Coming from a background of studying International Relations, I know what this feeling of despair and being overloaded with negativity means. At the beginning of the semester in my international security class we watched a movie about how a US citizen helped with intense planning of a series of terrorist attacks in India, the movie showed us everything leading up to it, how people were used, real footage of people being shot, real footage of dead bodies, mangled bodies, the destruction, the blood on the walls. Its a terrible thing that we have to see so we know exactly what we are studying in the class. The same goes for hunger and homelessness. We have to see all these things, read about how hard daily life is for someone in the street, how even with these services, daily life is still hard. One of the most striking things from the course that i’ve read is from the very first page of Tell Them Who I Am by Liewbow, “one wonders why more homeless people do not kill themselves.” Its something that really makes you sit back and look, here we are looking at just how little they have to live for, how hard they have to work to get by day-to-day, it really makes you wonder why taking your life isn’t an option when you’re down and out. I guess for them its the same answer to why we don’t give up trying to help with the overall problem of homelessness, its hope. Hope, just like so many other people keeps them alive, hope for a home, hope for a meal, hope for even just a simpler day with fewer worries. We keep the hope that we can make a difference, no matter how small it is, even if its to one person we can make an impact to them, even if it is for a moment. I guess just for me when I’m reading all these things and looking at these daunting numbers of homeless people even in my city, I just have to sit back, take a deep sigh, and really keep hope. It’s the same with politics, my motherland of Mexico is ravaged by drug trade, slayings, corruption, and death, and sometimes I feel like things will never change, that we will forever be the country of drug cartels, that it will never be the beautiful place it once was, but I just keep hoping that it can change. Just like I can keep hope that we can change things, even if its something small, we can all make a difference, no matter how small or big, its something. So don’t lose hope and keep on trucking.