Author: Lucija Boljkovac, Medicinska škola Osijek
I was unsatisfied with the life I was living. My life was great for a second generation Mexican-American woman with a high school degree, but it wasn’t all I wanted to become. I’ve always been smart, although my intelligence could never shine properly because of my high school teachers who didn’t bother involving me in any afterschool activities. The only teacher who had taken any interest in me was a young man who just started teaching. He helped me study for my tests and I finally got accepted into MIT, but I’ve never been very lucky. I was accepted into the university but being second best in my generation meant that a scholarship was out of the question.
I prayed for a miracle yet it never came, my parents still believed in the traditional gender roles which meant they’d rather see me at home with the kids than at school somewhere away from them. I had nowhere to go, every university I looked at had high entrance fees and there was no way I could manage to pay for my education, so I became a mechanic. Working with machines had always been a dream of mine but cars had always seemed too easy. Tianhe-2 is perfectly complex and interesting but no one is allowed to access it unless you’re one of Europe’s research scientists and system-level computer software engineers. Neither of which you can easily accomplish without a degree from somewhere overpriced and famous.
I came up with a ludicrous plan to “borrow” some rich girl’s identity for a while to see the supercomputer once in my life, then my dreams would come true and life could resume its natural course of events and I would allow myself to get married and become a stay at home mom. Hacking had always been a hobby and sometimes a part time job since it helped pay the bills, it wasn’t hard to find a suitable candidate. As soon as I secured all my documents and background information, I hopped onto a plane to China. Only a few people asked for my ID and one person at the actual supercomputer told me they remembered me from school. Security at the fastest supercomputer in the world is unbelievably low. I’d gotten to the computer with ease and started working on the computer testing its limits with borderline impossible commands.
Suddenly, someone tapped my shoulder and I slowly turned around to see a curious looking woman around my age. We joked around and she praised my programing skills. I came up with a stupid excuse about learning it in school and in that moment I realized she had seen right through my facade. She promised not to tell anyone I’m a fraud if I agreed to tell her the truth. I accepted the proposal and told her everything. She was appalled to learn what awaits me upon my arrival home. She left without a word but I later received a cheque with enough money to go to MIT. I couldn’t believe it. Even now while I’m attending my second year here I’m still scared of waking up and realizing it was all a dream.
Who would have thought it wasn’t my intelligence or wealth that got me here but my error, my stupidity. How was I even supposed to know that the rich girl’s sister worked at the supercomputer?
