I attended a Catholic school in sunny Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico.  It sat a block from my house which was also my dad’s restaurant.  We all wore uniforms which were consistent within each gender.  I believe that there was a store from which we could buy those uniforms, but my mom, having been a seamstress, simply made our uniforms.  Our school had an attached church on one end, whenever asked which church we attended we simply responded with the church for our school.  We didn’t though, my family ran a business and don’t remember attending church regularly.  Honestly, I think we attended this school because we wanted a good education, the faith element wasn’t really a factor.

Precisely one homeroom teacher taught each grade, and the class numbered around thirty of us.  Our homeroom teacher taught most classes, but we had an occasional guest teacher for different subjects.  Some of these teachers were nuns, which wouldn’t be a surprise being a Catholic school.  Our English teacher was a nun, and I failed that class.  Speaking Chinese at home, I struggled to learn both Spanish and English in the few years that I attended that school before we moved to Florida.

Continue reading “Xenophobia and gay educators”

On a typical weekend evening, we jut out to one of our favorite Italian restaurants.  It’s a contemporary Italian restaurant, so it doesn’t necessarily have classics like you might expect, such as lasagna.  However, they have exceptional cocktails and reimagined dishes in wonderful ways.  Oh, and the staff is great, we know many of them by name.

As we walk through the door, the young hostess greets us.  She asks us the typical questions (Reservations?  How many?) and proceeds to walk us to our table, carrying a couple of menus.  We settle on our seats.  Finally, as the hostess walks away, I note to myself that she wears a sternum nose piercing and wondered if that was appropriate for the hostess.

Continue reading “Our biases on the standards of beauty”