Chapter 1: Imposter Syndrome
Left. Check. Right. Check. Coast is clear. I tip toe into the lecture hall like a ghost. Life is hard when you're your own lookout. The real students crowd around the professor. While they're all looking to get rid of their assignments, I'm looking to make myself skaars.
I can just hear mummy's voice telling me I had no business being here.
"Het ek jou nie gese gaan study net medies hier om die draai? Weeti wat gaa soek jy oor die waters nie." (Did I not tell you to just study Medicine around the corner? I don't know what you're looking for overseas)
Ja, ja I know mummy. Thing is, she's (as always) right. Had I stayed in South Africa, I'd have slayed. Medicine, engineering, freaking rocket science if I wanted. With my grades, the sky is the limit.
Here I'm just ordinary. I knew the moment I saw accepted on that screen that I was coming though. Call me stupid, pissing away the hard work of the last three years, but I needed a change. If not now, when?
The chatter rose as they filed into the lecture hall, looking for seats. I parked it somewhere in the middle, paranoid that between my brown skin and the stamp on my forehead that said foreigner, I would be spotted as not belonging.
"Imposter syndrome," said a voice from above me.
"Genade (Goodness) China, I could have clocked you," I fussed, nearly jumping out of my skin.
"Rude and racist. I'm Korean-American. Name's Sam and you don't belong here," said the new comer, dropping in the seat next to me.
"Voorbarige (Forward) China," I mumbled to myself.
"Excuse me?" he returned, a blank look on his face.
"What gave me away San? Was it my brown skin or my accent?" I asked, turning my body towards him.
"Actually, it's the fact that you don't have any of these," he said, unpacking his sketchpad and a range of stationery, including a range of pens and a maths set.
He leaned in close and I swallowed, moving back.
"Boy you better back up and mind your business if you want to keep your front teeth," I said, summoning the famed coloured bravado with absolutely zero foundation.
"Also, I watched you on the way here, ducking out of an introductory computer class to join first year architectural students," he continued on with a scoff, leaning in closer still.
Fudge. So much for only the IT ou(guy) noticing that. My eyes darted back and forth for two seconds, before my faux bravado returned. I jammed my finger into his chest and pushed him back into his seat.
"Still not your business," I said, glaring his ass into place.
He shrugged me off and moved past me, opening up his sketchpad.
"Just saying. What you're feeling, it's called imposter syndrome. Better hope Prof doesn't spot you and ask a question."
Imposter syndrome. A term I learned early on in the semester. He had no idea how right he was. That IT class he saw me duck out of wasn't actually my class either. Queue nervous laughter. Can't a girl show up in a random lecture, attempting to outrun her uncertainty about the rest of her life, without everyone staring her down for it?!
"And my name is Sam," he grunted. "S-A-M. Short for Samuel. I was born here."
"Wel vok my (Well fuck me)," I cursed. I had a particularly difficult time keeping the Afrikaans out of mouth when I was nervous.
My hands gripped the desk as I searched for a way out. The lecturer was calling for the students' attention. Class was about to begin. Stuck dead center in the middle, I had no trouble watching the smirk spread across his face as I slid under the desk slowly. Eventually, my idiocy caught up with me and my head slumped into his lap.
Ag vok man! (Oh fuck man!)