MY VERONA

High School Days: Installment #2

Getting into high school…

I saw only one person when I sat down in the empty seat by the hissing radiator: a boy with blond hair, haunting a shadow in the dim corner of the room across from me…

My mother had heard of Verona High from the parent of one of her harpsichord students. “It’s only for the smartest people,” she told me “They’d be stupid not to accept you.”

This is a perfect example of how my mother brainwashed me with confidence. From infancy, I’d been programmed to believe that I was exceptional, better, even, than anyone else. Any suggestion of self-doubt was met with a loud “Ha! Don’t be ridiculous.”

I’m very grateful that I was imbued with arrogance rather than something boring, like friendliness. To my mother, it was not arrogance. It was a fact—the superiority I was supposed to feel about myself was a reality. So, it would have been shameful for me to feel “insecure” about anything.

Oh no. There was nothing worse than insecurity. Except mediocrity. And laziness. And also conformity. It’s what made me so sick in seventh grade. It was the only culprit. Having to endure the insecurity, mediocrity, and conformity of my peers in “Middle School” was the sole cause of my unhappiness. This was understood between me and my mom; I was only unhappy because I was very, very smart.

My application to Verona consisted of three parts.