dues for god to know that I believe in him. Since I was 5 years old I always liked boys and now men. No one corrupted me, no one made me gay. So I truly believe that god made me this way, and he loves me for who I am. I still pray every night, and yes I still believe in my guardian angel, but I also believe that I can be in a center place within myself and my spirituality and be true to myself as a happy married gay man! And just to make things clear I believe in the power of ones self spirituality and not the religions that man has created through time. I believe in the good of people, I believe that my grandmother loves me for who I am, and that no one should pass judgment on others. I believe in true love and the power of self and inner strength. People should not drown in trying to hide who they are, but should be happy by being themselves and if those around you do not accept you for who you are, then those people do not have unconditional love for you and are selfish. It is more exhausting pretending to be someone your not, and trying to make those around you happy. It is less exhausting and even more liberating to be yourself and being surrounded by those who will protect you, love you, and accept you for who you truly are as unique human individual!

Happy Valentines Day Victor Gomez-Raudez

Happy Valentines Day to my wonderful husband, to my companion of five years. When I met you that one evening in Houston I did not expect for my life to change. My life changed in many ways. Before you, there was little light and almost no hope for love, but then you came and you brought light and love back into my life. Our first year was rough, but we survived, our personalities clash, but we complete each other, we argue like best friends, but we make-up like lovers, we want to do different things in life, but in the end all we want is to be next to each other. I look at you when you are asleep and I love it when you are sound and in peace. I observe you when you get angry and know that you are only mad because you easily frustrate and overwhelm yourself like I do at times. I hold you when you cry because I know you mean well like I do. I celebrate when you laugh and we joke because we don't say anything at all and just get each other. In the last five years you have captivated me and captured my heart. There are times things do not seem to work out, but we never give up and we know that these are the challenges of a relationship. I know that you are the one becuase I still have nightmares where I look for you and cannot find you. When I wake up all I want to do is hold you so I can re-assure myself that you are real and that you are really in my life. You are strong when I am weak, and I will always be strong for us when you need me to be. Happy Valentines Day!

Con todo mi Amor y Corazon,
Omar

After The Laramie Project

It has been a busy two months for us. On one side we were in the middle of rehearsals and performances for two plays (Cindy Ellen & The Laramie Project) and on the other side we had rehearsals for Dance ISU in Concert: Transitions. Of course we weren't the only ones, but we were part of that crazy group of performers that want to experience it all, and be part of it all. Well, I never knew how much impact The Laramie Project would have on us...well mostly me (Omar). As you all know I posted several months back that I had been a victim of a hate crime. One of the reasons I decided to do Laramie was to face my fears and stand up for what I believe in. In one of the rehearsals the director Phil Shepherd asked me to share my story and gladly I did, but as I was sharing it I found myself looking down. At the time I wasn't sure or knew exactly why I did that, and later I went home and thought about it. I realized that I did not want to look up because I did not want to see others looking at me, I did not want to cry, I wanted to hold myself together and be strong. I knew that when I talked about it...that it would touch a very sensitive spot within me, and up till then I did not know how to handle it or for that matter what to do with it as I retold it and as the story came out of my mouth. Well through the process of the Laramie Project I focus a lot on my character, I played Moises Kaufman and the Narrator, which was a true honor. It was an honor because I was on stage watching the entire show and found myself at a point where I could no longer run away from any fear I would have. There were moments where my fear would sneak in and I would have really horrible thoughts and even nightmares. There was this one time that I woke up after I had dreamed that some one shot me on the way to rehearsals for Laramie. On opening night as the lights came up I looked at the crowd afraid of seeing strangers or an unfamiliar face that would stand up and do something horrible to me or to any of my fellow cast members. Every night, before I went on stage I stood behind the wooden wall and prayed to have something good come out of every night, and I prayed for safety. I knew my fears and scars would surface, but I never thought how heavy it had been. Truly having repressed the incident for so long had definitely an impact on how heavy it had resurfaced. But I knew I had to do this and I wanted to do this for myself, to move on, to be strong, and to show others that something such as hate crime can only make you stronger. I wanted to show others that you can survive and fight to make a change, to make a difference, and to bring awareness. Through out the play I found myself angry. I was angry at society, I was angry at those who think that they have the right to violate someones personality, someone self, and violate who they are because they just simply do not like it. It only took two men to take Matthew Shepherd's life... I was GAY BASHED by four Hispanic drunk men on the 24th floor of a Marriott Hotel, in Houston's prestigious Medical Center. I could have died, I could have missed out on meeting Rick Schroder (my mentor), I could have missed out on coming to ISU, I could have missed out on being introduced to the love of my life, I could have missed out on getting married with Vic, and I could have missed out on all the wonderful people I have met here in Idaho. During some of the nights of performing Laramie I found myself in many of my cast members shoes and thinking how strong we all were to do this play.

They say Diversity, but do they really want it?

