Hi All!
My name is Danielle Gannon and I am a senior at Saint Mary's College this year. I am a Statistics and Actuarial Mathematics major and absolutely love it! I am living in Opus Hall this year, but I have spent all of my life growing up in Middlebury, IN and I really appreciate the small town atmosphere there.
Growing up, my parents were definitely the biggest influence on my understanding of how men and women should behave. For a long time, my mother was a stay-at-home mom, and my father was the one who supported our family in the workforce. This was my understanding of how men and women in a family were supposed to behave. However, as I made friends with people whose families were much different than mine, my ideas of how men and women should behave changed. They changed even more when I became friends with several people in high school and here at Saint Mary's who self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Now, these are the people who most influence my understanding of how men and women behave. I have come to realize, through these friends, that we can't really say that all men should/do behave a certain way or that all women should/do behave a certain way.
When it comes to the importance of gender in my life, I have found that gender has become less and less important in my life as I have gotten older. When I was a young girl, I was only ever friends with girls, because I thought it would be weird to have a guy friend. Gender still played a large part in my life when I was in high school, because I was concerned about having both girl and guy friends. I thought that having a good balance of male and female friends was important. Now, I have found that the gender of my friends really isn't that important. I can relate to all of my friends no matter what their gender. Hanging out with a bunch of women and one man doesn't concern me at all. I hardly even notice it anymore.
I enjoy writing a lot, but I have never enjoyed writing poetry. Getting poetry writing assignments in my high school English classes was always a nightmare. I've just never been able to write poetry. It might just be the way my mind works. I'm a very analytical person, so I think I might just be thinking too much about it, when I just need to write. I do like reading poetry on occasion, but there have been many times where I just don't like reading it either.
Hope you've enjoyed this brief introduction to me and my life. I look forward to getting to know you better too!
Danielle
