I don’t remember much. Actually, I remember nothing good, just every single mistake. Out of about five thousand notes, probably four dozen were fumbled or out of tune, but instead of brushing it off, each mistake stabbed into my psyche. I imagined the inner monologue of the other students watching. Look at the weirdo homeschooled kid, she’s not so great now, let’s have a party and SHUN her later!
I got to the end of the concerto. I bowed. There seemed to be five hours of mocking silence (probably three seconds without mocking, at most). Then I looked my teacher in the eye, said “I’m sorry,” burst into tears, and ran out of the room.
Well, I can’t say it was the worst thing for the upstart, standoffish little prodigy to do, because everyone realized I wasn’t as badass as I acted. After the meltdown, people were a lot nicer to me!
I eventually found my place in the school as the little overachieving sister everyone protected. “Keep Austin Weird” is the motto of the town, and it was the perfect place for me. I never wore matching socks on principle; I had a red sweater that eventually disintegrated from overuse. (Think Linus and his little blue blanket, that was my Big Dog maroon hobo sweater.) And over time I made friends. Because they talked to me, and I decided to talk back to them. Moral of the story: Mortify yourself—when you are at your lowest, you feel ironically self-confident!
I became part of the local classical music scene, on and off campus, playing wedding gigs every weekend and joining the Austin Symphony as the youngest member in their history (until a cellist named Doug joined, who was two months younger. What an ass). I lived at the music building for almost five straight years, practicing twelve hours a day, rehearsing from the time I arrived until they locked the doors at 11:00 p.m. Every single night.
And I loved every intense minute of it.
Oh, and that other full-time degree I was getting at the same time? Yeah, that was happening. But it was mostly just advanced theoretic mathematics, so how stressful could adding THAT on top of everything else be? Psh.
[?Ego Math Stuff?]
I’ll be honest: I got my math degree mostly for my dad and grandpa, not for myself. I never longed to become a calculus professor or dazzle the world with my elite accounting skills. I enjoyed it, sure. I liked being different, and I especially liked working hard at something and getting an A in it. That was the thing I REALLY liked. Getting good grades. It was pathological. At campus gatherings I’d introduce myself as, “Felicia Day. I have a 4.0.” Not EVEN kidding.
For any math student, the two hardest classes were the ones you took at the end of your degree: Group Theory, and Real Analysis. They were legendary. I knew people who could kick Stephen Hawking in the mind nuts who’d failed out of the classes twice. (A ridiculous exaggeration, but it seemed like a cool sentence.) But I was feeling pretty cocky about completing my degree and sticking the 4.0 landing. My dad promised me $200 if I made it, so there was a natural incentive for me to obsessively study with no breaks for four years straight.
I decided to take Group Theory over the summer, which was a shorter semester and even MORE risky than usual, but hey, I was the golden 4.0 child! Nothing could bring me down. Except colossal arrogant hubris, right?
I’m not gonna try to explain Group Theory in any specificity, but it’s the most high-level theoretical math you can do at an undergrad level, analyzing abstract algebraic structures and how they recur throughout mathematics, like rings, fields, vector spaces . . . okay, I’ve lost you. And myself. I couldn’t remember one bit of it if you waterboarded me. (Patched together that description above from Wikipedia.)
There were maybe fifteen students in the class, and it was taught by a guy who tutored me a bit before college, call him Dr. Cleary (yes, I had math tutors growing up, like royalty). During his first lecture, I was lost. Completely and utterly lost. It was like the professor was speaking a dead language, but it wasn’t nearly as cool as Klingon or Elvish.
This was gonna be bad.
First test came around, I’d studied a LOT, and I got . . . a 23. Yes, out of 100. A TWENTY-THREE. This was my next-to-last semester. I’d maintained a 4.0 the whole time. A red-marked 23 on a test was not just devastating for me, it was . . . well, yes. It was devastating. That’s a good word to use. I almost threw up, but I was in the back of the classroom crying really hard, and I had a weird suspicion that if I did both at once I’d have an aneurysm, so I just concentrated on weeping softly without drawing attention to myself.
After class, I went up to Dr. Cleary, holding back the tears and vomit. “Um, so, uh, what can I do to get an A in the class? Is it impossible now? Should I drop it?”
Dr. Cleary had ear hair like a werewolf, but he was compassionate. Unlike a real werewolf would be. “No, you shouldn’t drop it, Felicia. You take it, and if you fail, take it again. That’s what a lot of people do.”