Some of my younger years have been spent in a state of poverty, the others in a state of meager income. This has been by no fault of my own; I was born into this class and still being so young have not had the opportunity to squirm free of the destitution. Even now, I live in a woefully poor neighborhood and have my own income needfully subsidized by academic grants and a generous benefactor.

Despite this, I never regard myself as being poor. That is not to say that I behave as if I were well off, but I cannot remember a time in recent years when I have felt poor. It is as if affluence had less to do with resources and more to do with the content of one's character. I know this is untrue, but I am lulled into feeling this way. I have watched carefully the prejudice cement in my psyche.

How, though, can it be helped? I am surrounded by people of scarce resources, yet I am nothing like them~ They scrounge and squander irresponsibly, are solely concerned with the most trivial of things. They have no higher thoughts; they kill over verbal disputes about things that don't even exist! Hardly a single percent among them knows half of what I do about any subject! They're unaffordably gluttonous and must divide what little they have between half a dozen screaming and ignorant children. They don't have the acuity, the scope, the ambition or the time that I do. I look at them, and I look at me, and I cannot fathom how a person of my character could remain for much longer in the same bracket as them. This is why I do not feel as though I were among them. I regard my status as a temporary trick of fate; their status will likely remain with them until they die.

I feel though that my superiority has been undermined by my own recognition of it. This ironic prejudice is deep. I cannot help but feel like a pearl plunged into the muck and filth, but it is not right that I should feel this way. They are no more equipped to remove themselves from this state than I was as a child - or as I am at the moment for that matter. I shouldn't despise them as I do, because I realize, however reluctantly, that personal character has hardly a thing to do with status and security, and I realize with even more reluctance that they are cut from the same cloth as myself.

Dilemmas like these leave me all the more uncertain about the attainability of my long term ambitions. I will be Sisyphus though; I will waste myself away against the task, even if it may be futile. It is the only thing I have.

A classmate inquired about my major. "What is it?" she wanted to know. I responded truthfully, "Biology," as I had for other inquirers. She paused for some seconds and looked puzzled, as if she were trying place the subject into a specific field of work; I'd seen this before. There was always this puzzled pause. She asked me what I intended to do with a degree in biology. Normally I do not address that question or address it in a way not indicative of my true intent, because I do not consider it a legitimate question.

What will I do with it? Could it be that after earning it, I will possess a wealth of astounding knowledge? Is that not a worthy enough mission for these people? Why do I have to plan to "do" anything with it? Must every scrap of knowledge be subject to an immediate monetary application, such as nursing or dentistry, in order to have merit? Doesn't the degree have merit in and of itself?

I could hear the "M" forming on her lips; the next words were going to be "medical school?" Her suspicion being that I had designs on being a doctor or a nurse. To halt any blasphemous pronunciation from her, as I really am quite tired of seeing either of these two professions speculatively superimposed over my goals, I for the first time blurted out an honest and direct answer as to my intent. I intended as much to quiet her as I did to test for a reaction, as I really had no idea how someone might react to my ambitions. I articulated loudly, but allowed for some hesitation as to invite her critique.

I answered, "I want a PhD in Genetics. I want to contribute to research. I want to be a geneticist."

Now this was odd. What was her response? Was it surprise, encouragement, disdain, curiosity, or indifference!? It was none. She responded in utter silence. She abandoned eye contact and did not utter another word on the topic. How ought I to gauge this as a reaction? Did she detect how weary I was of the topic, and did that quiet her? Did she quiet herself just to privately scoff at such an achievement? Was she so surprised by this unusual answer that she was at a loss and withdrew? Perhaps she had no thoughts whatsoever, and would have responded similarly to any answer I gave. Perhaps I am futile and analyze too much.