When I was at graduate school, you wouldn't have recognised me. I was so different - and not a nice person: a grumpy, surly, upset, confused, lost person.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
People have recognized me sometimes but not much. I'm glad my life isn't too different. I don't want it to be.
I was never top of the class at school, but my classmates must have seen potential in me, because my nickname was 'Einstein.'
By the time I went up to Cambridge, I was extremely quiet and well behaved, although I now meet people who remember me as not like that at all.
I grew up very differently than a lot of other people in my hometown in Mississippi. But I can't imagine my life any other way. I flew home and surprised my best friend at his graduation, and I remember turning to my mom and saying, 'My graduation was so much cooler than this.' I had Melissa Joan Hart give my commencement speech.
People see me, and they think they went to college with me; there's no immediate identification.
I was very shy and somewhat awkward. I studied too hard. And to have this exciting dorm life was a whole new thing.
The secret of how to live without resentment or embarrassment in a world in which I was different from everyone else. was to be indifferent to that difference.
I went to university and I was a bit out of my depth, socially.
I was regarded as the school freak which further reinforced a lot of inhibitions and doubts I had about myself. I was a shy, frightened teenager for a long time.
Everybody at school knew who I was because I'm just a really friendly person.