I got way out of control at College Bowl tonight. One of the other players had written the questions we were using, and one was about Jamie Lee Curtis. It said she was born with a syndrome (I think it actually said birth defect actually) that makes her a what? Well, of course I knew she was born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, but what does that make her? I puzzled over it for a few seconds and then it hit me - an intersexual. The student who wrote the questions came around and looked at our answers, and told me mine was wrong. As he turned away to reveal the answer, I signed (to nobody in particular) “I am right, and if you said hermaphrodite I will kill you.” So he shows the answer, and it says “Hermaphrodite (do not accept transsexual, shemale, or transvestite)”. Everybody always contests answers, so everybody started protesting. I leapt out of my chair and started yelling, “I OBJECT! I OBJECT! I VERY STRONGLY OBJECT!” (This is all in sign, btw.). Everybody else settled down, and I kept demanding to file an objection. The guy who wrote the questions tried to shut me down, but the coach said “it looks like she knows what she’s talking about.” So the student let me stand up and explain my objection. I got up and ranted “that is an old greek word, of course. But it is NOT APPROPRIATE anymore! It is considered DISCRIMINATORY and derogatory! It is not accepted by the medical establishment or the people themselves!! It is not appropriate!!!”. The guy who wrote the questions said something to the effect of “yikes, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend” and apologized profusely. I said “okay, thank you” and sat down, saying “oh, but, I’m not one, though.” Which was kind of unnecessary to say and implies that there’s something wrong with being intersexual. I think I said it because I was overexcited. At the end of practice, I got the guy’s attention and apologized for getting so overexcited. He said “oh no, I’m sorry I offended.” I said “well, I really could have said it more calmly and nicely, so I’m sorry.”

And that was my little freakout for the evening.

Well here I am, trying to write a paper that’s due tomorrow morning. I need two more pages. I’ve found an outstanding source, but I can’t exactly have Amazon deliver it to me instantly. I can buy some of the articles in PDF format but that costs WAY more than buying the book.

Tonight the College Bowl coached announced the official team; as he told me before, I am on it. If my wife doesn’t come to New Orleans - which she’s said she won’t - I might end up rooming with a stranger. If that person’s parents also come to the conference, she might room with them, which means I might get to room with gretchenmarie but I don’t know. That would be totally awesome though, I would absolutely die of happiness if we could room together!

Oh, and I totally caught a mistake in the 2005 Academic Bowl questions we used tonight. One of them was asking (basically) what country the Suleymaniye Mosque and Aya Sofya are in. As always, they spelled it Hagia Sophia, but anyway. The picture, though, was of the Blue Mosque. All three are in Istanbul, Turkey. So I mentioned that it was the wrong mosque in the picture. The coach was like “are you sure?” I said yes, I’ve been inside all three, and that is the Blue Mosque! This was the next-to-last question of the night, so after practice several people watched while I brought up my pictures from our trip to Turkey and I showed them that yes indeed, it was the Blue Mosque. I even used Google Images to prove it was not Aya Sofya or Suleymaniye! The coach said I’m probably the only person who would ever have caught that, ever. Haha!

Tonight I had a 30+ minute post-practice chat with the College Bowl coach. He wanted me to know that if I become a “regular” student, I WILL be on the team going to New Orleans in July for the competition. He immediately asked if A would come too, so apparently I would get my own room, though he did say only my trip would be paid for.

He said that after seeing me in the past two practices, he can tell I definitely belong on the team. It takes both knowledge and enthusiasm, and I guess I have both. He’s already communicated with the National Association for the Deaf to ask about a hypothetical situation wherein a hearing student becomes a regular status student, and they said it would be okay for me to be on the team as long as I was regular status at Gallaudet. All I need for that is the audiogram and the audiologist’s letter certifying that the hearing loss is permanent.

We chatted about other things too, it was a really nice conversation and he treated me as an equal rather than “just a student” which was cool.

Dr. Mom, my favorite teacher, sent me an email today. She said she had been thinking about the discussion in yesterday’s Sex & Gender class, and she worried that I felt excluded or marginalized by the discussion because we focused only on straight couples. She saw me before I had a chance to reply, so she asked me about it again! I said we were talking about the differences between men and women, so of course it was natural that we would talk about straight couples, and I was fine with it! I made sure she knew I thought she was an absolute sweetheart for sending me that note.