My family is absolutely ridiculous.  Every single time we have a family gathering, it always somehow results in everyone sitting around the table absolutely heated over political issues and everything that’s wrong with the government.  They’re all disgustingly republican.  It’s almost painful to listen to their views on certain things.  I’m the only person in my entire extended family (that I know of) that is more on the moderate/liberal side.  From what I’ve gathered, moderates/liberals are more of the younger crowd of people, because now that the older generation that was shamefully conservative is becoming scarcer and scarcer, some people are beginning to wake up.  They're also more of the "artistic", open-minded, down to earth humans, which is what I consider myself to be. I feel as though I've been shaped into who I am today because of the people I've associated with, the media, blogging, and just simply opening my eyes to what the world really is. We have a choice as human beings on whether or not we want to see the world as what it is, or the world with a filter over top of it, so we don't really see it for what it really is. Some may argue it's the "romanticism vs. realism", or at least I would. I learned that from one of my ex boyfriends, which was sort of the turning point in my views of the world. His name was Stefan, and he lived in England. I don't think that's even a real relationship, but he definitely helped me realize some stuff, although I already had fairly strong views on certain things already. One of those being the debate on same *** marriage. This hits very close to home for me, in far more ways than one, and is probably one of the things I dispute over most with people. I won't get into it completely here, but I am 10,000,000,000% for it. Just as same *** marriage, I have very strong feelings about self expression. It is our first amendment right to freedom of expression, and in school we are violated of that.  I couldn't imagine having to go to school with my hair in a bun, no makeup on, no more than one piercing in each ear, no ****** piercings, no nail polish, etc. To me, that is a violation of your first amendment right, let alone having it go against everything I believe in. This is why I'm so eager to move to New York City; where I can look however I want to and attend as many protests as I want and create as much art as humanly possible. Until the day the rest of America wakes up, the early risers will continue to brew the coffee in hopes one day the sleepyheads will smell how wonderful it is.