I often run over my words and they start coming out so fast they seem to not be waiting for the thought behind them and I can get lost in my speech. I will often write the direction "pause" into a lecture in order to remind me to do so and slow down. So I am often not sure if it is my delivery that is boring the audience or the content. Chapter 8: Friendship (250-252)

In times of need and in times or happiness, one is able to share these experiences with a friend. I know when I am feeling especially stressed out or feel that things are not going well I can usually count on my friends to bring me out of it, either directly by encouraging me to press on, or indirectly by taking my mind off the situation at hand. Sometimes there is no way t go forward, as in the case when you break up with someone. Friends can help relive the tension by simply being there and listening or taking you out to forget about things for a while.

For me, friends play a vital role in many aspects of my life as I am sure they do in many other people's lives. Friendships are made in many ways and have many differing degrees at times. There are those you work with that you may consider friends, yet they may not be those that you hang out with very often and, unless you have created a deeper bond with individuals at work, certainly not the ones that you can confide everything in. This is especially true if you do not like your job and complain about it to the wrong person.

While I have met several new friends as I went to different schools, the ones that seem to have the strongest bond are the friends I made as a child growing up. It seems that I had just spent so much time with them and shared many early secrets and ideas and dreams with them that their bond with me is unshakable. There are times when I do not see them for long periods, yet when we get back together it is as if not time has passed at all. This is also true to people that have come to mean a great deal to me going to school now.

Friendships seem to, by their very nature, have to develop over a certain period of time. There has to be some history, some sharing of experiences of ideas, some similarity of likes and dislikes in some sense in order for a friendship to first begin to develop. There is a bond that begins to develop; it is something like meeting someone for the first time and feeling some connection, something that interests you to find out more about the person. However, sometimes, as in my childhood friends, it is often just a matter of circumstance. Living near each other, playing in the same parks, participating in the same sports creates an almost accidental bond that arises out of a location in time and space more than anything else.

Being able to share events, both happy an sad, with a friend helps to put those evetns in perspective. Writing in a journal has a similar characteristic in that you relive the event and in the remembering and transmitting of it, it can become more real, more enjoyable, and I the case of a sad event, more acceptable. In other words it helps me to process the event and in some sense makes it more real and concrete than it would be otherwise. Ideally I would think that choosing a mate or a significant other, while it certainly has many other parameters to consider, needs to be in some sense based on a friendship in order for it to really work and last. If there is not that connection or that bond then any long-term commitment will be tremulous. This brings up the next topic to be discussed.

Chapter 9: Divorce (287-288)

It is interesting to note that according the records that the divorce rate the in the United States is fifty percent. Half of all marriages that are supposed to last till one or the other spouse are dead, do not get there. Although I guess that it does seem a little depressing in some context when the minister or justice says the line, "till death do you part." With such a high divorce rate that seems like more of a question that a declarative statement any longer. Perhaps it should really read, "live as long as you can together," or something that seems to have a little...

But I am sure that this line is not the real reason behind the fifty percent divorce statistic. However it is being addressed by this chapter as almost an inevitability that needs to be adjusted to and coped with for both the separating spouses as well as the children that may be involved.
Is divorce too easy a way out from a marriage? Is that why it is so "popular" lately? It does not seem so. Any of the people that I have known who had to go through a divorce delayed it for many years, often till their children were older or just because of how difficult finically it would be. The fact of the matter is more likely that the couple did not have the right stuff in the first place when they got engaged and later married. They may have based their relationship only on sexual attraction, financial considerations, or other circumstances that seemed to compel them to marry. There may not have been any underlying friendship or other bond that would have gotten them through their differences otherwise. Furthermore, this also seems to be cultural based in many ways. Divorced is not f4woend upon in the United States as it is in other cultures. The consequences of divorce can be more extreme in a faith-based society.

But whether or not divorced is accepted or rejected by the culture, women often seemed to be disproportionately disadvantaged by the process of both marriage and divorce in many respects. This is perhaps greatly due to the financial burden that may occur, especially if the women had been a homemaker and stay at home mom and not currently getting a paycheck. This substantially disrupts her life, especially if there are children involved and she remains the primary caregiver. Factually, in these circumstances the courts have realized the excessive burden this often place of the women in the divorce and often are quite generous financially to her in the proceedings, often to the chagrin of her male counterpart. While this has the appearance of creating a gender bias I view it as merely adjusting the scales to account for circumstances. However, it does appear that according to the research both men and women share the psychological effects of divorce equally.

While staying together in a loveless marriage certainly has its detrimental consequences, it appears that divorce has a great toll on the health and well being of the parties involved. The chapter seems to indicate that both choices are not the healthiest. I suppose that the only shining light is that the pain and suffering from a divorce may only last for a while, a few months or a few years, while remaining the a dysfunctional marriage has the possibility of a much longer sentence or term.

The effect on the children of a divorce seems to be much more pronounced. They really did not have much of a say in the matter and are often taken by surprise when the day comes that their parents announce it. The parents have had ample time to at least adjust to the idea, the children on the other had are handed a hot potato and can go through several layers of emotions that can leave them scarred and as the research by Wallerstien found that they are usually, "worried, underachieving, self-deprecating and sometimes angry young men and women." (288) While some researcher find this over pessimistic, the fact is that the shock of divorce is difficult to deal with and it children do adjust it often takes years, and some therapy, to do so.

Chapter 10: Female Roles and Gender Discrimination (320-326)

Gender discrimination and gender bias takes on many forms and many subtle disguises that need to be unmasked in order to eliminate them. While it is certainly possible to recognize when gender discrimination takes place under certain circumstances such as hiring biases, workplace harassment and so on, there are more subtler forms that society in general tends to overlook and often even encourage.

One of the more interesting gender role propensities that both female roles and society's ideas of those roles is the bar chart on pare 325. Here we see a pyramid created by the roles of women in the…