June 25, 2018

It was the first day of class and we were asked to take out our notebooks. I looked in my bag to see that I hadn’t brought anything with me today. I made the assumption that we wouldn’t need anything on the first day. Fortunately we were handed back out notebooks that we turned in at the end of last semester. I opened it to the first blank page as I walked back to the desk and waited for further instructions.

Our first assignment was to write the title of our favorite song. I’ve always felt uncomfortable revealing preferences for anything and this time was no different. I told myself that I could write down anything for the sake of the assignment but I couldn’t commit to anything out of fear of being judged by anyone who might glance at my page. It seemed that everyone else had no problem with quickly writing something down on their pages. I finally settled with Daft Punk’s Something About Us and closed the notebook. I flipped through my notebook again to realize that the page I was just on was the only empty page in a notebook full of math notes.

Our professor asked us to vote for someone we would like to perform their chosen song. I could feel my heartbeat rising rapidly and was beginning to panic internally. I couldn’t even hear the other students’ performances because I was too focused on hoping that no one was going to point at me. I felt like I was about to faint when I saw that a couple of people I knew from elementary school were voting for me.