Nikki's Diary
Sunday 4th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: Proud - Korn.
Current Mood: Bored and lonely.
I'm not happy with my bank and my ISP. The bank didn't pay my ISP for this month's access so my ISP suspended my account. Now I can't use the internet. That was on Tuesday, so it's been 5 days since I checked my email, etc etc. Damn hotmail, I'm going to have hundreds of junk mails in my accounts. The problem is, I don't know when I will be able to get access again. I'll have to go over to the bank and see what their problem is. I can't just reactivate my account from the computer either. My stupid ISP only lets you use credit cards from the computer, and I was using direct debit from my bank account. I'll probably have to ring up my ISP and get them to do it from there, otherwise I'll probably have to get a prepaid card again, so that I can convert that to a direct debit account. That means I'll have to get a new username. What's more is the plan I was on is being discontinued in November but they won't let anyone sign up on it anymore. It was 250 hours a month with unlimited downloads. The closest their next plan to that is 120 hours a month. Considering that I use, on average, about 180 hours a month, I'm being screwed. I may even shop around a bit and see if I can find a better ISP with a better plan.
This new look for my website is coming along nicely, the only benefit of not having internet access is that I can work on this site without being tempted by the net, although of course, I need the net to make some things work on here so that's annoying.
Tuesday 6th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: For Those About to Rock - AC/DC.
Current Mood: Still bored and still lonely.
Well hopefully today I will get my internet access restored. It's been an entire week since I last used the internet. I am having severe withdrawal symptoms. It's 1.20 am right now, but I don't know if I should go to bed now and get some sleep before going out tomorrow, or just stay awake and sleep when I come home. I think I'll go to bed now.
It's my birthday in one week. How exciting. I'll be 20 years old. I will die of shock if anyone actually remembers. Well they will remember, they just won't care. Which is much worse.
I received some sad news last week. One of my friends from high school died. It wasn't a total shock. He had cancer in his knee since the start of 2000. It is still quite a shock though.
RIP Pete.
Wednesday 7th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: Beg for Me - Korn.
Current Mood: Bored as usual and kinda sleepy.
Okay, so I didn't get my internet access restored yet. I'll see if I can hold off until the start of next week. I will have enough money then to definitely get it restored.
Yesterday evening, they had this national IQ test thing on the television. It had several major flaws. Obviously the fact that it was on television is one of them. Another flaw is that each question was worth the same amount. It wasn't timed, although you had a certain amount of time to answer each question. The older you are the more weighting you get. So if you are 15 and you get 70 out of 76, then the IQ was about 145. But if you were say, 50 then getting 70 out of 76 means you got a higher IQ. Which I think is another flaw. Every single IQ test I have ever seen has younger people getting a better weighting. Which makes sense. If you are 10 years old and can get 90% on the test, you should have a higher IQ then someone who is 40 years old and gets 90%. The test wasn't timed, so if you could do all the questions in an hour and get 90% you should have a higher IQ than someone who takes 3 hours and gets 90%. The test should have weightings for different sections. It had a whole section with questions that had nothing to do with intelligence. I noticed a question that had two perfectly correct answers yet they only had one answer for it. Then there was a question that was just plain wrong. Some of the people in the studio mentioned that, but nothing came of it. Then the worst thing of all. They divided people into groups. They had blondes (they were all women), builders, teachers, students, twins, kiwis, and celebrities. So at the end they ranked them. The blondes didn't come last either. Those 20 or so teachers had a higher average IQ. But that doesn't mean a damn thing. There were several women in the blonde section who were doing PhD's in highly technical fields. But, as is the problem with all statistics, that 'proves' that teachers are smarter than blondes. Which is of course complete crap. Firstly IQ tests don't measure how smart you are. 