Now I can finally talk about my past week of orientation. It’s been going pretty well - I can’t believe how much has happened! In the space of five days, I went from a normal member of honors to a grouch to a demoted “bridge to honors” student and back to being a full honors student. Whew!

I have also been mistaken for deaf almost constantly, and while it’s not a compliment anymore when somebody realizes I’m hearing, it’s still nice to realize that I don’t stick out like a sore thumb.

However I’ve also had an embarrassing moment that would only happen to a HUG student like me. I was in a makeup session of the ASL/Math assessment tests, and I was trying hard to concentrate. But an orientation session was also in there, and the leader was running late so the students were chatting and laughing…loudly. I got one of the test proctors to come over and asked if there was any way the other half of the room could be quieted down. I felt ridiculous asking such a thing in a deaf university, but I was trying to take a test, and I really couldn’t concentrate! They did quiet down and I was able to finish the test in peace…though I still completely bombed, hah! I didn’t even get what was going on, what the questions were, or
anything. Yikes!

I already have several of the books needed for my Deaf Studies and English classes, but there’s still a bunch more for my English class I have to buy.

I had a good experience relating to being a HUG student today. Yesterday I chatted with another HUG about whether it was culturally appropriate to participate in certain activities - I think somebody had been surprised that a hearing student could play sports for Gallaudet. Today we were sitting through class elections, and I turned to another HUG and said, “now this is the kind of thing I don’t think ’students like us’ can participate in.” Another girl behind her who knows us both said “no way! You guys can do anything, it doesn’t matter if you’re hearing.” Which is just way cool to hear, and I told her “thanks, that really makes me feel good!” I still am a little suspicious of whether it would REALLY be okay…it just feels like it would be taboo for a hearing person to be class president at a deaf college. But it’s great that at least somebody thinks it’s okay!

I am still kind of shell shocked when I browse Facebook and see all these people graduated high school in ‘07. I can’t believe I graduated high school ten years ago. I’ve been looking forward to my 10-year reunion for a while, but seeing all those ’07s just makes me feel kind of old instead!