Fashion Show + HOLI CELEBRATION

All right! So, my speech went okay. I haven’t seen the video yet–those’ll likely be up within the month. (The official event people want to edit in intros and credits.)

And this Thursday, there’s a fashion show. Open to all people regardless of gender identity (or lack of, I’m assuming). The theme is health and loving your body, which is pretty cool. Oh, and I’ll be in it! (Cross your fingers and hope there’s no pronoun messups…) Thursday at 7pm in Lamberton, everyone!

And the Holi celebration! On Sunday afternoon, a bunch of students gathered on the front lawn to celebrate the traditionally Hindu holiday–the Festival of Colors. It’s lately become a cultural as well as religious holiday, popular in much of Southeast Asia regardless of religious affiliation.

And since it’s the festival of colors, one tradition is to throw colors in the air, at each other, on clothes, on people’s hair… anything’s fair game, frankly.

So, uh, yeah. It was pretty fun. And I think I still have powder in my hair. I know it’s still on one of my shirts–it got into the hem, otherwise it’s fairly easy to shake out.

This Sunday was an awesome, fun, spontaneous way to celebrate different cultures here on campus. Oh, and if you’re feeling up to it, read up on the holiday!

SPEECH!

Okay! My speech is TODAY. Now. It’s going to be livestreamed on Facebook here. I can’t make this post too long, but oh man, I am so excited and nervous and kind of tense all wrapped up into one big ball of anxiousness. Anyway, wish me luck! (Oh, and I hope your exam week is going well! Be sure to get a good amount of sleep!)

This wasn’t exactly on my to-do list this year, but…

Giving a speech wasn’t exactly on my to-do list for this year. However…

I go to Spectrum (Lehigh’s LGBTQIA+ group) meetings on a regular basis (Wednesdays at 5:30 if anyone wants to come; it’s open to anyone! You should drop by!), and I frequently visit the Rainbow Room, the center for all things LGBTQIA+. Now, there’s a speaker event going on in April, featuring several speakers from all sorts of diverse backgrounds, which is pretty awesome–and they invited Spectrum to speak at the event too! I actually volunteered to help write and present the speech, which… is simultaneously terrifying and really, REALLY exciting. I’ve never given a speech like this before, ever, so it’ll be a totally new experience. See? Opportunities can pop up even when you least expect them to.

The theme of the event is deconstructing concepts, so Spectrum’s topic will be deconstructing the gender binary. Needless to say, it’s a hefty topic to squash into ten minutes. There’s all sorts of things–different gender systems, intersex conditions, transgender people, the speculated causes of being transgender… of course, if you don’t feel like clicking on all of those links, you could just come and watch the speech! It’s on April 4th in the Linderman Library at 2pm. I’ll also get a copy of the video and upload my own speech, and I’ll be sure to post a link on this blog.

Now, one last thing before I run off. I’ve set up a survey to help with my speech. It isn’t ridiculously long, although there are a lot of open-ended questions. It’s open to anyone, even non-Lehigh students. Anyway, you can put as much or as little as you like! The survey will stay completely anonymous, too. I’ll only be referencing statistics in my speech. Also, if you take the survey, you’ve got the option to be entered into a drawing for a $20 Amazon or PayPal card! I’ll need your email address for the drawing, but your email won’t be associated with your survey responses, so feel free to answer however you like.

Hope everyone is staying safe this week! One more week until spring break. You can do it! (And be sure to take the survey! :D)