How 'bout I show you the back of my hand?!?!

Props to my Taiwanese twin sister Cin-yee for that one. (An inside joke I'll explain in the next post).

An omen should have been the long ass line at Starbucks that kept me from getting my morning crack, and the old lady driver on the cell phone that was inching along in front of me, which made me late for work. It also doesn't help that my braces are very abrasive today for some reason and the wires are poking out again. Woohoo!

Today, I could feel myself becoming ill from stress, which is not good. I was gonna wait to write about glass ceilings until after tomorrow, but it can't wait. I'll just put up a part two to all of this next time.

Gah! There are so many -isms in this world, but when you are a vic of multiple ones, that gives Goliath an extra 10 foot advantage on you. I'm finding more and more in my work a high amount of glass ceilings that I thought wouldn't be where they were, and that a lot of allies have turned out to be enemies actually. Oasises that turn out to be crap.

Today, there was a miscommunication that was made between myself and another rep from a different department. A colleague got into the mix, and things just fell apart. All day long, she keeps mentioning to my boss the error that was made (mind you a miscommunication) and how it seemed like the world was gonna come to an end because of it, all at the hands of me (well, at least that's how I felt). Great. I do my best to fix the misunderstanding, but it still doesn't seem like it did any good. I spent 3 freakin' hours doing clean-up, only to get this backhanded comment: "Gosh KB, you seem like you have so much on your plate. Work and school. You must be stressed." Nice. I really feel the sincerity there. Tomorrow, I'm taking a sick day, because I really don't feel well.

Instances like these further helps me to recognize the -isms that I get hit in the face with everyday. I'm not gonna dwell on the racial and ethnic difference, because that's too obvious. Unless I pull a Michael Jackson, I just gotta work it out as best as I can. What sucks is that often I get confronted with the gender, age, and "intellectually" related barriers. I say "intellectual" because smarts should not always just be noted by the degrees you have, or the amount of time you spent in school, but life skills as well. How you interact with people in general. It all just amazes me, which I really try to avoid dwelling on. But when you're constantly confronted by it, It's not easy to overcome. I mean, I'm one of the youngest folks in my cohort, and the job I do requires an employee with a masters level (I've had this job almost a year and half, and things are coming along fine), so you can just kind of get a glimpse at such instances that may arise, bearing in mind that I've spared you the racial and ethnic examples to boot. Believe me, I'm doing you and myself an emotional favor.

A mentor once told me to pick your battles wisely when you are treated unfairly. Which is so true. But sometimes I think, how many times do I have to lay down and play dead? How is that going to wrong a right? With getting a fat dose of -isms that muck up the situation, it's not easy to pick apart the ammo used in the attack. Case in point, a few years ago I was helping a student write her thesis. A few months rolled by, and I saw her and her family at a restaurant. She wound up getting an A on her project and she couldn't wait to introduce me to her husband:
My student: "Honey, here is my tutor I was talking to you about."
Husband: "Oh really? Where?!?!" (mind you, he turned around with a smile. After my student pointed at me, this is what I got)
Husband: (Dead pan expression) "Interesting." (Turns to make some weird ass eye contact with his brother).
My student: mouthing the words "I'm so sorry."
Yay! Ok, how would you take some crap like that? I felt like my student didn't need to feel sorry that her husband was an asshole, but I digress. How would you respond to something like that?

I'm often very charged about my area of study and what I want to do, but shitty experiences like these make me highly cautious (which I'm not sure is good or bad). I can only imagine what life while be like when I get my doctorate. Well, at least there is dance to relieve stress, and the resort of my car to blast music in as a putter around. Someday, I shall overcome.