I was lucky enough to test into the best high school in the city. But then came my 1: Am I good enough? It was a question that 2 me through my first month, even as began to settle in, even as I got used to the early morning wake-ups and moving between buildings for class.
I knew I had to work to ground myself. My earliest strategy involved keeping quiet and trying to 3 my new classmates. Who were these kids anyway? How did they learn in school? All I knew was that they were the smartest kids in the city, obviously. 4 wasn't I as well? Hadn't I landed here because I was smart like them? The truth is that I didn't know. This 5 was like a deadly cell that threatened to divide and divide again, unless I could find some way to stop it.
Fortunately, my first round of grades turned out to be 6, and so did my second. Over the course of my first two years, I began to build the same kind of 7 I'd had at my previous school. With each little achievement, my doubt 8 took leave.
I loved any subject that involved writing and labored through math. I had classmates who were always a step or two ahead of me, whose achievements seemed effortless, but I tried not to let that get to me. I was beginning to understand that if I put in extra hours of studying, I could often 9 the gap. I wasn't a straight-A student, but I was always 10 and I made progress.