'Smart' is not just a simple score based on a couple of maths questions and meanings of words. Not only that, an IQ score is a quantity not quality. They had this woman from Mensa there. People think Mensa is some magical place where smart people go. Wrong. Mensa is simply an organisation for people with high IQ's who think they are superior to everyone else. They may have high IQ's but 10 litres of mud is still 10 litres of mud. Now it was all in fun, even the guy who developed the test said that. But people are going to now think things like men are smarter than women. According to the results of this test that's what it said. So now you will get some smartarse guy going around saying that he is smarter than all women because the test 'proved' it. The only thing the test proved is that some men have a higher IQ than some women. Of course, it also proves that some women have a higher IQ than some men. But that will not be mentioned. People like to group things, which is all well and good, except when decisions are based on it. Statistics never prove anything. As a result you can use statistics to prove anything you want. A good case is television ratings. The ratings company gives out 1000 boxes, which tell what is being watched at that time. REAL decisions are based on these very few boxes. 1000 boxes out of a population of 20 million doesn't say much at all. Of course these don't measure what people tape so they can watch later. A perfect example is the time that Channel Nine screen The West Wing. 10.30pm on a Tuesday night. According to them very few people watch it. Yeah, right. Most people have to tape it and watch it later because of it's late timeslot. But these boxes don't acknowledge that. So while in terms of real numbers it is probably in the top 5 most watched tv shows, it will never get into a ratings top 10, simply because the 1000 people with the boxes don't watch it as it is being screened. As a result, Channel Nine screen it very late, when they could screen it in prime time, which would ultimately gain them more ratings. That doesn't bother me so much. I tape it even if I watch it as it is being screened. But if they decide to not show it anymore, based on these ratings, then I will be pissed.
My real point here is that every single person is an individual and therefore grouping and stereotyping is absolutely pointless. The tv ratings is a basically harmless effect of grouping. But sometimes life or death decisions are based on stereotyping. Real people get hurt because of some moron deciding that every single member of the 'group' is the same. Sometimes people will even group different groups together because they are 'similar'. By now, you have probably guessed what I'm talking about. One such grouping is transsexuals and crossdressers, sometimes even drag queens.
Obviously I don't have a problem with drag queens or crossdressers. After all they are just clothes. But for a drag queen or a crossdresser, they can always take the clothes off at the end of the day. They still ARE a drag queen or a crossdresser, but they don't have to live it 24/7.
Before I realised I was transsexual, I considered myself a crossdresser. I would chat to people on the net, and one question I would hear frequently is: do other people know? Especially, do your parents know? From my point of view, I was like, no, why should they? So I liked to wear girls clothes sometimes, why should I HAVE to tell anyone, especially my parents? Crossdressing is a perfectly harmless thing, it can be quite fun, but why take the chance of ruining a reasonable relationship over something as trivial as clothes? Of course, it shouldn't be that way. People shouldn't get all freaked out and worse, be disgusted by crossdressing, but unfortunately they do. So I tell my mother that I like to wear girls clothes sometimes, and she totally freaks out and kicks me out. It's not worth it over something as simple as clothes. Of course, I never told her. I suspect she knows but for the most part she doesn't mention it. Over the years, she has made little sarcastic remarks about it, but nothing that suggests she definitely does know.
However, if you think you relationship with someone would be improved by telling them, then by all means, go right ahead, But, as I was saying, if you like to wear girls clothes sometimes, you don't have to live and breathe it. As a transsexual you do. Especially if you have started transition. It's a bit difficult to hide growing breasts, not impossible but difficult.
I had a conversation with one of my friends a couple of weeks ago over the net. It was about transgendered people. He didn't know the difference between a drag queen, crossdresser and transsexual. We have Celebrity Big Brother on at the moment, and one of the celebrities was Vanessa Wagner. He is a drag queen. My friend was saying how much he would rather not be looking at him and instead be looking at Imogen. Frankly I agree with him, Imogen was gorgeous, and Tobin (Vanessa) was just plain annoying. As Vanessa he is bearable but only in short spells. One time he was dressed in this weird looking bikini, which was okay, but as his job is a drag queen, you would think he would at least get rid of his body hair. A hairy belly and a sparkly bikini just don't go too well together. But as himself, he was just annoying. But my friend called him a crossdresser, so I said no, he is a drag queen. We had a conversation about the differences between drag queens, crossdressers, and transsexuals. I don't know if he suspected anything, but he did ask how I knew so much about it. I just said I had read about it, which is mostly true. Although, on my email address that I use with my friends, I changed the name from my boys name, to the initials L.N. then my last name. So I'm kinda slowly letting more and more out.
