Federal tax refund is $1,513. I owe Virginia $141. My Expected Family Contribution for the FAFSA is $14,316 but I forgot to tell them my current assets AFTER the hearing aids…I said $18k but in reality it will only be about $13k. Oops. Well, at least I am getting a federal tax refund and the $600 rebate!

I’m writing this in a draft in Gmail because I can’t remember my WordPress password. The reason I can’t remember is I’m not on my normal computer operating system. raisinbottom emailed me today with questions about Ubuntu, and he mentioned Wubi, so I got all hyped up and spent the evening fighting with it. Again. My big problem, as usual, is the wireless stuff. When I mentioned to A what I was working on, she couldn’t believe it - I have installed and uninstalled Ubuntu at least four times now. I have a love/hate relationship with the damn thing. I was unable to get the wireless working, but I’m jacked straight into the network right now, so I can at least write this while in Ubuntu, save the draft, and go into Windows (where my passwords are all saved) and post it!

Anyway, today’s classes were pretty good. I enjoyed the project we did in Deaf Studies, and I was pleased to see another friend of mine is now in the class. A few other people joined too so it is now getting pretty crowded! More people came into my Linguistics class too, and it’s now huge, but we can’t get a bigger room so we are all jammed in tight in a semi-circle. It turns out one of the visiting students is emerge’s sister, I was tickled to find that out! I had some quibbles with some of the teacher’s opinions…I had asked about Gestuno, and then later I asked about Esperanto…and she tried to compare it back to Gestuno. In reality, Gestuno can be more accurately compared to Basic English, because Esperanto behaves very differently from either of those. She wouldn’t hear of it though - did I mention she’s excitable? Oh well.

Okay, now that I have had all my classes, here’s what I think of them so far.

• History - Teacher seems young but interested in the material. I think this is his first year without an interpreter, and his signing is pretty slow and he makes lots of mistakes, but he’s trying. There are only three of us in the class (the other two are already friends), so I’m not sure how class discussions will go…how can you debate anything with only three people? If two people agree, the other is just going to go “oh fine” and go along with them. Anyway, small class, teacher is interested, it’s all good. While we’re on vacation I think I will mostly just have a lot of reading to do.
• Deaf Studies - Disappointed that Fernandes is no longer the teacher…the Honors program coordinator knows what happened but isn’t saying. The new teacher is okay with my vacation and I think I will be able to keep up but I’ll definitely regret missing the class discussions. I already have all the required books in my personal collection, so at least I don’t have to buy any books for this class! Also I have two friends in the class and a couple of other people that I know a little bit, plus some people I don’t know. I was kind of relieved to find out that I could skip the “growing up deaf” assignment…we have to do 10 out of 12 writing assignments, and I am just going to skip that one and do the rest, which are easier for me!
• Linguistics - My teacher is so excitable. It’s mostly a good thing. I get the feeling the class might be tough, especially with being absent for two weeks. There is a test while I’m on vacation but fortunately it’s an online test anyway, but there might be quizzes that I will miss, which cannot be made up. I’ll have to ask and see if she will let me since I warned her about my trip a couple of months ago already. I have two friends in this class, yay! There are four visiting students though…all from Boston, all interpreting majors (I think), and all hearing. And all insular…I have seen them around talking to each other more than once. One of them actually admitted during class that she is hearing…I was thinking “oh honey, you have a lot to learn about Gallaudet.”
• Sex and Gender - This class is going to be so awesome. I will have to literally sit on my hands to give other people a chance to talk. See, being a queer person, I think about sex, gender, orientation, etc. a lot. And I already have a LOT of opinions, which I am eager to share…but I don’t want to dominate the in-class discussion! But seriously, it is going to be awesome; we have already started discussion and it is going to be great. I brought up David Reimer and the teachers mentioned that we’d be discussing him later, so I am ahead a bit! The class is being taught by a biology professor (my favorite teacher!) and a psychology professor so I just know this is going to be great. I am SO excited about this class!

I am posting in response to this press release regarding the connection between Jane Fernandes and Joseph Mesa.

People, repeat after me. Jane Fernandes is not the devil. Jane Fernandes is not the devil.

JANE FERNANDES IS NOT THE DEVIL.

Seriously. Ever since it was announced that she is returning to teach at Gallaudet, the GallyProtest mailing list has been full of hate mail about her and why she shouldn’t come back. (She will be teaching Intro to Deaf Studies, and I. King Jordan will be teaching advanced psychology classes.) Oddly, there has been much less about IKJ than about JKF. There’s been the occasional “his legacy is tarnished, he destroyed himself” bit, but nothing like what JKF has been put through.

This thing about her connection to Mesa - the kid who committed the 2001 murders, which I remember well because I was taking night classes there at the time - is just ridiculous. Lots and lots of teens are troubled, and they don’t grow up to kill people. Mesa obviously had something pathologically wrong with him that Fernandes - not a trained clinical psychiatrist herself - could not have diagnosed. I’m sure she felt at the time that she was trying to give a troubled kid from another culture, Guam, a better education. She had him brought to MSSD for his education, not so he could grow up to kill two boys later.

