disallusioned by the traffik whipping by, i put one foot on the questionably solid ground before stepping backwards in shock. so many people on their way to nowhere- a maroon sedan squeals past an old teal volkswagon bug, hoping to beat him to the stoplite. it is such a ridiculous site. to think that people do this every morning and every evening. it is no wonder that heart attacks kill more people each year. i am about to have a heart attack watching them.

why for art thou amongst the fools trapped in the rat race? spinning in circles, direction in dream, getting closer to nothing… but faster, every moment faster. they may say that you are destined for heaven but heaven only comes after you go through levels of hell, hell unbearable and thoughts destroyed, destroyed by those who say they know better and that they have been where you are going. it is a good place, full of levels of comfort, full of happiness. but when you do not understand their happiness, why are you aiming for it in such vigor? with full heart, you head forward into the light of the already presumed, and already thought because each of us has a path to follow and follow it will will. dutifully. frustrated, you question each jump, each pace toward the inifinity of the non-existent. but you continue, trained like a rat in a maze. when you view it from above you realize the stupidity but what then? what does that prove? you are already trapped into the cycle. do not fight it; itt will cause you too much anger. accept it, find peace in it; they say life is a drug but i have found it a depressent. what is the end goal? why are you striving for this misplaced goal when you know the true goal? do yu question your goal? it is not good enough and no wone will let you have it. you must follow the pattern. frustration sets in. anger. harder. harder. why are thou in this pace? why doest thou despised me? Each enemy, each annoyeance only magnifies the way things should be, the peace you will once find. it is heaven, it is sacrifice. no other happiness…

as i wander into the thoughts of my frustration, i question my sanity. i know things are going downhill and i want so desperately to stop them from rolling but down they go. it magnifies my anger, my anger at the world for the cards i have been dealt. fairness is not life, that i know. but life depends on sanity and where is sanity in desperation. desperation crawls into your heart, into your soul, into your being and desperately pulls at everything you know and knew in an attempt to prove to you that you are not like them and never will be. they say you can catch. work and sacrifice and you too will experience their peace but no matter hat you realize your frustration and know it ain’t so. they are wrong. you will never catch up and you will never live their life. so you question why you bother but they tell you never to question; accept. accept that what they say is gospel. they know all since they have all. blind and without crutch, you grasp their words, fully aware that they can only hold you, maintain you for such a short time. and when the short time is up, where do you go? you are alone in your short-lived dream of understanding, dream of security. security is born. without it, you lose. you are the minority and you are lost. it is not possible to feel the happiness that they feel.

women. why are you born in such supression? why must everyone put you down as though you do not belong? you were here; you are one with them. fuck, you birthed them but yet they rule and they determine the god and you are not it. you are lost. they say you are weaker and meekly you agree because you know nothing else. you are lost. that is who you are- a lost soul with no direction forever. you will never catch up- they will forever push you down as though you are their little sex toys and have no use to them otherwise. strong, trying to reach out in sex and you are demeaned because you are playing their game and they do not like it. their games are theirs and you cannot even dream of playing along. you are female and you must behave like it. summission. it is your destiny. strip, show your naked body, bear your soul for they will not accept you else. Let them abuse you; they will anyhow. you cannot avoid it. you are a lost soul and no one will pull you up. either they are pushing you down or they are afraid that they too will be with you.

fair? you ask if my thoughts are fair? you question my judgement and you say what i can and cannot do based upon my gender. i too am a person and i am struggling in a great deal of excess pain. they will strike you down. give them time.

after watching the days pass in hope of finding the correct path for myself, i have discovered that i do not fit into traditional americana. i don’t like 9am and my brain still works at 5. mindnumbing experiences are not worth the measly $5 at the end of the day. i would rather enjoy my days and ignore the people that keep telling me i cannot do so. everywhere i turn in society, i see another human failure followed by a societal flaw. it is rather disappointing.

black shoes lacking scuffs. black linen socks neatly rolled. crisp newly ironed black pants synched by a black leather belt. white shirt, as crisp as the pants, evenly tucked into the pants. matching black jacket- 5 pockets and gold cuff links – looks brand new. deep maroon power tie chokes the soul of the wearer. his hair is combed and gelled in a direction that i once saw in a GQ magazine. each day, he goes to work like this, sits next to a matching individual, clocks in at 9, clocks out at 5. no comments, no questions, no thought. why do people expose themselves to such drudgery? i fell asleep thinking about it. i will always wear purple.

i wandered out of my house, alone and bored. it was not unlike any other day except for the fact that it was the day after the last one. but does time really matter when you don’t count it? Who created the timing scheme anyhow? 60 minutes in an hours, 24 hours in a day, 365.25 days in a year (gotta love leap year- created for mistakes). that person must have been as bored as i am now. i think the whole point of a clock is to have something to listen to when you are bored since it is so hard to hear your heartbeat from within your head.

