That’s Some Real Surreal Encouragement

Due to some budget cuts, the university I attend has had to make some buildings multipurpose. That means that people with different majors have to share buildings in order to use the classrooms, labs, and halls we need.

I am studying music, and I’m about to go on stage for my final grade. Needless to say, I’m freaking out with nerves.

Earlier in the day, we were warned not to go to the top floors of the theater, as they were being used as workshops for experimental artists. While I’m pacing around, I hear a noise and look up. There’s a young woman in protective gear leaning on the railing and staring at me.

She gives me a thumbs-up.

My first reaction is to laugh at the hilarity of the situation. Here’s a six-foot-tall violinist in a rented tux wearing a hole on the floor, being cheered up by some girl with a gas mask and a dirty lab coat. She doesn’t laugh, but points at the backstage door as if saying, “Go out there and floor ’em, man!”

And so I do. Thank you, girl in the gas mask, for giving me the weird encouragement I needed.