When I got there, I was having trouble finding her, so finally I went up to the only person I knew (a fellow music major) and asked if she happened to have seen anyone looking for "Jen." Evelyn perked up and said, "No way! You're my tutor?!"
We were both excited since we'd been seeing each other all around the music building and had been starting to like each other. This would be wonderful.
But intimidating as anything for me.
Evelyn is the first violin of the chamber orchestra. A total virtuoso. The sort of person you assume wouldn't have any difficulties or problems because of the musical misconception that, "If you play that good, nothing can go wrong."
And here I was just starting out on violin. I felt distinctly inadequate. How did I dare go about trying to teach her anything? She's a musical genius. It'd be like teaching Einstein how to play the flute.
We worked together that morning and then decided to get together that evening too. Working with someone that I knew was nice for both of us, since it meant that I was extremely fast at figuring out exactly what teaching methods would work on her thought type.
It was that evening, as I was still feeling intimidated and inadequate trying to teach her, when she was stuck on a problem and admitted her feelings.
"You're really sweet, Jen. I feel like you're so far ahead of me and I'm kind of intimidated. I'm a double major too, but in business. And you're a physics major and here I'm just starting out in one math class. It feels like I could never be as good as you are already, you know? Since you're so far ahead of me."
Instead of the expected pride at her words, I felt something quite different. I felt like before I had her so high and now she had come down to my level, but we always had been at the same level in our respective things.
So, I guess it was humbling. After that, things went even smoother than before and we covered a lot of material.
Not to mention had plenty of good times sharing our double-major experiences. Like trying to explain to our other side of the double-major people why during our tutoring session, both Evelyn and I stopped mid sentence to listen to a ditty by a clarinet nearby and then when they were done, finish the sentence and continue to work.
Then my piano instructor (who is a simple astonishing piano player even to the piano players), Asuza Sensei, came over (Evelyn and I met in the Music Building that evening) and firmly pronounced, "Bleh!" at the sight of Calculus. I once again had an eye opener where Asuza pointed out that she was terrible at math stuff. It's funny. I have all of these musicians on pedestals that signify, "if they can play that well, they've just gotta be an all around genius."
It was really good for me to start getting things back in proportion.