It has been a while since blogging and it has been a seriously busy semester. Part of the great things about being a student is how hard you work and seeing those accomplishments at the end of the semester. So what happens when you know you have done well at something and you are told you just did not do well enough to be part of something great? Think about it, you invest a lot of time all semester, put forth a lot of effort, and qualities such as people skills that are not taught! This University keeps talking about how much more diversity they want, but instead of seeing the whole picture of how a diverse individual can make a difference to bring to the students, they look at one final score that determines if you are in or you are out. Knowledge is power and you can teach students all the materials and information you want, but when it comes to that one on one session with another unique human being, it is important to have that touch of humanity. If a student just wanted information there is plenty of technology now in days where they can just get it through the internet. Students come in to see another human being because they want that human touch and they want that face to face interaction. I still walk into the same place and see little diversity and I still walk in the same place and see that the majority of the people are white. Sure you have your hispanic, your African American, and your one white gay person. That is 1, 2, 3...so I guess they are good. But where does the majority stand? If you really say you want Diversity do not just say, do something about it and find ways to go further! Or maybe they just do not mean it enough? What do you think?

Omar's Hate Crime; Never Give Up!

A couple of years ago I was standing in Speech class about to give a speech about awareness on Hate Crime. My attention getter was the words that were engraved in my memories from one of the four men that had attacked me 6 years ago for being a homosexual. His words were, "Where is your girlfriend, oh wait you don't have one cause your a wet-back fagot that is infesting our world!" followed by a punch to my face with his friends joining in... They did not even know my name. As I stood there in front of 30 students and about to say those words...I choked, I began to feel the memory resurface. In that instant I realized I had buried it and never really talk about it with anyone. I had buried it so deep, that it was like if it never happened... I had to take a minute and was able to finish the speech, but the whole time I could hear my heart and I was barely in control, but I made it through the speech. I then realized that I needed to talk about it, I needed to deal with it because I never had closure with that night. A year after the speech I decided to do a dance solo to help me have some closure, to help me express it through my passion for art, and to do it to expose myself and share with others my experience. The solo was another hard step because not only did I perform it at Idaho State University it was selected to be performed at the American College Dance Festival in March of 2010. It became harder to expose the solo in front 450 students from the Northwest region and their faculty that I had created for myself. I did not take in mind the idea of performing it to so many strangers, when I was still sort of dealing with it. At that point I felt I needed to do the solo to deal with it, and to share it with others who might need it. It was my challenge.

But maybe first I should talk about that day. I feel that now is the right time to share this with others.

At the time I was living in Houston, TX and worked three jobs. On a Friday evening I had been invited to a small party at the Marriott that was located in the prestigious area know as the Medical Center. We showed up to the hotel and went up to the 24th floor. When we entered the suite I noticed it was mostly men with and only a few women. I did not get a good feeling in me at all, so I went up to the friends I had shown up with and told them I wasn't really feeling the party. They wanted to stay and mingle for a while, so I decided to step out of the suite and went downstairs to wait in the lobby. After about 45 minutes I decided I was going to just tell them I was leaving, and found no need for me to stay. When I got to the 24th floor the elevator doors opened and in front of me stood four very drunk Hispanic males. They began to question me if I had a girlfriend and if so, where was she. Before I could answer they began to call me fagot, wet back, queer, and so on followed by a punch to my face from one of the guys. I began to fight back out of the elevator and for my life, I punched back, and shoved and ran around the 24th floor knocking on doors and calling out for help, while fighting the four guys off me. I finally noticed that one of the guys began to feel bad and question what his friends were doing. He did not say anything but his face got pale when he saw how much damage his friends were doing. This guy managed to prop one of the fire escape doors open and just told me to run. I ran non-stop 24 flights of stairs till I got to the lobby. Once I got to the lobby I ran to the help desk to seek help, only to find that the elder man in charge wasn't really trying to assist me or call the cops for me. I then decided to run out to the parking garage to get my car and go to the cops. As I was stepping out to the garage the four men were running to their car and peeled out of the parking garage. A few seconds later security from the hotel across ran over to see what was going on. Finally, the security people from across the street were nice enough to assist me and call the cops for me. That night I sat and filled out a police report saying that I was a victim of Hate Crime. That evening I drove home with a busted lip, a black eye, my face swollen, and a few bruises on my torso, but I had survived. Emotionally, I was not O.K. As I drove home, I shook like never before, as if a lot of me had been ripped out of me. The next morning I had to be at work. I decided to get their early enough so no one would see me except for management. I brought in my police report and asked for some time off to heal. After that I could not leave my house for almost two weeks. I was angry at the world, I was scared to go anywhere, and I did not trust anyone.

Anyways, after that I went back to work, but I was not social for a very long time, and I began to find ways of coping with it on my own. I had no family support at the time because my family did not accept me being an open gay Hispanic male, so it was me who had to pick me up and put me back together. I never heard back from the police on my case either. I also found out three years later too late that I could have sued the Marriott for their lack of assistance. I feel lucky now that I am here in 2010 typing about my horrible experience, and hope that others will stand up for what they believe, and do not let others bully you. And if I can survive such experience, just think life is not over, so don't let anything or anyone bring you down to the level of taking your life. Now there is so much support, that wasn't available back when I was a victim of a hate crime, so please seek help because there are many people that are standing up and fighting against bullying and hate crimes! Fight for your rights and fight for your right to live!