When I was born, someone should have marked on my birth certificate, “Female. Destined to be nothing. Don’t encourage her for her future is bare.” I would have gotten the point. Instead, everyone decided to encourage me to be the best of the best, to never let anyone get in my way or put me down. From the smile on my childhood pictures, one could tell that I listened well. I was convinced that I could do anything. I saw no roadblocks.

Slowly, my view of the world has changed. The roadblocks get larger each year and I question my hirdling skills more and more. Every step becomes more painful and the people are inherently more evil. I trust too many people and everyone wants to get in my way (as though I am a threat or something!). Tonite, I was advised to keep a note of all my hirdles for the future. Rather than starting at Day 1 (which would take a goddess forever to digest), I am going to start with college.

I guess you could call me a punk. I was so proud to enter Brown University. I could not believe that they accepted me to attend their prestigous university. I wanted to work so hard and prove to everyone that I belonged. I had always loved math and figured that computer science woudl be the best place for me. The brochures looked interesting, the woman who introduced me to the department gave me every hope in the world. It seemed like the perfect community. Everyone knew everyone else and seemed so helpful. I could not wait to be a part of that.

Knowing full well that I needed to get involved fast (I needed a job as soon as possible), I made every effort to befriend my classmates and professor. The prof seemed intimidating but I was told that he was not so bad when you got to know him. They were right. If you weren’t terrified of him, he seemed human enough. In addition, his student advisee was so cool. She immediately helped me acquire a job within the computer information portion of the university (separate from computer science). I put all of my energy into my introductory course (which I loved) and into getting to know more than what they taught (UNIX and HTML were fun play-toys!). I started making appointments with the prof and we got to know each other.

Midway thru the semester, the professor decided to hire a student as an addition to his audio/visual group and I applied. By some miracle, I got that job. And that is where the problems began. I never considered that my hiring was due to my gender but apparently many members of the department spread rumors about who I was sleeping with (my sex life is far more interesting within those contexts!). Apparently, my promiscuity landed me the job. I ignored it. I figured one of them must have applied for the job and I had seen jealousy before.

It was then that I found out about “rumor,” an anonymous forum used to publicly ridicule other individuals. Having always considered myself a proponent of free-speech, I brushed it off thinking that it was just immature nonsense. Nothing in my body budged when I read “I want to rape dmb.” I just coped.

The following semester, I secured a position as a CS4 TA. My interview went extremely well. I was psyched about the job.. until, only hours after the announcement, a fellow classmate reminded me that I only got that job because of my gender. I was crestfallen. It didn’t help that I was starting to date the HeadTA. I realized rather quickly that the comment made by my classmate was common sentiment. Throughout the semester, my achievements soared and recognition followed. I was hired for two new positions: CS15 TA and Bridge Leader for a summer program aimed at minority students. With a great deal of vigor, I began preparation.

After weeks of preparation, I found out that I would be teaching a group of 4 women and 3 men, all of whom are minorities. From our earliest meetings, we got along. On a personal front, I was having difficulties with some people in the department who felt as though I was using my boyfriend for power and that the Bridge program was a hoax. I did my best to ignore them. In addition, personal mixed with work and the result was uncomfortable.

Shortly into the program, we started teaching the students HTML. One day, when they were logged in, working on their websites, a message popped up. It said, “Get out of here while you can.” Confused, I worked on tracking down the message. One my classmates owned a project that the students were using to recognize colors. Aimed at annoying myself, the program checked to see if my students were using it. If so, the message appeared. I confronted him and he removed it immediately.

Rumor had been escalating in cruelty. On the last day of my summer program, I sat down right before class only to see the following rumor appear, “I have a piece of dmb’s mail.” Haunted and confused, I tracked down my boyfriend. He ran all over the place and found out that I had left a printed letter from my mother in my home. Apparently, someone had seen it. Two hours later, the entire letter, complete with spelling mistakes and pine-alignment errors appeared on rumor. There was no doubt that the message appeared electronically.

I was horrified. I maintained composure as I finished the day with my students. By the time my class was over, three more letters appeared, all conversations between my mother and myself. Dazed, I went to see the one faculty member that I trusted, my advisor. Many hours were spent trying to track the information down. I realized that my knowledge of UNIX was far more extensive than I first believed. Every step made me more angry. Finally, the pressure got to me and I went home to Pennsylvania. As the week continued, the department head started a mad search and hysteria filled the department. Town meetings started and the department split into for and against. It was sick.

When I came back, those “for” me were rather supportive while the rest of the department was outright hostile. Apparently, it was my fault that the department was doing this. How frustrating! I did everything possible to make my life appear normal. I just wanted to learn.

As the year progressed, the harassment calmed down. Other people became targets, including a first year woman who only wanted to express herself. The incidents continued to disgust me. The people who harassed me are still in power and their clique is as large as ever. Graffiti still appears on the elevators and crushes me every time.

I am trying very hard to overcome this and be a person again. I am forever indebted to a group of amazing women for being tremendously supportive and reminding me that it doesn’t need to be like this. I can be my own person and learn to gather strength out of every incident. They are right. I will. I need to for my own sanity. For now, I just need to express my frustration…