I’m tired of everybody claiming that JKF ruined Gallaudet. I’m tired of the claims that she has no business coming back to campus. The fact is, she is coming back to teach. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell she will get back into an administrative position anytime soon. She taught sign communication long before she became VP of the Clerc center (in 1995) or provost (in 2000). There are basically zero students left at Gallaudet who took her sign communications class. She might very well be a highly skilled teacher, but the GallyProtest people continue to vilify her at every chance they get.

Jane Fernandes was not the right person for the presidency of Gallaudet University. That much is obvious now - she would have been a continuation of the administration that led the college into its current accreditation crisis. But that does NOT make her the devil, and it does NOT mean she will be a bad teacher. I’m just so fucking tired of all this bullshit about her. Pretty much everybody I ask on campus - all of my peers - don’t even care that she’s coming back.

Apparently we register for spring classes at the end of October, so I looked for the schedule online. I found it, and I put together this possible schedule.

• HIS 112 - American History II - Honors section - Prof. Brune - 9:30-10:50 Tu/Th
• GSR 150 - Intro to Integrated Learning (Sex and Gender) - Prof. Dillehay - 10-11:50 M/W
• SOC 101 - Intro to Sociology - Prof. Kowalsky - 1-2:20 Tu/Th
• DST 101 - Intro to Deaf Studies - Prof. Dunn - 2:30-3:50 Tu/Th

There’s also a possibility of working HSL 690, Intro to Cued Speech, into my schedule, but the times haven’t been announced yet so I don’t know if I’ll get to do it. If not, I can put it off for another time. History and Sociology are both required for the Deaf Studies major, and as for DST 101…well, at the beginning of fall 2007 I was told that GSR 103 (which I’m taking now) would replace DST 101 and I wouldn’t have to take it, but I’m looking at the major requirements and I probably will have to after all. I wasn’t able to find a way into either of JKF’s sections, the schedules just clash with everything else…I think it would have been pretty interesting to have her as a teacher, though I’m not sure she should be teaching intro-level classes considering how controversial she is. (IKJ is coming back too but he’s teaching high-level Psych courses.)

This isn’t set in stone obviously, but I like the way it shapes up so far. Three classes on Tu/Th, one on M/W, and none on Fridays. That would leave room for plenty of working hours, which I haven’t gotten nearly enough of these past few weeks.

The first day of class was uneventful. I discovered I couldn’t use the wifi network unless I installed Service Pack 2, so I’m working on that while I type this. I had the first session of my ASL and Deaf Studies class, which was led by Ben Bahan and MJ Bienvenu was sitting right behind me. Holy crap, talk about deaf luminaries! I’m sure very few of the other students realized who they were, because how many of them have actually researched their own community? But I’ve known those names for years and I can’t believe they’re teaching one of my classes! (Actually, my section is taught by somebody else, but they’ll be there at the mass lectures on Mondays.) Another student showed me where the commuter lounge is, it’s bigger than I expected and it has a fridge, big lockers, several computers, etc.

In the afternoon I had my math class, Quantitative Reasoning and Analysis, which is probably going to be the only math class I’ll need - I mentioned I was a Deaf Studies major and the professor said I’d probably be done after that one. Of course I probably still have general studies requirements for science, but at least I’ll be done with math! My books are all pretty expensive, but I’m going to buy them on Amazon and save a little bit of money.

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!

I left the honors retreat after a few hours this morning. No offense to anybody who was there, but it was honestly not appropriate for me. I was further offended by the head of the department, who was rather patronizing to me on the phone when she realized I had left. (I’d informed the coordinator, but not the head.) To be honest I don’t think she realizes that she’s dealing with a mature adult. She pays lip service to it, but she still treats me like somebody who’s just been released from Mommy and Daddy’s care and needs to be monitored at all times. But you know what? I’m a big girl. I’m not going to be treated like I’m fresh out of high school.

We agreed to meet tomorrow on campus before the rest of the activities begin at 3:00pm. I plan to let her know exactly how I feel, and that I expect to be treated like an independent person, not a teenager. If she doesn’t want to treat me differently from the 18-year-olds in the program, I’d rather be dropped from the program. It’s up to her - if she doesn’t like my request to be treated like an adult, she can drop me. Or she can treat me like an adult, that’s the choice. But I will not be patronized.

I’m not explaining the specifics because I don’t want to seem like I’m whining…but she definitely came across as patronizing. Yup.

I’m still waiting impatiently for my schedule to show up on the Gallaudet student services application, but meanwhile I finally heard back from the transfer specialist! If I am understanding the spreadsheet correctly, I currently have 8.5 credits from previous college experience. If I were to get credit for all of my previous experience, I would have 26.5 credits, making me a sophomore. They’re not finished evaluating it though - they are still trying to figure out what some of my courses would be equivalent to, so I may get some additional credits. Reportedly they’ll have everything fixed by the time orientation starts on the 22nd.