smokingrrl's Diaryland Diary

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Big ol' update

Leave it to me to wake up after three hours of sleep, and then decide that I might as well finish reading my text book for Sociology of Gender class. At least I'm caught up as far as reading for my 200 point essay exam is concerned. Hopefully I will be able to spend most of the day today working on it (it's due on Wednesday).

I'm finally caught up with grading for the classes I TA. I'm now trying to schedule times for various individuals to retake, or make up, quizzes and/or the first exam they missed.

I'm almost caught up with my reading for religious themes in literature. Yet I am far from caught up on the reading for religion and the body. I figure once I get this essay exam out of the way for sociology class, I can focus on religion and the body.

It also helps that I have resigned my post as secretary in our organization. During the officer's meeting, I can spend that time doing homework. During the regular organization meeting, I can spend that time doing homework. I plan on being involved where I can, but school always comes before extracurricular activities. I'll just have to wait until some other semester to be involved in the various organizations that I want to become involved with. Such is life.

I hope I can be one of the lucky people that gets to go back and get another degree after I get my Ph.D. I do plan on getting my Ph.D. as well, damn it. I refuse to let that be a male-dominated thing. Besides, if I want to be a prof., getting my doctorate in the area of study of my choosing will help me immensely.

I was also able to talk to one of the English profs that I get along with. He said that he would be my advisor once I added the linguistics major. This is a wonderful thing. It means that for both majors I will be working with people that I respect and get along with. That is very important to me considering if I'm going to work my butt off, I better feel comfortable working with the people I will need to work closest with.
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A lot of me resigning as secretary had to do with needed time to get homework done. It also means that I will be able to find some time to read for pleasure (hopefully) and time for me to journal about my gender issues. Being able to express my gender issues, and work through them, is of paramount importance to me right now. I don't feel like I've been able to fully come to terms with any of the issues, let alone understand them.
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Now that I'm only on estrogen for HRT, it's making it a lot easier to deal with KV's lack of libido as well. (I was having other side effects from the testosterone anyway.) I'm not even going to go into that. A change for me, I know.
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Last week was very emotional. Not only did I have the emotional upheaval on Tuesday, but Thursday was a close call. I was thisclose to breaking down again. It's mainly due to a combination of stress, gender issues that aren't being dealt with or fully acknowledged, lack of sleep, and, more than likely, lack of estrogen still. I knew things were getting bad when I realized that I don't even have time to do my own laundry. I can also tell when things are not the greatest when profs and friends notice that things aren't great with me. For example, Jerry almost started me crying when I saw him, and he mentioned that "life was getting to" me. I sat down and told him, briefly, what has been going on. He told me to "tie one off on Friday, and have a good weekend." I think he told me to go get drunk on Friday. hahaha

Of course I didn't get drunk. Instead, I went out with Robyn and KV to a mostly-relaxing dinner. It was nice. I was hoping to get together with Robyn, Karl, Ryan, and Gary on Saturday night for dinner as well (KV included). Unfortunately, Ryan and Karl won't be back until today at some point. I had no idea until KV called them. Ryan emailed me this information, but I never got an email. Screwy.
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I know it will be a lot of hard work but I'm hoping that mblgtacc will be able to come to the university in 2007 or 2008. It will be worth the hard work, and it's very much needed on our campus, I think. I have been getting a sense of not being exactly welcomed every since the presidential election. I swear, since the election, I have been seeing more GW stickers on cars, etc. Since his main platform was "us vs. the gays," (even if he doesn't believe it) I automatically assume (wrongly, I hope) that the rest of the area, and country, are "us vs. the gays" as well. It doesn't exactly make a person feel safe.

Despite the not feeling safe thing, I am still out and a little louder about it all than I was before. At this point, I figure I might as well be. If I'm going to get harmed emotionally or physically because of who I am, it's going to happen eventually. I'd rather get it over with sooner rather than later. Morbid, I know, but that's how I feel.

It angers me, though, that I don't have enough energy to confront the other people on campus whom I hear using "fag" and "gay" as derrogatory words. Last week I heard a guy trying to get the attention of another guy, who he is obviously friends with, saying "Nice hat, fag!" (The friend was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap.) I just kept walking and fuming about it, instead of telling the kid how I felt about it. I'm disappointed in myself for that.

As far as anti-gay sentiment goes, the technical college next to our campus is having issues. A Christian organization on the tech's campus is trying to get student government money to get an "ex-gay" speaker. "Ex-gays" are people who claim to be cured homosexuals. If they get money for this, hopefully we'll get money to bring in an ex "ex-gay" or something. It just makes me angry that their student government would even consider this! Some of us are wondering if it is in response to the newly activated, and taken over by Robyn, GLBT Straight Alliance organization that is there. If it is, that will make me even angrier. There has been other shit going down on my campus that reeks of homophobia in an institutionalized form, but I don't even want to get into it. I will eventually need to get back to sleep (so I have energy to start my exam).

All in all, I pretty much got through last week fine, albeit in a zombie state.

Here's to things looking up.

Shae

6:50 am - Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005

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