if you had a hermaphroditic child ...

Sorry it's been forever since I last posted. Been busy with two internships: one at a church, one at a pediatric hospital.

Anyway, I was thinking the other day, "If you had a hermaphroditic child, would it be better to choose one gender and treat him/her as that, or to raise her/him as an androgynoid?" It seems like it would be better to raise him/her as an androgynoid, since that would be true the child's anatomy. If you just chose one gender arbitrarily, it would be like denying and rejecting a basic part of who your child was.

I can understand that people think it will make their child's life easier to think of her/himself as only one gender or the other, since that's what society expects. But if, by virtue of your physical makeup, you simply do not conform to the expectations of society, and if (short of having doctors mutilate your body) there is no way to change that, surely it is better to be honest about the disconnect rather than to deny it and pretend to be "normal."

NO MORE SCHOOL(!!!)!

You may think that this post about how happy I am to be finished (forever!) with classwork ought to have come earlier--as in, at the end of my last class in June. But I am only truly feeling the elation now because only now am I not only free from all wretchedness of academia, but also free to do what I really want to do: work! ministry!

THANK GOD I NEVER HAVE TO TAKE ANOTHER CLASS IN SEMINARY AGAIN! I CAN WORK NOW! YAY!

This week I started a chaplaincy internship and a church internship. I think they're both going to be great! I'm so happy--which has made me realize how much I hated being a full time grad student. Which seems odd, since I still love learning--reading and writing--and on scholarly subjects, even. But I hated the unnaturalness of relationships. Particularly the teacher-student relationship. That felt somewhat demeaning to me. And relationships with other students were always so superficial. There was no cohort, so you were only in the same classes with people for one short quarter and then you might not see them at all the next quarter.

Anyway, thank heavens that's all done with and finished now. Time to continue being happy!