Imagine you are back in high school. You are sitting in your English class. It
is silent reading time. You carefully take a sip of your cup of coffee. You put
your book down and stare out the window at the gym class that comes running by.
You wonder if you have to do any running for gym today as well, or if your
teacher is nicer. You think of your girlfriend and wonder how bored she is
currently in French. You pick your book up again, and start reading just as
your teacher looks up to see if everyone is still reading. You take a quick
peek at the clock, only 10 minutes left to go! You take out your Palm V and add
a note to yourself about picking up another book by this author. You take a
look down at the floor where your backpack is sitting and you make a quick
mental note to clean it out sometime and wash it.
The bell rings, and you jump up. You are not in school anymore, you are at
home, and the bell is the front door. You get up out of bed wondering what time
it is, and wander down stairs without getting the question answered as it seems
the power is off. You yawn as you open the door, and take a look at the guy
standing there pulling the door bell. It is Fedex. They are delivering the
stuff you ordered online only two days ago. Just as you are starting to take
the package apart the power comes back online, causing all the devices in the
house to start flashing 12:00. With a sigh you take a look at your watch that
was sitting on the kitchen table, 17:35, you make a mental note not to sleep
all day again. After all the devices are reset you take a look at the mess on
the kitchen table. Motherboard, hard drives, memory, everything all scattered
over the place. You find the other box Fedex has also delivered, you assume it
contains the new computer case. You look at the box and notice that it has been
kicked around by Fedex, once again. Your parents are not going to be home for a
while, so you decide to call up your girlfriend Melissa. Your heart skips a
beat at the excitement of having her around to help you out. She picks up the
phone and you say "Hey, just got my stuff from Fedex, want to come drop by and
give me a hand?" Her reply is quick, "Sure, I'll give you a hand in more than
one way", she giggles at the sexual connotation. you get back to unpacking.
After all the components are laid bare on the table your girlfriend shows up,
she rings the door bell and you let her in. Without even saying a word she
walks over to you, and gives you a big kiss, she then walks over to the table.
You follow her. As she is about to say something, you reach into your pocket
and pull out what she was going to ask about. You hand them to her, and let her
more feminine hands take care of the case for you. You look over the parts
scattered all over the table, in the mean time she slowly one by one takes the
screws out of the case, which seems to have survived the travel from Newegg in
New Jersey to Arizona without any troubles, even-though the packaging it came
in was for all other intents and purposes destroyed.
The rig is complete, you and your girlfriend completed a task normally done in
a few hours within 45 minutes. The big question you have is, does it boot up?
You walk up stairs back to your room to grab the spare LCD monitor you have
sitting around. You also grab a monitor and the FreeBSD install CD. You think
to yourself, a server should not be run on anything else. You head back
downstairs, and find that Melissa has already found an extra power outlet in
your kitchen. You hand over the keyboard and the CD, and plug in the power to
the computer and the LCD. You then plug it into the onboard video card. You hit
the power button ....
Fast forward a few years, you are sitting in University and you have an awesome
teacher named Ellen. She has just given you an assignment that involves writing
in the second person, and you can't think of anything. Your mind wanders as she
starts to give more instructions, and something about a free writing exercise.
You wander a few years back and wonder where it went wrong with Melissa. Was it
the fact that your mom walked in on you two in bed? Was it the fact that you
are a lesbian? Maybe it was the distance that was generated between the two of
you when your mom did not let you go out on Friday night anymore. Made you go
to Church classes, and tried to make you like guys. You start thinking about
how society is screwed up, and how it is wrong that society does not accept
people that are not like them. You think you are going to write this second
person essay on just that topic. You take out a pen and start jotting down
ideas, unbeknownst to you, you are following the class. Your teacher Ellen has
just told everyone to make a spider web of what they want their essay to be on,
and how they want it modelled. You start having more questions than answers. It
is 20 past the hour, class is over. That concludes all the classes you have for
today and as you make your way towards the exit you notice a girl you remember
from your Linux/UNIX class sitting in the corner playing some new game. As you
walk over you ask yourself if you are really falling for her. She has beautiful
green eyes, not unlike your own. However hers have a tint of blue in them as
well. You get more and more confused as you walk over to where she is sitting.
As you walk over to her, you start to get more scared. You start asking
yourself questions like, how should I approach her. You feel insecure, and
worst of all, you have no-one to fall back on yet. No-one to talk to about your
feelings. Right before you get to her, you panic, you turn around and walk
away. Away from the feelings of insecurity, away from someone you are falling
in love with. You know you are falling in love, the butterflies, they are all
signs. The cold sweats, the dreams. You want to be with her, you can't foster
the courage to walk up to her and talk to her. You don't seem to have power
over your legs as your body walks away while your brain and heart want to go
back. You know you want to be with her, everything about her makes you
complete. Her eyes, her body, the way she moves, the way she talks and smiles.
You know Jennyfer would make you a complete human being, and happy again. You
just don't have the power, you are afraid of failure.
That night as you are lying in bed, thinking of Jennyfer you wonder how to
approach the problem. You ponder on it for a long time before finally falling
asleep. You dream about being with Jennyfer again. Holding her hand, kissing
her lips, hugging her, taking showers with her, sleeping with her. It seems
like the dream never ends, but at 07:30 your alarm clock goes off, and wakes
you up. You hit it, and it stops making the god-awful noise. You get out of
bed, and head into the bathroom, you turn on the shower, and head into the
kitchen. You grab some corn flakes and some milk. Following your daily ritual
you take the milk and put it in the bowl, after which you let it sit there and
walk back to the bathroom. By this time your shower is nice and warm and
provides a soothing stream of water. You wash your hair, and shave. You get out
of the shower, still naked you walk back into the kitchen, grab the bowl, the
corn flakes and you poor them in. You start eating as you walk back to the bed
room. Here you quickly throw on some clothes, put on some eye liner, and grab
your purse and head out the door. You take care to lock the door, and run to
the bus.
As you are on the bus it hits you. You are going to go back to your high school
days and do what you did best. Write little notes. The ones you used to write
about the teacher when they had their socks on backwards, or when you tried to
get Melissa's attention to go out to lunch after school was over. You start
thinking about how you could approach the situation. As you write the note you
start thinking of how to get it to Jennyfer. The note you write is simple. In
it you ask her if she wants to come out to dinner tonight. You see her in the
computer lab when you walk in. Different location, yet she still seems like she
is sitting alone in a corner. Her beauty shining like the ray's of the sun as
it rises. As you walk by, you nonchalantly put the note down on the table and
walk on. You have two classes to go before you might get a reply. You are
hoping so desperately to get a reply. You sit through your two classes with
anxiety wondering if Jennyfer will take you up on your offer, or if she will
shoot you down. As you walk into your Linux/UNIX class you notice that at the
stop you normally sit at, there is a note half hidden underneath the keyboard.
You take it out and read it. All it says is "Who is asking?". Your heart drops
as you fear that she thinks you are helping out some guy. You scribble on a
note "Me", and hand it to her with a slightly trembling hand. The smile she
gives you though gives you hope. At the end of class as you are exiting you
feel a slight tap on your shoulder. You turn around and there is Jennyfer. She
smiles and gives you the most reassuring nod, and then says "Yes, I do want to
go out to dinner with you!"
