“the return to school was such a blow to my ego—and my self-righteousness. There I could see my own intellectual inadequacies magnified and spotlighted . . . I had forgotten what a disastrously bad student I was—even when I did well. I had forgotten all the futility and depression and effort—working so hard to do what others did quickly and easily, inventing tricks to help. Tricks that couldn’t help in math and science classes.”
