I had walked out of the neighborhood, having missed the bus, and realized when I got to the main road that I didn't know which way to go. I couldn't remember the name of my new school. I eventually got there, and some classmates were studying for a test. One of them was studying something I'd written, and I said to her, "I can help you with that, because as it happens, I wrote it." Another student, seeing that there was a reference listed, commented "that isn't the same as writing it."
Worse, I realized as I looked at the paragraph in question that it was the one thing I had totally cribbed, and I didn't know what the hell it meant either.
Meanwhile, I remained confident about the test, which was to be multiple choice on European history. I had read and understood the assignment, and it's the sort of test I do well. I fully expected to ace it. But it turned out to be some kind of multimedia thing, no history in it at all, never mind European, and no directions: You were supposed to somehow intuitively know what to do and how. Not how I work best at all. I am verbal, linear. My classmates were so noisy I couldn't hear myself think. I liked the teacher, but she didn't like me. Time was running down.
I have completed one month of my six-month probationary period. I have moments when I suspect that, in a down economy, all these people really want is my clients and contacts and, as a result, the money I bring in. Not me.
The few times I have let myself be my self, mostly not until in the past week, I've gotten anxious about it and worried that the real me won't be welcome. That I won't even understand what's expected of me, that I will come prepared for the wrong thing, that passing work test won't even be a possibility as the calendar runs down toward December.
I've been faking it all these years. I'm gonna get busted.
Simply,
