Hey everyone,
    It's me again, Alyssa, and I'm my same old semi-depressed self with nobody to talk to... well... it's not actually all that bad, but it would be nice to have someone to talk to once in a while. First of all, I'd like to apologize to those of you who absolutely hate HTML formatting in e-mail messages, however, I do know that the version of Microsoft Outlook I'm using sends messages both in plain ordinary text and HTML text, so those of you using plain-text e-mail readers should be able to read this message without having to go through a bunch of HTML code. I think formatted e-mail can convey a little bit of a personal touch to an e-mail message, as well as emphasize certain points better. A majority of the people I correspond with via e-mail have software capable of handling such messages anyway, and it hasn't had any adverse effects on the mailing list programs I've encountered either. =P
    [Contact information edited out =P]
    Things are going relatively well here for me, except for the noted lack of people to talk to... well, actually, more of a lack of anyone to talk to without worrying about what sort of information I could trust him/her with. (Oh, by the way, the male to female ratio here is about 30 to 1.) Although things seem a bit more relaxed than the descriptions I've seen or heard, mentioning the wrong thing to the wrong person could mean the end of my career. I suppose that's a major drawback to being in a branch of the military; one must conform, or at least maintain the appearance of conforming, to certain rules and regulations. *sigh* Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Oops... wrong group.
    While at this point I don't regret entering the Navy, I do wonder sometimes how things would've been different if I didn't. What would I be doing? Where and how would I be living? Perhaps most importantly, what gender would I be presenting myself as to the world? Not exactly easy questions to answer.... Given my high school track record, I probably would be attending some sort of community college somewhere hoping to be able to transfer later on to a four-year institution of higher learning, pursuing a degree in computer science perhaps. I can't really say if I'd be living with my parents or living out in town somewhere... each option has its own advantages and disadvantages. I would definitely be holding some sort of job, maybe the same job I had through high school.
    As far as gender goes... that's a bit more difficult to say. My mind is definitely more feminine than masculine, but I don't exactly look or sound very much like a female (as much as I'd often like to...). I'd probably stay androgynous with clothing and appearance until I started feeling more confident about presenting myself as female.... Most people don't ever stop and think about this sort of thing; you're either one or the other and it ends at that. Sometimes I stop and think to myself "Why?" Why am I doing this to myself? Why would I prefer life as a female? Why, when according to many people I've encountered throughout my life, I could lead a very successful life as a male. I haven't ever been able to come up with a good answer. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe this was just the way things were meant to be. Yes, I probably can have a successful life as a male, but it wouldn't feel right. This doesn't feel right. There's just something inside me, something I can't really describe, telling me this isn't the way things should be.
    I can't help but wonder if somewhere out there, in another plane of existence, there's a girl at [location] doing exactly what I'm doing: sitting in front of her computer typing an e-mail message to her friends. Of course the difference would be that she wouldn't think twice about her gender; like most of the population, the thought would probably never occur to her. On the other hand, there could be someone in yet another plane of existence in just the opposite situation, wishing she was male.
    To say that it was easy for me to come to terms with this would be lying; in fact, it's one of the main reasons why I would seem quiet, unmotivated, and sometimes depressed at school, which was a factor in my declining performance. If I had come to grips with it all earlier, I'm fairly certain my grades would've been better and I may have been a little more cheerful, more involved in the social aspects of high school. In that alternate quantum reality where I crawled out of my shell earlier in life, you may have always known me as Alyssa. (I feel like I'm repeating myself...) Instead, I hid. I hid from the Honors/AP class; I hid from Bolsa Grande; I hid from everybody. I hid in this newly emerging realm known as the Internet, where you can be whatever you want; you're free to be yourself; you're free to be someone else (within limits...); you're free from rejection. (Any of those fit you Sally? j/k)
    Too much of it without keeping up with reality is bad; the walls of my compartmentalized life couldn't take the strain for too long and they began to crumble. My performance, and with that my grades, began to slip. Many people were telling me that I had a lot of potential, but I wasn't fully using it. I just couldn't tell anyone why I wasn't quite at peace with myself. I still can't, not the people around me now, but it's different now. Now I have friends, both friends I know in real life and friends I've only met online, to support me, to help me through difficult times. (Maybe I should write a book someday... Nah... Especially not with the way the political waters are now.)
    Boot camp was a revealing experience for me. Among the things I learned at boot camp was the value of friendship; friends can help you out of difficult situations when you least expect it. (Except of course when you have writer's block. =P Nobody can seem to help me there.) Friendships can also emerge when you don't expect them to as well. There were a couple of guys who I didn't always treat the way I should've, but despite that, they came to my aid when I needed it, without me asking for it. In boot camp, I stopped taking some of the simpler pleasures of life for granted, things I used to be able to enjoy without really thinking about them... eating between meals, sending and receiving e-mail, staying in constant contact with my friends from Bolsa, listening to music, watching TV... all things that can't be done while in boot camp. You don't have too much freedom in boot camp, being restricted to doing what you're told, when you're told. Friends are much too valuable to ignore and lose like the change people drop on the sidewalk.

Feeling a little emotionally distraught,

Alyssa Nguyen