“you’re one of the most rational young women i have ever met”

when i was a high school student in the middle of nowhere dead set on going to a pretentious, political small liberal arts college i got a small scholarship to bryn mawr. i was kind of obsessed with bryn mawr because bryn mawr was obsessed with producing the kind of well-rounded, deeply read, really studious student that i am not.

before i got the scholarship i had an interview on campus and i was telling the interviewer, a graduate, that i was terrible at math. “why are you terrible at math?” she asked me. “there is no reason for you to be terrible at math. you are one of the most rational young women i have ever met.” 

there is no reason for me to be terrible at math except that i do not care, at all, about math and it’s true that i’m extremely rational and it’s also true that i got that scholarship even though i told the woman i was shitty at math. 

like that “you’re cold inside” story, this is a very important story to myself about myself.