However he isn't the only one that has these misconceptions about transgenderism. That is truly frightening. People like Vanessa are what the public see. The vast majority of transsexuals are in stealth mode. You won't see them camping it up on tv. So when transsexuals want the right be to acknowledged as the gender they actually are, they won't get it. Because the public see people like Vanessa and think that we aren't serious. We are just the joke of society. How many times do you see a transgendered character in a movie or tv show and we are the joke? Either that or we are seen as a psycho or a freak. Name one transgendered character where their transgenderism isn't focused on.
So as a result of stereotyping and grouping, transsexuals suffer, sometimes it's a matter of life or death. I may be transsexual, but I'm also a person who has a wide variety of talents, e.g. raving on and on like this :) But when I come out, I'll be known as the transsexual. Which makes me mad in another way as well. I am not A transsexual, (even though sometimes I refer to myself as that, it's just for ease, as it's the only word there is and that's just how it is written) I am transsexual. You don't call people who suffer from cancer, cancers do you? No, of course not. Transsexualism is a terrible birth defect. Nobody wants to be transsexual. You SUFFER from it, you don't enjoy it. As a result, I shouldn't have to fork out the entire cost of transition just because some morons have decided that I want to be like this.
I hope that in the future transsexualism will be more widely understood, and that at the very least other young transsexuals won't have to go through hell just to be recognised as the person they truly are.
I'll move this essay to my thoughts page when I can be bothered.
Thursday 8th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: November Rain - Guns 'N' Roses.
Current Mood: Frustrated and annoyed.
Just bloody great. Now I won't get the money to have my internet access restored. Don't you just hate how things happen just to screw you out of stuff? I'll see how much money I have today and decide what I'm going to do.
I am so bored without the internet. I've been playing games and working on this website, but I miss talking to my friends and participating in forums and stuff. Especially the boards on Bolt.com. My username on there is MissNikki_tg. Check out my profile sometime.
I'm getting a prepaid internet card today, so I should be back on the net very soon. This just means I'll need a new username, which isn't so bad, except I can't use my old email address now. That's the only problem, well that and I'm only getting 60 hours, so I'll need to put some money in the bank before they run out, so I can convert the prepaid account to a direct debit account. At least I'll be able to check my hotmail accounts. I bet there are a few hundred junk mails waiting for me.
Saturday 10th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: Everywhere - Michelle Branch.
Current Mood: Happy and hungry.
So I got a prepaid card and I'm back on the internet.
I uploaded this redesigned site today.
Monday 12th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: Bodyrock - Moby.
Current Mood: Happy.
It's my birthday tomorrow, how exciting, I'll be 20 years old. I feel more like 50.
Tuesday 13th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: Beautiful Stranger - Madonna.
Current Mood: Very happy.
It's my birthday today. I'm 20. It's very very weird. Here's to the next 20 years of my life. :)
Tuesday 20th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: Wake up - Rage Against The Machine.
Current Mood: Apprehensive.
I'm very close to telling my best friend about me, and I'm very nervous. I don't know how I'm going to start that conversation. I could even tell him today, it all just depends. By telling him, it makes it very real. By coming out, it changes from being just a 'fantasy', into something that is actually happening. Am I ready for that? Well I know that I'm at the point where keeping it a secret just isn't doing my head any good. Anyway, I plan to have told him by the end of the week. Wish me luck.
Sunday 25th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: Whiskey In The Jar - Metallica.
Current Mood: Ecstatic, well not quite.
Okay, so I told my best friend that I'm transsexual, and he said he is cool with it. That means so much to me. If you happen to read this, thank you so much.
Friday 30th August, 2002.
Song I'm listening to right now: It's On - Korn.
Current Mood: Bored.
I am so bored. I've been reading a few online comics, a couple with tg characters, but now I've finished and I'm sooo bored. I'll put their links on the links page.
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