I would like to start off by telling you all a little about myself. My name is Naomi Pena. I am 23 years old and was born and raised in Milwaukee. Alot of people usually are negative about Milwaukee, but to tell you the truth I love it here!!!!! Except for -30 degree below zero wind chills and 20+ inches of snow. I am a senior here at UWM and will graduate in May. I have a 5 year old little boy named Devin and a fiance named Brent. We are tying the knot June 13th 2009 :)

Enough about me and on to the course material. I hope to learn a great deal about parties and how they operate in this course. I hope to explore not only parties on an individual level, but how they interact with one another. I have recently become more interested in party poltics since the elections. I am curious to explore how events such as elections affect political parties and how they come to into power.

As far as fears goes I don't really know that I have any real fear, but a lot of curiosity surrounding parties. I guess I am curious to know why can't parties just be one big happy family and get along? I guess that could be a reason for our country being as successful as if has been. There needs to be some sort of balance in countries and I guess that parties are a way to maintain peace within.

I look forward to this class and learning about parties. I also look forward to reading all of your blogs and op